At home...

Yo guyzez' dirty stuff smells niiice

Haha, this is what he gets for having a wife as a morning person

It's true, he's playing Star Wars Legos. LEGOS!!

My view while sunbathing at the beach

Dessert per Chef Ryan: Mixed berry grunt with nutmeg ice cream & dark chocolate accent. It was delicious!

O that I had a nickel every time he did this! (I love the glass of cranberry juice!) So cute!

Most intense rain storm last night

May 25--another adventure with Doug & Mai

On the 25th of May, we went on a relaxing boat ride to Flamingo Bay (one bay up from Dragon Bay where we went scuba diving with friends). It took over an hour to get there--not a problem. 

Then we experienced the best snorkeling ever! (Of course, life jackets were optional, haha.) Our guide was pretty funny--every time he wanted our attention, he'd yell, "HELLO, HELLO." We saw squid, pretty eels, beaky & bright-colored fish, schools of jack, and I saw an octopus! Surreal. Then we went to another location of an underwater sculpture park. 

Because of the scuba experience days ago, my snorkeling/equalizing really improved. I was keeping up with Ryan pretty well! I wish I had pictures of the fish, but here's a link of the Underwater Sculptures. (click Grenada under the gallery tab.) Next to the bicycle sculpture was a giant sting ray! So amazing, I'll never forget that...

Later that night, Ryan made some incredible bananas foster for dessert using ripe rock figs (a species of banana here), the molasses-smelling brown sugar, and local dark rum. Yum!

Ryan and Chewey, Just Chillin'

"I like you, Wyan. Dis is niiice."

He stayed there for 4 whole minutes; I timed it

He totally fell asleep like this. I woke him up after 15 minutes. :-)

Ryan built this tower for me. What a guy...

"Dis is my chair."

Scuba Diving with Friends!!

Nom, nom, nom

I know how to scuba dive! Yay! 

Ryan and I and the other two couples that we’re friends with (Jon & Krystal, Allison & Phillip) did a resort course in the pool a few weeks ago. 

And I thought it was so stupid. Inflating the air vest… was an incredible push-up bra (soooo embarrassing). The pool water was so, SO disgusting—one can see every single floating thing with the mask. I found an old bandage floating around during a practice. 

And just when I thought I acquired MRSA, the instructors declared the pool course completed and herded us all up into a big motorboat and zipped us to Dragon Bay for a shallow dive. 

Phillip, Jon & Krystal

And the dive was incredible!

Off to Dragon Bay

The breathing became very natural and everything slowed down to a meditative speed. Our instructor found a large, soft sea cucumber that we all glided our fingers against. We saw a yellow eel, all kinds of colorful fish. It was such an amazing experience! The dive also helped improve my snorkeling skills. 

SGU viewed from the boat

We didn’t get back until 4, and none of us had had any food since before 11 o’clock that morning. Although we had a phenomenal day on the boat and in the water, the men were repressing how hangry (hungry-angry) they were and us girls were a little spacey and loopy.

After the dive, walking to food

We desperately stumbled into De Big Fish for lunch-dinner.

Daresay it was the best meal we’ve ever had! Satiation can be pretty intoxicating.

We had such a fun time!

RYAN'S DONE!! (And yay for a new blog look!)

End of Term One for Ryan!! Wah-Hooooooooo!!! Tonight, we went out for sushi and now he's getting lost in his computer games. He studied yesterday until he went to bed at 2, then woke up at 5 to begin again. (Yuck!) But the Pringle Fairy dropped him off some chips when he got back from his last final.

And I baked banana bread, quiche, homemade popcorn, chocolate chip cookies, and pancakes. That's how I cope--by baking the crap outta everything, ha ha. (Well, usually I clean like a psycho, but I'd already done that twice earlier this week, so...)

Other exciting news: (This is also a way to show you how unexciting life can get here.)

