Thursday, July 18, 2013
The Boy Who Cried Chantal!
Well we made it through our first Tropical Storm!
The night before the storm we got a substantial amount of rain, which is sometimes very common for Dominica, that caused our water to be turned off. I know I've mentioned it in previous posts but the short and sweet is that the Dominica as a country does not have the economic means to develop a water filtration infrastructure that will keep up with the enormous volumes of dirt that "slide" into the water when we receive large amounts of rain. The solution is to shut off the water supply until the system gets a handle on the water. However, when the water is turned back on you don't want to even wash your hands in it for about 12 hours. It is DIRTY. So much so that when you turn on the shower there is dirt left in the bottom of the shower once the water drains.
Back to the fable of Chantal...I found out about the impending storm at midnight and the next morning I had David waiting at the IGA in a taxi when the doors opened for 1 reason only WATER!!! Every week or so I had been bringing home an extra jug of water from the grocery store but on top of the jugs I have to carry just for our everyday water consumption I had fallen way short of our needed Hurricane reserve of 7-10 days of h2o & food. David brought home 12 two gallon jugs of water and bread. I have learned from previous rain showers to NEVER go to bed with even a single dirty dish or bottle and especially A SHOWER!!! I could never go to sleep if I didn't take a shower every night bc i'm pretty super gross and sticky after a day of sweating through 2 shirts or dresses, bug spray and sunscreen, YUCK! So, what i'm saying is have all your ducks in a row every night in case you wake up with no water or there's a tropical storm possible hurricane coming!
Facebook, fb, started going NUTS!!! The students, which in turn means the spouses, anxiety was high bc there were mini's and practical exams scheduled for the day the storm was due to hit. ANOTHER FB group was started "Ross Hurricane Updates" due to the fact that in 1 hour I had 52 FB updates on the status of the storm. That brings me to my love/hate relationship with FB. Before we arrived in Dominica I checked fb maybe once/day or every other day at night. Well now, I live on the stupid thing. It is the only way we have to communicate down here. We all have local cell phones but I only have 4 peoples #'s, and as we all know, verbal communication is at an all time low. So that leaves FB, and in an effort to not jam up everyone's news feed, 25 different groups just for the spouses. Ok, i exaggerate but i swear it's something like 10 different groups. I can jump on there really quick and say "who do I call to come switch out my propane tank in US time (versus Dominican time) bc my dinner is on the stove and i'm out of gas!!!!!!" or "does anyone know what number to set my oven to in order to reach 350 degrees" (our ovens have a 1-10 dial! ha). The hate part is that I'm constantly on this annoying computer, ipad, iphone and see a bunch of junk that just sucks me in and wastes my time!!! And...I have kinda become that person I get annoyed with that constantly comments, likes and banters on fb. I think a little of my daily addiction is the temptation for adult conversation. In the US if I was with the kids but feeling like i had something I wanted to tell someone I would pick up the phone or better yet send a text message to 1 person. So too much time on FB...Ugh...NOT one of my goals for Dominica. I'll keep working on that...
Again, back to Chantal. Btw...Classes got cancelled and campus was completely closed. This is pretty good news for some students unless you were the ones pulling all nighters to prepare for your tests just to put it off another day. It was super nice to have David at home all day and the girls didn't know what to do with themselves. Soooo, that morning as David was getting water...I was kicking it into prep mode. I made chocolate chip, coconut, banana muffins and chicken and rice soup before 9:30 a.m. It rained a good part of the morning and the winds were normal for Dominica, we patiently watched the live radar out of Barbados for the constant update on how far the storm was out and how quickly it was moving. We are suppose to get the storm around 12-2 p.m. but around 1:30 we see the storm barely south of our island take a sharp turn west. It was super weird...almost like a gust of wind came in and moved the entire storm over a hair. Well, we were that hair bc it completely missed us but probably only by about 20 nautical miles. Some of the island suffered severe land slides bc of the rain and little wind but all in all we had a quiet uneventful day eating muffins and soup. Barbados and Martinique did get hit pretty good and sustained damaged. I am super thankful that the storm surpassed us but have an eerie feeling that that means the next one will be a doosy, hence the name of the post!! All the students were fussing bc classes were cancelled bc of nothing but there was no way of predicting that it would miss us just barely and hit ALL of the surrounding islands. If one student got hurt due to the storm than people would really be outraged, you know!?
