So....

I suck at this.

It has almost been a year since I last wrote. To put it another way, I was almost 8 months pregnant with Carter when I last posted and he is now 9 months old. So much has happened these past 10 months, I just don't know where to pick up. Last summer alone:

We moved back to America

We had a baby

We found out Shane would be rotating at ARMC

Shane took and rocked Step 1 of his medical boards

We moved to California

Being the wife of a medical student is crazy! You would think that these grueling 4 years would just drag on but in fact it is the opposite. Time flies! Period. Grenada went so fast and this clinical year is going even faster. Things are constantly changing. Every six weeks, Shane starts a new rotation. This means a new schedule, new patients, new residents, new attendings, new on-call hours, new everything. Once you are in the swing of things, it starts all over again. You would think it would get old having everything change all the time but it's actually really awesome! It is so nice to hate the hours that Shane is gone but realize that it will only be like this for "a few more weeks." It's nice to have six weeks of a crappy schedule and then realizing that the next six weeks will be a way more relaxed one. It's nice to have a rotation where Shane is home during a few days of the week to spend time with our boys and the trade-off is working some nights. But then it's also nice to have him working a rotation with normal clinic hours so he is able to spend the evenings with us. It's hard to explain and I guess you don't really get what it's like until you are in it. The point is, we live our lives six weeks at a time around here and it's really not that bad! Did I mention that when you are living like this time flies? It's not that I am wishing time away, it just really is a fun time for our family. Shane has much more time to spend with us and it is great. 

Some things haven't changed even since Grenada. We spend a lot of our time outside enjoying this beautiful California weather. I always thought I was the type of person that wanted to live somewhere that had all 4 seasons but boy has that changed. I think Grenada ruined it for me and now that I'm experiencing this weather, I don't want it any other way. I love that I can take Jeremy and Carter outside every single day to go on walks, ride bikes, go to the park, and hang out at the pool/hottub and soak up the sun. I would say that half of our day is spent outside and it is great! It doesn't hurt that we have fun neighbors in every direction who we have play dates with every single day. 

It's sad to say that I haven't ventured into LA yet. I don't really want to tackle that without Shane and it's hard to find a good time. Trying to find my way around and where to park and doing everything we want to do without having to battle with traffic to and from LA just seems overwhelming with two kids and no husband. Maybe that's just me, I'm a whimp. We have season passes to SeaWorld and that is a blast! We are hoping to get Season passes to Disneyland this summer when both the boys are a little bit older and can enjoy it more and Jeremy is tall enough to go on more rides. So that will be fun when the time comes! Anyway, we love it here and I can't believe we will only be here for one more year!

No pictures this time. If you really want to see our beautiful faces check out Instagram or facebook. Blogger takes WAY too long to upload photos. This is me being lazy. Consider yourself caught up until next January!

What just happened?

I cannot believe we are leaving this island in THREE days!  It feels like yesterday that Shane and I arrived here with our 6 month old baby.  I feel like we are just going home for the school break and then coming back like we have for the past two years.  It hasn't really hit me that we aren't coming back this time, which is why I am still trying to decide how I feel about leaving.  Obviously, I am SO excited to see all of our family and friends back in the states and not to mention all of the American conveniences that the good ol' US of A has to offer!  I am so excited that our family is moving on with the next phase of our lives and Shane will be starting the second half of medical school.  I am excited to see where we will go next, we're hoping it will be Redlands, California in August, and our chances of ending up there are pretty high.  I am so excited to meet baby #2 in less than 6 weeks!  There are lots of fun and exciting changes coming soon and that makes me really want to be done here!  On the other hand, I am going to miss Grenada.  This was Jeremy's first real home and where he learned to do everything...crawling, eating, walking, talking, etc.  We are really going to miss our friends and the tight-knit community of other LDS students and their families.  I am SO going to miss being able to go outside whenever I want with just a t-shirt, pair of shorts, and flip flops and have a free activity of going to the beach or pool whenever I want.  As I said before, I am so excited for baby #2 to join our family but I am going to miss it just being Shane, Jeremy and me!  Leaving Grenada doesn't just mean moving, it means a whole bunch of other changes to shortly follow.  Being here has been such a great experience.  Shane and I have been talking a lot lately about how we are so glad we chose to come here and if we had to go back and choose, we'd choose it again!  I mean, how many people can say that they have lived in another country (a third world country, nonetheless) for two years (not counting a mission)?  I have learned so much being here and it really has been a huge blessing in our lives.  But things are always changing and that's really exciting too!  We are excited for the next chapter and what it will bring!!!  

My cousin Tracy came to visit a few weeks ago so we decided that we should all (Shane included, can you believe it?) take advantage of the rental car and go and do pretty much everything cool one last time.  Here's what we did in no particular order.  Enjoy!

Closing social at the Grenada Grand

 LaSagesse Beach

 Snorkeling at Aquarium Beach.  So freakin' cool!

 Swimming at the University Club pool

  Belmont Chocolate Factory

Eating from the Cocoa pod

Where the beans dry

Yummy samples.  The Cocoa tea was SO good!

