Our view

These are a few pictures of the island from right outside our home. We are very high up and get a really good view. The Mountain in the distance that is made up of two humps is the point where the Caribbean sea and the Atlantic ocean meet! And then you can see all the green that we have here. It is amazing how green it really is, however with all the rain it soundn't be that hard to believe. There are also a lot of beautiful flowers everywhere. It is very pretty here.

a trip to the beach

Just thought I would post some pictures of a trip to the beach. We went right down to the ocean from the school, not the nicest beach around, but it was really fun for the kids, and the first time they and Erick had swam in the ocean!

Our first Sunday

Our first Sunday was such a blessing. Up until that point there was NOTHING familiar. So when we got to church it was so nice to be somewhere that didn't see like a foreign country!!!

The building is nothing like our churches back home, it looks like a building off Seseme Street. It has one of those hanging signs with the chains on each side. Pretty crazy. We have sacrament on the second floor, as well as sunday school and priesthood, then on the bottom floor is primary and relief society. You can't get to the different floors from inside, so you have to go out side and either up or down the stairs to get to the other rooms. But it is air conditioned, and a really nice building, so we are greatful for all of that! It is BRIGHT green, and it's three stories high. Basically a house or store turned into a church. So don't look for the steeple to direct you. I remember working for the red cross and not knowing where the church was that we were supposed to be at ( and with no help from the recruiters either), but if you got in the general area you could look for the steeple and find it. Nope not here. Look for the bright green building!

We actually got lost looking for the church and went on a small detour. So we finally asked a guy where we needed to go and he told us a street name! That would be so helpful if the streets had names of them, but none of them do. So we kept walking and found someone else to ask, and then we saw where all the other white people dressed up were going and finally found the church.

It is really quite gross, but we are really sweaty by the time we get to church since it is an hour walk from our house! The first day I was a little embarrassed, until I saw everyone else was in the same boat. I have had to get over my phobia of a shiny face. I used to hate it when my face would be shiny from oil or whatever. and I always carried powder with me just in case. However, here I just know it is going to be and that is life! And since everyone else is dealing with it, it doesn't really stick out:)

We love it here and are having a great time. So all the adventures are well worth it. Plus it's great for story telling.

Here are some pics of the church!

after arriving at the school

Once we got to the school and was safely on solid, unmoving ground we found all of our luggage again. They had just unloaded the trucks and you gathered you stuff up again and made yet another pile of your belongings. This would actually be pretty embarrassing if not everyone was doing the same thing! But once again we gathered all of our stuff and the office found someone to take us to our house. I am so glad we had pre-arranged housing. Some people came not knowing where they were going to be living, so they stayed the first night at the housing office and the next day they were taken on a housing tour to find a place to live. I think this is a great service, however with two kids and that much luggage it was nice to have a place already lined up and waiting for us. Mostly because it ment one less gathering and moving of all our stuff:)

When we got to our house, we unloaded the luggage and met the landlords. They were awesome! Kyler was asleep by this time so it was nice to be able to lay him down somewhere. Our landlords stayed and visited for a while, and our neighbors who we had met online came over to introduce themselves. But then everyone was gone and Erick and I looked at each other, and at the same time thought, "We have no water, no food, we don't know where anything is, and the kids are hungery." We didn't know what we were going to do, and then all of a sudden someone knocked on the door. It was Craig and Ralna Wade. They are third semester, and they were looking for a family that had two kids that were suposed to be coming in that day. They were hosting them for dinner that night and help them get accuainted with the island. They had gone to the Housing office and they told them that we were the only family with kids that had come in that day and told them where they had dropped us off at. Luckily they have a vehicle here on the island, so they drove up looking for them and found us. We could not have been any more blessed. They are awesome people, and immediatly Ralna said, "Okay get in the car and we will take you to Tina's, she is the only store still open and get you some food and water. They showed us around the store and helped me through me shock!

The Stores here are like convienent stores back home. There is only one register and a small counter. They acually stuff quite a bit of stuff in the stores especially for how small they are. But it was a real shock to see and know that this is where I will be shopping for the next 16 months. The prices are in sane, I bought a box of Post Honey Comb cereal for $25.00 and a box of generic lucky charms for $8.00. I was about to cry when I checked out with only a few groceries and they told me my total was over $300.00. Rlana kept telling me, "It's okay, this is what we all do, we have to feed our families and there will be good days and bad days and we just deal with all of them." It was nice to have her there helping me, and knowing that she had been there too.