In the future i'm going to try to post more frequently even if it's just a few paragraphs with or without photos. I always want to wait and post when I can include lots of pics and have plenty to say but I'm really don't have near the time on my hands that I thought I would. This is good and bad. Bad bc there are things that I'm probably not going to be able to accomplish here like working a few hours/week, etc...Good in that all of my energy is going directly to my kids and husband. I am certainly having my fair share of identity crisis, stay at home mom, new country, adjustments but all in all i'm super satisfied and fortunate to have this time with my babies. Who by the way are being wonderful. Banks has turned a serious corner and is being the sweet, obedient, helpful, loving, amazingly bright child that she's always been. And Eloise has totally sprouted!! I don't know how else to put it...her little personality and determination, but in a different way than Banks, is starting to show. She is still the happiest, lovable child I know...you just want to love on her all the time! I'll have something really neat to show you about Eloise in the next post...stay tuned!
love you and miss you everyday!
xoxo
weezie (that's for you peanut :) - have no idea why but my brother Phillip has always called me weezie...
*** NAME THIS MOVIE: "Heeya take a whack at weeza"????*****
girls movie night!
flowers from the tree in our yard.
ripe avocados and tomatoes...rare!!
sweet little 10 year old named Ella who loves Banks & Eloise
They can't get enough of there daddy!
Geri, this is the shirt from our trip to Barcelona!!!
so much Sass...this one!
Mommies big helper and wearing her watch :)
little angel girl
such a stinker!!
MOO!!! On our road...I'm only about 10ft from him
David's breakfast morning before his test!! BACON
The night before the storm we got a substantial amount of rain, which is sometimes very common for Dominica, that caused our water to be turned off. I know I've mentioned it in previous posts but the short and sweet is that the Dominica as a country does not have the economic means to develop a water filtration infrastructure that will keep up with the enormous volumes of dirt that "slide" into the water when we receive large amounts of rain. The solution is to shut off the water supply until the system gets a handle on the water. However, when the water is turned back on you don't want to even wash your hands in it for about 12 hours. It is DIRTY. So much so that when you turn on the shower there is dirt left in the bottom of the shower once the water drains.
Back to the fable of Chantal...I found out about the impending storm at midnight and the next morning I had David waiting at the IGA in a taxi when the doors opened for 1 reason only WATER!!! Every week or so I had been bringing home an extra jug of water from the grocery store but on top of the jugs I have to carry just for our everyday water consumption I had fallen way short of our needed Hurricane reserve of 7-10 days of h2o & food. David brought home 12 two gallon jugs of water and bread. I have learned from previous rain showers to NEVER go to bed with even a single dirty dish or bottle and especially A SHOWER!!! I could never go to sleep if I didn't take a shower every night bc i'm pretty super gross and sticky after a day of sweating through 2 shirts or dresses, bug spray and sunscreen, YUCK! So, what i'm saying is have all your ducks in a row every night in case you wake up with no water or there's a tropical storm possible hurricane coming!
Facebook, fb, started going NUTS!!! The students, which in turn means the spouses, anxiety was high bc there were mini's and practical exams scheduled for the day the storm was due to hit. ANOTHER FB group was started "Ross Hurricane Updates" due to the fact that in 1 hour I had 52 FB updates on the status of the storm. That brings me to my love/hate relationship with FB. Before we arrived in Dominica I checked fb maybe once/day or every other day at night. Well now, I live on the stupid thing. It is the only way we have to communicate down here. We all have local cell phones but I only have 4 peoples #'s, and as we all know, verbal communication is at an all time low. So that leaves FB, and in an effort to not jam up everyone's news feed, 25 different groups just for the spouses. Ok, i exaggerate but i swear it's something like 10 different groups. I can jump on there really quick and say "who do I call to come switch out my propane tank in US time (versus Dominican time) bc my dinner is on the stove and i'm out of gas!!!!!!" or "does anyone know what number to set my oven to in order to reach 350 degrees" (our ovens have a 1-10 dial! ha). The hate part is that I'm constantly on this annoying computer, ipad, iphone and see a bunch of junk that just sucks me in and wastes my time!!! And...I have kinda become that person I get annoyed with that constantly comments, likes and banters on fb. I think a little of my daily addiction is the temptation for adult conversation. In the US if I was with the kids but feeling like i had something I wanted to tell someone I would pick up the phone or better yet send a text message to 1 person. So too much time on FB...Ugh...NOT one of my goals for Dominica. I'll keep working on that...
