First of all, I can't believe it has been so long since my last post, and secondly, I can't believe it is 2010! This last year has been quite an adventure for us with lots of life lessons learned (we hope). Let's see...since I blogged last, we have moved on to 3rd semester of medical school, so we are half way through our time in Dominica.

The girls:

Karissa is loving the 1st grade and has started to really accelerate in her learning. You can no longer spell words that you don't want her to repeat because she will figure out what you have said. Her best scores in school are socializing (can you believe that), which is also what her worst scores are in because she tends to do it during times she should be paying attention to the teacher.

Can you believe the size of this lobster?! No, Wes didn't catch it and yes it was alive when she was holding it.

Jillian has really started to come out of her shell and develop her own personality. She likes school, but especially loves her friends. She has been so excited for Christmas this year, even though we really made no big deal of it. We were able to borrow a Christmas tree and she thought that was the best thing in the world. It was fun to see her so full of excitement for the holiday.

Christmas was very different for us. Besides being on and island with no snow, we also were away from family and did not do gifts. There were other families that stayed on the island that we had dinner with, so it was nice to have others to share the season with. When I say we didn't do gifts, I mean we didn't get anything for the girls or each other. Crazy? Not really. The culture here is the children get two things for Christmas...like a puzzle and a doll. Nothing fancy or expensive and they don't do Santa (something I fully support). The grandparents sent gifts for the kids, so we figured that was sufficient for Christmas. Plus, we will have to ship everything back when the kids return to the states, so less is best.

Me: I really haven't been up to much except studying and school. I did have a birthday somewhere in there and Wes got me an ice cream cake. Yes, I did say ice cream. We had to eat it in one sitting because our freezer is too small to put stuff in. Wes also took me to a little place called Sunset Bay for a lobster dinner. Wow, they gave us a lot of food!

We really haven't been able to take many tours of the island this break because our car is broke. That is a real bummer. But we did have a 5 night vacation in St. Lucia which is supposed to be a 3 hour ferry ride. (Notice I say "supposed".) We have a friend who lives on St. Lucia so we had a good time visiting and catching up. Unfortunately, the trip did not go as we had originally planned...which brings me to Wes...

Wes:

Since the last blog, Wes has been cliff jumping off the 50' cliffs and of course more spear fishing around the island. He also went on a "guys only" hike of the biggest mountain here. They had a great time hiking through mud that was knee high.

He was grounded from snorkeling/spear fishing for about a month when he had an ear infection that required two rounds of antibiotics. But other than that, he has been able to run around the island seeing lots of nature.

St. Lucia did not turn out as we had hoped because Wes contracted a massive Staph infection in his chin. We think it happened just before leaving on our trip while snorkeling in Douglas Bay. Wes felt something poke him, like a bee sting, in the water but didn't think anything of it. As the days went by his chin developed a small bump, then a larger bump then a huge mass. This all developed while in St. Lucia. He saw a doctor, who made a "house call" to our room and gave him medication. This didn't work and eventually Wes ended up in the hospital having surgery on his face. As I sit here and type this, he is in St. Lucia at the hospital with a tube in his face to drain the wound. He is on high powered antibiotics to try and stop the spread of the infection. We are glad he was not in Dominica when this happened, since they don't really have a lot of access to different medications.

So, I don't have many pictures of St. Lucia, but here is a little video of Karissa and our friend Paul making a waterfall in our hotel pool.

Until next time...have a safe and happy new year!