Sunset City

This week Lee and I were able to catch two amazing sunsets, one at the beach and one at the pool.
I absolutely love being in the water at sunset.  The air starts to get cooler & the water feels warmer.  I love the reflection on the water & the warmness of the colors.
It is so beautiful.
We need to take more advantage of this!

 I merged two pictures we took together & edited it in picnik. you know I love picnik.


and these were taken the night we stayed at the University Club a little illegally past dark with our friends Stan and Natasha. sshhh.
it was gorgeous, so it was worth it.

I'm looking forward to many many more sunsets :)

Hi Dr. Rao!

Yesterday I got the surprise of a lifetime....
we had lunch with the SO Board at the University Club with the dean of students, Dr. Rao... and he told me that he has read my blog!!!!
I was shocked. 
so just in case he ever comes back I wanted to say hi!!! :)
and thank you for such a delicious lunch! it was great to get to know you!

Lee was floored when I told him....
He said "it's not like knowing the President of MVNU, this is like a real school. with lots of students"

I wonder if Lee or I will ever be important enough that people are shocked when we know who they are. haha...... doubt it.
but if I'm ever Dean of Students at a University I hope I will be as nice and friendly and down to earth as he is!

Yay Lee!

I need to update more often. shorter posts. more frequently.
that is the goal for this week. but probably not this post. lol

Saturday night Lee was inducted into IEA (Iota Epsilon Alpha) which is the international honor society of medical students!!  I'm so proud of him!! There were only a few people from his class who made it because to get in from first term you have to have a 4.0 and then in later terms you can be accepted with a 3.5.
They had a dinner for the inductees at the University Club, I however was the ONLY spouse. haha, oh well.  and they specifically said on the invitation the dinner was "business casual" just curious, but what does business casual mean to you?? b/c Lee and I have very different opinions I found out....
to me it means...... no tie. no need for high heels. and you can wear a cotton dress.... lol. or pants if you want.
well lets just say several other people showed up prepared to either go to a club or a black tie affair. haha.
whatever.  I wore a BRIGHT pink flowered cotton dress and flat sandals.  I had an awesome outfit picked out & changed my mind when I read the business casual thing, I didn't want to be the only one dressed up.

They told us to arrive at 6.  Well there was only a bus at 5 and a bus at 6, so we took the 5 o'clock bus up and went out on a cliff and watched the sunset (b/c the sun really does set that early) and took some pictures and walked back to the club around 6.... wellllllllll dinner wasn't served until after 8pm.  (TIG this is grenada!)
We were starrrrrrving.  I hadn't eaten much for lunch because I knew it was all you could eat buffet and thankfully it was worth the wait.
We were given dinner plates the size of a charger.... and I just went through the line and took some of everything that was offered to me.... salad, pasta salad, rolls, prime rib, fish, chicken (in some awesome creme sauce) mixed vegetables, rice, potatoes, lasagna, and lamb. AND about 5 desserts
my favorites were the chicken, pasta salad (shocking) and the lasagna.
It was all quite boring, but at least the food was good :) and I got to see Lee for a couple of hours away from the books!
I didn't take any pictures at the actual event b/c I was the only spouse there and I didn't want to embarrass Lee, like I was his Mom or something, haha. 

Busy busy busy!!

Sunday, after Lee led worship at church, we spent the day at Aquarium/Magazine Beach. Every Sunday the Aquarium Restaurant has a BBQ.  The food was great, the service was beyond lousy.  I know it's Caribbean and things are slower and blah blah blah but it sucked.  We got water when we first got there and were never asked again if  we wanted something to drink or a refill on the water... the only time someone came to the table was to drop off the food, and we asked for the bill 3 times.   I had chicken kabobs and a baked potato, Lee had jerk chicken and salad, Lynda had salad, and Peter had swordfish. It was good!
Afterward we went snorkeling and spent time on the beach and I got to use my underwater camera!

The restaurant is built right against the rocky hillside 

BBQ right on the beach

I look kinda weird here... but you can see some of the restaurant

in the middle of the picture you can see a fish-thing sitting on the bottom, after I took this it swam at me!

I want to learn how to make this baskets!!! I know how to make a fish out of the palm fronds already...

Monday we spent the morning at the University Club at the pool and we went kayaking and had fresh coconuts picked for us!  Lee had class at 1... and his parents came to the orphanage with me in the afternoon!  It was fun, the kids love to have new people around, and they like to have men around to play with, so they really liked Lee's Dad.  In the evening we went to the restaurant at the Flamboyant hotel, I think it was called Beach Side Terrace.  Monday night was pasta buffet night... and it was delicious! the best food I've had in Grenada!! I even ate corn chowder, it was so good.  My favorites were the Nutmeg Potato Pie, the sauce for the pasta, the chowder soup, and the eclairs we had for dessert... and the Bentleys we had to drink... it's their homemade version of the LLB soda, lemon, lime, and bitters.

after dinner we went down to the Owl, which is the Flamboyant hotel's pub.  Every Monday night they have hermit crab races!! It was pretty cool to see it, although after 2 races I'd seen enough.  

Our friend Timothy climbed right up the tree after coconuts! 

friends at the crab races!

Today we relaxed a bit.... I was pretty worn out!  Lee and his parents went to Limes with me today to see what I do all the time!  It was fun!  I didn't take pictures though because I forgot my memory card.  Afterward we had Chinese food from the bus stop and went shopping at the Spiceland Mall... which had about 2 stores and the IGA open....

I'm excited for the rest of the week!  It should be busy as well!

Awesome-ness in pictures

Millions of time throughout our life together I have told Lee and I quote

"I wish I had a professional photographer to go everywhere with us and document our life"

and then I met Amber Gazo. and while she hasn't quite had the chance to document Lee's life (mainly because he doesn't have one)she is doing a spectacular job at documenting mine and the other SOs.

case in point.