Again, back to Chantal. Btw...Classes got cancelled and campus was completely closed. This is pretty good news for some students unless you were the ones pulling all nighters to prepare for your tests just to put it off another day. It was super nice to have David at home all day and the girls didn't know what to do with themselves. Soooo, that morning as David was getting water...I was kicking it into prep mode. I made chocolate chip, coconut, banana muffins and chicken and rice soup before 9:30 a.m. It rained a good part of the morning and the winds were normal for Dominica, we patiently watched the live radar out of Barbados for the constant update on how far the storm was out and how quickly it was moving. We are suppose to get the storm around 12-2 p.m. but around 1:30 we see the storm barely south of our island take a sharp turn west. It was super weird...almost like a gust of wind came in and moved the entire storm over a hair. Well, we were that hair bc it completely missed us but probably only by about 20 nautical miles. Some of the island suffered severe land slides bc of the rain and little wind but all in all we had a quiet uneventful day eating muffins and soup. Barbados and Martinique did get hit pretty good and sustained damaged. I am super thankful that the storm surpassed us but have an eerie feeling that that means the next one will be a doosy, hence the name of the post!! All the students were fussing bc classes were cancelled bc of nothing but there was no way of predicting that it would miss us just barely and hit ALL of the surrounding islands. If one student got hurt due to the storm than people would really be outraged, you know!?
In the future i'm going to try to post more frequently even if it's just a few paragraphs with or without photos. I always want to wait and post when I can include lots of pics and have plenty to say but I'm really don't have near the time on my hands that I thought I would. This is good and bad. Bad bc there are things that I'm probably not going to be able to accomplish here like working a few hours/week, etc...Good in that all of my energy is going directly to my kids and husband. I am certainly having my fair share of identity crisis, stay at home mom, new country, adjustments but all in all i'm super satisfied and fortunate to have this time with my babies. Who by the way are being wonderful. Banks has turned a serious corner and is being the sweet, obedient, helpful, loving, amazingly bright child that she's always been. And Eloise has totally sprouted!! I don't know how else to put it...her little personality and determination, but in a different way than Banks, is starting to show. She is still the happiest, lovable child I know...you just want to love on her all the time! I'll have something really neat to show you about Eloise in the next post...stay tuned!
love you and miss you everyday!
xoxo
weezie (that's for you peanut :) - have no idea why but my brother Phillip has always called me weezie...
*** NAME THIS MOVIE: "Heeya take a whack at weeza"????*****
girls movie night!
flowers from the tree in our yard.
ripe avocados and tomatoes...rare!!
sweet little 10 year old named Ella who loves Banks & Eloise
They can't get enough of there daddy!
Geri, this is the shirt from our trip to Barcelona!!!
so much Sass...this one!
Mommies big helper and wearing her watch :)
little angel girl
such a stinker!!
MOO!!! On our road...I'm only about 10ft from him
David's breakfast morning before his test!! BACONFriday, July 5, 2013
Friends...Priceless
I am raising a daughter who loves a nickname!
Her BFF Chloe has now become Chlo Chlo
One of my Bff's Jenny is Jen Jen. The "other" Jennifer is "big kid Jen Jen". This name is super fitting for Jennifer bc she is like a kid magnet...they love her!
She has named her babydolls/stuffed animals after her favorite tweens: Cassie, Ella & Shanti (3 girls at the prep school, ages 10-13, that love Banks...and she certainly LOVES them!!
She also has named our gardener Reginald, "Bob"...sounds similar, right?
Last but definitely not least: The son of our landlord is name Kyle but bc of my mom's thick southern accent she heard it as "Kye - Y'all". So we go pick "high biscuits" (high biscuits) for Kye - y'all...probably fitting for Kyle ;)
Oh, and Banks has started calling me "peanut butter". I seriously have no clue why!!! LOL!! This child may be giving me a run for my money but i'll be laughing right along with the crying ;)
We have met some really amazing folks here in Dominica. Everyone, Americans & Canadians, is here for the same reason, which creates a really cool openness throughout the community. I can at least speak for the spouses of the students. I'm sure there are different personalities, religions, opinions but in the end everyone is super supportive of each other. I have made a ton of new friends and most are pretty different from me, which I LOVE! I was hoping this experience would allow our family to meet a lot of different people and so far it has.
I have a few really special friends here who have really made a difference in my happiness here in Dominica. Kasie, Charlotte & Megan are my super adventurous, kind as they can be, and outdoorsy friends who also have kids my kids age...which is super convenient! They have also let us join there Mom Co-op Preschool that Banks LOVES!!! Kasie & Charlotte are from Idaho and Meghan is from Arizona.
