I leave TOMORROW!!!! Can yall believe it?? I am a bunch of emotions!! As you all know – Ellie is leaving with me. Please pray that I will chill out! Thank the Lord that Sarah will be with me to hopefully calm me down a little.

This semester has gone by extremely fast! Almost too fast. I have made a bunch of new friends who I wish would have gotten here my first semester. They are great. Two of which are my new accountability and prayer partners. Great girls! If only Sarah would stay ONE more semester life would be near perfect. The end of the semester has been pretty busy for us spouses. Parties galore! There is a new hotel/bar in town called Comfortel de Champ. The people that own it are great. They invited us over for a wine and cheese night last Saturday. We had a blast!! There were about 12 of us and we danced like crazy! We were prime examples of people who knew how to have fun without being drunk. Even though the pictures look otherwise.

Then the next day we went tubing down the river. Its about a 6 mile tube down one of the 365 rivers in Dominica. It was a blast! It’s a little faster than a lazy river with a few small “rapids” here and there. One of my friends fell out of her tube on the first rapid. Im not real sure how it happened – but it did.

Then Monday night we had a Christmas Cookie Swap at my friend Ashleys house. We all (well most of us) wore red and green and brought a batch of cookies (or fudge, cupcake, etc.), and then played a game called Garbage. My team lost but it was fun! I took my dads FAMOUS chocolate chip cookies (which I have almost perfected) and some peanut butter cookies.

LIFE IS GOOD!!

Well yesterday was Justins last day of class!!! Now its test time! Here is his test schedule:

December 8     Path Lab Final
December 11   Behavioral Science Shelf
December 15   Mini 3 Exam
December 17   Final Exam (cumulative of all semester)

On December 17th he takes his test at 8:00 am and then his plane leaves at 2:55 pm! We are so grateful he got this flight out. He was originally scheduled to leave on the 21st. One day he was just looking at flights – just in case - and found one seat left on the December 17th flight. He calls me and asks if he should book it and my reply was “ARE YOU CRAZY???” Duh!!! Of course I want to spend 4 more days with you! I believe with all my heart that God made him look for flights that day so he could come home earlier. 

I am coming home on December 10th (JUST ONE WEEK!!!). I am bringing Ellie home and I hate traveling with our dogs. It really stresses me out and I do not do well. I get sick and I will be nervous and worried about her until I see her out of her crate in Fort Smith Arkansas! Luckily Sarah will be flying with me until Dallas. She was originally leaving a little later but then changed her flight just for me (and Ellie)!! So she can help me with Ellie when we get to Puerto Rico, etc. How great is that? 

Also – Ellie cannot fly if it is over 85 degrees here in Dominica or Puerto Rico. So please pray that the weather cooperates. The Lord really has looked over us in all our traveling that we have done this past year. The dogs have done great flying and for that I am extremely thankful! 

One other thing – HAPPY LATE BIRTHDAY MOM!!!!!!!! Her birthday was this past Sunday (November 30th) and she was 52!! She said this one was great because unlike the last two years – she didn’t just get out of surgery AND she has hair!!  I love you so much Mom!! Below are some pictures of my gorgeous mother!! Not many people can look as good as she does post cancer huh?

Let me first say that I have an amazing husband!!! He has been wonderful this past weekish. The spaghetti dinner - which was last Thursday – pretty much started off some kind of craziness in our house. I have bible study on Tuesday nights and this semester we have had 11 girls. Six of which are leaving and will not be here next semester. So the other five of us threw them a little going away dinner. We did lasagna but I just fixed the green beans, cookies, and of course – my specialty - sweet tea. Then the next day the cooking continued – for Thanksgiving. I cooked 4 pumpkin cheesecakes, sweet potato casserole, and corn casserole.

