W I L D

Midterms are coming up and Austin is studying ALL THE TIME! I couldn't even study that much if I wanted too! Seriously, there's a reason I don't have a degree... HA! Just kidding, the only reason I don't have a degree is because 1. I moved to a foreign, third world country in the middle of my education and 2. I'm basically a child. It's "to be continued..." I see Austin for like ten minutes in the mornings, he wakes me up when he's ready to go to school and all I have to do is get in the car and drive. Literally, he sometimes even has the car running before he wakes me up. Then I see him for an hour, around noon, when I show him who's boss at the gym. And then again for an hour or two when he's done studying for the day. I usually find something to do to fill my time.

The pool has been closed for a couple weeks so last week a couple friends and I broke into the Radisson Hotel's pool. By broke in I really mean we walked straight through like we owned the place...no questions asked. That pool is so nice! It makes Grenada look luxurious. We even bought $17 EC piña coladas. 

Courtney and Dean, Julie, Me, Allie and Lilly

                           

Yesterday Julie and I set out to find the black sand beach that's hidden like two minutes down the road from us. We started on Lance Epines Beach and had to crawl over the rocky point into the next bay. You should know that Julie is 24 weeks pregnant. We were laughing at ourselves as we scaled the bluff. Just picture me and Julie climbing on our hands and feet like animals, passing our bags back and forth to each other on the hard parts, pausing to look for sea urchins because the black ones are poisonous, and clinging to the rocks as the waves hit (I'm pretty sure the tide was just coming up). We finally made it, without falling, and then realized we could have just taken a path over the top of the bluff...whatever. The sand was so black and it stuck together like little magnets. We also found a ton of conch shells, like almost more than the infamous conch shell graveyard.

                                    

                                    

                                    

                       

                                   

Usually, I have mutual with the young women at church on Tuesdays but it's moved to Friday this week so I went to the young men's activity with Austin. Anything to do with the young men is always entertaining and slightly scary. Tonight we went to the beach and cringed as the boys flipped around, raced, and tackled each other off of the dock (or t-bridge as Tyrone calls it). They even got Austin to get into the water at night. Props to Austin, who was scared of getting eaten by a shark the whole five seconds he was in the ocean. I just love the youth of the church. The boys have so much energy and always say the funniest things. Today we were all riding in the silver bullet-Courtney's van- I turned to look at Tyrone in the back seat and he's holding up a knife...these boys always keep us on our toes. And it doesn't end there, here are a few things I've heard adults say to them:

• "It's not okay to spin a knife around in front of babies.
• "Don't shoot me with your phone."
• "No, I didn't leave my purse in front of you because I wanted you to take money out of it."
• "It's not okay to fist fight in the chapel."

Tyrone

                                  

Shenanigans

After like three weeks straight of pool, beach, Netflix repeat I decided it was time for an adventure of some sort. There are so many great adventure sites in Grenada but considering my brakes have either been going out or locking up my car's engine at least once a day for the past week I thought it best to stay close to home. And by 'close to home' I really mean close to Phil, the mechanic*, so he could come rescue me if needed. So, some of the wives and I headed to the conch shell graveyard and the tide pools.

*In Grenada mechanic really means expert Jimmyrigger

The Conch Shell Graveyard is a beach where fishermen catch conch and I guess they take the meat out and sell it- it's called lambie- and then they just throw the shells on the beach. I was picturing a beach that, instead of sand, had like tons and tons of shells but apparently that's not the case...But don't worry the jignormous lobsters that the fishermen showed us made up for the lack of shells. I actually don't even know if they're lobsters but that's what they looked like so deal.

The tide pools were pretty cool...if you're into that sort of thing. They are actually only kind of cool and mostly lame. Only because I have been to the California tide pools with the expert sea creature catcher, shout-out to my Johnny, and there's like all kinds of cool stuff that you can touch. These tide pools however, pretty much only have black sea urchins that will kill you if you touch them.

Today I had a beach day planned with Kylie. However, shockingly, my brakes locked up again (Curse you Phil) so we were forced to travel on foot, and since I'm high maintenance, that turned into us hopping on a couple reggae buses. Explanation: reggae buses are just creepy, ghetto vans that taxi around the island all day. They play loud reggae music and honk at every single person on the street and stop to try and convince them to ride their bus.. so annoying. Anyways, since I am missing an entire bone in my foot and I suffer from lactic acid problems (Megan, Steph) you better believe I was climbing in that van as soon as I heard "Aye baby, need a ride?" Don't you worry-Mom, Dad, Stevie- I wasn't alone, Kylie was with me and ready to throw down if needed.