My other super special friend is Jenny...or Jen Jen! She and her husband Steve, most recently from Brooklyn :), live in our little community, Kootney Resorts. Jenny is a very experienced yoga instructor and overall awesome person! She is the friend who not only comes over for tea and a chat but also to take Banks on a jog around the property to expend some energy while I feed Eloise. Jenny and I have great, super meaningful conversations, which is total food for the soul. I was really missing that...I didn't realize just how much I would miss my girlfriends - Kelly, Lisa, Jess, Emily, Julie...
This past week Jenny asked us to pose with her and others in a photo shoot for her advertisement here on the island. She has a flourishing yoga and dance practice here in Dominica in only 8 weeks time. She's a contagious sense of positive well being!
Here are some photos from the shoot. Oh, and of course my sidekick Banks was part of the shoot! She is totally into yoga now...i've got to get Banks her own mat!
Here are a few of the shots from the shoot. Banks even made the final flyer!! This was fun with the one exception of Eloise crying in the background from cutting her first tooth and being hot as bajesus! That's another thing...everyone is like super kid friendly and will just pick your baby up or grab your kid if you can't...I am learning to lean on the support system here.
Her BFF Chloe has now become Chlo Chlo
One of my Bff's Jenny is Jen Jen. The "other" Jennifer is "big kid Jen Jen". This name is super fitting for Jennifer bc she is like a kid magnet...they love her!
She has named her babydolls/stuffed animals after her favorite tweens: Cassie, Ella & Shanti (3 girls at the prep school, ages 10-13, that love Banks...and she certainly LOVES them!!
She also has named our gardener Reginald, "Bob"...sounds similar, right?
Last but definitely not least: The son of our landlord is name Kyle but bc of my mom's thick southern accent she heard it as "Kye - Y'all". So we go pick "high biscuits" (high biscuits) for Kye - y'all...probably fitting for Kyle ;)
Oh, and Banks has started calling me "peanut butter". I seriously have no clue why!!! LOL!! This child may be giving me a run for my money but i'll be laughing right along with the crying ;)
We have met some really amazing folks here in Dominica. Everyone, Americans & Canadians, is here for the same reason, which creates a really cool openness throughout the community. I can at least speak for the spouses of the students. I'm sure there are different personalities, religions, opinions but in the end everyone is super supportive of each other. I have made a ton of new friends and most are pretty different from me, which I LOVE! I was hoping this experience would allow our family to meet a lot of different people and so far it has.
I have a few really special friends here who have really made a difference in my happiness here in Dominica. Kasie, Charlotte & Megan are my super adventurous, kind as they can be, and outdoorsy friends who also have kids my kids age...which is super convenient! They have also let us join there Mom Co-op Preschool that Banks LOVES!!! Kasie & Charlotte are from Idaho and Meghan is from Arizona.
My other super special friend is Jenny...or Jen Jen! She and her husband Steve, most recently from Brooklyn :), live in our little community, Kootney Resorts. Jenny is a very experienced yoga instructor and overall awesome person! She is the friend who not only comes over for tea and a chat but also to take Banks on a jog around the property to expend some energy while I feed Eloise. Jenny and I have great, super meaningful conversations, which is total food for the soul. I was really missing that...I didn't realize just how much I would miss my girlfriends - Kelly, Lisa, Jess, Emily, Julie...
This past week Jenny asked us to pose with her and others in a photo shoot for her advertisement here on the island. She has a flourishing yoga and dance practice here in Dominica in only 8 weeks time. She's a contagious sense of positive well being!
Here are some photos from the shoot. Oh, and of course my sidekick Banks was part of the shoot! She is totally into yoga now...i've got to get Banks her own mat!
Here are a few of the shots from the shoot. Banks even made the final flyer!! This was fun with the one exception of Eloise crying in the background from cutting her first tooth and being hot as bajesus! That's another thing...everyone is like super kid friendly and will just pick your baby up or grab your kid if you can't...I am learning to lean on the support system here.
love you all and miss you every minute!
xoxo
aej1, dj, aej2, ecj
Thursday, July 4, 2013
Missing Y'all & Milestone
So........
It's been a while...I know, I know...
I had to come all the way to Dominica to find out I DON'T have Lupus or Rheumatoid Arthritis. Hallelujah!!!
