A Merry Ross Thanksgiving

So This is my first year not at my mom's house for Thanksgiving, but it was actually a pretty fun holiday. I gave myself a headache stressing over the pecan tarts that I didn't start as early in the day as I should have, but after that the dinner was fun. Its cool that Ross catered food for the holiday. Its not a normal Ross thing to do. Here in the Bahamas its so great because the fewer amounts of people make it so we know each other better and its more like a family.

Then they played guitar hero on their huge screens and Steve and I finished off by watching "Its A Wonderful Life". Now I'm excited (even more than I was before) to start christmas fun. I can't wait to be in the land where seasons change and I can't wait for snow. In case anyone wants to know. I will be coming back to the states on December 16th and Steve is coming back on the 19th. Then we will have a beautiful Christmas holiday interspersed with studying for Steve and a lot of road tripping for both of us. Any well I hope everyone else had a great holiday too.

Dangers of Snorkelling

So I've been snorkeling a few times and nothing bad's happened. I've seen cool fish and beautiful coral and a few jellyfish that were easy enough to dodge. Yesterday I guess my luck meter was on empty. A few friends and I went to Paradise Cove to snorkel. It has the best snorkeling I've seen on the island. We went out and we're doing fine but there were clouds of baby jellyfish everywhere. It was hard to avoid and I could barely see them anyway so we tons of stings from them. Just little ones so it wasn't the worst thing. We figured it would get better once we hit the deep water but we got there and there was a solid wall of jellyfish in our way and these ones were bigger. (About the size of both my fists together) So we had to turn back. There was also a lot of fragments of fire coral floating on the surface and fire coral stings to so we were getting stung everywhere and there was no avoiding. I was panicking a lot cause I get nervous enough in deep water and now my skin is crawling and I don't know how to avoid it. so all we could do was just swim hard for shore. It was not a good snorkeling day. I put up some pictures of what the fire coral and jellyfish look like here.

Garden of the Groves again

We watched this bird catch this fish. It was pretty cool. Then we watched it swallow it whole. Not an everyday happening.

We fed the fish bread and every time we tried to feed the turtles the fish would clobber them. And we kept forgetting how slow the turtles are. They must be lucky to ever eat/

We Win

So we have been waiting and waiting and some more waiting. Ross likes students to be balancing on their toes til all sensation is lost and there is no possible way they will manage to stay up any longer and then we will finally know the next step. I really don't understand what the wait is for. We could've been preparing months ago but they finally let us know where we are headed. We will be living for the next 4-6 months in Saginaw Michigan. We may even stay there for 2 years, but that depends on whether we like it there so more waiting (At least thats our choice) We will be in a town with all the things you come to love about America. There is a mall and target and walmart and auto repair places. We will also have a car!!! That has been on e of the hardest things here. Especially since the scooter broke. So in January we will be in Michigan and feel free to visit!

I put the first map for people who haven't a clue where Michigan is. I was one of those sadly. and the second for a closer look. Maybe I'd better take to studying geography again. I really want to be able to sing along with the Animaniacs on their countries of the world song. And be able to list all 50 states in 5 min. Those are some of my amazingly mature ambitions!

3 Times the Charm

So this was the 3rd time Steve has made the Dean's list and I'm so proud. It really is an amazing achievement. He has had straight A's the entire time he's been in Med school and that will open so many doors for him. And its just exciting to see someone do so well at something so very challenging. Life is good!

Study Cave of Wonders

This is the room Steve studies and some of our friends. I'm sure they all drive each other crazy in turns. When a test is getting close it gets a little intense in here. I hang out with Steve some nights and reaad or watch movies on his computer. Its fun to just hang with these guys. The white board on the wall has become a tribute to all hopes and dreams. I've drawn autumn leaves and a snowman and now a island Santa on the board and all the students who ever enter the room draw themselves. The drawings are entertaining. There are about 20 countdowns on the board, including Ghana's Farmer day.

Since our Scooter is now dead to the world the only time to get groceries is when I visit campus at night because they have a shuttle that'll pick me up at home. Its kinda annoying cause we have to wait on other people to get things done, but we live with it and only for about 23 more days. I think! Oh well. The school is hosting Thanksgiving this week and I'm gonna make my beautiful pecan tarts again. I love Thanksgiving and this is the first year I haven't been at my mom's house for it. But there's no use in dreaming of that cause there won't be one there either. We already celebrated Thanksgiving with all the Canadian folk in October, but I'm up for round two.

