3rd Semester

After a wonderfully relaxing Christmas break, Ben headed back to school (ten days ago) and started his third semester of medical school. It's crazy to think he's a 2nd year med student now- I am just so proud of him. This journey has been harder and more stressful than we imagined, but he's persevered and made it through so far.

Life is a little different for us this time around. We are loving living in our new place, even though it's way better than our old place, it is still in Dominica- which means our internet goes out frequently, about half our drawers don't really slide in and out unless you use a great deal of force, we can only get hot water for a few minutes before it turns cold, stuff like that :) Sharing our room with Chase has been okay- that sweet little boy has recently stopped sleeping through the night which has made it a little harder, but I think we are all adjusting. I've been thinking a lot lately about how different our life is hear from anything we've done before in so many ways- here are just a few examples.

• Laundry- our first two semesters we had to send our laundry out to be cleaned. It cost an arm and a leg. When we moved to our new place we were able to buy a washing machine. It's a tiny little thing that sits in our bathroom. Doing a load of wash consists of filling the machine with water using a bucket and my bathtub water spout (it takes about three buckets full, and they are HEAVY), put in clothes and soap. It runs a 15 minute wash cycle, then I drain it, also into the bathtub. Fill it again with the bucket and let it run another 15 minute rinse cycle. Then I drain the water into the bathtub and spin the clothes in the attached spinner. The spin cycle is only 5 minutes, but I usually have to do it in two batches. After that I take the clothes to the lovely clotheslines on our sweet little balcony and hang everything up to dry. I try to do laundry early in the morning so it has the heat of the day to dry- in our humid climate sometimes it takes it all day. Once it's dry I can fold it and put it away. (If Chase is around the folding part takes forever. He likes to "help" which means quickly and purposefully grabbing all folded clothes and either throwing them on the floor or back into the laundry basket. It's actually darling, unless I'm in a hurry.)
• Grocery Shopping- We now live just around the corner from our lovely IGA, which has been very nice and convenient. IGA opened one month before we got the island and I've heard has made all the difference in the world. However, it's not perfect. They carry MOST things SOME of the time. I go to the store with a few menu ideas in mind and see what they have. Sometimes they don't have any of the things I need and I walk around trying to figure something else out for dinner. For example, I went yesterday and they had both broccoli and real milk (at $18.22 a gallon). I was so happy and bought both. Neither one has been available for over a month. Yesterday we went on a shopping trip to Roseau, the capitol city, which tends to have more things at slightly cheaper prices. I stocked us up on things that our IGA never seems to carry like black beans, mandarin oranges, canned chicken for soup, Nutrigrain bars for snacks, a few jars of baby food for Chase for our upcoming traveling, Extra Virgin Olive Oil, chocolate chips and some of Ben's favorite crackers. I was also able to find whole wheat flour, which IGA usually has but has been out of since mid-December.
• Cooking- Cooking here has been an adventure. I've learned to make so many things from scratch. I make all my own bread here and tortillas. I do this weekly and I have the recipes memorized. Since powdered sugar is hard to find, Ben and I actually figured out how to make our own powdered sugar for frosting at Christmas time.
• Exercise- I've had a membership to a gym since I was 14 and pretty much always gone 3-5 times a week. Although am I allowed to use Ross's gym here on campus I rarely do because of Chase. Instead, every morning except Sunday, as soon as Chase is up and dressed I put him in the stroller and take him on an hour long walk up some pretty intense hills into the jungle. The views along this walk are amazing! At the very end we walk by the ocean for a good 15 minutes and it's just breathtaking. It's still nice and cool that early in the morning. I love living here in Dominica during those times. It's relaxing and calming to me and I know I'll miss this when we leave. This island is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. Throughout the day we walk everywhere we go, to campus, the pool, the grocery store, any friends houses. . . (I don't think we actually ever go anywhere else) I've clocked it before, I walk between 4 and 8 miles on your average day. I've completely worn out both pairs of sandals I brought with me. (Like completely, straps broken and holes all the way through the soles) I'm down to just my Nike's and my church shoes, I'm hoping I can make it another month until I go to Utah!
• Ben's School- Medical School here is more than a full time job. Ben studies 15-16 hours a day, 6 days a week. He takes a short break to eat dinner with Chase and I, and then it's back to the books for a few more hours before bed. We love Sundays and the chance to see Ben and spend a little family time together. This semester Ben is learning the disease processes, diagnosing and treatment for the immune system, musculoskeletal system, cardiac and respiratory systems. He's actually loving what he's learning, even though it's really intense and requires a lot of work on his part. My husband has an amazing work ethic!
• Church- Our little branch here is so different from the big wards I'm used to in Utah. Ben has been serving as branch clerk and I've been the 1st counselor in the Primary Presidency, which means I also teach the Valiants class and do Singing Time. Our branch is made up of around 30 Americans (students and their families) and 15 locals. With this tiny branch, everyone has to do more to fill all the callings we need to function. Last year I spoke in sacrament 4 times, Ben spoke 3 times. There is a group in Roseau who are technically under the jurisdiction of our branch, but meet separately because of the distance involved. We walk to church, it takes us about 25 minutes and most of the walk is right along the beach. Every meeting and talk is started with "Good Morning Church!"- which is apparently a local tradition. It's definitely been an experience!

And just because Chase is cute, here are a few recent pictures of the little guy recently.

This is pretty much a daily occurrence. He was kind of stuck when I took this,

but he got out pretty fast. He loves crawling through the chairs.

He has really loved this little push toy Santa brought!

Playing with the tupperware-

one of his favorite games

I'm pretty sure they took these while I was making dinner.

Chase loves his dad- I think the feeling is pretty mutual.

Until I pulled the camera out, Chase was very very interested

in the basketball game they were watching.