They test anyone who enters the country for these two diseases...it runs rampant in these parts....
ok, before I explain I have got to share something hysterical that literally just happened. So I am typing the sentence above "it run rampant in these parts" and typed the word "rampid" instead of "rampant" because I thought that was the word I was looking for...I googled it, bc spellcheck didn't seem to understand the word is was trying to use, and this is what I found in the urban dictionary:
This is absolutely cracking my up to the point that I'm crying...and to answer there question...yes, I am a moron and yes, I am that stupid! Hilarious!
Most people would not admit to this but it was way to funny not to share even if i am the butt of the joke! (had to look that up too...in my head "is the saying really...butt of the joke?!?!?")
Ok, so to cut to the chase. I woke up with a horrible rash, swelling and pain in all my joints 2 weeks ago. Couldn't walk without pain or do normal task bc of swelling, pain and loss of strength in all my joints. After IV of steroid and a 7 day pack the condition wasn't much better so I was tested for Lupus and RA. Good news...I don't have either & today I feel 90% better. Bad news...we don't know what caused it and praying it doesn't reoccur. I didn't mention it to anyone before now bc i didn't want anyone worrying when we weren't sure what was going on. I am good now and hopefully, it was just an allergy or virus with a "crippling" affect.
So that's the reason I haven't written a blog entry in 2 weeks. I really missed my friends and family over the last 2 weeks partly bc my Mom was no longer here but also because it was kind of scary to think I may have a pretty serious disease and be this far from everyone.
We don't have to worry about that anymore, yippee!!
Onto to Milestones...
Banks:
Banks received her very first haircut EVER!!!! ok, it was a trim of about .5in by Me but still...it's the first time her hair has ever been cut since she was born 3 years ago!
Going to the pool, beach, and the constant beating of the sun along with the amount of chlorine in the tap water here her hair was getting pretty straggling on the ends. Plus she saw her cousin Kirkland over google hangout and wanted a haircut just like her! We only cut a little itty bit off the ends but it evened her hair nicely :)
She can swim without her floaties!!! So we go to the pool often with Banks' friend Chloe. Chloe has been learning to swim without floaties so of course Banks wanted to try. I have never seen a child more determined in my life. She watched Chloe a few times and then jump off the step and started swimming 5ft, then 10ft and then all the way across the pool. It was like positive peer pressure. I was so incredibly proud of her!! She had just been taught the song "We are the Champions" by my Mom. So after she swam across the pool she started singing very loud: "We are the Chapmans, We are the Chapmans, no time for Roosters cause we are the Chapmans". It was pretty funny!
**Big news for Eloise...
She is sitting up all on her own and is up on all 4's!!! Literally in 1 weeks she has started rocking back and forth. I give her 1 more month before she's crawling. She may be a content, sweet natured, Angel child :) but she is determined!!! She has this little squeal that she does when she's trying really hard. Her motivation is her sisters baby doll. She loves Banks' baby doll more than any other toy we have. I only brought one, what was I thinking, because Banks wasn't into them at all until recently. Bam is bringing another baby doll when she comes in August. So Eloise will probably be on the move soon and then we'll really have a problem on our hands ;).
I can think of 1 thing...we have no doors on our bottom kitchen cabinets...yikes! There are no baby gates here so any suggestions about what to do is welcomed. I did bring down extra extra curtains and i'm thinking of cutting them to create some kind of curtain. not sure if that will keep her out though.
She is also getting her first tooth!!! It's coming in on the bottom and it's super cute, HOWEVER she is not a happy camper. She hasn't made a peep her whole life but is now pretty fussy but I know it's bc this tooth is hurting her :(
I do have more to catch everyone up on and will hopefully be able to write another entry this weekend. I thought I would have a lot more time on my hands here not working...ha, ha, ha, I guess all you stay at home Mom's know what I'm talking about. My 3 year old rarely naps anymore and after walking 3 miles/day w the kids I'm exhausted after each day and in the bed at like 9pm, seriously! I'm getting a little more used to it and hopefully getting into shape! :)
David has completed his 3rd mini and did well. He has only 5 weeks of his first semester left but has to end the semester as well as he possibly can. Please keep all the good thoughts and prayers coming!!!
It's been a while...I know, I know...
I had to come all the way to Dominica to find out I DON'T have Lupus or Rheumatoid Arthritis. Hallelujah!!!
They test anyone who enters the country for these two diseases...it runs rampant in these parts....
ok, before I explain I have got to share something hysterical that literally just happened. So I am typing the sentence above "it run rampant in these parts" and typed the word "rampid" instead of "rampant" because I thought that was the word I was looking for...I googled it, bc spellcheck didn't seem to understand the word is was trying to use, and this is what I found in the urban dictionary:
| 1. | rampid | 477 up, 73 down | |
A non-existant word that mentally challenged people often confuse with the word "rampant."
