A go Go GO kind of week

This last week was a big blur of fun (mostly). I can hardly remember what happened when. Luckily I wrote it down :) Last Monday January 5th I'll first mention that Emma turned 8 months old!!! Time just keeps ticking! She has 4 teeth. She likes to bite shoulders, arms and fingers if you let her. She has been trying so many big people foods here in Dominica like rice, lentils and chicken from our new favorite place to eat called Nelson's at "the shacks".  ( "The shacks" is a little area by the north gate of campus where vendors have food and drinks for sale. I've heard there's a pretty good taco salad and smoothie there somewhere I intend to check out sometime.) Emma is and has been on the verge of walking for a little while now. We keep thinking she'll take off walking but she hasn't yet. I'm in no hurry. It might be nice for her knees though since there is no carpet here. We all adore Emma and are so happy she is part of our family! When Isaac prays he continues to thank Heavenly Father that Mommy had her.

Next, I'll mention last MONDAY Mark started orientation. He had a handful of meetings throughout the week to prep for school starting. Three hours of Mark's day was standing in line and all the rigmarole of setting up our local bank account. The kids and I came to campus once Mark was near the front of the line so I could sign the things I needed to. Then the kids played at their school's playground for a long time since it wasn't worth walking home just to walk back a while later. That evening there was a BBQ on the seaside deck complete steal drum playing fun Christmas songs and men cutting coconuts with machetes. We had a nice time eating food and hanging out with new friends.

TUESDAY the kids and I went with a group of friends to Batibou beach. It's about a 20 minute drive and then it took almost that long for us to walk down the muddy trail to the beach. They said it is the most beautiful beach on the island. It was wonderful! Sometime while I'm here I'm going to have to get someone to watch all my kids so I can go relax on the beach alone. I'd probably end up falling asleep. Lexi and Isaac enjoyed getting knocked over by waves and digging in the sand with their friends.

On WEDNESDAY Mark didn't have to do any orientation and we went on a boat tour on the Indian River. There are 365 rivers on the island. As we got on the boat Mark was taking a picture of the kids who were sitting in the front of the boat and then the guide took off before Mark got on so he had to go on a different boat. The ride was peaceful and beautiful. I think "beautiful" might be my most used word on this blog. The island is just beautiful. It is so green everywhere. There are so many interesting colorful plants and flowers. This river we were on had part of it on the movie Pirates of the Caribbean (I think the second one which I only saw once) It's the part when they are going to see the lady Calypso's house. There was a little hut thing there that I understood to be the house they built and used for the movie but I'm not so sure that was a correct understanding after looking on-line. Maybe that was just the general area where they did the filming... Either way it was a fun tour. We could look down into the water and see fish and crabs (I didn't see a crab but Isaac and Mark did).

There are lots of little lizards around!

Here's our one picture of the cabin they said was used for the filming of Pirates of the Caribbean 2.

Waiting for Daddy's boat to come back.

THURSDAY morning my friend called me to see if we'd like to go to the beach just off of campus called PBH beach. (I'm not sure why it's called that). We met up with the group and walked to the beach. The kids had a great time!! Emma eventually fell asleep and I set her on a towel on the beach. I was SO jealous. I've found I'm really tired and could fall asleep really fast if given the chance. As we've gone on trips I always fall asleep on the bus at some point. We have been go go go and done lots of walking. In the afternoon there was a meeting about the kid's school. I'm excited for them to attend the prep school here. They will have field trips fairly often and learn some French. Lexi and Isaac will be in the same class. I'm not sure yet how many students there will be in their class but not many compared to the classes they came from in Idaho. After the meeting we went to the family lounge (which is air conditioned!) and hung out until Mark was done with orientation stuff around 4pm.

A nap on the beach! 

I laid down next to Emma for all of 2 seconds and this tree was her view (if she'd been awake).

As we were getting ready to go it started raining lightly and woke up this little beach baby. 

On FRIDAY Mark only had orientation until noon and to say that he was anxious to go snorkeling seems like an understatement. :)  The kids and I met up with him when he was done with everything he needed for snorkeling and we headed to PBH. Afterwards we walked around the seaside deck where there were vendors from the island to tell you about what they had to offer you. The man from the chocolate factory was there so we sampled some of his chocolates again. If I could only choose one flavor to please everyone in the family it would have to be the mint.

Before we headed home we got to take a tour of the simulation center that is like a pretend hospital with Sim Man who is a $80,000 dummy who blinks, his eyes dilate, he makes sounds, breaths, he can even sweat and all kinds of other crazy things! You had to wear gloves to touch him and feel his pulse. Kari now wants to be a doctor (because she has gloves). 

SATURDAY morning I got up early (not as early as I needed to) to go to the market. The nutritionist at the university was going to be taking people around telling people about the produce. It felt so weird to head out the door alone and flag down a ride by myself. I got on the bus with a lady who has been on the island for a year. She is the spouse of a faculty member. She was kind enough to let me tag along with her and she showed me things. She said never pay full price. They apparently jack up the prices for white people. Eventually we ran into the group that was with the nutritionist and she left me with them. I ended up buying some lettuce, guava, soursop (which I should have taken a picture of! Google it.) and something they say you eat like a squash and the name sort of sounds like Christonee but totally not and that's after asking 3 different people what it was called... It was an experience going there. I don't like trying to bargain on prices and I don't like paying too much for things. It's hard learning to use the Eastern Caribbean (ec) currency. I have no idea what is a good price for things. It really throws me off to see a box of cereal (American Trix) at the grocery store for about $17!!! Don't worry that's in EC but it still ends up being over $6 US! Ugh! I'll have to give it another shot sometime.
I hurried home from the market to gather things and help get ready for our day trip of the island. We walked to the university (as always) and loaded onto the buses. First stop Trafalgar Falls. There were two pretty waterfalls to see at the lookout point. There was a trail to walk further but we weren't allowed to continue. We made a pit stop at little bubbling hot pot. It smelled like Yellowstone Park. We then headed to the Botanical Gardens which had some neat plants but there were so many grumbling tummies that the plants weren't as cool. I heard lots of adults complaining about being hungry so I couldn't blame my kiddos for being unhappy too. Next, it was (finally) time to eat. :) Then we drove out to Scotts Head which is a piece of land where one side of it is the Caribbean sea and the other is the Atlantic Ocean. We heard it's a great place for snorkeling so Mark brought his gear for one last time before diving into the semester. Haha! There wasn't much of a beach. It was really rocky and slippery so it wasn't ideal for the kids. They enjoyed sitting on the Atlantic side (which we weren't allowed to swim in) getting splashed by the waves. We started hiking up to an overlook but it was pretty steep. Along the way were told there was still a ways to go and we needed to head back to the buses soon so we bailed. Mark enjoyed getting some snorkeling in! We then loaded the buses for the last time for the winding, crazy and at times felt much like a kid ride at a theme park ride home. I'm so glad none of us get motion sick!!!

Trafalgar Falls

Little bubbly hot pot that probably had a name...

Botanical Gardens

The countries' capitol Roseau. That's a field for playing cricket.

There's a cruise ship out there. 

 LUNCH! Yummy! Curry chicken, some fish, some sort of quiche eggy thing, noodles, rice...

Scotts Head

On the left is the Caribbean Sea and on the right is the Atlantic Ocean.

Yes, ALL of that happened in ONE week!!! Now it's Sunday we caught the bus for church even though we woke up a little late. We are anticipating the beginning of the first semester. I expect it to take a little while to get a routine figured out. Wish us luck!!! (I'm not reading through this again before I post it so I'm crossing my fingers it makes sense and there aren't too many errors)