Sea Urchins and Lobster...

Hello again!

I told you I'd be better at updating our blog, and so far it's going well! This has been a good week as Sam and I get settled back into our routine. Classes are going fine for Sam, his hardest class right now is Neuro, which just tonight he says he has finally been able to get his head around and get all the memorization, etc. done. So he's doing well. My classes are going fine, I got my first speech finished for speech class. I really do hate public speaking, but fortunately I only have 2 more speeches to give before I'm done!

I had an exciting find this weekend... I just happened to run into a guy carrying a big bucket of random kinds of fish, and also.....lobster! I was so excited! I didn't get any that day because he'd already sold it, but he told me that he fishes everyday and gets lobster most days, so all I have to do is call him! I'm really excited. It's very frusterating to me that we live in the middle of the ocean, and yet can't get any seafood except for fish. So this is pretty exciting!

This weekend we were able to just relax, study, go to church, and go sailing! We joined the sailing club this year because we can use the boats whenever we want, without having to pay by the hour. So we went with Mary and James and another friend and took the boats to Secret Beach (in the other sailing pictures). It was really nice and fun until I decided to take an exploratory swim around the other side of the cove. The water was really clear (as usual) but I thought it was deep, when I saw the bottom turn dark, which means I was swimming above rocks, which is where sea urchins live. So I decided to turn around, but in the process let my feet sink too low and sure enough, I found a sea urchin!! For those of you who don't know (see the picture below), these are long spiny creatures that leave their spines in you when you disturb them. They hurt like heck, but are not poisoness. I was lucky to only barely touch it, so I only got 5 or 6 spines in my toe, whereas some people get hundreds of them. Sam was able to get one of the spines out, but the other ones all broke off in my toe. So now my job is to soak it in vinegar as much as I can, and limp around until they work their way out or simply dissolve. It was not much fun, I would advise doing your best to stay away from sea urchins!

That's about it for us! We're getting really excited for Gramma Lou and Lexie coming to visit in a few weeks! We finally got the video taken of our new apartment, so check out the link for that if you're interested. Hope everything is good at home, we miss you lots!

Love, Katrina


This guy is NOT my friend, although they are pretty sweet looking!

This is a really cool moth we found one night.

Someone's gorgeous sailboat. I took this from our front porch.

This was a really creepy spider we found on our wall one night... Sam screamed like a girl! :)

This is the Sam's study room. Notice the huge white board on the far wall. He loves it, and it works out well because he can study at home a lot more often now.

This is our back porch

The bedroom

Our dining room/study/TV room

My kitchen!

First post of 2008

Hi Everyone!

I know it's pretty pitiful that it's already the 20th of January and I'm just now posting my first post of the year, but I have decided to be better at updating this thing every week, so it is going to improve...don't give up on me!

Well, after an awesome but short visit home for Christmas, we are back in Dominica. We had a great time catching up with our families and everyone else back home, and were very sad to leave. But once we actually landed in Dominica, we remembered how much we really do loving down here and then it was ok to be back, even though we stillr eally miss our families. I for one do not miss the cold weather, but Sam definately does. Actually, it has been really nice weather down here. Today is a very comfortable 80 degrees, and we are just laughing at the 1st semster students who think it's hot.

This semester we are living in the same building as before, but we were able to move upstairs to a two-bedroom apartment in anticipation of the guests we have coming soon. It's nice having a little extra room, but we have discovered that it's a lot harder to make feel homey, especially on our budget. All-in-all though, we really like it and have settled nicely. Our friends Mary and James moved closer to us too, so that makes life a lot easier.

Yesterday we went into Portsmouth for the start of Carnival season here in Dominica. We're not exactly sure yet of the origin of this holiday, but it is a prelenten celebration with parades and music and tons of colorful costumes. The parade we went to lasted about 3 hours and went through Portsmouth, and the reason it took so long is because it was a "jump up." Basically, it started as a parade with dancers and musicians and people in costume, but the idea is that the hundreds of onlookers (who are encouraged by plenty of available Kubuli) join in whenever they want. So by the end of the day, there were just hundreds of people dancing in the street following the very slowly moving trucks with the band on it. It was quite an impressive sight, definately something Sam and I have never seen before. I took tons of pictures, and will begin the hunt to find a reliable Dominican photo developer, because I took them all with film because we've been having battery difficulties with our awesome digital camera. So once those come I'll definately put it up. The whole day was pretty amazing. Dominicans will take any excuse to party, and they certainly do it well. This was quite the production.

Other than that, we are just settling back into our routine here. Sam's already working on a stack of lecture notes about 6 inches tall and excited to keep moving forward, even though the amount of work between now and april is a little daunting. Last semester turned out well for him, so we're excited to keep moving forward. Classes are going well for me as well, although I have a speech class this year that I am not looking forward to. This is my last semester with any gen-eds, from here on out I can focus completely on my religion major, which is exciting.

Hope all is well back home, we really miss you all a lot. Stay warm!! :D

Katrina