See below.
Jack: The disease ran rampid throughout the country.
Jill: Rampid is not a word, you moron. Jack: Pirated music is rampid in the Internet. Jill: Are you really that stupid? | |||
This is absolutely cracking my up to the point that I'm crying...and to answer there question...yes, I am a moron and yes, I am that stupid! Hilarious!
Most people would not admit to this but it was way to funny not to share even if i am the butt of the joke! (had to look that up too...in my head "is the saying really...butt of the joke?!?!?")
Ok, so to cut to the chase. I woke up with a horrible rash, swelling and pain in all my joints 2 weeks ago. Couldn't walk without pain or do normal task bc of swelling, pain and loss of strength in all my joints. After IV of steroid and a 7 day pack the condition wasn't much better so I was tested for Lupus and RA. Good news...I don't have either & today I feel 90% better. Bad news...we don't know what caused it and praying it doesn't reoccur. I didn't mention it to anyone before now bc i didn't want anyone worrying when we weren't sure what was going on. I am good now and hopefully, it was just an allergy or virus with a "crippling" affect.
So that's the reason I haven't written a blog entry in 2 weeks. I really missed my friends and family over the last 2 weeks partly bc my Mom was no longer here but also because it was kind of scary to think I may have a pretty serious disease and be this far from everyone.
We don't have to worry about that anymore, yippee!!
Onto to Milestones...
Banks:
Banks received her very first haircut EVER!!!! ok, it was a trim of about .5in by Me but still...it's the first time her hair has ever been cut since she was born 3 years ago!
Going to the pool, beach, and the constant beating of the sun along with the amount of chlorine in the tap water here her hair was getting pretty straggling on the ends. Plus she saw her cousin Kirkland over google hangout and wanted a haircut just like her! We only cut a little itty bit off the ends but it evened her hair nicely :)
She can swim without her floaties!!! So we go to the pool often with Banks' friend Chloe. Chloe has been learning to swim without floaties so of course Banks wanted to try. I have never seen a child more determined in my life. She watched Chloe a few times and then jump off the step and started swimming 5ft, then 10ft and then all the way across the pool. It was like positive peer pressure. I was so incredibly proud of her!! She had just been taught the song "We are the Champions" by my Mom. So after she swam across the pool she started singing very loud: "We are the Chapmans, We are the Chapmans, no time for Roosters cause we are the Chapmans". It was pretty funny!
**Big news for Eloise...
She is sitting up all on her own and is up on all 4's!!! Literally in 1 weeks she has started rocking back and forth. I give her 1 more month before she's crawling. She may be a content, sweet natured, Angel child :) but she is determined!!! She has this little squeal that she does when she's trying really hard. Her motivation is her sisters baby doll. She loves Banks' baby doll more than any other toy we have. I only brought one, what was I thinking, because Banks wasn't into them at all until recently. Bam is bringing another baby doll when she comes in August. So Eloise will probably be on the move soon and then we'll really have a problem on our hands ;).
I can think of 1 thing...we have no doors on our bottom kitchen cabinets...yikes! There are no baby gates here so any suggestions about what to do is welcomed. I did bring down extra extra curtains and i'm thinking of cutting them to create some kind of curtain. not sure if that will keep her out though.
She is also getting her first tooth!!! It's coming in on the bottom and it's super cute, HOWEVER she is not a happy camper. She hasn't made a peep her whole life but is now pretty fussy but I know it's bc this tooth is hurting her :(
I do have more to catch everyone up on and will hopefully be able to write another entry this weekend. I thought I would have a lot more time on my hands here not working...ha, ha, ha, I guess all you stay at home Mom's know what I'm talking about. My 3 year old rarely naps anymore and after walking 3 miles/day w the kids I'm exhausted after each day and in the bed at like 9pm, seriously! I'm getting a little more used to it and hopefully getting into shape! :)
David has completed his 3rd mini and did well. He has only 5 weeks of his first semester left but has to end the semester as well as he possibly can. Please keep all the good thoughts and prayers coming!!!
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Well Done!
