Easter!

Happy Easter!!

We hope you all had a marvelous Easter rejoicing in our Lord's victory over death! I love having a day to just focus on what he has done for us. I have been studying Soteriology which is the doctrine of salvation, so the holiday was very timely. We are so undeserving of God's grace and abundant love, and I am overwhelmed by everything he has saved us from. He is risen!!

Our Easter was really nice. Our church group was having a sunrise surface on the beach that I was super excited to go to. Those who know us though know that between Sam's love of sleep and my luck with alarm clocks, it was highly improbable that we would make it, and that is exactly what happened. We slept right through the alarm, and missed our once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go to an Easter sunrise service on the beach. So instead we went to the regular service on campus and 11 and it was really nice. The choir sang and it was amazing. (Who would have thought that med students could sing?)

Before church, I working on the Easter meal because we had invited Mary and James and the Grenata's over for dinner later. I was just about to put the cake in when, i discovered that we had run out of gas!! This may seem a bit strange to you in the states, but our stove is hooked right up to a small gas tank, exactly like what we use for our grills in the states. And yes, mine decided to be empty the morning of my biggest cooking day in a long time. So after panicking for a few minutes, I called Mary and she promised to send her gas tank up after she was done cooking her part of the meal. So Sam carried the tank up to our house after church and we were able to finish the meal without any major mishaps.

The meal went really well. We loved being able to enjoy the company of our friends and just relax and eat yummy food!! Everyone was really excited because we ordered a ROAST, yes, a BEEF roast from a company here. Beef is such a treat, so we were all pretty much beside ourselves with excitement. It turned out really well and was a nice break from the usual chicken, fish and ground turkey.

So our Easter was very nice and relaxing, but also very Dominican in it's little surprises. I was reminded by how blessed we are down here, to have such awesome friends and the ability to put a delicious meal on the table. Sam is doing well in school, and we are both so happy. God is so good to us, and we are so undeserving.

We hope your Easter was just as wonderful!! We definitely missed being with family, but I'm sure you all had a nice day too. Enjoy the spring weather that is coming your way (hopefully)!

Love,
Katrina

Sam is excitedly preparing the beef!

Our friends Mary and James, helping with the preparation.

The easter table! Going to Sam's left: Mary, James, Ericka, Nicholas, and Mark. And then all the wonderful food!

BEEF!!!

Middle of March

Hi Everyone,

How is everything at home? Sam and I are doing well. I am no longer on spring break (sadly), and I cannot believe how fast it went by! It really didn't even feel like a spring break. I just did my usual stuff, plus more fun activities, minus the school work. It was nice though. I was able to go to the beach a couple of times, because the weather was really nice! But I also stayed busy babysitting, hanging out with Mary, and doing stuff for the Spouses Organization. Sam has been really busy because on Monday he took Mini 2. He got the results back yesterday and we were pleased! It definately went a lot more smoothly than the first mini did, so it was nice to see a little bit of a return for all the hard work he's been putting in. Fortunately for him this week is pretty light, so he has a little bit of a chance to rest up before the final 10 tests left in the semester. (yes, it's going to be CRAZY.)

Classes have started back up for me and look like they're going to be pretty busy. I'm taking Theology Survey II, History of Life, and a class on the gospel of John. They should be interesting though, I just have to stay dedicated to getting everything done at a reasonable time. This is the first session that I've had 3 classes going at the same time.

Kubuli is getting big and is crazy as ever. We're trying to break him of his hand/foot biting habit, because he's now gotten big enough to make it hurt! He doesn't seem to learn very quickly, so it could be a long process. :(

We're sad that we don't get to come home for easter! It'll be weird being away from our home church and family, but we'll make do. The reason for celebrating is still the same, and we're going to have some friends over here for dinner, so I'm sure it will be fun.

That's all for now. Hope things are good with you all, we miss you a ton! Come visit!

Katrina

Spring break!

Hi Everyone,

I can't believe we're already well into March! We were noticing on the calender the other day that you guys were changing your clocks again. We don't have daylight savings here but it seems like it was just a few weeks ago that you changed them back! It's crazy how the time just flies by down here.

Well, lately things have been slowing down for me and speeding up for Sam. He has his second mini on Monday, and had a lab practical on Friday. After the mini there's only 4 more weeks of class, then 3 weeks of solid tests. It's going to be crazy for him at the end of the semester here. I just finished my classes, and am on spring break! I start back up again with new classes on monday, but for this week, I am a free woman! It's really nice to actually have some extra time on my hands to just do whatever I want! So I've been spending the time daydreaming about where we're going to travel next semester! Third is supposed to be a pretty light semester, and so we're hoping to take a few weekinds to do some island hopping. So this week I'm goign to try to get a feel for where we want to go. We'll see what happens.

This weekend was really nice for us. On Saturday we went to the Grange Home for the Aged here in Portsmouth and just spent some time hanigng out with the people living there. Like any nursing home, the people are pretty lonely and just love to have visitors. It was kind of fun to go see their facility, it was back outside town a little bit and very open and airy. We were pretty impressed, considering the government gives them very little to live on every year. Hopefully we can keep going and figure out a way to help out.

On Sunday, Sam took a little break after church and I dragged him to the beach! For some reason he has decided that the beach is boring and hardly ever goes anymore, but I still love it so on Sunday I was able to convince him to go. Our snorkels are out of commission, so we just spent the time soaking in the perfect water, and then, like the mature adults that we are, we had a sand fight and then built an awesome sand castle and tried to protect it from the waves. It was a lot of fun, and I think he diceded that maybe it isn't as boring as he thought. :)

Anyways, that's about all for now. Pray for Sam as he prepares for this next mini, which he really wants to do well on. Everything is going to be pretty crazy for him for the next month and a half, so just pray that he'll stay focused and motivated and that all his hard work will pay off.

We love and miss you all lots, and look forward to hearing from you soon!

Love,
Katrina

Here's a recent picture of Kubuli. He's getting so big!

I was able to go to Roseau last week to do some stock-up shopping, which I haven't done for over 2 months! It was a really good trip, I just spent a lot of money. What you see is about $400 EC worth of groceries (plus some that didn't fit in the picture). Yes, things run a little expensive here.

Kubuli loved playing in all the grocery bags. I made bagels!! Mary and I tried all last semester but they never turned out quite right. I finally found a recipe last week that turned out really good! This week I'm going to try to make them again, this time making cinnamon-raisen instead of plain bagels. Aren't they awesome looking??