Winter Break

Our winter break started when Bryant finished finals on Dec. 13th.  We spent about a week and a half here on our island doing things like going to the beach, making Christmas cookies and sharing them with others at the beach, and going to Grenadian Christmas lights displays.  Here's the 3-picture recap for you:

La Sagesse beach on a day with the biggest waves I've ever seen in the Caribbean.

Christmas cookie swap in the pavilion at Grand Anse Beach.  I can't take credit for these adorable cookies, my friend Lizzy made them, but I couldn't eat them until I had a picture!

This was taken the night before we left Grenada (Dec. 22nd) at the light display.  That is a giraffe, in case you can't tell.  Quite a different sort of Christmas display than we're used to!

Thanks to the generosity of our family members, Bryant and I were able to return home for Christmas and New Year's.  My favorite part about the flight home was the discovery of just how incredibly awesome the exit row seats are.  Awesome enough that, despite Bryant's total aversion to spending money, we are now thinking of shelling out the extra $50 per person to always fly in the exit rows.  We're talking about better-than-first-class leg room here.  I checked. 

I even took a picture because I was so excited.  Honestly, Bryant started to get embarrassed by how much I was going on.  "Seriously, Bryant, these seats are better than first class!  Can you believe how much room I have?!  Look at how far I can stretch out my legs!"  He started ignoring me after a while.  In my defense it was early in the morning and I was giddy with the prospect of eating Wendy's in the Miami airport at the end of the flight.

We loved the cold, the food (we had almost forgotten what things like beef, ice cream, apples, and fast food tasted like), and, of course, our families and friends. I wore the same pair of jeans and the same pair of tennis shoes every day for three weeks--don't worry, I washed my jeans at least once a week--and loved it.  Also, my hair.  I've never had so much fun doing my hair.  It's so long!  And I look so different when it's not crazy-curly! 

We spent Christmas Eve morning with my family and then drove down to Bryant's parents house that evening to spend the night there and Christmas morning with them. 

Here we are on Christmas morning.  Seriously, I've never been so excited to curl my hair in my entire life.  Later on that day, we headed to my grandpa's house for a white elephant exchange, to which my cousin brought what was perhaps the most perfect white elephant gift I have ever seen.

I'll give you a moment to soak it all in.  She bought the Barbie at a dollar store, then used shampoo and a q-tip to stick her husband's trimmed beard hairs to the legs, slipped in a cheap razor and added the words "Shave My Legs" to the label.  When I first saw it, I genuinely thought Mattel was making these things.  Terrible.

We spent the next three weeks bouncing between the two families, and sometimes overlapping our time.  One day while staying with the Van Leeuwens, we agreed to babysit Keagan (my sister's son).  We ended up taking him to the planetarium along with Jared's (Bryant's brother) two kids, Caden and Bethany. 

Here we are playing with the big electric ball.  Keagan is the one in the green, Caden is in the blue.

 

And here I am with Keagan and Bethany right before we went in to watch the kid's film they were showing.  Caden and Bethany LOVED it, but Keagan got bored after about 10 minutes and spent the next half hour doing headstands on the seat and running laps around the theater.  Thank goodness it was in the dome theater because everyone was looking up and hardly no one witnessed the spectacle of Megan-the-incompetent-aunt trying in vain to make the two year old sit down. 

On a related note, this is what he did when his mom came to pick him up a couple hours later.  I got in the car to chat with Jess (my sister) for a minute and told Keagan to climb back into his seat.  Turned around a minute later to find this. 

Apparently squeezing into the small space above the seats is just as good as getting in your actual car seat.

We also got to spend some time with friends, at restaurants, and in movie theaters.  I have no pictures to verify those claims, so you'll have to just take my word for it.  New favorite movie:  Austenland.  Seriously.  Hilarious.  Even the guys who have seen it have thought it was funny, so if you haven't watched it, do so now. 

The rest of our time was spent with family, and mostly Bryant's (since his parents helped us out with our tickets to come back, we thought it was only fair to spend more time with them).  We went to an ice castle one day.  Honestly, it was a man-made ice castle.

Just looks like a bunch of ice, right?  Let me give you a few shots that put it in perspective.

Remember how tall I am?  Yeah, I know, huge.  And the ice was taller!  Just think how tall that is! ;)

Another perspective shot.  I can't believe someone ran enough water in the dead of winter to make this thing.  It was a beautiful blue color, like a glacier, in most places and white in others.  So pretty and unique!  And just because it made me laugh:

This is what Bryant did when I told him to get closer to the ice so people would be able to see it in the pictures.  "Is this close enough?"

