Back from Barbados

These pictures are all out of order, but I was too lazy to delete and start over! Julie has been taking pictures like crazy since she got here, so I haven't actually taken a lot. She is going to email her pictures to me when she gets home and I will post more pictures then. Julie gave you a brief update of her first night and day here so I will pick up with Sunday. We went to church and then to Subway and then we decided to go to the pool. It started raining not long after we got there, but we decided it would probably blow over pretty quick so we didn't bother to take cover. The rain got harder and harder and finally, about 25 minutes after sitting in the pouring rain, we decided it might not blow over and that we should probably take cover. We were really determined to wait for the sunshine! Anyway, once the rain finally passed we swam for a while and then went home to start dinner and bake bread. Monday Julie helped Andrea and me work at our bread table. She wore a Daily Bread Tshirt and everything! After "work" Theo picked us up and took us to the airport and we were on our way to Barbados! The short flight (50 minutes) took us to one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen! Now, I don't know if it's because I was craving "real" food more than the normal tourist, but I thought that all of our meal experiences were fabulous! I really want to go to Barbados again with Ryan (someday). It is definitely a place to share with people you love!
This is a shot of one of our favorite dinner spots. We sat right on the water and watched as sea turtles swam up.
This is obviously out of order... We got back today (Thursday) and went to Ryan's football game. They won! :)



This is a picture I took at the "Make Your Own Pizza and Game Night" on Julie's first night here.
Sometimes we show up places dressed alike...never on purpose. (You can't tell as much in the picture, but her shirt has a lot of grey in it too.)
The view from our hotel room in Barbados. If only we had white sand beaches in Dominica...
Where we had breakfast!

Julie & Ralna at dinner. This is right after Julie arrived in Dominica. Theo is giving her the tour as we drive to my apartment. In this video Julie is excited because she recognizes a scene from Pirates of the Caribbean 2.

Blog By Julie

Hello All! Well, I made it to the Nature Isle. I arrived in Dominica yesterday at 5:00 pm. Ashley and Theo were waiting for me outside the airport to take me to the apartment. Ashley is such a great hostess. She had made me some banana bread and had some ice cold water for me. The ride to the apartment was very interesting. Theo was telling me all about the island and he pointed out were scenes from the Pirates movies were filmed. When we got to the apartment, I unloaded all my stuff then it was time for the party. Ashley had invited some of her and Ryan's friends over for a pizza and game night to welcome me to the island. I feel like I already knew all of their friends from the stories and blog. It is good to know that they have great friends. The homemade pizzas were so good!! We also had many delicious desserts, chocolate cake, chocolate chip cookies, rice krispie treats, and Oreo Cheesecake. We played Catch Phrase, Catch Phrase Musical Edition, and a game that Kyle and Andrea made up. The last party guest left at 1:45, so it was a great party. I had almost been up for 24 hours at this point, so I was exhausted. Ashley and I decided to sleep in, and we did. I woke up at 12:30!! I cannot tell you the last time that this has happened. Ashley made turkey sandwiches for us, and we went to school and met Ryan for lunch. The scenery was beautiful from the school. We ate on the deck near the ocean. Ashley and I went to Purple Turtle beach for the afternoon. Ashley said it wasn't that hot today, so I was thankful for that. We are getting ready to eat dinner at the Tomato, so I will hopefully write more later. So far, it has been great here. Sorry if I am not as creative as Ashley, but this will have to do for the week. :)

Bread Cookbook - Trust Me, You Knead It!

How do you like our Daily Bread shirts?! We're back in business! I was gone for several weeks and Andrea single-handedly held the business together! Now we're back and better than ever and this time we have Tshirts and cookbooks! SO, if you would like to order a cookbook ($12) or a Tshirt ($10) just send me an email to DailyBreadDominica@yahoo.com or you can just post a comment below. Thanks to Adam, Julie & Paige who are already sporting their DB Tshirts in the U.S.