Seeing the parrots (Choc Factory)

And the monkeys (Choc Factory)

And the turtles (Choc Factory)

And feeding the goats (Choc Factory)

Pearls Airport.  An old airport right off the coast with a couple of broken down airplanes.  I knew Jeremy would LOVE to see them so we stopped here on our way home from the chocolate factory!

At the market downtown.  This is Teresa, she LOVES seeing Jeremy every time we go downtown!

And with Joseph.  He makes the most beautiful jewelry out of seashells, driftwood, fire beans, etc.

Smoothies downtown

So you can't really tell what this picture is but let me explain...We had the opportunity to go up to the north side of the island to Levera Beach and see these giant leatherback turtles lay their eggs in the sand.  They swim up to the shore, dig a hole, lay about 150 eggs, bury them and then swim back out to sea.  They usually only come out late at night and we weren't allowed to use flash photography, they can only be exposed to red light.  Our tour guide told us that only about 1 in 1000 make it to adulthood.  The males weigh around 2000 lbs and the females weigh around 1000 lbs.  They are huge!!!  These turtles are born, swim all over the globe, but make sure to return back to the same beach they were born on to lay their own eggs.  Isn't that crazy?  It was such a cool experience!  Click here to see this cool video!

Eating at Aquarium Restaurant on Tracy's last night!

We also went to Grand Anse beach, BBC beach, Lance Epines beach, Mt. Carmel, and saw the tide pools.  But I can't find those pictures :(  It was a great way to spend Tracy's vacation and for our family to see and do all the things we wanted to one more time before we leave!

Our Anniversary Date at the Beach House (Thanks for babysitting Tracy!!!)

Just Like Daddy

The other day Jeremy got into Shane's "underwear" drawer and grabbed a pair of his socks.  He pulled Shane's ankle socks up to his knees, slipped on his Dad's shoes, and then put Shane's backpack on and headed for the door.  Here's our little Term 5 med student!

Again, sorry about the video quality.

My Little Water Bug

Maybe this is why my child takes such long naps...

American Idol Auditions

Not me people, although I do like to think that I am somewhat responsible for this...
Meet American Idol 2030

Sorry the video is so dark.  I was using our underwater camera...not underwater.

V-Day for a med student's wife

Here's how my Valentine's day went.  I woke up to find a cute paper heart note on my nightstand from Shane.  I was going to make Shane a yummy crepe breakfast, you know, hearts, pink, yummy cream cheese filling, but then realized we are too poor to eat that fancy.  So I went with some toast with a heart cut out of it and eggs cooked in the middle!  Then Shane left for the entire day....which is normal.  I spent all day with Jeremy (which is also normal), making/getting stuff for Shane's Valentine's day gift.  Again, didn't spend a whole lot of money.  I continued to find little paper heart notes hidden all throughout our apartment, I think there were well over 20.  My hubby's a sweetie!  I made Valentine's sugar cookies and then we met Shane on campus for our "hot date" to the SO Valentine's day party, woot woot!  We frosted sugar cookies with Jeremy and made a candy bar poster.  We got home and didn't even really make dinner or go out to eat for three reasons: 1. We are too poor, 2.  We were too lazy, and 3.  We ate enough junk food at the party.  Then we put Jeremy to bed (after an enormous consumption of sugar) and I fell asleep watching The Mentalist with Shane...at 8:30.  Some day it will probably be different, but for now it really was the perfect Valentine's day.  I got to spend the whole evening with Shane, which doesn't happen very often!  He was so sweet and thoughtful in hiding little love notes to me all around the apartment. And Jeremy LOVED Valentine's day!  I think it's now his second favorite holiday, following Halloween!

And this is why!

Yummy treats

The candy and goodies we got Shane, and of course some Dr. Pepper!  We also made little heart notes of reasons we love Shane and put them in a jar.  Jeremy got a basketball and some candy for Valentine's day!

Jeremy's Valentine's box.  At our apartment complex we made boxes and passed out Valentine's to the neighbors.  Jeremy loved giving out Valentine's this year!

One of the hiding spots for the notes Shane wrote me!

Another hiding spot under my makeup bag

At the SO Valentine's party!

Opening the goods!

Frosting cookies with my little Jer-bear!

Opening his Valentine from Mom!

It was a great day!  I love my two valentines so much and by next year there will be a third!  Crazy!!!

Opening Social

Sunday was the opening social for the Significant Others Organization at SGU.  It was a fun social with some pretty good food that didn't show up until two hours after the start time...only in Grenada!  I don't know if you've heard of Mormon standard time or Shields standard time, but Grenadian standard time is WAY worse!  The locals are pretty slow moving and rarely things get down when they say they will get done.  Oh well, that's how the laid back lifestyle is here in Grenada and we are definitely used to it!

Here is a family photo just after the sunset

Oh, 21 weeks, by the way!

And here is a cute video of Jeremy dancing at the party with his girlfriend Leia.  Should I worry that he might will get made fun of if he continues to dance like this in high school?  I give Shane all the credit for those dance moves!!!

It was a fun night with okay company...kidding, it was a blast!  Even though this was the "opening" social, the term will be halfway over in just a couple of weeks.  I can't believe it!  Shane has his first set of midterms all next week (wish him luck) and then we'll have to party it up next weekend!  Post to follow!