You might think I'm about to talk about finding some awesome red meat on the island...oh, no...think again. Which, by the way, I found out you can order meat from "Malcolm's Meat"...awesome name don't ya think...and it's suppose to be the freshest on the island. So I ordered a case of boneless, skinless chicken and the case of 24 was delivered the next day. I will preface by saying the chicken is wonderful. As I was repacking the meat in Ziploc bag's I happened to look at the labeling. To my surprise it was chicken from North Carolina, great, and it was packaged on June 16th, even better bc it was JUST packaged!!! Oh no, wait...it's only June 10th, crap...June 16th of 2012...this meat was packaged 1 year ago...WTH?!?! I am now realizing why everyone always says "Only in Dominica". The chicken taste absolutely fine but honestly we will probably stick with lentils and fish...something about chicken sitting in a freezer before it gets to my freezer...I wish i had never looked at the stupid label... I'm sure if I googled Tyson chicken it would probably say the same thing...
So, this week David had his second mini and his first Anatomy practical. The semesters are broken up into a few mini tests, a few practicals and a final. A "mini" covers all subjects, biochem, anatomy, etc... they are very important test bc I think they only have 3 mini's. A practical is when the students have to look at there cadaver and actual name 50 different parts of the body!! There is literally a pin stuck into what looks like spaghetti and the question is "if this nerve was severed which muscles would it affect and how?" (effect vs affect)...I duh kno...I hate grammar! Monday was David's 2nd mini and Wednesday was his first practical. David did pretty well on his first mini so he was somewhat confident that he was studying appropriately, and so forth.
On Monday, David came home very unsure of how he did and definitely on a understandable emotional roller coaster. It was one of those tests you absolutely hate bc you honestly don't know if you completely failed or did o.k.. It was super hard!! He had been studying like crazy, meaning maybe 1 hour/day with the girls and I and about 4-5 hours of sleep/night, and to leave the test feeling so unsure was pretty gut wrenching. The good news was that he didn't have time to dwell because he had to keep pushing to prepare for the Anatomy practical. Obviously, I would not be writing about this and titled the entry "well done" if we got bad news. Since this blog is read by a lot of family, friends, and even our friends here in Dominica I will keep David's privacy and just say he did well!!! We don't have his score from the practical but he felt very confident after the test so we are expecting a positive mark!
This is really good news for us. We are half way through the first semester and have better than average scores (as much detail as I feel privy to give...David is super private about these matters and cannot stand bragging). I simply consider this a means of positive reinforcement!!!!
"YOU CAN ONLY ACHIEVE WHAT YOU PUT OUT INTO THE UNIVERSE"
We really do believe this! Yes, we are a little hippy...but hopefully we'll be a Hippy "Doctor" family :)
Please keep the good thoughts, prayers, and love coming our way!!
You didn't think you were going to get off that easily...oh no, no, no...this is my ultimate outlet since I haven't found my Julie, Emily, Kelly, Lisa and Jessica yet!!! Miss you wino's :)
Yesterday, was such an awesome day but HOT as always. We spent a lot of the day at the pool, the kids napped, I cooked a great dinner, drank a 6 pack of Kubuli (local beer) myself!!! Oh and I forgot the best part...we were able to get Banks to walk home so that we could fill 3 huge 2 gallon size water bottles on campus using the FILTERED WATER SYSTEM...It's the little things folks!! You can definitely drink the local water like I did the first week but I had a serious uneasy feeling in my stomach everyday so I decided to starting filtering ALL of our water and not just the kiddos!
Today was o.k. but totally sick of the rain!! We were soaked this morning and then I poured my seriously coveted iced coffee, that I have to walk literally 1 mile to get, all over my stroller as it decided to collapse on me. Also, we have these crazy flying termite things. Yea, it's so weird...they somehow MacGyver there way past the bug screens and fortress we have built to keep bugs OUT and fly into our house, literally drop there wings and torment the heck out of us. Fortunately they only come out when it rains for 24 hours continually!! The absolute best part of today was that it was our first day on the "new schedule"...David's new schedule that is...
He has committed to come home for dinner every single night with the exception of the 2 nights before a test and the week before finals. This is so exciting for the girls and I. Unfortunately the catalyst to this change was our calm, mild mannered, shy, introverted 3 year old... HA HA HA! We have been having a serious case of the "whatever there called 3's"... I don't know if it's the move, Daddy being gone so much, Mommy being around so much ;), her age or a culmination of the everything...probably the latter but it has seriously been doing a number on us. When I get through a day without a T-Total meltdown with her I count my lucky stars. I just can't put my finger on her trigger. She is so full of everything...great and not so great, at times!! We think that if she gets to spend a little more time with her prince charming on a consistent basis it will help. Today, she did pretty good. I think she just needs a little more time to settle in :) She really misses everyone and asks to go visit her friends and grandparents :( All in all, she's having a blast here and is making a lot of new friends! She'll be fine...if I survive it ;).