Conch shell graveyard...take your pick.

Tide pools

Mah gurls: Laura, Alex, Kylie, Tori, Laina, Jenny, Me, Holly

Tyra, one of the young women at church, did my hair!

My BFF, Chrishton

Man, the funniest thing happened yesterday. Kylie and I went to Grand Anse Beach; right as we got there I literally pointed out how there was nobody there so it was going to be a nice day. So, we set up this little Sport-Brella like tent and lay the baby- Eleanor- down in it, and then as we are setting out our towels and what not we turn around and theres this random kid- we later found out his name is Christon (Chrisht on)...Grenadian version of Christian?- plopping down in front of our tent. "I like your tent" he says as he starts playing with Eleanor.We kind of just looked at each other and chuckled, thinking he would go away soon but he didn't. We headed to the water and he followed us, we headed back out of the water and he followed us. All the while hijacking my raft and my coke. Kids these days. So turns out we didn't have the nice easy going beach day we originally thought, but it sure was memorable! Here are some fun facts we learned about Chrishton:

// Chrishton has no filter.
    C: "Is it a he or a she?"
    K: "She"
    C: "Oh, does she eat a lot?"
    K: "Yeah."
    C: "That must be why she's so fat."

// He has one brother, Leon (age 14), who was also there but only said two words to us...probably because Chrishton didn't stop talking so Leon could never get any words in. Leon had this weird goo stuff that he was playing with and when we asked him what it was he looks at us while bring it in and out of the water and goes, "Water Magic." He then continued to flip and dive all around us. PS Chrishton is 12.

// Chrishton may or may not have been aware of the fact that 3/4 of his bum was sticking out of his swimsuit, which was really just underwear, the entire time. We questioned wether or not to say anything but then decided he probably knew and didn't care. Gross.

// Chrishton has no sense of personal space, or any kind of boundaries for that matter.  While he was in the water with us (on my float...lil devil) he would get so close, face to face, and we would just back away slowly. Or when we were sitting on the beach he was just laying on the raft in front of us, whiping sand off our toes. Its actually really disturbing when you combine the above point with this one...bum in face. Awkward.

// Chrishton's family is not very well off (sad). He says he eats two Crix (crackers), some cheese, and juice for dinner. That must be why when I was drinking my coke he says, "Are you gonna finish that?" I wanted to finish it so bad but he's such a charmer I just said "It's all yours." To which he grabbed it and pranced off into the ocean, again with my raft, to rub it in Leon's face. Leon then tipped the raft and threw the empty bottle across the water.

// Chrishton is selling peanuts to "raise money for school," could be true but could be a lie. So he's telling us how he'd in Form 4 (7th grade) at secondary school and everything and then he says, "So are you gonna support me? Are you gonna buy some peanuts?" I didn't buy any, and I half way feel bad about it.

This is when the toe cleanings happened.

Chrishton "relaxing in style" as he now says on my green raft with my Coke in his hand. That dark spot in the water is Leon, about to tip the raft.

Too Hot to Handle

Hey peeps! Nothing super new..Austin goes to school from 7 AM to 9 PM, I learn how to be a housewife..you know.

I still go to the pool every Monday and Thursday, religiously. A lot of my time at the pool is spent trying to control my urge to buy lunch from the club there, and then rationalizing that its okay because I'm technically supposed to buy something while using the pool and Austin eats on campus all the time so I'm okay just this once, and then devouring my kids meal chicken strips with no regrets. The other part of my time at the pool is usually spent racing and jumping and flipping with six children wrapped around me while the more mature adults hang out and converse in the shade...its just too fun to pass up. And the moms love it too. Just kidding, I do my fair share of chilling out with my gurls, sipping some good ol' Carribean Cola.