And now, the random singular photos of some of our other favorite moments:

Tubing at Soldier Hollow with Bryant's siblings.  Seriously, how tan am I?  It looks fake when there is snow all around.

Keagan at Coldstone.  The kid picked orange sherbet with M&Ms.  And loved it.

We went on a hike up Little Cottonwood Canyon, on the Temple Quarry Trail.  I hate to admit it, but I miss the snow.  A tiny bit.  Not enough to leave the beach, but a tiny bit.

 

Family and friends, we miss you all so much while we're away!  Thanks to all of you who let us spend some of our time with you this holiday season!!

P.S. I've added a link on the sidebar to a great blog that was just started today by a group of childless LDS women.  I'm not part of the group that started the blog, but I think it's a great resource and have added it to my list of blogs I will check every day.  Please share it with anyone you know who is feeling alone in their struggles to have children!

Hashurday

One Saturday in November (yes, I do realize it's January now, sorry about that), I got together with some other SOs to do what's called a Hash.  Basically, a Hash is a big running/walking event that takes place somewhere on the island every Saturday.  The trail is scouted out and marked beforehand, and everyone just gets together to either walk or run (there are two trails) through some cool, secluded areas.  This was my first Hash, and I walked it--if you know me, you know that running is not my idea of a good time--with Mallory and her husband Garrett. 

Mallory and I had been promising each other for weeks that we'd go together since all our other friends like running and we....don't.  So we finally did, and we completely regretted it during the first part.  So.  Many.  Hills.

Here's one of the hills from halfway up.  Note that you cannot see the bottom.

And here is the rest of that hill facing the other way (I totally used picture-taking as an excuse to rest here!)  The hill continues up and to the left there, past that house and up behind it to the right.  And this was just one of the 4 or 5 hills.  Mallory and I were definitely cursing our former vigor for Hashing.

But eventually, we got to the top of all the hills and it was pretty much all downhill from there, and we were out of the little town and in the jungle/forest-y area, which was much prettier.

Here's Mallory with the donkey we found randomly tied to a tree in the middle of the forest.  There were many inappropriate jokes about Mallory and her cute little...well, you know.

We were some of the last people back because we kept not paying attention to trail markers and missed a turn not once, not twice, but three times and had to turn around, go back, and figure out where we had gone wrong.  But finally, we made it back.  And here's where things took an exciting turn.

 

They were selling some cheap local food at the end for those of us who actually made it.  (Please ignore the sweat stains.  It's really hot and humid here.)  My food was great, but poor Mallory made an unpleasant discovery in hers.



 

I made the picture extra large so you'd be sure to notice it.  That is a piece of pork.  Mallory said, "Ew, there's hair on it!"  One of the other SOs said, "...so pick it off."  Mallory replied, "NO!  There's HAIR on it!!!"  Yup, that's pig hair, my friends.  I had to talk her into not throwing it away immediately so I could take this picture.  That is genuinely what her face looked like during this ordeal.  No more pork for Mallory.

 

 

Here is my, admittedly too cheerful, attempt to explain to everyone else that it was pig hair and not human hair.  Mallory was too traumatized to express herself clearly.

 

 

After we had all eaten, they asked all first-time Hashers to come forward.  I had heard some rumors and was pretty sure about what came next, but all our friends were adamant that we go up, so I played along.  Here we are all listening to the man giving the speech about Hashing.  Notice the people with bottles behind us.

 

We got sprayed with beer.  The picture on the left was taken the second they started spraying.  The picture on the right is me apologizing to Mallory because between these two pictures, I jumped in between her and her husband and crouched down to avoid getting too wet.  Notice how soaked the two of them are compared to me. :) Mallory may or may not have aimed some expletives at me during the beer shower.

 



 

But here we are, friends again, with our certificates saying we survived a Hash!  The best part was getting home to Bryant, who immediately asked, "Why do you smell like beer?  And why are you all sticky?"  I followed that up with a real hot-water-and-soap shower and went to bed.

Thankful

Sometimes I get so caught up in what I don't have here that I forget to be thankful for what I do.  I still love it here in Grenada, but on a daily basis I catch myself sighing wistfully and thinking, "If only there was [a Target, a Wal-Mart, well-paved roads, garbage cans with lids to keep out the cats,  etc.]!" So here's my post of all the things I'm grateful for here.  Some of them are more sarcastic than others, but it's all meant from a place of love.

