The Craziness of February

Hi Everyone!

Well, so much for my update every week. :( sorry about that. Better late than never though, right? Things have been pretty exciting for the Campbell family these past few weeks. We'll start at the beginning. Sam's birthday was on the third, and although he had to study for the upcoming mini, he was able to take a little bit of time off and we went out to a nice dinner. We found an awesome little place right on the beach where the visiting sailboats dock. The atmosphere was great, the food was awesome, and we really had a good time.



The view from our table at the restaurant, Big Papa's.

Our other big news is that there's a new addition to the family!! While we were at the restaurant for Sam's birthday, there was a little cat there that had 3 kittens, and they were so incredibly cute that we had to take one home. It was actually Sam's idea, but he had no difficulties convincing me. We took him home and tried not to get too attached for the first few days because we weren't sure if we could have pets in our apartment. But the landlady said it was fine, so he became ours! He had a rough first week. The first couple days we thought he was too little to eat solid food, so we had to force feed him these nasty milk-replacers that I made him, nearly starving him until we figured out that he likes chicken! Then after he started eating his weight in food every day we decided he had worms, so he had to go on medicine for that. He also had to take a couple baths because we wanted to make sure he was clean and bug free. And on top of all that, we thought he was female and called him a "Her" for the first week of his life with us!! He seems to have recovered from all the abuse though, and is now healthy and adjusting to life with us quite well. We named him Waitikubuli, which is the name the Carib's chose for Dominica before it was Dominica, but we call him Kubuli for short (which also just happens to be the name of the local beer here, but that's just coincidence....o:) ).

These pictures were taken his first couple days with us.

Bath time! He wasn't a big fan.



The hightlight of the month was definately the visit of Grandma Lou and my little sister Lexie!! They were here for about 10 days and we had an awesome time. They loved getting away from cold Colorado, spending some time at the beach, and just discovering Dominica. We loved having them here. Unfortunately, they were here the week before Sam's mini, so he wasn't able to do alot with us, but the three of us managed to get around and stay busy. For four of the days, we rented a car! Driving here is quite the experience, and although it took me a little while to adjust to driving on the wrong side of the road AND the wrong side of the car, I quickly picked it up and learned to honk every time I went around a corner, not let my heart jump into my throat every time I passed a roaring truck on the tiny twisty roads, and learned to maneuver on the tight crowded streets in town. I loved having the freedom to just go wherever we wanted whenever we wanted. It was a sad day the day we returned it to the rental agency. It was wonderful seeing Gramma and Lexie though, and it was really hard to see them go. They did say they would recomend that other people come out and see it, so....keep it coming!!

Gramma at Emerald Pool

Gramma and Lexie at Trafalgar Falls.

This is one of the two falls at Trafalgar Falls, which is now one of my favorite places in Dominica. They are sooo beautiful.

Indian River, one of the places Pirates of the Caribbean II was filmed.

Well, our last piece of news is that Sam had his first Mini of the semester. He said it was harder than any other mini he has ever taken, and he didn't do as well as he had hoped for. It still turned out ok, but he wasn't as happy was he wanted to be. We've been told that 2nd semester is one of the hardest, and we're starting to believe it. Just the amount of work that he is expected to do is incredible. I definately don't envy him.

That about wraps up our news. Hope everything is going well with everyone back home. We miss you all lots, and hope that more of you come to visit us! Love you all!

Love,
Katrina







Kubuli likes the computer, unfortunately.

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