*Mon. 7/6 - Sun. 7/12

Eating noodles on the balcony.

Emma and her island twin Savannah. 

Cooking with Daddy.

Thursday St James field trip hike - pretty steep
Kari adores the new teacher at the prep school. Crush!

Crossing the river over the sidewalk.

Isaac was so happy to find this thing to play with. He soon regretted ever touching it!

Ouch!! It was perhaps from sugar cane or a couple other possibilities I can't remember. If you run your hand along it the wrong way it put lots of little pokies into your skin. They used tweezers to pull them out.

Beautiful view!

Head trail for one of the segments for the Waitukubuli trail. I want to go adventuring down there sometime. 

Goat hangout

These 2 both had...interesting beards.

Friday presentations Kari was singing a ocean song loud and clear. 

The kids had a new teacher that will be teaching them about media. She worked for Universal Studios I believe (or some name that is very recognizable). These were part of a public service announcement idea before they filmed it. I think it's pretty cool she's going to teach them about the media. 

Alexis'

Isaac's

After school RSO had an ice cream social. It was AMAZING!! I thought so anyway! There was ACTUAL ice cream. A friend brought little brownie bites and I made an amazing hot fudge sauce. I had those with vanilla ice cream and some almond pieces on top and I was in heaven! Brownies and ice cream together is my favorite dessert. Anything yummy added to it is a bonus!! No pictures. I ate it all! Just kidding! I wanted to though! ;)

Saturday free RSO trip to Salisbury Beach

Lexi was the queen in a game and this circular creation was her throne. She loves being in charge. 

Mon. 6/29 - Sun. 7/5

Monday was Mark's birthday! I attempted an ice cream cake with not enough time and really not knowing what I was doing... I knew it wasn't going to go well. I'm not sure why I even attempted! We ended up buying super tasty cheesecake from IGA :)

I went with the kid's to Purple Turtle beach (there is nothing purple or turtle about the beach by the way) with the prep school but I didn't take any pictures.

The kids were awesome to make Daddy gifts and cards with what they had. These binoculars were awesome! Haha! They are sweet kids.

I was afraid this wouldn't be super tasty. We are in Dominica after all. So many things just don't measure up to my hopes. Luckily that was not the case for this amazing cheesecake! YUM! My favorite is the one on the bottom right :)

Thursday the kids didn't want to go on a school hike they had already been on so I let them stay home. It felt like a Saturday. They worked on IXL and played.

I observed this little red bug. It was so red I found it interesting to watch.

Saturday was the 4th of July. We participated in a 5k the Dominican Doc Dash. The kids did the whole thing with us. Expect Emma stayed on the beach with someone watching her.

I love this picture!

Here's a link to the Go Pro video Mark made of our run.

Dahles Doc Dash video

Saturday was also Kid's Fest. It's an event we have every semester typically in conjunction with a holiday. It was the Forth of July this semester. 

Cotton candy! With the moisture in the air it wasn't going to last long so we ate it fast!

Emma loved carrying these water balloons around. They didn't pop very easily.

I love the color these trees sprinkle in the landscape. This one is in an open field we walk through on our way home from church. 

Emma fell asleep on Mark's head on the way home from church. Such a sweet sleepy Lish (nickname)

Mon. 6/22 - Sun. 6/28

So I'd heard hurricane/rainy season started. It seems it REALLY started today. The rain came pouring down and it rained off and on (but mostly on), harder and lighter all the flipping day long.

 Brown water, no power, lots of rain... When do I get to leave this island? Most of a year left? Ugh! Apparently this is how it's going to be a lot of the time from now until NOVEMBER!!! I'm sure there will be sun sometimes too but not today.

I have been very seriously considering moving to an apartment close to campus and IGA. I debated in my mind the pros and cons. I finally decided to call and inquire about it and she said someone had called this morning... I guess it just wasn't meant to be. I guess we'll just stay put for now. Not that my apartment is terrible it's just far away. Especially when walking home uphill in the rain with 4 kids...

Wednesday Mark had his 2nd mini of the semester. He has been spending so much time with SGA and surgery club things lately that he lost a lot of study time. Emma and I waited to meet up with Mark before his exam and a handful of his classmates were there happy to see Emma waving at them.
It was refreshing to observe a group get together and pray before the test.

We went home and I guess I forgot to close the door. I was planning to step back out but I got distracted. A bird flew into the apartment while Emma was napping. (She would've LOVED to see it inside!) It took forever to get it out!! It would fly back and forth from the kitchen to the living room but not out any of the open doors or windows! It was so frustrating! I was afraid I was going to be late leaving the house for lunch because of it! It FINALLY did fly out! 

After Mark's mini he and I went to check out the "man cave" burger we had heard about. Not too shabby. Still not American for sure. Burgers and pizzas just don't cut it for me here. They're edible sure but not as satisfying. 

Thursday the kids went on a hike during school.  (I didn't go but a teacher shared this.)

Saturday I was so excited to be able to go on a hike WITH MARK to Victoria Falls. I heard it was a harder hike where you have to climb over boulders and wade through a river several times. I'd arranged for the kids to be taken care of and off we went. 

I've wondered how a pineapple grows. I'd always assumed they came off a tree. Nope. Today I saw one out in the wild!!

We got to a point where we could see the water fall and I thought we were done. Up ahead there were tons of huge rocks and it didn't look possible to get to the falls. There definitely was not a path to get there. We carried on up, over and between boulders. I loved it! 

The hike was exhausting but SO fun!!

We have GO PRO PICTURES somewhere but I'm not sure where so I'm just going to post this!