 

  

 

making birthday hats with the kids at Limes! mine turned out looking like the Pope's

Me & Bradley.... one of the most behaved & nicest kids at Limes :)

The kid love to "plait" my hair... braid it. even the boys... they were amazed that my hair was long enough that they could reach it while I was standing.
"Miss has the longest hair I've ever seen!"

we blew up dozens of balloons for the birthday party!

more about the birthday party...
we had a party for all the kids who had a birthday in January or February
it was actually for everyone because everyone got to play games and have cake and treats
it was so fun & the kids LOVED it!
I made a bowling game out of empty 2L pop bottles... they had never been bowling before! I'm going to start buying more pop so we can have more games! we only have 5 bottles.

these are pictures I took at the party 

 

  

Sarah saved the leftovers from the bake sale the SOs had last week & froze them so we could use them at the party... I'm so happy she thought of that! the kids were soooo happy to have all that sugar :)

It was so interesting to see that not one speck went to waste... the kids were begging for bags and pieces of foil so they could take something home to their families... at the end I watched one little girl go pick up all the pieces of icing that had fallen off the cake when it was cut and put them in her baggie to take home.

I can't wait to have another birthday party! haha the kids were crazy, but it was fun :)

Cloudy Day...

Today Lee finally had a couple hours of spare time to go to the beach with me... his 2nd time since we've been here! I've been at least 10 times.  Today was also the first time that Lee has left campus in almost 2 weeks..... craziness.
We got up early and since this is Thursday we can to to the University Club, where there is the pool and kayaking... so we took the bus over to Lance Aux Epines... and the sky was BLACK. no sun =( 
and it was almost chilly out.... its weird how much the sun makes a difference. the pool wasn't fun b/c it was cold.... laying in a chair wasn't fun b/c there wasn't sun.... so we went kayaking, which I was happy about because Lee loves it so much.
There is a lot of freedom there to kinda go as far as you want in the kayak... and Lee is really brave. lol. we went a little further than I would have liked, but there were some small waves today that made it really fun to go up and down and get a little splashed. and kayaking is so much more fun when you have a strong man with you to do all the work =)

and since today is Thursday, it was also MILK DAY! yay! We actually hadn't used all of the milk I bought last week yet, but you've got to get it while you can!  oooh and I found generic Mountain Dew for $5EC for a 2 liter! pretty good.

tonight we're having my mom's recipe for shredded chicken sandwiches... on freshly backed Grenadian wheat buns. mmmmmmmmmmm

Great Day in Grenada =)

Today has been good... I went to the University Club this morning, which is a country club type place for professors and people visiting the school to stay (atleast that's what I think it is) anyway, they have a pool and the SOs (Significant Other's of students) get to use it on Mondays and Thursdays... and it is amazing. I went with Amber, my footsteps buddy (who they matched me up with to ask questions before I moved to the island) and she is so sweet, so I lucked out with the footsteps buddy =) hopefully next term I can be one... I want to help people adjust here, b/c it's not that easy.... and I met a couple other SOs there too. We also went ocean kayaking.... in the marina area, not out on the open water (DAD) so that was quite a workout... I wish I still had my underwater camera! uuugh it would be so perfect here. but it broke on our honeymoon =(

the pool at the University Club 

 

 the sky looks so cloudy, but I don't remember it looking that way....

The I came home and ate lunch & got to see Lee for about 20 minutes! & went to the grocery to scout out some milk.  and was successful! so Thursday is definitely the day for the IGA.

I decided to take a picture of my food I bought...

 

Sugar and salt come in a plain plastic bag tied shut. but it is pretty cheap! less than $3EC for sugar, so that's around a $1 USD. pretty sweet deal. pun intended.

Bananas, and Banana pop! it's soooo sweet, but I love it.

Macaroni, which I think I like more than Kraft? gasp. the cheese looks like pinkish until you add milk though.

Cream cheese.... and they even have starwberry philadelphia cream cheese!

Milk - cold milk in a gallon is a luxury and hard to find

Cereal, which I think this was on sale today b/c I don't remember seeing cereal this cheap before, it was about $3 USD... brand name cereal is like 5 or 6 dollars a box.

Mak-C is like koolaid, but you don't have to add sugar. it's good and cheap.

Powdered sugar, flour, cinnamon -all pretty cheap because they can make it here or in Trinidad

Ketchup, non name brand because Heinz was like $9 US! no way I'd pay that.

Banana Ketchup.... never had it, but it was only $2.50 EC, which is like less than a dollar... and I love bananas, so I thought I'd be adventurous.

Chinese sauce... not soy, not teriyaki... just chinese sauce.lol. it was cheap and teriyaki wasn't so I thought we'd try it.

and an onion.

I think I am a pretty good shopper.... I got all of that for $60 EC, which is about $22.  Some people here are such sticklers for name brand that they spend sooooo much money, and considering we don't have any money, I've been pretty frugal.  I really really really want ice cream though.. they didn't have any good flavors today... but it's also $15 for a big thing of it, I don't think it's quite a gallon, but $15 US. I guess if you think about going out for ice cream it's so expensive, and we could eat a gallon forever.... but we're also trying to be healthy. so we've been eating jello. haha. watermellon jello is awesome.

A guy in Lee's class offered to pay me to go to the grocery for him... b/c the med students are just soooo overwhelmingly busy they don't even have time to take care of themselves... and Lee was talking about how happy he is to have me so he doesn't have to worry about cooking or shopping or laundry (haha, which is fine, I have accepted my role as caretaker for Lee for the next 4 years... not that I have much else to do anyway) so we'll see what happens... I may have started my own grocery delivery service.