My good friend, Kylie, and I- oh and of course, Eleanor, Kylie's babe- decided to brave downtown St. George's earlier this week. Downtown is intimidating because the roads suck and theres so many cars and the streets are always one way but it doesn't tell you which way 'til your 2 centimeters from a head-on collision, but you have to keep your cool so the hundreds of locals hanging around don't think you're a total idiot. Kylie and I most definitely failed at that. To add to our stress theres construction-or "work" as the locals say- going on so now some of the one way roads are switched to the opposite direction but it still doesn't tell you. So Kylie and Eleanor are in the back with like three maps and a GPS trying to get us to the mall. We finally find it and are trying to park, so I ask a security guard where the parking lot is and he gives me a long explanation and then repeats himself after he sees my blank stare. Then he just puts it into white girl terms for me and this is what he says (say this with a thick Jamaican accent) "Turn around, you'll pass a pile, then you'll pass Digicel, then you'll pass work, then turn right." We smile and drive off and at the same time Kylie and I ask each other, "A pile of what?!" But lucky for us we passed some bamboo scaffolding and a plywood sign that said "work" and we knew we were in the right place. After we got our parking receipt I asked Kylie, "Do you think they validate here?" and she's like "Please don't ask them if they validate..." haha!

Downtown

Less glamorous downtown. This was taken from 180 degrees from the above picture.

I rocked the house at Bingo last Wednesday! Not really because of course I didn't win anything. BUUUT my friend Holly won $500 EC and two chickens! Julie and Cherish also won $50 EC but they had to split it with other winners. My emotions at Bingo go from super pumped, to super anxious, to just pissed. My time will come. Oh wait no it won't because Austin and I were both called into the Young Men's/Young Women's presidencies at church and now we have activities with the 12-18 year olds every Wednesday night. So sad but so great. This will give me an excuse to buy like five Bingo cards when I'm finally able to go. And I'll have time to research how to choose the best bingo card (Brian status, I know).

Jenny and I at bingo! Looking happy but actually very angry we didn't win.

Warning: this is a hilarious story that I don't want to forget and most of my ten readers will think its boring but my blogs #1 fan (Hey Mom) will love it.
Austin had his white coat ceremony last week, which we didn't go to because naturally Austin had to play in a 5 on 5 basketball tournament...priorities people. Don't worry we still took "White coat pictures." Anyways, their team name was Stormin' Mormons and when they guy announced it he goes, "wait, whose Norman?" But once he figured out that it was actually Mormons not Norman he just died laughing. The guys played like a hundred games (7), so us wives ditched out after watching four. As much fun as it is to watch grown men rub up against each other drenched in sweat, we decided to go order pizza for when the tournament was over. Besides my limited hours of basketball watching per year are saved for Max. This is where the story gets good people (Mom). Four of us headed up to our friend Julie's house to order pizza and bake cookies, Courtney and I in my car and Julie and Allie in another. Julie lives on top of a huge hill, like roller coaster ride huge, and Austin has driven our car (Fran) up before, but I knew I didn't have the will power to force her up so I decided to take the back roads while Allie took on the hill. So Courtney and I get up to Julie's house and we see Allie's car in the pull out, half way up the hill. Allie couldn't make it up so she tried to pull out but then ended up having to reverse down the hill, trying not to hit the walls on either side, and her brakes weren't working so her tires were just spinning! While Courtney and I were waiting in the dark at the top we noticed a ginormous rat on the fence! Like we thought it was a cat at first and then we saw the tail. So we got a flashlight out and it was just staring at us. We thought about going to wait in the car but before I could get the keys out the rat moved! In panic we ran towards the house and found that Austin's BFF for life, Brock, who also happens to be Julie's neighbor had left his front door unlocked (such a bachelor move), so we hid in his apartment looking out the window. And the rat had disappeared so now we definitely couldn't go outside until Julie and Allie made it up. Then it turns out we couldn't order pizza because we called at 9:28 and they stop making pizza at 9:30 (grrrr Grenada), so Courtney and I book it to the store before it closes to buy frozen pizza. Courtney had texted her husband, Curtis, earlier to tell him not to try to take their van up to Julie's because it wouldn't make it- they have this super huge Uncle Rico van, it looks like an airstream, so great. Low and behold, when we are driving back to Julie's we see this van peel around the corner and speed up the big hill on the back road, which is not smooth at all. I yelled, "The van!" and we sped up behind them trying to get them to stop by honking and flashing our lights. When we get around the corner we see the van slowly rolling down the hill and Austin ran and jumped in Fran so he could reverse down to our house before the Silver bullet hit us. It was wild!
PS the rat turned out to actually be an opossum...still creepy. Also, the Stormin' Mormons got third in the tournament.

Stormin' Mormons. Geoff, Austin, Curtis. 

So handsome!