When Wednesday night got here I kinda lost it. It just hit me that almost everyone in my family was traveling to Jonesboro, Arkansas without me and Justin!! Usually Christmas is everyones big family holiday. Well – not mine!! Thanksgiving is huge in my family!!! This was also my cousin Josh’s first time to not be in Jonesboro. We are very close – like brother and sister. So he calls me Wednesday night and that helped nothing. We both had a large breakdown over the phone. This was around dinner time so Justin is home when the phone call is happening. So he offers to stay home and study (something that never happens because he gets distracted so easily). So I go in our bedroom and sit on the bed with Ellie to start peeling my sweet potatoes. I start peeling and they are white. So I thought well maybe when you break them in half theyre orange on the INSIDE. No such luck there. And then Justin was like – “Liz I think those are roots”. (Something kinda like a potato here). So I called my friend Ralna (who was with me when I bought them) and asked her what was going on. She then tells me not to worry – sweet potatoes are just white here. WHEW!!!  

So then practically right after that my dad calls and Justin answers the phone. On the other line was Dawson – one of my little cousins. He and Justin talked for a while and I just started bawling during this time. The kind of bawling that usually really only occurs when something tragic has happened. So then Dawson tells Justin that the little girls want to talk to me and Justin attempts to hand me the phone. Im not real sure what he was thinking. Im just shaking my head like do I look like Im in the kind of shape to hear there voices right now? So Justin tells my dad – “umm nows not a really good time”.

So I finish my potatoes around midnight and we head to bed. Thursday Justin just had class til noon. During that time Im laying on the couch watching the Macys Thanksgiving Parade and thinking – right now I should be eating my little cousin Garretts monkey bread. Justin came home at noon and then my cousin Richard Paul called. I attempt to talk to him but lose it as soon as I hear his voice. I got through it though. The rest of the day was continued cooking and even Justin shed a little tear or two. Justin ended up taking the whole day off.

We went to our friends house at 5:00 to help set up for all the people who were coming at 6:30. About 100ish people showed up!!! We were so crammed and there was SO much food!! It was a good time. 

So the reason Justin is so amazing is because through all this time he was basically my rock through everything and while I was cooking – he would come behind me and do the dishes! He was home when he didn’t have to be. He comforted me and didn’t treat me like I was acting like a crazy person. I am very THANKFUL for him!

Above: In my own little world - listening to music - peeling the white sweet potatoes.

Above: The white sweet potatoes. With one somewhat orange one. So weird...

Above: Justin trying to not get tea all over himself while Im driving - trying to dodge all the many potholes on the very rocky dirt road.

Above: One of THREE tables filled with food.

Above: Some of the people at Thanksgiving. There were also people outside, in other rooms, and on the other half of this room!

Above: Justin and I trying to organize the food.

Above: Justin and I during dinner. (My hands were a little sticky from desserts)

Justin has two tests this week. The first one is today at 1:30 (11:30 AM central time). Its called an ICM (Introduction to Clinical Medicine) Practical. Here is a description of what this practical entails:

He picks 1 out of 14 different tasks to perform on a patient. This includes General Survey, Peripheral Circulation, Detailed Radial Pulse, Blood Pressure, Cardio examination, Respiratory examination, Abdominal examination, etc.
Each includes a series of tasks you would perform to assess if everything is normal or abnormal. Then you are asked a secondary question regarding your understanding of what you just did.
The hard part is just remembering what to do for each thing, the proper order, and why you actually are doing something since you don’t know which of the tasks you will pick.

 Wednesday is his next test. It is at 1:30 also and is called a Behavioral Oral Exam. Ya know all those questions on that form you fill out when you go to the doctors office? Questions like family history, personal history, current medications, etc. Well Justin has had to memorize all those and his test is to ask all of them to a patient while a professor is in the room grading him. Its actually a lot of stuff to memorize!!!! He has been practicing “interviewing” me. 

 Justin has been very anxious lately about this semester. Please pray the following for him: 

 Philippians 4:6-7
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Thanks everyone! I will be home in 16 days and cant wait to see everyone! We love yall!!