We were laughing in this picture because even though we were taking a picture of our backs, we were both smiling as though we were taking a normal picture. Can't you tell? Doesn't the back of Andrea's head look happy? :)


Third semester! Ryan had to dress up today and wear his white coat to meet and interview patients on campus! I remember when we were 1st semester and would see the students that were dressed up and I would think "man, they're almost finished with school on the island" and now WE are those students! I felt like a mom on the first day of school taking Ryan & Adam's picture...but don't they look handsome?

Julie gets here in 4 days! Friday night we are having a big pizza party and game night so she can meet our friends here. I'm making homemade pizzas and just having people bring their own toppings. I'm excited about that! Then we will be doing some island tours and one week from today we are going to Barbados!!! Ralna is going to come with us and we should have a great time! So, things are busy here...which is good. Ryan didn't have lectures today (just the thing where he interviewed a patient) and he doesn't have school on Friday so hopefully he can study a lot and then spend time with Julie and me. He has his first football game Friday afternoon and they are always excited about that. Ok, that's the update for now! Don't forget to let me know if you want some DB products! =)

Mission trip to St. Maarten/Sint Martin

I know these are very late.. This is the Church of Christ on the Dutch side of the island.
This is at the front of the church on the French side of the island.
VBS on the French side. This is the Noah's Ark skit.
One little animal wasn't sure he wanted to go in the ark.

This was one HEAVY baby!
VBS fun!
View from Fort Louis on the French side.



More VBS skits. Here we have some Egyptians drowning as they chased the Israelites through the Red Sea. That is actually the sky outside the church. It kind of looks like a picture on the wall.

Same heavy baby!
Now this is safe! We had 3 cars in our group and these girls kept us entertained as we drove from the Dutch side to the French side.

This is Nia. One of the students at the Christian Academy.
Beautiful water!
Hot and dirty from picking up tons and tons of trash!

The videos at the bottom are from church service on the French side (singing God Will Take Care of You in French), VBS (If You're Happy and You Know It in French) and the view from Fort Louis.

Blessings abound!

Winnie Kate (she's good at smiling for the camera!)
The 3 cousins on top of the car. They all thought it was fun...but Holly changed her mind quickly.
Obviously neither of us was ready for this picture!

The surprise "encouragement book" I made for Ryan. I figured that when he feels stressed with medical school he can quickly flip through this book and have his spirits instantly lifted.
"God does not offer us a way out of the testings of life. He offers us a way through, and that makes all the difference." W.T.P.

Andrea, Katy and me the first night back on the island. Katy and Chris are new this semester.
Chris, Kyle & Ryan.
Daily Bread Cookbook!
Don't try to steal the recipes!!! :)

I've been off the island for 5 weeks and, I have to say, it's good to be back. I had a great week on the mission trip to St. Martin and 4 fabulous fun-filled weeks in Tennessee and now I'm refreshed and ready for another three and a half months on the island! Ryan had a great two week break and was very excited about the encouragement book I gave him the night before we came back to Dominica. Thank you so much to everybody who wrote letters for the book. It's probably the best gift ever! It turned out very cute and there were 31 letters in it! Everytime he looks at it he will be reminded of how loved and blessed he is. Every single day at home was just perfect. We made the most of every day and got to spend a lot of time with many friends and family members. Coming back is bittersweet. We're sad to leave friends, family & all the comforts of home in the U.S. but excited to see our friends here and get back into our routine (although Ryan's routine isn't nearly as enjoyable as mine). We got back to Dominica Saturday and Kyle and Andrea came over soon after we were dropped off at our apartment. Andrea and I exchanged birthday gifts because we couldn't wait til June (for mine) and July (for hers). She gave me some really cute earrings from D's that I had admired one day when we went in there together and she also gave me a Daily Bread Cookbook! She had it published through Shutterfly and has all of our bread recipes, pictures of the bread, quotes from our regular customers, bible verses and a very sweet letter from her and pictures of us with our bread. What a great gift! I was super excited and will probably need to order more copies for y'all! So Ryan is officially a second year medical student! His first day of class was yesterday. The island is HOT! I keep asking locals and they all seem to agree that May is the hottest month for Dominica. Sorry, Julie! Julie is coming NEXT FRIDAY!!! Woo-hoo! I'm trying to plan fun stuff for us to do, including spending a couple of days on Barbados. :) Well, I'll try to update more soon.