Our other little darling is doing just great...she is so easy going...I never get many pics of her so here ya go! She's really growing and starting to rock on her knees!!! She is an amazingly sweet and happy child and LOVES her SISTER!!!! Oh and boy she's teething...who would have thought an orange dive stick would be her best friend!!! lol
Banks decided to also make baby food for Eloise and play mommy! Eloise thinks she hung the moon!!!
And yes, that's our super big, comfy, and modern sofa with an over-sized chair...don't you love?!
xoxo
The Joneses
Perspective
I have been thinking most of the afternoon about whether or not to write a post about how I feel today. If I'm honest I will sound like a very ungrateful, brat, who needs a big dose of reality. Therefore, I have decided to be honest and write the the post for one single reason. So I can look back at this post and remember how stinkin' lucky I really am!!!!!
I'm sure you're all intrigued now...it's kind of like waiting to hear a good piece of gossip ;)
TODAY, I really missed:
Latte's, a car, AC, a place to take your kids while its raining, & AC :)
I was thinking to myself all morning that air conditioning, a latte, a car and a place to take my kids on a rainy would just make my day!! Then, i got really frustrated bc I didn't have those things here in Dominica. So, I put the kids in the stroller and went on a walk looking for lizards. Banks loves lizards and she really needed something to do other than run around our cottage naked, her new fave past time, color, run around naked, help me make baby food, yoga and a 10 min workout video with mom. We did all of this before 10:30 a.m. bc it was pouring outside and we all get up at 6 a.m.!! So back to finding lizards...We found a few and even found another Mango tree with perfectly ripe Mango's that I needed for baby food. They were a little too high in the tree so mom and I found a stick and practiced hitting Mango's like pinata' out of trees. Banks was yelling..."good job Mommy"; "Way to go Nonnie". She told me the other day, after handing me a sticker to hold, that I was being her "Best Little Helper" and if I kept if up she would have a surprise for me!! I'm not kidding...She's pretty much hilarious!!
Back to the entitled American story...I was still so blah and all I wanted was to be clean, cool and energized, which I was none of today...blah, blah, blah...I told you I was going to sound like a totally spoiled brat who needed a reality check. Then I saw a blog post from one of my spouse friends here at Ross. It was about a beggar Dominican who asked her very kindly if she minded him going through her trash. This man was not homeless he merely had the mindset of "one's man's trash was another man's treasure". The thing that astounded me the most about the story was that while he was digging through the trash he was praising God for all of the bountiful things he was finding in the trash. He was genuinely so thankful!! While reading I actually started to cry a little because I had just spent my morning yearning for a good coffee, AC, and a car.
Now, I know that in the U.S. those things are very normal and it wouldn't seem out of the ordinary, or even bratty to want. But here in Dominica these things are simply luxuries that most people won't ever have. Being thrust into a drastically different, economically struggling area sure can put a lot of things into perspective.
The way that we live here in Dominica is so above and beyond the way that a normal Dominican lives. I have seen homes literally made out of Bamboo and the dirt is there floor and that's pretty normal here! There are definitely people with nicer places but I would say, for the majority of the native Dominicans, their necessities in life are incredibly minimal compared to ours. And I'm sure you know what I'll say next... and they're HAPPY!!
This island is beautiful and so are the people. I am so thankful for our experience here. Truthfully, I am grateful for having a day like to today because I can't think of anything worse than living on this island and being sheltered from the island. I want to be reminded of all the things that are blessings in my life...my husband, my kids, my family, the opportunity to experience new things, people and places, and way to many other things to list...
Today reaffirmed the fact that coming to Ross and moving to Dominica was the right step for our family. I do believe that if we are open God will place us exactly where we need to be! I believe this is where we're suppose to be!!
On a lighter note :)
This was definitely a "Keeping Up with Amberly" post so to makeup for it!!!
Pictures!!!
...On our way to Banks' first tennis lesson, taught by me :) We encountered a little traffic jam...thanks to the lovely cows that live on the side of our street that serve as lawn mowers!! I wish I had a better pic bc at one time there were 4 cows just posting it up in the middle of road with these seriously long ropes hanging from them. Only in Dominica :)
Banks and I doing yoga while Eloise catnaps in her chair!! She even says "Namaste" :)
Love you all and miss you everyday!!
xoxo
the joneses
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