Christmas Day Dumps

Christmas Eve was very exciting. We woke up and had very chocolatey pancakes and then the girls took me on a tour of the school. Then we went to the airport to pick up Brian! After knowing each other almost all our lives and going to school K-12 together, I never would have guessed that Pohnpei would be our next reunion! It was sort of like a class reunion since Corey and Charlotte are there too. It wasn't even weird to see him; it was like no time had passed at all. Too bad we only had about 24 hours together!

That night we went to the Spanish wall to see a youth group from Guam perform. We couldn't find a driver, so poor Brian had to drive the truck there. And he was so tired!! Besides stalling out several times in front of telecom (I think the brake was on) he did a good job. We went back and had a Christmas Eve party at Corey's apt. (the lions' den). We had dinner and a gift exchange. Then we watched Home Alone.

Christmas morning I popped out of bed really early (rare occurrence for me, even on Christmas). I had a very bittersweet feeling. I was excited it was Christmas, but sad to leave Pohnpei, but also happy to see my Majuro family, but sad about flying by myself. Anyway they took me to eat breakfast at the Village. It was so pretty. I miss those mountains a lot. We played up and down the river (or pirate's bridge) which made me pretty happy. Then we drove back, I packed up and we went to the airport to check in. I was planning on coming back to the school and chilling for a little bit only to find my plane was 30 MINUTES EARLY. What the junk! Of course my plane would be late arriving and early leaving. So we sped back so I could say goodbye to everyone. Then we came back to the airport and I was the last one on the plane...I think I barely made it.

It was really hard leaving. And since I was early returning to Majuro no one was at the airport to pick me up for awhile. I just sat by myself trying to be happy. I knew I shouldn't be down or complain since I did get to go somewhere and everyone else didn't. But it was hard! I was actually depressed for a couple of days. It was probably a combination of feeling weird since I wasn't home for Christmas, the weather is very Julyish, travelling makes you tired, and I had a lot of fun/freedom in Pohnpei. Plus I didn't feel trapped there! But it was definitely worth it all. I had an amazing time.

We came back around vespers time, then afterwards Alise took me to Lenney's to get Christmas dinner leftovers. I had been expecting a Christmas package from home, only to find it wasn't there. Then yesterday I found out it had been here all along but Jhan Dale FORGOT TO TELL ME. warrarrr! But getting that package really made my day. :)

Saturday afternoon there was a "concert" at the church where anyone from the church could come and do a musical number. The girls suckered me into singing "My Grown Up Christmas List" again. I wasn't too thrilled. But a girl had a little violin there that I got to play! I'm hoping to get mine from home somehow. We'll see what happens.

Break has been really nice. I've been staying up late, sleeping in and just chilling doing things I don't usually have a lot of time for like reading, journaling, uploading pictures, etc. Sunday we went to Enemanit for the day and just played. We dove around the ship again and played on the floating dock. Several of the guys decided to hike/island hop to Kalalan...the girls and other guys decided against it. It just didn't seem fun to hike all that way in the hot sun and possibly get stuck on a different island because of high tide, darkness, etc. We relaxed and watched movies here.

Today we were going to rent golf carts and drive down to Laura, but they only have 2 and one was broken. :( So we decided against it since we wouldn't all be able to go otherwise. But Christmas break is still great and going way to fast! :)