Our First St.Kitts Christmas Tree

We bought a Christmas tree today!!! Ok, so what if it is fake and not very impressive.....it actually makes it feel like Christmas here! See the video below for the official lighting of our Christmas tree for the first time

A Rainbow Over Ross

It has been crazy windy the last two days....we are definitely in the midst of a storm. Scattered pouring rain, high winds, stormy seas.....but then you get a short break in the rain, and you get to see this: a small rainbow over Ross today

A Centepede.....In Our Room!

Last night when we got home, we walked into our bedroom and found a centepede lying right there in the middle of our floor. Not full size, but still big enough to be scary and gross. He was barely moving, kind of half dead almost. Here is a video:




He may have been on the smaller side, but they can get much much bigger! Yuck!

Random Older Pictures

Eating dinner one night at Rocky's, right on the water



We had a nice little view backs towards Basseterre from Rocky's



Here is Brian hacking up a coconut for Cory to try




Hanging out at Mr. X's Shiggidy Shack for dinner



Brad, Cory, Justin and Jin



After dinner



Here are some shots from our drive around the island. This is a cool old church right next to the water on the far end of the island



And here is a section of the road around the same area of the island that is filled with tons of palm trees



This picture is from orientation week, during one of our first days here. We were downtown getting our driver's licenses and vehicles registered, and we stopped at a vendor downtown for lunch....johnny cakes and chicken. The sandwiches were soooo good, maybe because johnny cakes kind of taste like donuts. Anyway, this is us eating our lunch with other people from our orientation group...Brad and Cory on the left, and Dan, his mom, and his cousin Bobby (who is a mechanic and helped all of us buy reliable cars!)



Here is a pretty flower on Cory's school campus



And Cory's class, doing a meet and greet excercise during orientation (you can see Cory in the middle with his brown shirt and green shorts)



Another day during orientation, they brought Cory's class up to Brimstone Fortress for lunch. Except that it wasn't quite as sunny and nice as the first time we went, and it poured down rain the entire time. Here is his entire class trying to squeeze under a little porch and under the lunch tent to keep dry




Here is Cory with Holly and Brian on that same day at Brimstone (and Joleigh is hiding behind Cory's head)



After the rain finally stopped, Justin led an impromptu reading session outside of our bus. Cory and I had purchased a book about Wilbert the island pig for Cory's niece Reilly, and Justin thought everyone would like to hear the story out loud. Joleigh seemed to enjoy it



And finally, after our rainy time at the Fortress, our bus driver Mr. Rogers took us on a narrated tour of the entire island. Our favorite stop was Black Rock. It is a beach on the far end of the island that is entirely made up of volcanic rock. Very pretty

Volleyball Champions!!!!

On Saturday, Cory's volleyball team played in the end of the semester tournament. They started at 10am and played until 4pm, with short breaks in between for some rest, water, and lunch at the nearby Marriott. They played each team best 2 out 3, but did so well that the third, tie-breaking game was never necessary. They looked better and better with each victory throughout the day, and finally took home the win in the championship game.

Here is the #1 team with their winnings....a case of Corona and two bottles of really good local rum


Good job guys!

Thanksgiving Dinner.....A Day Late

This week, Cory's class had 3 very difficult tests, and everyone has been busy studying, and feeling stressed and tired. They even had one of the tests on Thanksgiving, since Ross University doesn't give holidays off. So instead of having Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, while everyone was still stressed about the test they had just taken, we waited until the next day, Friday.

Our roommate Brooke made the turkey, and everyone else who was invited brought a side dish or helped prepare them at our house. Here is the kitchen just beginning to get messy....it got much worse as the night and cooking continued



Planning out what is going in each pot, and if there will be enough room for everything on the stove



Here are Brooke and Renee taking the turkey out of the oven, and draining the juices to make the gravy



Finally, everything is coming together.....almost time to eat! We had turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, salad, corn, homemade noodles, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce and bread





Here is a little video of the entire experience




And here is everyone enjoying their food, which was soooooo good! Even Abban tried to get in on the dinner






And just look at all of these desserts! We only had 12 people eating at our house, yet we had enough dessert to feed 40 people! There were two jello molds, a pumpkin roll, brownies with peanut butter frosting, a pumpkin pie, and 2 apple pies.....and everything was homemade! Yummmm!