The next day was not quite as eventful. We went to breakfast at the school, toured the campus, and had lunch at Subway. It tasted so good to have a turkey sandwhich. We then went to the bank to open an account and the cell phone store to get phones. We stopped by Bryn's school to see where she would be going and that was really fun for her. It is really cute and looks just like a school back home. The classes are really small since it will only be kids of students and professors attending. After this he had held the kids off long enough, they had been asking to go swimming since they woke up, so we went to the beach.

It was really fun. They don't have huge sandy beaches like some islands, since this island was made from a volcano, but they have beaches, and they are still really fun. Kyler was a little hesitent at first which is not like Kyler with water. But he finally warmed up and then loved it. After his first turn out in the middle with Erick it was Bryn's turn to go out with him. Kyler was standing right by me, and I looked down to turn the camera on to take a picture of Bryn with Erick and when I looked up Kyler was gone! He had ran to the water and had fallen down, so he was under the water and couldn't get up. It scared all of us so bad, and we had ANOTHER huge talk about how we have to be careful at the beach. I should have know better anyway with Kyler, but I only glanced down to turn the camera on and he was gone.

On our way home we got in our first rain storm. It rained really hard then all of a sudden stopped. When it first started it was like the kind of rain back home, that when it starts you know it is going to be a long, cold day. However here, it is still really hot and humid even when it rains, and then it just stops and it's over. It doesn't ruin the whole day.

The first morning!

A view from our house. This is looking back to the south. The kids love to see all the sailboats!

The Tennis courts, that made Erick so happy to see!

Bryn on campus at the basketball courts.

Kyler Found a basketball court, and between that and the water he is happy!

Is There Life After a Plane Ride Into Dominica?

After we survived the plane ride and landing, and got all our luggage, the next adventure was getting to the school. At the airport, there were a lot of men that work for Ross University there helping get the luggage packed in the trucks. And when I say trucks, I mean like the c-biscuit. We are not taking nice vans, or some other vehicle that is inclosed. Nope- a big pick up truck. Then men were throwing things in the back of the trucks as fast as they could, but we had no idea what the "PLAN" was. I just kept thinking, "I hope I see those things again." But no need to worry. All the trucks were going to the same place. Ross University.

As you can see they did use a tarp to cover the trucks which was nice, but wow what a site!

We were the last ones out which we did on purpose, we all had to go through customs and since we had the most stuff we let everyone else go first and waited until the end. When we got up to the counter, the guy looked at all of our stuff and asked us why we were in Dominica, so we told him for Medical School, and all he said was, "Okay you can go ahead." He didn't look in anything or ask any other questions. I think he was just ready for his break, but what ever the reason we really lucked out. Since we were last thought we had to wait for all the people fileing for missing luggage. So the truck with our luggage had long gone before we ever left. But we got on our way and had a really good driver. (As if I know a good driver form another here right!) But he was very informative and told us a lot about the island our our drive. It was really interesting but I kept thinking, "I wish he would just watch the road and not worry about being a guide right now.

The roads are very narrow and really winding. I can't even begin to describe them to you in a way to do it any justice, however, it is wide enough for barely two cars, but in some places only one car can fit. Which means the cars coming the other way have to wait, the worst part is that these really narrow parts always seem to be right before a huge turn in the road. There are no lines on the roads, not speed limit signs, and no police anywhere. Our driver in my opinion was driving rather fast especially for the turns and so natually we caught up to the slowest person on the road. Well like I said very narrow roads, so since he can't just pass, we drives clear up until it looks like we are going to hit him, then he honks and backs off just a tiny bit. Then be does it again. This goes on and on until we fially get to a place that he feels is okay to pass, However in Utah I know it would totally be a double yellow line, and he goes around them. Oh and I forgot to tell you, they drive on the left side of the road, so it feels all wrong to begin with. Then they also have very deep cement ditches off the sides of the road for flooding during the rainy season, so it honestly looks like you are going to fall right off the edge of the road. Now I haven't even mentioned pedestians, but they don't have the right of way here and there are no sidewalks. We would be going along at a pretty good pace and turn a corner to find a bunch of kids walking on the road and barely miss them. I don't think he was really even trying to miss I was just a good thing that their moms had taught them to get out of the way when a truck is coming! Luckily there were no fatalities on our ride! I don't dare ask about any of the other groups that came in.

