Kids Fest

The kids had fun at the Semesterly Kid's Fest and made some new Dominica friends as did I :)

The Trip

Well, first on the list of places to go was Miami. It was a long, but happy flight. The kids had a great time and we were in the first seats of the section so we had plenty of room in front of us. I could even put my feet up which was awesome. The flight attendant was amazing. I was soooo impressed. (American Airlines- I think traveling first thing in the morning if you have kids is good advice- then the attendants aren't tired)

This is me thinking, "holy crud...."

Matthew being insane on the plane.

4 hour layover in Miami International Ariport at which Matthew's pack with his gameboy and pokemon card collection was stolen.  lame.  I also got these sunglasses...

and on to....San Juan!  It looks like it's full of water... barely any land to it! We got in at about 9...30? ish? I don't remember.  Anyway, it was dark.  We caught a van taxi to our hotel called "The Beach House" in a run down area. After we lugged all 12 bags up to the hotel room, the kids and I walked across the street to Burger King and got dinner and then walked back and ate dinner on the beach with our toes in the sand.  I let the kids run in the waves which was weird in the dark.

Here are some things I liked... the fresh flowers on the breakfast table were so pretty.

  I love the elephant statue.  Elephants are cool. 

The view from my door

  Loading our plane for Dominica....

The white pillow Matthew is carrying is mine from the hotel..  I forgot my pillow from home (which I love) and so on the way out I snagged it and told them to charge me.  I am SO glad I did cause the pillows here are lumpy nasty sacks.

happy to see their daddy!! 

 Cute and little

uhhhh what?? Does NOT recline?

Here is a pic of the flight out of San Juan- this doesn't even begin to capture the sight I saw.... ok, well it ONLY begins to capture it, rather.

And soooooon.... DOMINICA!!

Jeesh! What took me so long?

Ok, so I'm super sorry to those who have been patiently waiting for an update since I got to Dominica and have left my blog disappointed. Or even worse, are waiting to see graduation pictures! I am sorry to inform you that I will be skipping the graduation post and getting to the Dominican adventure... Why? Because, 1. Nobody cares about my graduation in relation to what is currently happening, and 2. All of my graduation pics are on my computer which is packed in a box somewhere in Arizona.

So, first, i moved

boxes... Thanks,jimmy, for the ton of boxes you brought me! 

Thanks to all the friends who helped out!! unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of everyone who helped, but here is Käthe and me painting Megan's room back white. I love painting.  It's very therapeutic for me.  Just like the dishes. 

 Our last night in our house.  Thank you, house, for keeping my children warm at night, for letting us eat happy family dinners within your walls, and for being our place of refuge through life's storms. It has been a great 5 years.

Saying Goodbye really stinks!  I've made some lifelong friends here, though.  If you read the blog, you've heard me talk about my B.  This is one of the last times I saw her (right after she helped me clean my house- then we went swimming that night).  Love you, B!  I haven't worked out since we last did together (that doesn't mean I have gotten a workout, but tomato tomato. <---that doesn't really come through right in text, does it?)

Bye bye Campus!

 My mom and I at The Burrito Shack.  Yeah baby.  Thanks so much, mom, for helping me the whole week and packing me up while I was in la la land.  I seriously packed umm A box. no joke.  This woman is amazing. Love you!

We had from Friday to Monday with no house before we flew out, so my friends Nick and Shelly let us stay at the Chateau. They and their family and my B and her family came over Saturday night to swim. My mom got to stay with me until early Sunday morning and Val and Karen stayed Sunday night. On Sunday afternoon the Goodmans came over and Shelly helped me get everything weighed for the very last time (since we'd moved things around and added a few things) and ready to go to the airport. Käthe and Mitchell came over and got the grande tour from all the kids and helped out, too.  Bye Guys!! Thanks for all the help!!!

Love this crazy photo :)  It's now my FB profile picture

 It was prompted by this:

 Me and Shelly

Me and Käthe 

 Thank you to everyone who helped me get out of Arizona!!  Love you all! I will post more about our journey to Dominica a little later.  I have videos! yip yip!  Now I have to walk down to campus to meet Aaron :)    

Oh, here's a teaser- this is a picture I took on the way home from the airport:

San Juan

Landed in San Juan, got a taxi to our hotel, The Beach House, hauled all 12'bags up the stairs to our cute little room, then went across the street to burger king and took and ate our dinner on the dark beach with our toes in the sand. The kids splashed around a little too. San Juan sand is like flour.

And more ketchup.

I thought I'd take a break from packing up my house and post more of the stuff that's been on the docket.  It was WAY too much to post in one sitting. 

During May everyone in our family was a student :)  Pretty cool.  Aaron flew out on April 19th and started school on May 7th. Here are a few pictures of his beginnings in Dominica... 

Layover in San Juan- This was at the hotel where Aaron stayed called The Beach House (This is where I'll be staying on Monday night ... uhhh one week from RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE! yip yip!)

Then he got to Dominica.  Here is his landing...

