Dead, Frozen Mice

This is a headline that I read on Fox News today...Navy Bombs Guam With Dead, Frozen Mice.

I shouldn't even comment on this because I will probably have nightmares tonight involving mice since I am petrified of them. But because the article involved Guam, I was intrigued and read the story. The Navy is flying over the jungle in helicopters and dropping mice filled with acetaminophen. But why? They are trying to kill off the Brown Tree Snakes. I dislike mice way more than I dislike the snakes so I am glad that I no longer live in Guam. We moved to Guam when Eric was just under 3. He was so excited to move there because he had heard about the snakes. To his disappointment, we didn't see many. Mario once saw one on a car and grabbed it, twirled it around and threw it to the ground. I don't think I was with him because I would have highly discouraged him from doing that. The snakes never bothered me other than every time there was a power failure (which was often), the local government blamed it on the snakes getting into the power lines. I always wondered if that was just an excuse.

We loved our two years in Guam. Mario volunteered to go there because it counted as a short tour (with family) which was equal to a year alone in Korea. It was our second military assignment and it was exciting moving across the world. When we arrived, we quickly heard about the frequent earthquakes and experienced one the second night we were there. It was pretty scary. I met my really good friend, Irene Horner, while still in TLF. She was a very close friend for the entire two years. She taught me to run and when we weren't running, we worked out together all the time at the base gym. Guam was hot so we didn't spend much time outside between the hours of 8 am and 6 pm. But the base had lots of activities for the families. We went on frequent field trips with the base playgroup. Some other things we enjoyed were going to Tarague Beach, eating Mongolian BBQ, and swimming at the base pool. We even fit in a family trip to Australia.

I got my first and only speeding ticket while stationed there. They took away my license for 4 weeks, but September 11 happened right after so they reluctantly gave it back to me so I could take Eric to preschool.

My best memory of Guam was going to the animal shelter "to just look." We came home with a new member of our family...Buzz. He and Erin both weighed 17 pounds. At first Erin was scared of Buzz and would climb up on the couch to get away from him. But as you can see from the picture, she grew to love him as much as the rest of us.