• I got my hands on a GPS running watch charger, so I charged up the watch and off I went! Super fun.
• I am reminded everyday how glad I am NOT to be a medical student this week.
• The bus driver who drives like a bat-outta-hell is back on our route.
• Ryan's hair is SO ADORABLE! I love his curly Caribbean hair.
• I made some incredible low-fat blueberry bran muffins & I'm the queen of amazing smoothies
• Chewey works hard all day: 12-hour night's sleep, bano-then-scratch, morning nap, afternoon nap, etc.
• The tiny lizard returned! (picture above and to scale) I took him outside.
• The girl I'm training is doing so, so awesome! So proud of her!
• I taught the kids' yoga classes, which were not as insane as I was anticipating, but I did have to Skype my mom and ask her how she dealt with me.
• Woman breastfeeding outside the grocery store. No cover. Great breasts though, and at least the child was an infant... (Not like the 4-yr-old running up to Momma for some IN the grocery store I saw last month.)
• Ryan still continues to make me laugh everyday... For example:
• He grabbed one of his books off the kitchen table and said, "You need to read this book so we can find out what's wrong with you!" I looked at the title: "Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology and Birth Defects."

I'll have to take pictures of my fitness/yoga stuff; I'm super thrilled about it! And even my food that I make... (Seriously, what's better than pictures of food? Well, besides real food that you can eat!)

My private student in savasana

I know it sounds like my life is such a simple and shallow mockery to my med student and the rest of the hard-working world, (and perhaps it is) but I really am happy here. I've made some great friends, and I am refining my homemaking skills and reaching my personal goals and career goals. (It doesn't feel like work!) (Well, dishes and laundry still feels like work.)

Love you guys! Namaste! (The light in me honors and bows to the light in you!)

A view, a reptile, and an accomplishment!! :-)

Top of a hill on campus

This guy was just chillin'. He was no bigger than my thumb!

I am not even joking, this guy was even TINIER than my thumb! He's trying to hide behind the dishes rack...

Yay! After 3 years of practice, I finally got my Pigeon Pose!

A Dead-Looking Shih Tzu, Yoga Classes, & Benefits of Having Another Human Body in the House

LEGAL!!! I figure that the perfect celebration for a renewed visa is a picture taken by the broken lion water fountain! Krystal did it too! Now it's a tradition!

He looks dead, doesn't he?

My visa was extended til May 19th, which is kind of a random date. Welcome to Grenada--where you don't often get your desired results and it never makes sense. I went to the End of Term SGU Sale (a big yard sale for leaving students) and I bought a bunch of kitchen stuff! So excited: cheese grater, 9x13 glass pan, muffin pan, and even a vacuum for $40 EC (roughly $15 US) for our rug. And I bought a salad spinner that I dropped and broke 20 seconds into my ownership. Sigh. So annoying.

Ryan's still pluggin' along! He can manage studying for finals for freakin' medical school and deal with me; pretty admirable! He even did some dishes yesterday; it's now not an uncommon thing for him to do. He's so great. But you know how he can be a bit weird-plus-goofy sometimes? (Okay, lots of the time! And I love it!) :-)  He has now incorporated medical school into it. I'm watching my vampire smut TV show on our bed like a normal person, and he enters the room, flips me over onto my back and lifts my left leg up ("Ooo! Marital fun?"). He starts massaging the back of my knee. I wait about 30 seconds, thinking "Nothing's happening!" Then I realize the massage is not really a massage: his expression is distant and he's muttering to himself. I look at his hands underneath my knee... "Are you studying anatomy on me???" I shriek incredulously. Not missing a beat, he responds "Yes."  I exhale vehemently, and he tilts his head, puzzled, and responds: "Well, we're married! I don't need to ask permission!"  Lol!! :-)  I guess being the spouse of a medical student, I had it coming. Ryan continued by trying to curl his fingers underneath my rib cage... ("I can feel your liver!") *eye roll*   This is why he cannot be an OBGYN...

In the next couple of weeks, the Fountain of Youth Yoga Center owner, Mithsouka (Meeth-SOO-kuh) is having me take over:

• 2 kids yoga classes
• a Power Vinyasa
• an advanced 90 minute
• Saturday morning's yoga class at La Source Hotel

I'm so excited and nervous!! :-) That's 5 classes a week! The kids yoga classes, as far as I'm concerned, is mostly baby-sitting and playtime (great!), but they're only 45 minutes long, and money is money. I've already taught the hotel's classes, so no biggie. The Power Vinyasa class is similar to my basic practice, so nothing too intense. The 90 minute class, though... Holy Explicative!! Absolutely the most difficult yoga class I've ever, ever had! A little bit did have to do with my hard work-out the evening before, but not much. I've never needed to go into Child's Pose* that many times before! I rarely have to do that; it was quite the ego bruise! And I was quite sore the rest of the day.

 

*Child's pose is a nice recovery that you take in the middle of practice if you're too tired