Random Tuesday Night thoughts

Hi Everyone!

You're probably amazed that I'm putting up another post so soon after the other one, but my schoolwork and everything is pretty slow this week and I felt like writing you all again!

Right now I'm at home alone, Sam's in lab and won't be home till late. It rained really hard here the past couple hours, the temperature is just about perfect. It was beautiful. However, my calm evening is being interrupted by my crazy cat who is running all over the house, climbing up anything he can get his claws in and even jumping up to catch random spots on the wall. He's a little bit energetic tonight.

We had a nice weekend. Saturday was spent just relaxing from our last few busy weeks, and that evening we had a couple of friends over for dinner, that we hadn't had over before. It was really fun and refreshing to hang out with them. Sunday I was busy babysitting all day, but Sam was able to take it easy and get some studying done. Yesterday I had some nasty stomach flu thing, but today I'm doing a lot better. Hopefully Sam will be able to stay away from it.

The past couple weeks I've been on a committee that is putting together a welcome/orientation packet for all the future new students/spouses/faculty/staff that are coming to Dominica. It's quite the project, a book totaling about 42 pages so far, but will be a huge improvement to the information that we received, which was nothing. But its had me thinking about how much has changed since we first came down here. I was so exciting to move here, I kind of came into it blind, which actually helped me handle the adjustment. I saw it all as positive, new and exciting, but for the people who don't, it can be a really rough time. But as I look back at it, and cannot believe that we are already in 2nd semester, I know that I would not change this for the world. I absolutely love living here in Dominica. I wonder how it will affect the rest of our lives, when we come back to the states and then maybe leave again, many years down the road. I'm excited to see what changes we come up against in the next 10 months we have here, and what changes will happen after we leave Dominica. That's the part that is just a complete blank. Sam and I can honestly say that in January of next year, we have no idea where we will be or where the months after that will take us. We're excited to go new places, but also would enjoy coming back home. Who knows what will happen? Fortunately, there is Someone who knows. And He is the only constant figure through all the changes. What a great God we serve!!

Anyways, enough of my wandering thoughts for the evening. I better go make some dinner for Sam and James when they get out of lab tonight. Love and miss you all so much. Take a look at some more of the pictures I posted of Gramma and Lexie's trip. We had so much fun with them here!

Our landlady owns a bunch of orchards/banana fields around our house, and we get free reign! So the last night they were here, Lexie and I went and picked a huge basket of grapefruit and she squeezed probably 30 of them using our little citrus juicer and made us all fresh grapefruit juice! It tasted really good and I think she was quite proud of the work she put into it.

There's a tree in the Cabrits National Park that has these terrible spikes all the way up the trunk. That's Lexie's hand trying to give perspective to their size.

And maybe she got a little too close...

My beautiful little sister sitting on a bench at Cabrits :) Looking down on Fort Shirley from the East Cabrit. This is the only part of the fort that has been restored.
Gramma & I with Douglas Bay and Morne Aux Diables, on the northernmost part of the island behind us!
Lexie & I, with Portsmouth in the background.

Colorful fishing boats in Scotts Head, the very southernmost village on the island.

This is Scotts head, the very southernmost point on the Island. On the left side you can see the Atlantic Ocean. On the right is the Caribbean Sea. We were amazed at the contrast between them. It was incredibly windy coming off the Atlantic, the waves were huge, it smelled strongly of salt, and was a bit "cold." The Caribbean had no waves, barely any smell, and was nice and warm. It was a cool experience to stand in between them.

The village of Scotts Head, looking back from Scotts Head Point.


Looking up the West Coast towards the main part of Dominica.

This is Lexie in the Atlantic Ocean... ...Now she's in the Caribbean Sea!
My beautiful little sister.
Me standing in the Atlantic Ocean!
My beautiful Valentines Day bouquet from my amazing husband!

These last few pictures are taken by my Gramma! This sign was posted on the passenger side of the car we rented. Definitely an important reminder!!

Here I am driving (well, sitting in the drivers seat) of the awesome car we rented. I love driving here, it was quite the adventure, but I can now say that I have conquered it!! We all got to snorkel at Champagne Bay. It's called Champagne Bay because one of the volcanoes we're on vents in the area, creating tiny little bubbles that come up through the rocks. There is also a ton of sea life to see here. It was so much fun to swim through the bubbles in the crystal clear water and look down on hundreds of colorful fish, sea sponges, sea urchins and tons of things that we had never seen before. It was so amazing!

That's all for now! Hope all is well back home. Bye!!
~Katrina