The Ohrvalls | The Life and Times of

I know it has been a long time since I last posted anything on here.  There has been a lot going on, and not going on here in Guam.  Honestly, I have just been lazy for a few weeks with blog posts.  But I am trying to get myself back into the groove now. So Christmas in Guam was unlike any other Christmas I have ever experienced in my life.  While I am used to light displays, yards covered in plastic and inflatable ornaments, and cold weather, we didn't get much of that here.  There were only a couple houses that actually put out Christmas decorations and the temperature here was the same as always, a steady mid-to-upper 80 degrees during the day.  Needless to say it was a little difficult getting into the Christmas spirit.  But Christmas did come and go like it always does! This year Matthew and I decided to take it easy on gift giving because we are planning a trip to China in the new year.  We got ourselves one big gift (a Keurig machine) a...

It is inevitable that here in Guam you will have just as many good hikes as you do bad ones.  Well our hike with the church youth and a  few adults turned into a little bit of both and then a lot of ugly! We started off our day meeting everyone to got the the start of the trail at about 8:15 in the morning on a Saturday morning. (This was last Saturday the 7th.)  We piled into a few cars and the 3 Jeeps that were going to go into the trail and rode to the start of the hiking trail.  We split into groups of hikers and riders but since there was hardly any riders (and I was interested to see what it would be like to ride a jeep into the trail) I hopped into a Jeep and rode with them.  We had a few hiccups on our way in but overall we made it through the first 1/2 mile easily until we stumbled upon this: Well I shouldn't say stumbled because this group of people are the hikers that we split up from in the first place.  They had reached a muddy section...

A couple weekends ago Matthew and I went ventured out and did a Jungle tour on UTVs.  It was arguably the most fun that either one of us has had since we have been here on Guam.  We got to drive our own UTV (Matthew did most of the driving) through the jungle and over the red dirt in the rural areas of Guam.  We went to the Tarzan Falls in the southern portion of the island and we got to see the falls from the top and then hike down to the bottom to see it from there too!  We spent a little over 2 hours riding around and feeling like we were almost going to tip over the UTV at some points.  It was awesome!  We went through mud, did doughnuts in dry red dirt, and got stuck going over huge ruts and rocks. I posted a few videos on youtube since this blog was giving me a hard time with uploading them. Here are the links to see them: http://youtu.be/EBguu1kmpAA http://youtu.be/KaVOgvJPUOc ...

I know it has been a while since I posted but there are good reasons for that!  I finally got jobs!  Yes, I said jobs as in plural.  I am now tutoring 2 students and substitute teaching at Guam High School.  So since it has been so long since I last posted anything I need to go back and tell you all what Matthew and I did for Thanksgiving. We knew that we were not going to be going home this year so we decided to find something to do so that we weren't sitting around missing family.  We decided upon volunteering at the USO to help others during their time away from family.  Nothing makes you feel better than helping someone else when they are in the same basic situation that they are.  At first we were supposed to man the drink station but then there was much more need in the back preparing the food.  We shuffled back there and Matthew got to work carving Hams and I was in charge of distributing and covering the trays that held the carved turkey...

This past Saturday Matthew and I were invited to the Onward Beach Resort Waterpark for the Volunteer Appreciation Day with the USO.  We have been getting more involved with the USO and volunteering our time there.  It has been a lot of fun so far.  At first we didn't think that we would be able to go to the Appreciation day because we had only volunteered once before that.  But when we were personally called and invited to go to a waterpark for a day, then we had to accept. When you think of a waterpark in the US what do you think about?  Big slides, awesome rides, a wave pool?  Yeah well there were a few of all of those things at this waterpark.  Take a look at the comparison maps that I have for you.  The first one is of Water Country USA, the second Guam's Waterpark. Guam's waterpark had exactly 4 slides, 2 with tubes and 2 without tubes, one crazy drop ride on a tube, a wave pool and a lazy river plus a couple smaller pools fo...

I wanted to write a blog about my experience last night going to see the catching fire premier because the story will give you a bit of insight into the culture here on Guam. First of all, image what it would be like in the states (say Raleigh because that is where most of you are from) when you go and see the premier of a big movie like this.  You expect long lines, lots and lots of people, watch the movie and then leave the crowded theater talking about the movie, right!?  Right!? OK, now let me tell you what happened with Matthew and I.  So we had went to the movie theater and bought our tickets for the 8:00 premier about 2 weeks early.  Matthew kept the tickets in his wallet for safe keeping.  Last night we drove to the movie theater and walked into the strip mall when the movie theater is located.  As soon as we walked in we noticed a hugely long line of people to which I automatically though, "oh no are they all here early to see the movie too!" ...

Sunday morning before the tide receded too much Matthew and I went out to Old Wive's Beach here on base to go snorkeling.  So now I have a few more snorkeling pictures to share with you guys.   I seem to remember back in middle school talking about plate tectonics and how the movement of the plates below the Earth's surface create cracks in the ocean floor.  Well the Pacific Ocean is one place where this happens and it creates a lot of the earthquakes and volcanic activity that happens out here.  At Old Wives beach there are many different cracks in the ocean floor that go down so deep that you can't see the bottom.  The cracks look like what you would see if you took an areal shot of some rivers leading to bigger bodies of water in the states.  It is just amazing to see the ocean floor go from 5 feet deep to dropping over 20 feet or more!  Here is a picture of one of the cracks we came across.  Notice you can't see the bottom in the darkest ...