Welcome baby number 8!!!

The latest edition to the Kliewer Clan arrived this morning. Silas Gideon was born just after midnight, weighing in at 8lbs 8oz and looking about as cute as it gets. Congrats Will and Linda and thanks again for waiting until we got home to have him:) Well, it has been a while since I last updated the blog, but in my defence we are now in Canada and don't have a lot of free time. Zach and I are doing awesome even though we are both fighting off some sort of sickness. This cold weather is getting to us, but we're not complaining. We're enjoying it while we can and when given the choice between rainy/cold and 45degrees, it's a no brainer! You may all think that we're crazy to give up the hot weather, but Christmas in a hot country is just SO wrong. Speaking of, it is Christmas tomorrow and I couldn't be more excited about it! I LOVE Christmas, it's my (and Zach's) favorite time of year. And believe me, we have been making the most of it. Nothing like sipping a Starbucks coffee while going for drives to look at Christmas lights. Not to mention all the family/friends time, just the best! I hope you all have a Merry Christmas season, I know we will!

A Grenadian Christmas!

My friend Laura hosted a Christmas brunch this last Saturday and it was a lot of fun. I must say, she put together quite the party for Grenada (for North American standards as well), I was very impressed. She had a huge spread of food, decorated her little one room dorm with palm fronds and a little mini Christmas tree (that she borrowed from a friend who is staying here for Christmas and felt the need to get in the spirit a little more) and had us all bring gifts for a gift exchange. The pictures are of the group of girls that attended and then two pictures of me, one with Kristin and the other with Laura (yes, I know that sounded vain, but lets face it, a blog is a pretty vain thing. What makes us think that we need to dedicate and entire website to ourselves?!). Needless to say, it was a great party and it did a great job of getting us in the Christmas spirit! We ended up ruining all of Laura's effort though, we went to the beach afterwards to work on our tans!

Kwality with a "K"

Last night Zach and I decided to get Chinese food for dinner. I bet you are all wondering why I have posted a picture of an Indian restaurant then? Well, that is all part of my story. This place is normally an Indian restaurant, but on Sunday's for some reason or other the owner decided that she should offer just Chinese food. Now, back home this would be a giant red flag that we should not try this restaurant, but here it is a different story. There are about three places on this island to get Chinese food and one of them is too far away and the other isn't, but it has the crappiest tasting food ever (I mean the sweet and sour sauce is hot pink, just wrong). We were down to just this one, so we got brave and headed out. Now we kept our minds open when we entered the place and it smelled like curry, when we didn't recognize any of the food, and when there was about six options to choose from (buffet-style). But when I took a bite and it was SPICY?!?! What the heck?! That is where the open mindedness stopped. Zach liked it because he likes spicy food, but even he agreed that it tasted nothing like Chinese food. I believe that his exact words were that it was 'Chindian food' (an Indian interpretation of Chinese). So the lesson here for everyone out there is to never buy Chinese food from an Indian lady in a Caribbean country. Kwality with a "K" about sums it up!

Baby it's cold outside...oh wait...

I can't believe...it is already December 1st today! For all you people on the West Coast, I'm four hours ahead and therefore it is the 1st already. I (or should I say, we) leave for home in 15 days, that is crazy. As you can imagine it has been really hard to focus on life in Grenada for the past few days. With all the snow back home and knowing that we are leaving in two weeks, it's kinda hard to concentrate. For me anyways. Zach on the other hand is a freaking trooper! He can block just about anything out of his mind while he is in "study-mode". Don't get me wrong, he talks about home whenever his head isn't in the books, but for some reason or other, he can just get down to business when he needs to. I guess that is why he's the one in Med School and I'm the one working on the tan (but really he should work on his tan too. There should be some sort of law that prohibits his degree of white in a Caribbean country!).
This last week has been one filled with events for me. Desperate Housewives on Sunday with the girls (Laura and Kristin), movie night with the girls on Tuesday, Book Club on Wednesday night (with the girls+2), Pool Day Thursday with Laura and the rest of the other S.O.'s (for those of you who don't know this, it stands for the Significant Others...that's me!).......yes, there is a bit of a trend here, there is a lot of girl time, but in my defense, Zach has been having a lot of book time lately:) Anyway, the point of my whole rant is that having so many events planned makes the time go by nicely!
I guess I should give a bit of an update about Zach. Well, he is studying....yeah, that about sums it up! No, just kidding (well, he is studying). He has finished going to all the classes that he needs to and his butt is officially glued to his chair until his exams are over. Only two finals to go and he is done his first year of Med School (Man, where has this year gone?!). Zach has also been cranking out the Christmas tunes to try and get in the holiday spirit. I think that he gets his best studying done when Bing Crosby is singing.
Anyway, tomorrow night is Date Night and I can't help but wonder...will we be going to KFC for dinner or for chicken nuggets at the mall food court...hhmmmm...? Ahhh Grenada, we love you!

More pictures.