• An apartment with 12 foot ceilings and lots of windows (it's always so bright in here!)
• A great landlord
• Getting to smile every time a local says anything with a "th" in it

This menu was obviously printed by a Grenadian who decided that since no one in Grenada pronounces the "th" correctly, they might as well get rid of that silly "h"

• Warm weather every day
• Fruits that always keep you guessing

Which ones are the lemons and which ones are the limes?  Yes, those yellow ones are the limes.  Well done.

• Books
• Internet

So much online TV watching...

• A government that is willing to lend us hundreds of thousands of dollars so that Bryant can pursue his dream while I hang out in the sun
• The beach

• The pool

One day a palm tree branch fell on the pool.  Luckily, Mallory was there to heave it out and pose for me.  So, I'm also thankful that no one has been injured in the pool (seriously, that thing was HEAVY)

• SOs who are always around to have a good time with

• Friends (this includes most of those SOs)
• Fences that keep the big scary dogs in their yards
• The critters that get in my house are cute (sometimes)

 Yes, that is a tiny little lizard on my wall!  We chilled together while I did dishes the other day.

• Even when they're not, I have a husband or a can of Baygon to deal with them

 

This is the slat that our mattress rests on.  Forgive the blurry picture, I was freaking out about the COCKROACH ON MY BED!  Don't worry, Bryant got it.  Hence, the thanks.

• Our families
• Airplanes to go visit our families
• Buses

I am so thankful for the buses, but there is a mystery I am trying to solve.  This is an illustration that is pasted to the inside of every one of the school bus doors.  The first one I saw was more beat up and I assumed some words were just scratched out.  But no.  Can anyone figure out what this is saying?

• Curly hair (at least on this island)
• The fact that I didn't have to eat this (story soon to come)

• A marriage that, as of today, has been exactly 3 1/2 years of happy

Day Tripping with the SOs

Almost a month ago now (oops) I went on a day trip with a bunch of other SOs.  We loaded up on two buses, headed off at 8 in the morning, and didn't get back until 4.  There were two big jugs of rum punch on my bus and despite the fact that Mallory and I didn't drink, the other 10 people polished them off easily.  Needless to say, our bus was a bit rowdier than the other one!  We had a blast and it was a nice change of pace to actually have something that took up my whole day.

We started off by going to the nutmeg factory.  Factory is used in the loosest sense here.  There were only about 10-15 workers in the whole place and none of them were working very quickly.  The tour was fairly boring, but the place itself was interesting--albeit rather old and outdated-looking.

This sign was one of my favorite parts.  Apparently their workers aren't supposed to talk to each other while they work?

 

This was the part of the factory where they just let the nutmeg dry.  It was basically an entire floor of these wooden bunk-bed looking things full of nutmeg:

They label the end of the trough with the date the nutmeg was placed and they take it back down to the main floor for processing after three months.  And unfortunately I got distracted having a quiet conversation at the back of the group (boring tour, remember?), so I didn't get any more pictures.  I still think those nutmeg beds were the most interesting part.

After the nutmeg factory, we headed up to the Seven Sisters waterfalls.  Yes, the same waterfalls I jumped off (and failed to jump off) only a few weeks earlier.  I didn't get any pictures here, but the waterfall was thick and brown with mud, as was the pond, thanks to the copious amounts of rain we had.  No one hiked up to jump and we only stayed at the pool long enough to eat our lunches before we hiked back out.  I swam in the pond with some other SOs and thanks to the wind and the spray from the waterfall, we actually got cold!  There were goosebumps and everything!

Here are some of the girls after we hiked back out from the waterfalls.  They are the real housewives of Grenada (more on that later)

When we got back on the bus, someone asked me to fishtail braid their hair.  I then proceeded to braid the hair of pretty much every girl on the bus.  Luckily I didn't get seasick, but I did (apparently) make a weird braiding face.

Here's some of my handiwork:

After the waterfalls we stopped t the rum factory and were treated to yet another tour.  This one was more interesting, but I still don't really remember any specifics.

We all got to wear hard hats, though, and that was fun!

Here are some of the giant tools they used to use as well as some of the old machinery.  Who knew rum distilling used such big equipment?

 

I've got to say that visiting the rum distillery definitely did NOT make me want to drink any rum. 

 

 

Doesn't that look appetizing?  The smell was pretty gross, too, but most of the SOs did sample a lot of the rums afterward and said they were good.  I'm ok with not finding out, though.  After the distillery we all loaded back up on the buses and returned to campus.  On our ride back a group of us decided we should start a TV show called The Real Housewives of Grenada.  There is a definite lack of drama in our group, but we brainstormed quite a few ways we could ignite the drama.  I'll let you know if we ever get our idea picked up by a TV studio, because I know you would all be dying to watch!