Here is our house...

the 2nd story in the back :)

And here's a look down our street:

Notice the absense of street lights? It's super dark at night - Aaron was walking home in the dark the other night and tripped over something.  He was pretty startled when he looked back and found that what he tripped over had been a large crab the size of our kitchen stool.

if you look over the house down at the end of our street you can see this bay:

different view:

A hike the first years took.....

 In the capitol, Roseau, at the fish market.  This is a Marlin.

Aaron at his white coat ceremony- the same day as my graduation!

Stay tuned for the kids' and my graduation! G'night!

Ketchup Time

Hey guys- sorry I've been AWOL. A lot has happened since I last posted. 

NY was a blast!!! 

Up close and personal to Käthe on the plane :)
RED EYE FLIGHT=LAME
even though I'm acting happy here.

Times Square, baby. I'm such a tourist.

About to board the ship for the harbor tour!  Here are all the girls: 

and I look like a doofus. ah well.

And the guys- this looks like a clothing catalog picture:

I liked this pic.  Waiting for the harbor tour to board.

Brigham, Shanti, and Michelle

I'm on a boat.

oh what's that in the background?  We didn't even mean to do that! ;)

All of us tired and cold after the red eye and our harbor tour... we couldn't check into the Hilton until 3pm. ummm bad idea.

ha ha we're funny.  This is like a foreground photo-bomb. ha!  I believe this is Marc checking to see if we can check in yet.. we were exhausted but we kept on going.... energizer bunny had nothing on us.
Käthe, me, Marc, Evan, AnnaMarie

Central Park Fun

Käthe kept taking pictures of the male joggers and getting all googly-eyed at the men every where. ha ha but right above my head in this picture there was a guy working out on a towel in nothing but loose short shorts... He was a little peacock if I ever saw one.  We were all laughing at Käthe's reaction to him.  Jared's face in this picture is hilarious, too. 

Greg, me, Jared, Evan, Matt

 The tunnel we sang in.... that was fun :) And sounded rad. yes I did.
Evan, Greg

AnnaMarie, me, Kassandra, Calli

All 17 of us on the same elevator. It was comfdy.

I just thought this guy looked so quirky that I had to pose in a picture with him without him knowing :) You see all types in the subway.  He's just so sharp and riddled with OCD.  I love him.

lurv. Käthe hates it when I say that :)
Calli, Käthe, AnnaMarie, Me

 Waiting for my train :) I LOVED the subway.

outside the subway station

me, Shawna, Calli

Ground Zero

We got hot dogs at Gray's Papaya a few times- Jimmy Kimmel says it's the best weiner in the state.

Ha ha Greg's trying to be a dork in my Gray's Papaya picture..

Evan and the Gang- he HAD to get a picture.

I wasn't impressed, but it was alright (Evan if you read this, just forget you read it.  It was wonderful). The dogs were tiny and the juice was "eh" (I take that back, too)

 Me and Ethan being dumb.  We only have subway maps for blankets..... so we're sad.  Really I was just mocking how huge they were and how dumb people look when they open them up all the way.  Which is why i carried one that was ripped down to my section of town.  Which, I found out later, is actually not the greatest idea if you don't know the area .... better off lost than looking like an idiot, right? Don't answer that.

HALAL GUYS GYROS PLATTERS!

YUMMMMMMMM  The best ones are right across the street from the Hilton (where we were staying) on 53rd and 6th. There are a lot of imposters, but these is the guys. Amazuhzing. It's chopped Gyros or Chicken or both with this crazy bright orange long grain rice that looks like shredded cheese, pita wedges, lettuce, and a tangy tzatziki sauce (a greek yogurt cucumber garlic sauce. - IMHO this makes the dish.) and BBQ sauce served by guys in bright yellow cooking over steaming grills and shouting in uhhh?? arabic? and moving super fast.  I had this a few times. I kept craving it.

Note:  Every time I ate this I felt sick later from the greasiness.  I didn't care.

Note #2: If you are done eating and there is still food left in your platter, either seal it up TIGHT or throw it away far far away. It will stink up your hotel room.
Note #3:  I spent way too much money on food on this trip.  Halal guys gave me the most food for my money. $6 for possibly two meals, if you count breakfast the morning after.

All day long the lines look like this. (minus the dark)

Käthe, me, and Calli with our gyros (pronouced yerohs)

Greasy, delicious, and definitely from a cart.  A true NY experience!

 

Empire State Building..... ok, I navigated the subway system- I think we had to take 4 trains to get there... We were pretty proud of ourselves for navigating our way there and doing it super quick (but for future reference, DONT take the E train if you can help it. or was it the R?  Oh well, just avoid them both. LOL. It's scary. I'm still waiting on my Hep test results to come back ;)  We got to the building and the wait was...... 4 HOURS? dun dun dun.... no freaking way. We took a picture in the lobby and went back to the hotel. and then lied to everyone that we had gone to the top. ha ha ha.  We eventually told them the truth. I swear it.

