Sunday July 10, 2016

THREE weeks from today will be our last day on the island!! The time is starting to fly! We are trying to fit in a few more trips to waterfalls and beaches. I'm trying to soak in all the good that I will miss. The flowers, the trees, how green everything is. The slow pace of life! There are things I will NOT miss and I really am ready to be back with family in Idaho. But this island has been good to us. I have learned and grown. I now see that so many things I thought I needed are really just wants and conveniences. I have learned to be more grateful. I have learned and will continue to see that the Lord is so mindful of each of us individually. I know He wanted us to come to Dominica.

Mark was released as the branch president today. He served well. I am glad to have had the opportunity to watch him and support him in that calling. It would not be an easy calling anywhere at anytime but to do it here in Dominica (where there are MANY reasons it is so difficult here...) and to do it as a medical student is next to crazy. Not to mention he was the SGA president for much of that time! The Lord helped Mark to juggle his calling, school and family so well. I am incredibly proud of him. 

I have faith that the Lord will guide us on our journey and help us get to where he wants us to be when he wants us to be there. I hope that once we leave Dominica I will remember the things I have learned and be grateful. 

I can't wait to go to a grocery store in the states. I'm afraid I may actually cry!!! Full shelves where I can find anything I want! And if by some chance what I want isn't there I can get in a VEHICLE and DRIVE (I haven't done that in 19 months!!!) and go to ANOTHER grocery store NEARBY and find just what I want!! I bet there would even be a VARIETY of brands, flavors and prices which would be MARKED on the shelves for me to choose from. 

I can't wait to eat a GOOD hamburger and fries with a MILKSHAKE!!! At that note I can't wait to buy milk for way less the $9USD! I really am very excited but I still have a little more time here to enjoy the good and breath through the bad and frustrating parts. I'm almost off the rock! I'm excited to see where this adventure will take us next. We will be in Idaho for a good few months while Mark studies, takes huge exams and then he will be in Florida for 6 weeks before rotations begin... somewhere...   Someday I will come back to visit as a tourist. That will be a lovely happy humid day!       

June 17, 2016

There are 45 days until we leave Dominica! Lately I have been focusing on all the things I dislike here and dreaming of all the things I miss from America. It's a really easy thing to do here! I realized that's what I was doing and decided to post something positive or happy about my day or the island as a countdown on Facebook and Instagram. I began at 50 days. It's kind of hard but much better to be looking for the good each day. I have such mixed emotions about leaving. I am crazy excited and really can't wait yet I know after our initial month of fun and family we will fall into a routine and I will at times miss parts of life in Dominica. Time is moving swiftly. When we purchased our plane tickets home we had about 80 days. I can't believe we're nearly down half of that time now. I need to try to sell/give away most of our things here. We don't want to take much back.

The kids have been sort of participating with a groups of girl and boy scouts on Friday evenings for a few weeks now. Tomorrow we are going on a field trip to a farm to learn about how insects help things grow. We've actually been to the farm before so I hope my kids still enjoy going.

Emma is THE CUTEST! She is quite the talker and I would guess more advanced in her speech then any of our other kids were at her age. When she looks at letters she has started saying, "E- M -O".  It's pretty cute. We've been trying to get her to change it to E -M -M -A. We love her sweet personality. Earlier this week the poor girl was sick and threw up on me and immediately said, "Sorry Mamma". Oh my goodness it melts my heart. I felt bad that SHE felt bad.

Alexis is becoming a good little artist. Last semester the kids had a great art teacher. She put together an amazing art exhibit of the children's work.

Isaac has started to find enjoyment in a good book.

Kari is turning into a monkey and mastering the monkey bars on the playground.

Life is good. Even when at times it's not...

May 31, 2016

Today marks SEVENTEEN months we've lived in Dominica! I have many missed emotions about that fact. I will have good memories to take home with me. I'm ready to leave! We've had two fans completely bite the dust I. The last week. Meaning no amount of oil and tinkering from Mark is bring them back. The water was brown yesterday! I killed a little cockroach in the hallway. Wah wah wah! I'm just ready! I intend to have fun and go on some trips and visit a beach a fee more times before we leave but I am anxiously counting down the days. 62 days by the way! There is an ice cream truck that drives around occasionally playing annoying music like in the states. I was shocked the first time I heard it. I was surprised there was an ice cream truck on the island. Today I decided we would go out and see what he had to offer. A small cup of either vanilla, strawberry or a combo of the two flavors for $2.50ec. (that's a little less the $1USD) We bought four little cups. The kids were thrilled!!

May 18, 2016

I've been failing at blogging completely!
We enjoyed our 2 week break between the semesters. The kids went back to school on the 9th. I found I really missed my morning workouts with Tim but found it hard to try getting up on my own. He started up again this past Monday the 16th. Mark has joined the craziness of Tim Trains Me and goes to the 6pm group. Mark also ran a 5k on Monday before his first class with Tim! Poor Mark is so sore right now! We had some good fitness goals going right now. My sister and I are going to do a half marathon together at the end of August! The best thing I have to report is we booked our plane tickets and our feet will touch American soil in 75 days!! We leave Dominica in August 1st! I'm so excited!! I have lots to do before then and plan to enjoy the rest of our time here but I am so glad that the end is in sight!

*Mon. May 2 - Sun. May 8

This week of break was nice. Monday evening we went to the pool for a birthday party for a little girl who just got to the island. Emma gets more brave every time we go swimming. She's about ready to be a fish. I jumped into the pool and without waiting for me to catch her she jumped in to the water with her little floatie. It did surprise her a little but she wanted to jump more. We tried teaching her how to hold your breath and close your eyes. It was entertaining to watch her try! What a silly!

