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!

Welcomed back to Dominica with a beautiful rainbow!

Cold sulfur springs!

Le Petit Paris Bakery

Champagne Reef

First Christmas as Mr. & Mrs. Peirce

It has been such a great holiday break for us. Once we finally made it to Utah we spent a couple days in Logan and then a few days in Kaysville with Stephens family. We did quite a bit of driving back and forth that two weeks but it was so nice having both of our families so close together. Stephen and I had a list of four movies we wanted to watch while we were back in the states. They were catching fire, the hobbit, thor 2, and enders game. All of them were awesome! I miss going to the movies. We made a habit of going to the 3$ night movies on Tuesdays the summer before moving here. It was always a lot of fun. One night while staying in Kaysville we drove to see the Layton lights and then just drove around for a bit getting lost and looking at the lights on peoples homes. It was so nice to have the freedom to get in the car and drive around wherever we wanted to go and whenever we wanted to. The Sunday before Christmas we went to Stephen's parents ward for church in the morning. It was nice visiting with some of his favorite people from home. Then we headed to Logan and went to my parents ward. That evening we were at Stephen's grandmas with his family. She was so surprised to see us. I wish I had my camera to take a picture of her hugging Stephen. It was the most precious moment. She was so excited to have him home. We had turkey dinner, played some games and watched his parents, aunt, and uncle open their presents from his grandma. It was a really fun night.
The rest of the week before Christmas we spent with my family. We celebrated Jesse's birthday and had a big steak and shrimp dinner one night. We were also able to go to the Temple one time and it was really nice being able to go back. We really miss living right across the street from it. On Christmas Eve we had a great thanksgiving style dinner. Stephen and I left for about an hour or so and got some last minute gifts for everyone. Christmas Eve was perfect because the entire family was all together. We felt very blessed to be able to be home to see our families. On Christmas morning we opened presents and had our traditional Christmas breakfast with my family. That afternoon was when we went to the hobbit and then came home and had cheese, crackers, and apple slices for dinner. That is always my favorite little treat at Christmas time. Overall Christmas was wonderful. Stephen got me a very pretty snowflake necklace. I got us both a home t-shirt so that we can remember home while we finish out our stay here in Beautiful Dominica.
After Christmas we spent one more day with my family and took some family photos, then had a delicious family dinner at the Elements. The next day we headed off to Vegas with Stephen's family to visit his sister for the weekend. That was a lot of fun. We played games and spent a lot of quality time together. Us girls were able to go do some shopping together while the boys did house work and played with the kids. One night we all went to the strip and saw the botanical gardens at the Bellagio. It was really cool. Then we went and did my favorite thing there is to do in Vegas and watched the Bellagio fountains. It was really nice being with his whole family for a few days. It was a really busy couple weeks and we loved every minute of it!

We got the white Christmas we wanted!

 Stephen with Clay and Kaylee!

Temple Square

One of my favorite winter traditions is to go to Temple Square to see the lights. Stephen and I were able to spend a day in Salt Lake together. We started the day out by going to the mall of course! I have missed shopping so much the last four months being away. We really enjoyed people watching as everyone was frantically buying last minute Christmas gifts. After shopping we headed to City Creek in down town Salt Lake and had dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. It is one of our favorite places to eat. After dinner we looked around the mall and of course went to my favorite store Tiffany's. Then we went and looked at all the lights. It actually wasn't too cold which was perfect for us because we have been freezing since being back in Utah. We especially enjoy being at Temple Square now because we were married there 7 months ago and love remembering that perfect day.

Now that's my kind of Christmas tree!

We'll be home for Christmas

Early November
We are going home for Christmas! It is a surprise...but Stephen and I will be spending Christmas in Utah!!! We hadn't planned to go home because it is just to expensive. We decided our only visit home would be in April at our half way mark of living on the Island. Neither one of us were admitting it but we were both pretty bummed we weren't going to be with our families for Christmas.
We were so very happy and grateful when we found out that one of my wonderful brothers thought it would be nice for the whole family to be together for Christmas. So he offered to fly us home for a couple weeks! Stephen and I were both in shock for a few days after finding out we would be home for Christmas. We had been mentally preparing ourselves for not going home until April but immediately got so excited. So excited that it was hard to focus on anything but the fact of going home.
Christmas really is my favorite time of year. What I love most of all about it is being with family. I feel so blessed to have such an amazing family and husband.
The reason I waited so long to post this is because once we found out we were coming home we decided we would surprise Stephen's family in Utah!

December 16th- travel day one
Finally heading home! We have literally been counting down the days on a paper chain for over 5 weeks now just waiting to come home. This morning we woke up at 4:00 am to head to the airport. Our first flight was scheduled to leave at 8:30 from Dominica to Antigua. Well it left over an hour late. We only had an hour and a half layover in Antigua. So once off the plane we hurried to our next flight that should have left in 5 minutes. We made it to the gate to find out that it to was delayed. About an hour later we left for San Juan, and landed about 15 minutes after our connecting flight to Philadelphia had taken off. Our entire plane was pretty upset because half of us missed connecting flights because of Liat. Liat is a Caribbean airline that are notoriously known for having delayed and canceled flights. So we knew ahead of time that we had about a 15% chance of making our flight to Philly. Unfortunately there were no other flights that day to Salt Lake City other than the one we missed. We tried to get on a new flight to Philadelphia but as the lady was checking us in on it the flight closed and we couldn't get any seats. So she quickly checked us in on a flight to Charlotte NC and we barely made that one with about 15 minutes to spare. I refused to spend a night in San Juan. I just wanted America! Once to Charlotte we went to talk to a US Airways worker to see if she had better options for us than the worker in San Juan of getting home before late the next day. She didn't give us a lot of hope. So we went to delta to see how much it would cost just to fly home upfront. That would have been 800$ a person. I then looked up flights to Salt Lake for the next morning. Like the worker said they were all full but we asked her about standby options. Our flight was for 1:00 the next day but there were three flights before that one to Phoenix. She put us on the standby list for the next morning. Then we went to the front desk and found us a hotel for the night. It was a nice little 50$ a night hotel close to the airport. We headed there and went straight to bed after midnight.

December 17th - travel day two
We woke up at 5:00 am and headed back to the airport to get on standby. The first flight to Phoenix was at 7:30. Once to the gate we got some breakfast and waited for the plane to board. They called our names once almost everyone was boarded and told us they had room for us on the plane! We were so excited. Off to Phoenix six and a half hours earlier than schedule. We just had one last flight to get on before making it home. There were 3 scheduled flights to Salt Lake before the evening one that we had. Once to Phoenix we hurried to the departure gate for the first flight out to Salt Lake. We asked her if there was any way we could get on the flight. She said it would cost 75$ a person because it wasn't a full flight. We took it! We boarded shortly after that and made it to Salt Lake City by 1:00 pm. We were finally home and freezing after traveling for 36 hours.

Our plan for surprising Stephens family was to show up while they were all together having dinner in Salt Lake. We had my mom call and set up a dinner with them and my parents in Salt Lake for the 17th, but Stephen and I were going to be the ones to show up instead. We were stressing like crazy thinking we weren't going to make it in time because of all our missed flights but we were persistent enough we made it happen. It was great! The restaurant we were meeting them at was at the gateway mall. We got there 40 minutes early and hid in the restaurant right across the street to see when they all showed up. We had talked to the host earlier letting him know what we had planned and where to seat them. They all showed up 20 minutes early. We watched them head in and get seated. Then we walked across the street, turned the recorder on, and headed inside. It was the best surprise ever!

Finally made it to Utah!

SURPRISE!!!