Happy Valentines Day

Once again I get to brag about my amazing husband. Stephen and I were able to attend the deans list honor roll reception this last week. Every semester the Dean will honor those students who made it on the honor roll the previous semester. We were really excited to go. There are about 1,300 students currently at Ross and only 10% of them made the honor roll this last semester. I am so proud of Stephen and how hard he worked for it. I hope he can keep it up every semester here but I will be proud of him either way. It is really hard to keep up a high enough GPA to stay on the honor roll all four semesters. Only a handful of the fourth semesters now were still on it. 

For Valentines Day I wanted to have a really special day but knowing that I am married to a med student I didn't expect much more than going out to dinner. I was really surprised though. On Thursday night Stephen surprised me with ballroom dancing! One of the spouses in the branch is a really talented dancer. She and a group of students got together to surprise their wives with some dancing. They decorated the room with lights and balloons and even found a babysitter for all of the kids. It was a lot of fun learning some dances with Stephen. On Friday our original plan was just to go out to dinner instead of me cooking but Stephen felt caught up enough on studies that he took the whole night off! He surprised me with a beautiful rose and I made him a gift out of a deck of cards that gave 52 reasons why I love him. I decorated our bedroom with rose pedals and candles and splurged on some sparkling cider. When it came time to go out to dinner we were feeling pretty lazy and just ordered take out instead and watched a movie. It was a perfect Valentines Day. 

Just a couple random pictures from the week.

Helping out at the spouses bake sale.

Goodbye party to one of the spouses.

Mini 1 & the Super Bowl

Semester 2 already seems to be flying by. I feel like it just started and Stephen just had had his first mini on Monday. It is so nice to have the first test over with. Stephen of course did great on it. I am so proud of all his hard work he is doing here.
Sunday night we were able to watch the super bowl. Stephen doesn't study much on Sunday and he never likes to study the night before an exam so we had the night to ourselves watching the game. I am not fond of football but I know it meant a lot to Stephen so I made a bunch of treats and tried to color them to match the two teams. We had popcorn, almond cake, brownies, tortilla pizzas, chips, cookies, and root beer. We decided to root for the Seahawks because two of their players graduated from Utah State and Stephen knows them. The only thing I was excited for that was supposedly going to help me get through watching it was the commercials. Well the game was showed through Puerto Rico so we got to watch Spanish commercials. Fun for us...I went to bed after half time anyways. It was still a pretty fun night.
The next day after Stephen's mini we were originally planning on riding our bikes to a snorkel spot where you can find tons of sand dollars but the weather was being up and down so we just relaxed at home for the afternoon. I put in emperors new groove for us to watch and we just hung out in bed. After a few hours of being home we figured we needed to get out for a bit. We weren't able to go for our Sunday walk the day before so we headed to the beach around sunset and walked along it until we ended up at PBH. (a little restaurant that is on the beach by campus). There we watched the rest of the sunset. It was really nice. I just love how we can walk for five minutes and be at the Caribbean ocean and feel like we are on vacation. After the sun set we headed to meet Stan and Taran and their two kids for dinner at The Usual Spot. They are a couple in our branch and they are one of the nicest families. We love hanging out with them and loved going to dinner with friends.
It really is days and nights like these spending the day with Stephen and having dinner with awesome friends that get us all through medical school. It is a tough few years but I am so lucky to have such an amazing husband and friends who almost make it easy and fun.

Random pic of my bike. It is a big part of my life here.

I just love these signs at one of our favorite restaurants here.

The Usual Spot - Best Chinese on the Island.

Super Bowl 2014

Post Anyway

I have debated whether or not to write a new post because I feel like nothing has really happened in the last two weeks. Then I have to remind myself to "post anyway." Even though I feel nothing is happening life is always happening and I want to look back on this blog (journal) some day and remember what life in Dominica was like even when I thought nothing was happening. So here is my post of not really anything.
I mentioned in my last post that I got hired as a standardized patient. I was able to do my first set of shifts with students this last week. I wasn't to nervous because I figured the students will be pretty nervous since this is their first time really diagnosing patients. I was definitely right. A couple of them were so nervous their hands were shaking. Overall they were really professional and did a great job. I was really impressed. It was a lot of fun doing it and will be a pretty fun job that I hopefully get to keep the rest of the semesters here.
There were a couple spouses activities that I went to this last couple weeks. The first week of classes I went to Roseau with a group of spouses. Every semester we get to go on a free transport to the capital where food is cheaper and you can get really heavy things because the transport will drop you off at your home. So it is a good time to stock up on things if you need to. I knew I would get car sick and didn't really need to buy much but went anyways and it was really nice getting to know some of the new spouses. Plus I was able to get some groceries. For the last two Saturdays a few of us spouses have been meeting at the family lounge to play games. Both times have been a lot of fun and I think we might start doing it regularly. It has been kind of crappy weather the last couple weeks so we haven't all been meeting up at the pool which we normally do. So this has been a fun way to meet up and chat. I can't complain though, it has still been in the 80's here unlike Utah being in the 20's. I have not been missing winter at all this year!
Stephen and I recently started doing Insanity Monday through Saturday in the mornings before he starts studying. We have a pretty regular group of four of us that go but have had six people come a couple times. We just finished week 3 today but my body was screaming at me during this mornings workout that it needs a break. This is the first time I have ever worked out this way and it is tough. I do love how I am noticing improvements in how hard I can push myself. I will only get better, at least that's what I keep telling myself. We will probably start it up every semester. Along with insanity I have started keeping track more of what I eat in a day. I never thought I'd be one for counting calories but it is kind of awful and nice at the same time knowing how much I eat everyday.
Well that's about it for the last couple weeks. I am still enjoying my mornings off but I am learning pretty quick I need to find ways of spending my time better.

Random pic of us all being squished in the transport for church.
I just love these people so much! They are pretty awesome.