And finally, the entire Thanksgiving group


(this picture is so cute....to view a larger copy for a better look, click
HERE)


I hope everyone else had a delicious dinner for Thanksgiving like we did! It was wonderful food....and best of all, since we hosted the dinner, we have all of the leftovers!! Yah!

Hanging Out With Brad And Justin

As December approaches, soon it will be the end of the semester, and many students are going home for the break. And naturally, since this is a vet school, a lot of students here have pets, which need to be taken care of while their owners are visiting family in the US. Since we are staying on the island for Christmas break, we are doing alot of pet sitting, and one of our clients we are most excited about is Justin's kitten Nyxxie. She is the only pet that we are going to care for at our house instead of going to her house for visits and feeding, so we decided it would be good to bring her over to our house before then, as a practice run to see how she did around our cats.

It was very cute, all she wanted to do was chase Abban and Lladra, and try to get them to play. While Lladra would growl a bit and tend to stay away, Abban seemed a little more interested, and would sit and stare as she attempted to play. Here is a video of one such attempt.

(If you turn it up loud enough, you can hear Nyxxie making little chirping noises at Abban)




Nyxxie ended up spending the night, and crawling all over our faces as we slept every 5 minutes while she attempted to remove my earrings with her teeth. It was a night of little sleep, but it was also fun having a little kitten in the house. After bringing her back home to dad, we hung out with Brad and Justin for awhile.



Then we headed out to dinner at a place none of us had visited yet. The restaurant is called Ballahoo, and it is located in the Circus, the large section of downtown with the roundabout and large clock tower. It is actually on the second floor, so it gives you a nice view looking down into the main section of downtown



We also got to see a small band go by below us, as they practiced for carnival




And the dinner was great!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

I hope everyone back home enjoys a nice big yummy dinner tonight! Since everyone at Cory's school is pretty busy this week, with 3 tests and all, we are having lots of people over for our Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow night. Can't wait!

My Favorite TV Commercial

I love this one! It makes me think of San Diego....

Some Amazing Waterspouts Right In Front Of Our House!

Last week, while Cory was at school, one of his classmates snapped these pictures. Some waterspouts had formed way out over the ocean in front of their school. (They are difficult to see in the 1st picture unless it is enlarged, but she zoomed in closer on the second one)




The waterspouts looked really cool, and I was disappointed that I hadn't been there to see them. Then yesterday, as we came home from watching a football game, I happened to glance over towards the bay as we got out of our car, and there was one forming right in front of our house in Basseterre Bay!


If you watched where it was touching the water, you could see all of the water spraying up and feeding into the waterspout. It is a little difficult to see, but you can just make out the spray of white over the red roof



Then if you looked up to the cloud where it was coming from, this is what you saw



I ran upstairs as fast as I could to get my camera, and was only able to snap a couple of the entire waterspout before it started to hit land and disappear again. Here is a nice big picture so it is easier to see:



I have to say it was one of the coolest things I have ever seen! If you want to learn more about waterspouts, check out this page:

Wikidpedia info on waterspouts

A Day At Gong Beach

On Saturday, we decided to go hang out on the beach somewhere for awhile and give Cory a much needed studying break. We spoke with our friends Holly and Brian, and since they were headed to Gong Beach with their daughter Joleigh, we decided to meet them out there. We love Gong Beach, not only is it beautiful, but we are usually the only ones on the entire beach. Very relaxing!


One thing about Gong Beach (and the reason not many people are usually there) is that it is a bit remote, and you have to head off the main road to find it. Check it out:




And here are some of the pictures we took as well. Since I don't have a panoramic camera, pretend like you are looking out across the beach as you look at each picture







Joleigh just started walking during this last week, and Holly and Brian say she is getting better and better, but she still needed a little bit of help in the uneven sand



We also had lots of fun playing with her in the sand



Brian and Cory dug a hole for her, then buried just her legs. She seemed to enjoy it!








After they dug her back out, she had fun doing some digging of her own




It was a good day. We got out of the house, got some sun, cooled off in the water, hung out with our friends and with Joleigh, and then headed back home for Cory to get back to studying again.