It snowed all weekend back home and I wanted to post a few picks from that first snowfall. The first one is of our cat Berndt trying to get out of the snow! Isn't she just the cutest?! The second is taken of Zach's parents deck. Zach and I are just dying knowing what we are missing and having to hear about it when we are sitting here sweating profusely. Try and save some of the snow for us in December:) There are also a few other random pictures of friends attached.



A group shot from a sailing trip that we took a few weeks ago.
Emily, Kyle
Donny, Lisa, Sean, Kristin, Laura, Jason
Ryan, Zach and me


Me, Emily, Kristin and Laura on our sailing trip.


My bookclub(And no, Marcy, we do not have four months to read a book!)
Me, Marca, Lisa, Bethany, and Laura(Kristin is in it too, but she is not in the picture.)

Shots from the past few weeks

Our Thanksgiving spread!


All our friends at Donny and Lisa's house where we had our "feast".


Peter and Sari on their anniversary.


Laura and I at the church's Ladies Christmas Luncheon(which we had before Thanksgiving!).


The table at the luncheon, we had a gingerbread women at each of our spots. The girls did a great job of trying to make it feel christmasy dispite the 45C heat!

Just another week in Grenada...

I bet you are all wondering what happened to me in the last week. Well, true to Grenadian form, our internet had cut out on us. Five days of not being able to blog. You know how hard that was for me?! As a new blogger, and self-proclaimed blog stalker, life was really boring without my new best friend! After numerous calls to Cable and Wireless(internet place), endless days of agony, and one really rude voicemail message(left by me, I hate to admit); I, that is right, I fixed the internet! Look at me, how smart am I? Just a reconnection here and a few clicks of my mouse there and voila! It was back on(eat that Tom!!!). Needless to say, I'm quite proud of myself.
Well, other than improving my computer skills, a few things have happened in the past week. Zach and I, along with our American friends, celebrated our first American Thanksgiving. I still feel full thinking about it! We had quite the spread of all the traditional foods, turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, stuffing...everything down to the pumpkin pie! It was a lot of fun. Seeing as to how Zach and I will most likely end up living in the States, we felt it was a really good "first time" experience to a holiday that we will now be celebrating for years to come!
That same night we visited our friends Peter and Sari who were, along with Thanksgiving, celebrating their 1st Wedding Anniversary. Peter, who stays back in New York to work while Sari studies to become a doctor, flew down for the occasion. We had a blast with them, watching their wedding video and eating leftover wedding cake(apparently mom isn't the only one who saves the tops of the cakes!!) that Peter smuggled in!
Zach also celebrated his 24th birthday on friday doing what he loves, studying! He had a final to study for(which he is writing right now...) and I know better than to try and argue with him over studying. I did make him his favorite dinner and some cinnamon rolls for breakfast(a mom Klaassen tradition that is Zach's favorite!), so hopefully he didn't have too bad of a day!
I also went to a Ladies Christmas Luncheon two weekends ago and that was a lot of fun. The girls from our church here on campus(C.S.A.) put it together. It was fun to get together with other women, students and SO's, and meet some new people as well.

Pictures of our apartment in Grenada

People asked for pictures of our apartment, so here they are...




Our kitchen(we don't have hot water in here and we have a propane oven/stove!).


This is my room, the TV area on the other side of the kitchen. Check out the huge TV!


The bedroom, the only room with A/C. Needless to say, we are in here most of the time. Zach has his desk in here, so this is where he spends his endless hours studying(while I spend endless hours sleeping!). Yes, that is Zach having one of his infamous power-naps:)





These are two shots of our bathroom. I don't know why I felt compelled to show these, but I felt it needed to be shown in order to get the full experience.

Some pictures from Grenada...

That's right, these turtles are getting it on!!!

I have finally done it, I've started a blog!

Well, here it is, my blog. I've got to say, I'm quite proud of myself for figuring this out! I've had no excuse for not setting it up sooner. Just lazy I guess. I must have more Grenada in me then I thought! Well, that's an upsetting revelation.
Anyway, Zach and I are doing well. He is studying like crazy(surprise, surprise) and having a blast! Seriously, I've never seen someone more happy after putting in a 16 hour day of studying. Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever witnessed anyone else studying for 16 hours before. I think that is about the equivalent of all my studying in five years of highschool! Like I said, he's crazy!
Me? Well I'm doing good too. Being that great pillar of strength for my husband...right! I am baking and cooking for him though, and he seems to appreciate it:) My days are usually filled with tv, sweating, running, sweating, cooking, sweating, tanning, sweating...you get the point!
It is a nice comfortable("feels like") 45C here today. I tell ya, nothing gets you in the Christmas spirit more then going outside and sweating your butt off! The only time it even feels remotely like Christmas is when we are in the "mall"(I use quotations for a reason. It's smaller than, and about as classy as, what the old West Oaks was!!). It is completely decked out for the holidays and they have the A/C cranking in there. so...if one uses their imagination well, one could think that they are in a cold climate and the pre-Christmas season is as it should be. I'll tell ya, the lengths I have to go to in this country!
Well, only 26 more days until we leave. I've been chanting that like a moto these past few days, and it seems as though I will continue to do so until we are home! I will do my best to keep up with the "blogging" and provide more frequent updates for everyone. Happy reading:)