Tuesday was supposed to be family picture day but Mark was sick with whatever Lexi had from Sunday. I went to the gym while Emma was napping. 

Wednesday was finally the day I've been wanting to have our entire time here! Family picture day!!!! I hate the work and stress of taking family pictures but I love having pictures so it's worth the crazy. Lexi saw the clothes I had laid out and she helped me realize we had some better options. We don't have stores around to try to go buy coordinating stuff. I had to work with what we had. Somebody our clothes are looking dingy from island living so many clothes were not even considered. I happy with what we ended up wearing! We borrowed a tripod (Actually, we borrowed it in January when we were planning on taking pictures but that didn't work out. My friend just let us hang onto it forever!) and Mark took the pictures with a remote. I am SO happy! I absolutely love the pictures!!! 

Thursday was Emma's 2nd birthday!! This. Sweet girl brings so much joy to our family! I love her so much! She loved that it was her birthday. She walked around singing "happy birthday" to herself. Too cute!! For breakfast we took the kids to the local French bakery for the first time. We got a tasty spread to share!! Yum!! I love their green pepper and chicken quiche. We hung out on campus for a bit. Isaac and Mark played a video game for the first time here up at the CAC there is an Xbox. The kids played some ping pong and pool. Emma and Kari played the piano and sang "I am a Child of God". Emma is a good little singer. We went to Swirls frozen yogurt place that has been closed since November and just opened up this week. They didn't have the same machines and offered different stuff. We ended up only getting Emma an ice cream cone because of how expensive it was! We realized it was Emma's first ocean cream cone! She didn't know what to do when she got to the cone. 

Friday I took the family adventuring to the local hot pool my trainer Tim took me to. At first Kari was complaint how she hated the shoes she was wearing and it was a awful hike. By the end she loved it and can't wait to go there again! 

Saturday's was an amazing day of cleaning and organizing!!! Lots of teamwork!  We went to a birthday party. 

*Mon. May 2 - Sun. May 8

This week of break was nice. Monday evening we went to the pool for a birthday party for a little girl who just got to the island. Emma gets more brave every time we go swimming. She's about ready to be a fish. I jumped into the pool and without waiting for me to catch her she jumped in to the water with her little floatie. It did surprise her a little but she wanted to jump more. We tried teaching her how to hold your breath and close your eyes. It was entertaining to watch her try! What a silly!

Tuesday was supposed to be family picture day but Mark was sick with whatever Lexi had from Sunday. I went to the gym while Emma was napping. 

Wednesday was finally the day I've been wanting to have our entire time here! Family picture day!!!! I hate the work and stress of taking family pictures but I love having pictures so it's worth the crazy. Lexi saw the clothes I had laid out and she helped me realize we had some better options. We don't have stores around to try to go buy coordinating stuff. I had to work with what we had. So many of our clothes are looking dingy from island living so many items were not even considered. I am happy with what we ended up wearing! We borrowed a tripod (Actually, we borrowed it in January when we were planning on taking pictures but that didn't work out. My friend just let us hang onto it forever!) and Mark took the pictures with a remote. I am so SO happy! I absolutely love the pictures!!! 

Thursday was Emma's 2nd birthday!! This sweet girl brings so much joy to our family! I love her so much! She loved that it was her birthday. She walked around singing "happy birthday" to herself. Too cute!! For breakfast we took the kids to the local French bakery for the first time. We got a tasty spread to share!! Yum!! I love their green pepper and chicken quiche. We hung out on campus for a bit. Isaac and Mark played a videogame for the first time here up at the CAC there is an Xbox. The kids played some ping pong and pool. Emma and Kari played the piano and sang "I am a Child of God". Emma is a good little singer. We went to Swirls frozen yogurt place that has been closed since November and just opened up this week. They didn't have the same machines and offered different stuff. We ended up only getting Emma an ice cream cone because of how expensive it was! We realized it was Emma's first ocean cream cone! She didn't know what to do when she got to the cone. 

Friday I took the family adventuring to the local hot pool my trainer Tim took me to. At first Kari was complaint how she hated the shoes she was wearing and it was a awful hike. By the end she loved it and can't wait to go there again! 

Saturday's was an amazing day of cleaning and organizing!!! Lots of teamwork!  We went to a birthday party. 

Saturday 4/16/16

I had a full on in tears breakdown today. It was when you focus on all the worst things about yourself and feel pretty worthless and upset. On top of that I've been feeling really "trunky" and so anxious to leave "the rock". We still don't know when that will be but it's still a few months down the road. I also have the added stress of needing to write a talk for church that I procrastinated. (As usual!) My poor loving husband didn't know what to do with me. He held me while I cried then left me to work on my talk. He helped Alexis work on her IXL which has been such a struggle lately. She needs to be completely finished with her 3rd grade math section by April 28th. If she is she gets paid $50ec and we will be having delicious homemade ice cream cake!!!! If she's not done she owes Mark money, doesn't get yummy awesomeness and STILL has to finish her IXL. Now tell me which is a better option?? She keeps getting distracted and frustrated. She has quite a few left to do now but that is only because she wouldn't work on them last fall when we told her she needed to or THIS would happen. Anyway, Mark is trying to help her with that and wrangle all the other kids AND fix dinner so I can write my talk. YET I feel major GUILT allowing him to help me because he should be studying...   This amazing man has learned to juggle life like a champ! He never lets the balls drop. He is an amazing father and husband, a medical student, president of the student government association on campus and branch president of our church here. How does he do it all?? I struggle each day trying to figure out what to do for dinner. No worries tonight though. He's got that covered too!! I'm so grateful for this amazing man that I call mine. I am so very blessed that he loves me and puts me first.