We Wish You A Reggae Christmas...

(name of a song we heard on the bus the other day... remix of "We Wish you a MERRY Christmas"... cleaver... and quite catchy I must admit:) I have video of the song, and Zach dancing to it, but can't post it for some reason... I'll have to figure that out)

So today is our last day in Greanda and I figured that I'd post to mark this occasion. Zach is writing his last exam as I write this and he had the biggest grin on his face as he headed out the door this afternoon. He was so happy to be almost done, I'm surprised that his face didn't crack from smiling so much! We can not believe that this is the last day here ever... well, at least for a long time. We need a serious break from this place before we think about visiting:) It has been such an awesome opportunity for us, but there has been a lot that was sacrificed for it. Not going to go off on our sob-story, don't worry, but there have been hard times. Missing family and friends back home, missing food... Starbucks, sushi, that sort of thing... missing the cold weather, dealing with the "third world" mentality here(and the third world amenities), the list goes on. But the amazing thing has really been meeting wonderful people that we know we will be friends with for the rest of our lives(aside from the whole being able to go to Med School here!!). Pretty much all the people that we have gotten close to are heading off the the same hospital as us in New Jersey and that will make that transition so much easier. Anyway, I didn't want to get sappy, but I guess I kinda did:)
Zach and I went out for our last breakfast date this morning before he headed off to his test. I guess from here on out we are into the "lasts". Last time going out for dinner to the Boulangerie, last time going to the beach, last time packing up(well here anyway), last time getting a taxi at 3:30 in the morning... Last everything. It is a weird feeling to say the least and I never thought that I'd say this, but it is a little hard and sad. I am going to miss things here and I'm sure I'll miss them more in a year or so, but the simple lifestyle that we lead here is going to be hard to replace.
Well, I'm going to stop rambling and put up some pictures that I took in the last few days...


Our last "Wild Wednesday". Yup, it gets wild with all that coffee drinking and chatting. We call it Wild to make us feel like we are doing something more exciting then we are:) Kristin, Myself, Lisa


Me enjoying my favorite thing right now... Breakfast!!


One of my last cappuccinos here...


Zach lookin' happy about his food:)


An even happier Zach. Pretty sure he was laughing at me cuz I almost slipped and fell in a huge pile of mud as I was trying to get his picture!

The last days....

I feel like we are going picture crazy now in a last-ditch effort to try and capture all we can of Grenada. We've taken so many shots over the past two years, but it never feels like enough once you're about to leave. We only have 5 days left here and we're trying to make them go buy as smoothly as possible and just enjoy them all that we can. We're trying to see/visit/spend time with as many people as we can in the amount of time we have left(well, mostly it's me doing the seeing. Zach is just seeing his books at the moment!). Zach is studying like crazy. He's only got four days of it left and he is on cloud nine thinking that he'll be done in a bit. It's not over forever, but knowing that he can have a break soon is giving him all the motivation he needs these past few days. It's the keeping the mind off going home thing that he's finding the toughest, but he can pretty much work through anything... and that's why he's in Med School and I'm not:)
Zach was able to feel the baby kick for the first time the other day and he was pretty pumped about that. Another way for him to feel connected to the baby, always a good thing! Baby is moving like crazy and keeping me up at night, but I guess that just goes with the territory of being pregnant. If only the backaches weren't....
Anyway, nothing else really new here so I guess I'll just quit writing before I start to babble.

A busy week...

So a lot happened this last week. It started with Zach's 25th birthday on the 24th and I somehow managed to convince him to take an entire day off school... don't know how I did that but I'm not going to question it. We had an awesome day planned, we called it our five-fold plan, which then developed into the five-phase plan... don't ask! First we went out for coffee, in the morning and then off for lunch to True Blue Bay Resort(they had burgers there and Zach was really wanting one.)... that was phases one and two. For phase three we went to the beach and the waves were so huge that Zach was able to bodysurf. He was pretty pumped about that, not too many 25th birthday's that involve bodysurfing in the Caribbean Sea:) We had a phase three and a half that was me cutting Zach's hair (don't know how that got on the phase list, but it did) and phase four was going for dinner to The Beach House, which is our favorite place to go here. Afterwards... a.k.a. phase five... we met up with friends at a local wine bar here which has a really great atmosphere. All in all, not a bad day(and it didn't cost too much, our dollar is doing really good right now...yay Canada!).

Then on tuesday we went for our first ultrasound. I was just over 19 weeks and we were really excited to see our baby for the first time. Well, we didn't take into consideration the fact that this was Grenada and that the machines were circa 1982. Not cool. We still got to see our baby, and don't get me wrong, it was amazing, but instead of the total hands and feet we saw a general outline. And in the picture that we got to take home(Zach swears that they don't even use the paper it was printed on in North America anymore), our baby looked like an alien, no joke. I love it, but it does look like he(we've come to calling it a he. And no, we did not find out what we are having) has two heads. And we are not having twins, that they told us... but who knows, the machine is old... I wanted to post it so everyone could have a laugh, but I don't have a scanner. All that aside, we were so pumped after the whole thing and it was so neat to see what we could and connect with the baby. I guess the whole experience is just par for the course here in Grenada, the beauty of being pregnant here and just one more story we'll be able to tell the baby when it's here:)

We had another first on wednesday of this week, an earthquake. It's origin was Martinique, quite a ways from here, but we really felt it. It was a 7.3, but due to the fact that it was so far underground it didn't do the damage that one closer it the surface would do. I think that it was something like 90 miles down underground, still rocked us though. So we felt what must have been an aftershock and it felt like we were standing on a waterbed. Our first concern was a tsunami, but it didn't happen and that we are grateful for. After going through a category one hurricane earlier this semester, we now feel we have filled our natural disaster quota for the next few years:)

On thursday(sorry that this seems to have become a day to day update) I was officially halfway in my pregnancy. A weird thought to say the least. I'm still growing rapidly and now I know I don't have the excuse of there being two babies in there to make me feel better about the pace at which I seem to be growing. Oh well, every women's different I guess.

On saturday I was a part of a garage sale held a friends house. We wanted to get rid of a bunch of stuff and try and make some money doing it, and it turned out quite good. We made off with some good cash and now our suitcases are going to be a lot lighter on the way home(actually it really means that we have less to just leave behind... who knew that you could accumulate that much stuff in two years?!?)! It was a long exhausting day, but a good one and a fun too. I'm not the haggling type so I'm pretty sure some people went away with fabulous deals, but that's alright with me. We're rid of a lot of our stuff and that's what matters.

I think that that about sums up the things that happened recently. We have only 11 days left here and we are trying to make the most of them. The next two weeks(or less than!!!) are going to be spent tying up loose ends and just trying to soak up as much of the island as possible. Hard to believe that it will all be over soon...


The view from our table at the True Blue Bay Restaurant... not too shabby:)


The beach and the bodysurfing waves.


Us at The Beach House...Zach lookin' hot at 25!!!!


The group we met for drinks... Me, Noah, Sean, Kristin, Lisa, Donny and Zach.


Me at 20 weeks.