Us Lately

With all the blog posts I've been reading lately of everyone saying good-bye to summer, starting fun fall activities, cooler weather, football games, peaches, I've been seriously a little homesick. I love all seasons, I love the change every couple of months. I really love fall and fall really isn't happening in Dominica. It's still crazy hot outside, the jungle will of course stay green and not turn red, orange and yellow like the beautiful mountains back in Utah, there are no peaches on the island, and life is pretty much exactly the same as it was throughout the spring and summer. This last week I've had to work harder to remind myself to enjoy this journey. We really do live in a beautiful, amazing place, and this isn't forever. By next fall we should be back in the US celebrating this beautiful season change with the rest of the country!

I feel like nothing we've done lately has been very eventful and worthy of its own blog post. Per request from my little sister (who was disappointed I hadn't update the blog in a week) this post will just be a random update of all things happening in the Hugo home as of late.

• Ben is in the full swing of his 2nd semester of medical school. This block is famous for being extremely challenging and time intensive. He's working extremely long hours trying to master all the material. I swear the stress of medical school will never end! Chase was in heaven on Sunday when he got to spend a lot of time hanging with Dad.
• Chase and I went on our once-a-semester shopping trip to Roseau. Roseau is the capitol city of Dominica and is 1 hour away by bus. The spouses organization has a free shopping trip at the first of each semester, which is the only time I go to Roseau. There are a lot of grocery items that can be purchased there that we can't get here in Picard, and a lot of things are much cheaper (although still significantly more than in the US- our grocery bill is so out of control and I swear I buy less and we eat less than we did in the states!) The road to Picard is really windy and it makes for a long day with a baby. It was however a pretty great shopping trip. Our van was full of other ladies from the branch with their cute kids. We got everything we needed. We made it back to Picard 6 hours after leaving. Chase was a little angel and was pretty happy sitting on my lap the whole time and watching the other kids. I was pretty happy with it. The last time I went back in May it was a lot more stressful, so I was pleasantly surprised with how easy it was this time. Once we are back in the states I can fully appreciate how awesome and easy it is to drive to the grocery store, get all my groceries that I need in one stop (some of them might even be on sale...) and drive back home.
• In Chase news, I just can't even explain how much we love this baby! I feel like I could (and do) write on and on about all the cute things he does, how amazing he is and how much we love him. He's now 8 months old, he crawls and gets into everything, loves playing with his toys, still loves to be held almost all the time, is babbling more and more, and has slept through the night every single night for the last 4 weeks! Here are few pictures of him playing the last couple of days. He doesn't hold still much and it's getting harder and harder to get a shot of him looking at the camera.

Playing with the keys in the door is his absolute favorite activity. Our door has to be locked to stay closed, so those keys hang there all the time so I don't loose them (then I would be locked inside the house). If we hold Chase in front of them he'll play with them forever and never get bored.