Käthe, me, AnnaMarie, and Calli

We spent a lot of time in Times Square and got caught up in a crowd that was around Nikki Menage who was there to perform. I could've reached out an touched her.  Not that I'm a fan, but everyone else thought that was pretty cool.  Here is the Times Square police department.  ha ha It's ridiulous how gawdy everything is.

Some of the best Thai food you will never have the pleasure of experiencing is at  Pan Thai on 7th and umm 52nd? Anyway, it was amazing.  All 6 of us were reaching across the table eating out of each other's dishes and oohing and mmming. Good Stuff.  nothing was bad.

Especially Calli's (this is her "get away from my food, woman" face)

The hat of shame.  We played a lot of Egyptian war and decided to make it more fun by adding the hat of shame stipulation. I believe this picture was taken at 3am in the deli across the street from the Hilton.  Calli and I accidentally walked in on a guy using the urinal in the bathroom there and were so punch drunk that we jumped up and down silent screaming and ran all the way out of the store tripping over eachother and I think it took us a full minute to start laughing out loud.......

And then we discovered I have a laughing problem....

 This is where we sang on Easter Sunday....

and this was posted on the door that week:

I'm on the left end.  I got to sing a solo at the concert which was rad.

  The after-party. Chodang, the food was awesomesauce. We are a pretty strange bunch.....

Evan, AnnaMarie, Calli, Rachel

Greg, Käthe, me

At one point we started clapping to see if we could get the 100 other singers to clap for no reason.  They did.  There were even a few hoots.  Poor little lambs... I mean sheep. It was pretty funny when I told them all that we just clapped to see if they would. tee hee.

Tired packing face

The next day we had a few hours to do whatever it was we for sure wanted to do before flying out.  For us it was China town (and the surrounding sultural hotspots).  Oh man, Kassandra spent a TON.  Everyone kept getting me to bargain with the shop keepers for them.  It was fun.  It reminded me of learning how to bargain from my dad growing up when we'd go through Nogales on our way to Rocky Point every year.

Here we are in Little Italy, baby!  I saw that beautiful fire hydrant and told everyone that we had to get a picture around it :)  Glad I did! It turned out great! We look like we're on Sesame Street. All we're missing is an impromptu musical number. And this is a group that could actually pulled it off! DANG! Life is full of missed opportunities.  Remember that, kids.

Shawna, AnnaMarie, Calli, Kassandra, Käthe, me

And then pizzzzzza.......

Matt, me, Käthe, Shawna, Calli, Kassandra

 This is my favorite picture I took the whole trip- sweet.

Greg, Jared, Evan

Regrets:

I didn't get any pictures of me out of that hat!  I brought some sassy outfits and looked all cute (like, for reals, yo) most of the time, but did we get that on film?  No.  In fact, we didn't get anything on film because everything is digital, doy.  Proof?  I got asked out by a guy at the banquet ceremonyish thing. so there.  Yes, there's a story there, but I's not tellin it. but it's funny and awkward, just like every story I ever tell.

One of my favorite things about NYC is navigating the subways.  When we were heading to practice on Friday morning(?) I had forgotten my subway week pass and so everyone had to go ahead without me while I went back to the hotel to find it.  I loved figuring out how to get to the convention center alone.  I plugged in my headphones and got my new yorker on.  I got there ok after a couple exchanges. After that all the girls would make me figure out how to get wherever it was we were going. ha ha. Love. While I was waiting for one of my trains I noticed a dude in Mexican boots. i had to pull out my phone and take a picture.  I snapped it two feet away from his actual feet. ha ha

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Next up, we got family pictures on the windiest day in April with Aaron's family.  Aaron wanted to cut his hair before these pictures but I said "not on your life!"  I want him to grow his hair out while he's in Dom. He'll be so hairy after 2 years!! This is the already-long before picture :)__________________________________________

Favorite!

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 I've been singing about town- 

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Here at Dos Gringos in conjuction with David and the Guitar (yes, that's a uke in the picture.  It's a thing.) These were taken while I sang Radiohead's "Creep." Overdone...but still magnificent :)

yes, yes, it's a boring reel, but I didn't take the pictures.  And it's actually true to life, so whatcha gonna do?

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Here's my Reverb Nation Cover Picture. (which was how David of David and the Guitar found me) Took it with Aaron's ipad while I was waiting in the car for him after church.  Click it to link to the Reverb Nation page (by the way, NONE of the songs on there are true to my performing genres as of yet)

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I also sang with my favorite punk band, Geek Empire.

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My HHS friends came to see me the first time I sang with GE. awwwwww

(funny fact....  I put on my orange shirt that night and felt like it needed more.... so I cut off the legs of Megan's too-small striped leggings and wore them on my arms. tee hee) 

Here are some pics from a couple different nights...

They're playing again the weekend I'm packing up my house at Crabby Dons- go support them June 23

WAY too much to post in one sitting.  Stay tuned for the kids' and my graduation, Aaron's arrival in Dominica, and first two months of med school! The kids and I leave in less than two weeks to join him!! Kuh-razy.