Our external hard drive is broken!!! If you don’t know what an external hard drive is then let me explain. It’s a little thing that plugs into your computer and you put files on it – so if your computer crashes your stuff wont be lost. So we had ALL of our pictures on it and some of Justins school stuff. And now all of it is GONE!!! Were not real sure how it broke. It could have been my fault unfortunately. It had been in my bag that I take everywhere with me and so it could’ve been banged up a little bit in there. I really didn’t realize how sensitive it was. So please pray that it will somehow miraculously start working again – at least long enough to take our stuff off of it.

Thursday night we threw the Spouses semesterly Spaghetti Dinner. Its something the Spouses Organization does every semester for the students. Sarah and I were in charge if it and it went very smoothly!! Although we didn’t have as many people as we thought we would so that was kind of a bummer. The last two semesters we’ve had between 200 and 250 people. This semester we only fed 150!! But at least all the leftovers didn’t go to waste. We gave them to a place in Portsmouth called Lambs Feast. They feed the children in Portsmouth that are in desperate need of a meal. 

So no pictures to post because theyre all gone!! = (  

Please Pray Pray Pray!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We had a pretzel party last night! Crystal decided to have one because she made these soft pretzels (WAY better than Auntie Annes) for a couple of our potlucks and everybody loved them. So she had the great idea to have a “party” to teach everyone how to make them!! There were 18 of us piled into Crystals apartment! We made like 100 pretzels or something crazy like that. We had little groups and each group had about 3 people in them. My group was me, Sarah, and Aileen. We named ourselves TEAM E because all of our middle names are Elizabeth!!! Below are some pictures of last night. As you can see – we didn’t just make pretzels. We made an E (for our team name), a Jesus fish, a breast cancer ribbon (well its not pink – but that’s what its supposed to be), and a swirly thing. Tons of fun!! Its times like these that make me LOVE it here!! If only my Mom and Dad were still only about two hours away!! And if only I had a Wal-Mart. And a mall…..

Anyway!!! So Justin and I were able to vote in the election all the way from Dominica! We got our ballots in about three weeks before the election. Below are some pictures of my ballot. Is that legal? Well - way to go Arkansas for voting smart!!! Just four years….

Below are some pictures of the past few weeks. Enjoy!!

Above: This is Crystal and I at the pool one day - waiting out the rain! Her and her husband, Jake, live right down the road from us. They are from Virginia and are a great couple!!

Above: Me and Sophia - quite possibly one of the most gorgeous little girls EVER!! She is Ralnas middle child. They are from Hattiesburg, Mississippi - where some of my family lives! I think we might be distantly related somehow. Dont you see the crazy resemblance??

Above: Just a Saturday at the pool! All the girls in the picture are also spouses (or girlfriends/significant others/etc.) We have so much fun!!

Above: Sarah, Me, and Ralna. LOVE THESE GIRLS!!!! They have gotten me through the past year! Im so glad God put them in my life. Unfortunately both of them will be gone next semester. Please pray for me!

Above: We were waiting on Sarah (for her 2nd surprise party). She took a little long so we got creative...

Above: David, Sarah, me, and Justin. This was the night of Sarahs (2nd) surprise party. Good Times!!!

Above: Eating at Perkys Pizza with our glass bottles of Coke (bottled in Dominica by the way). All these girls are first semester spouses. I love having friends that like to take fun pictures.

Above: Josh and Allison are from Louisiana and they had some couples over for Gumbo one night. It was really good! Very spicy though! This night us girls went crazy with the camera. We have some fun pictures... Below is just one of them.

So I got my computer!!! So sorry it has been so long since I have posted. One of my friends even asked me if I had quit blogging altogether!! 

Well I guess Ill start with Sarahs Birthday(s). First I threw her a surprise party with all of our friends. She was so surprised and even shed a little tear. We did a potluck and I had people bring some Louisiana dishes (since shes from Louisiana). It went very well and she had no idea! Then two days later her husband had ANOTHER surprise party at Tomatoes (a restaurant). Check out the picture below of Sarah and I with the birthday present I got her!

We have also started playing Bunko on Wednesday nights. It is so fun!! There are 12 of us that play. Below are some pictures of Bunko night.