The Plane Ride

So I thought it would be the easiest if I took the past week and broke it into smaller "chapters"!

To start with, the day we left Erick had a final in his last class. So my parents and the kids and I met him when that was done and had a really nice lunch before the long journey. We were so glad to have my parents there to help us, because we had a lot of stuff. We were at the limit as to what we could take, so that ment 8 checked bags, and 8 carry on items! We were LOADED! So we got to the airport, and luckily made it through security pretty easily. We had all our electronics in one bag, so that we only had to unload on bag. However I had stuffed my backpack clear full, so they also had to search that. I guess they couldn't see past all the treats on the scanner to see what else there was. Oh yea, and I had an Iron in one bag and didn't know that had to be taken out so we had to remove that and send that bag back through. It was quite a site! Everyone was commenting on how much stuff we had. One guy told us we must have the record on how many of those little gray totes we used:)!

So the flight from SLC to JFK was really good. The kids were amazing, and didn't complain once. Bryn, however fell asleep right as we landed, and stayed asleep. We got there at 11:30pm and didn't leave the next day until 7am. So we had a hotel room to stay at for a few hours and Bryn was so excited to stay there. We finally found out how to get to the hotel. They wanted us to walk to an air train to get there, but the security guy told us to tell the fromt desk that we had kids and they would come pick us up, so that is what happened, we had a wait a few extra minutes but they came right to the front door and picked us up. Bryn was asleep in the stroller and we were able to get the stoller on the bus with removing one tire and keeping Bryn in and asleep. We got to the hotel, ckecked in and found our room and moved Bryn to the bed. After four hours we got up and didn't the process again in reverse. When we got to the airport, Bryn woke up, and asked when we were going to go to the hotel! She was very upset that we had already been there and left!

The line in JFK for international travel was insane and they kept letting people in front of us, which was very annoying especially since the kids were hungery and we were cutting our time pretty close as it was. However we made it through that line and security pretty easily.

Both kids slept the whole way from New York to San Juan. It was a really short night and we were very grateful that they were able to sleep.

When we arrived in San Juan, there was a lady from Ross University there to help us with the customs forms and answer any questions. That was really helpful. There we took a bus out to the plane and the kids thought that was really cool. It was a really small plane, and actually a little scary. We got on and took off and that was the easy part. When we arrived in Dominica, I thought we were going to die! The plane circled around a few times and was really close to the trees and mountain and then went to land, however all You can see is dirt. They do have a runway but it is very small, and can only hold one plane at a time, so you can't see it out the window. It litterally looks like you are going to crash and feels the same. The wheels touched the ground and the plane was swaying from side to side. It didn't effect the kids however, Bryn kept saying, "This is so awesome!"

So we got off the plane and headed into the airport if you can call it that. It was one room with a desk to check passports and then a big open area, where the guys would set your luggage after they took it off the plane. Yep- there is no conveyer belt to watch for luggage! You just watch the guys, holding your breath hopeing that everything got there. Once again with 16 bags we were sure we would miss something! But Thank goodness we got it all! All 16 bags, a stoller, 2 kids and 2 adults. We were very thankfull especailly since there were 4 people there that didn't get ANY of their luggage. I am sure they were looking at all of our stuff and thinking, "If you didn't have so much my stuff probably would have come!" But that's life, I sure before this adventure is over it will be our turn to be in their shoes!

I am going to stop there for now and continue with the story tonight!

Dominica from a bird's eyeview

Getting the luggage in Dominica

Our stock pile. We stayed out of the way while Erick got the luggage. Our best idea yet! (and yes kyler is wearing jammies, we are still working on breaking that habit!)

We have ARRIVED!

Okay, so we arrived a week ago, but we haven't had the internet until today. And wow does it feel good to be back with the living. It is so funny how much we depend on the internet. When you don't have access to it you really see just how much. It is really late tonight so I will bring you all up to date for the last week tomarrow.
Since the internet is up and running that mean our vonage phone is up and running too. You can call us on that any time, and we also have cell phones with Dominican phone numbers that we will get out to all of you. However the vonage will be your best bet to call us since it is a U.S. Number.