Our Story: Bring on the new year, Its gonna be good

Well its a new year! I am really excited about 2014. It is going to be a pretty crazy year. We will be living on the island for almost all of it. Right before Christmas is when we will be moving back to the states. I have to admit that we have started off the new year pretty great. We celebrated new years eve and day with Stephens family. Then a couple days later we headed back to our beautiful home in Dominica.

It was a great week off before school started back up. As much as I thought I wouldn't say it, I actually looked forward to coming back to Dominica. I definitely miss friends and family and just living in the US, but Dominica is our home for now and it feels comfortable to us. This week we did a ton of stuff starting off with going to see the cold sulfur pots and Bwa Nef Falls which was awesome. The cold sulfur pots were actually bubbling with cold sulfur. We of course couldn't resist touching it. The hike to Bwa Nef Falls was quick and really fun. The trail was mostly through the river and then ended at this really pretty waterfall. Pictures don't do it justice. It really is an awesome waterfall. The most adventurous thing we did over the week was hike to boiling lake. That hike is on my Dominican bucket list so it deserves its own blog post that will be coming after this one.

Over the weekend we were able to rent a car for a couple days and headed to the Fort Young Hotel again which is always a fun time. We went snorkeling at Champagne Reef and visited coco cottages where you can see how chocolate is made here on the island. Champagne Reef has been by far our favorite snorkeling spot yet. What is so cool about it is that there are underwater geothermal spring vent gasses that are in the form of thousands of warm bubbles! Plus the water was so clear and we saw some huge super colorful fish. It is pretty amazing! Our favorite food this week was a little French bakery that is part of the French embassy in Roseau. The pastries we got the first day were so good that we had to go back the next day and eat some delicious pizza with goat cheese.

It has been such a great first break from school. Christmas and going home to be with family was so amazing and I can't say enough of how grateful we are to my brother for flying us home. Once we got back to the island it was so nice having a week with just the two of us to play and have fun before semester two starts up. I feel like we did just enough during the break that we are ready to start up again with positive attitudes. Bring on semester two and the new year!

Happy New Year!