I had to substitute teach for a week. I taught pre k and kindergarten. They are in one class together. I had three kindergartners and eight pre k’s. The teacher left horrible plans so I had to make a lesson plan for the whole week. Luckily two of my friends teach at the prep school so they helped me out a lot – along with Google! I had so much fun!! The kids are so precious and they were really good. They are the same class I volunteer with three times a week so luckily they already knew me and respected me. Below are some pictures of some of the kids at Halloween and Creole Day (Dominicas "Independence Day"). 

Let me preface this blog by saying that the reason it has been so long since I have blogged is because my computer has been dead since last Friday – October 17th! I should be getting a new one sometime next week thanks to my awesome Dad!! So I have to use Justins computer whenever hes not on it. Which is basically midnight or later! Luckily, tonight hes mostly studying notes so I get the computer for a little while. The above picture is of Justin trying to fix it. He took it almost completely apart! After he did that it worked but then died just a couple days later. 

The week after the mini on Thursday Justin went with me and some other spouses to Victoria Falls. This was my third time to do this hike! This is one of my favorite things to do on this island! The only thing that stinks about it is that it is a 2 hour drive through curvy, steep, bumpy roads. During this hike you cross through three rivers, the rainforest, and then at the end you climb up some big boulders! There are times your foot is almost above your head! Justin had to stay in the back and help some of the girls (love ya Ralna!!).

I have been busy on the weekends playing intramural sports. Softball on Saturday – volleyball on Sunday. Ive already posted a picture of my volleyball team so below is a picture of my softball team. We are the “spouses” team and we have so much fun together!! Were pretty good too!

A guy that was a youth pastor in the states who is a first semester spouse has started a youth ministry in our town. It is called inLIGHTin and our first afternoon was this past Friday. It went great. Not as planned of course but great! Please pray that we will have an impact on the youth of this community and that God will continue to provide for this ministry.

Above: The ever so popular game Chubby Bunny. Ryan and I had to demonstrate to the kids how to play!

So today I am blogging about what probably every other spouse on this island is blogging about today!! The school is closed today!! The prime minister of Dominica closed EVERYTHING on the island due to the storm surge. Hurricane Omar is like over by San Juan somewhere but somehow were getting a little bit of the effects. We had a HUGE storm this morning. The biggest one weve had since Justin and I have lived here. So since the roads are so horrible here - when it rains this bad it really affects them. Meaning you cant drive on them. Not so much around where we live though. 

So I wake up this morning and think to myself – “I hope the waters not brown – I really need to take a shower”. Because as yall know – our water comes from the river. And if the river is crazy from the rain – our water is brown. So I go to turn on the faucet at the sink and the water is still clear. Im thinking – lucky me!!! So I hop in the shower and the water is MUD pretty much. I get out and Im flipping out. Ellies going crazy cause Im going crazy. I mean – yall – I was UNDER the faucet before I realized the water was muddy. Hair and all.

So I go to plan B. I think to myself “Calm down – you can just go to the school gym and take a shower”. So I pack up all my stuff and as Im headed out the door I check my phone and notice I have a text message from Justin. It says “Im coming home the school is shut down until tomorrow”. Not five seconds later he pulls up to our house and gets out of Kelsies car. I yell out – “I have to go up to school – I just got soaked with mud water”. He says – “Nope the whole campus is shut down!!”. Kelsie is cracking up because she can literally see the dirt on my face – like I had put on selfless tanner.  

So Justin was like – “Liz you’ve got to see how big these waves are”! (Not feeling sorry for me at all that I was literally covered in dirt (hair and all remember?). So we get in the car to go check out the waves. It wasn’t raining at this point thankfully! When we got there Justin said that the waves had already calmed down a little from earlier this morning when he saw them. But they were still huge to me!! It was awesome! Totally made up for my dirty hair. 

Above: A video of what our water looks like right now. This is what I took a 10 second shower in!!

Above: Some of the waves right down by the school.

Above: This one isnt the greatest of the waves but is a good one of Ellie! I screamed because the waves came over the "bank" and splashed me unexpectedly!! There is usually a beach where the water is coming up!