4th Semester Banquet Boat

This is Ross form of prom. The 4th semester banquet takes place on a boat. We picked the wrong table though. We were served last on everything but it made all of us at the table so close. We actually did enjoy our table. Lots of fun people and we had a fabulous lobster and steak dinner. Of course I can't eat lobster cause it kinda freaks me out, but otherwise it was delectable and more lobster for Steve is always good.

They gave out these awesome awards submitted by the students. We had spent the night before trying to think up some really good ones so it was entertaining. Steve got such the honor though. someone voted him as most likely to be Chief Resident. Of course now we have to deflate him cause that's quite the ego builder. No I'm joking. I don't think he has a problem with the ego so I'm not worried. I think its just a great honor and awesome that his fellow students think so much of him.

We then spent the rest of the night dancing on the boat. It was such fun. They took us out into open water for the 1st half and it was so cool to see all the ways to mess up a persons dancing. 1st they get everyone drunk (except us mormons) 2nd they have limited space which if not stuck to means you take a dip in the ocean. 3rd they have these waves crashing and swaying the boat side to side. So all in all it was a blast and the dancing was kinda mediocre. This was actually the 1st time we'd been to a party like this. It was fun. It was interesting seeing these people just drink and drink. They may think they had more fun than us but I know for a fact that we had more fun. (Because we can remember the night)

Oh yeah we also looked so fly!

They kept taking the boat to this bridge and stopping just before they hit. It was less than a foot I'm sure. but we were slightly entertained the 2nd time when we were sure we wouldn't die.

Conchman Triathlon

So now Steve has officially done an entire Triathlon. Not all at one time but hey these things take time. two summers ago he was supposed to do a whole one but the weather was so bad that the bike part got cut so there was his 2/3 alon. This year some students wanted to do it in a relay so he joined that and did the biking part. They were so great.

This picture has all of the Ross students who competed. They are (left to right) Ashleigh, Lindsey, Mike, John, Steve, and Dan. Great job you guys. This is a great accomplishment.

This is Steve's team they went crazy and did so good. Lindsey swam in the freezing ocean and didn't die. That is definitely the part that would kill me. Steve biked farther than he has ever done before. Luckily the school counselor guy leant him a road bike and it was easier with that. Ours isn't the greatest. And John ran the 5k. This is pretty good for a bunch of med students who sit on their butts most days studying. Its hard to stay in shape.

To add insult to injury they have to run up the sandy beach after swimming to tag their team mate.

Steve got back fast and woot woot our team is on the way.

And here is the final time of all 3 together.

The trophy they didn't get but we all aspire to is the giant golden conch. Pretty freakin amazing. They all got trophy's and medals. It was another triumph to pin on the wall.

A November Halloween

This halloween was actually kinda boring. All the students were stuck glued to their computers because they have a test on monday. So I made Halloween sugar cookies and took them in for them to eat and I helped my friends with their costumes. Then on Nov 2 after their tests we went to a professors house for a party and it was really fun. I was so surprised that almost everyone wore a costume.

I was the "We can do it" poster girl, Geno was a gothic punk, and Raquel was Minnie Mouse. We looked soooo good!

Ben was leftovers and Steve was Juan Valdez.

Oh we so cute.

These are our friends Justin and Daniel. They are the nicest guys we know. I mentioned that one time I tried to be a tornado for Halloween but the strings I tied things on kept getting tangled. It was kinda cool when Justin pulled it off successfully.

Cute Alana flower

Alex was one of the Green day Guys.

Here are our other cool friends Lindsey the bee and Ashleigh the Genie!

The Golden Birthday

K so this year was my 25th birthday and because My birthday is on the 25th it oh so golden. It was a pretty great birthday. I mean Steve took me to the Bahamas for my birthday. Actually funnily enough we did the whole tourist thing and stayed at the Our Lucaya Resort Hotel. It is this really cool hotel I've posted pictures of before. It is shaped like a cruise ship. We got to stay in this really nice room overlooking the ocean. It was so nice of them to give us 2 beds. no we thought that was funny. In the end it was nice because we have a really teeny bed in our apt so I ended up in the 2nd bed after he kicked me in his sleep. I had all the room I wanted for a night!!! Not that I don't love Steve, but I also like space to sleep and I like to sprawl out on the bed. We also went to this amazing restaurant on the beach called China Beach. It had a really fun atmosphere to it. We hung around Port Lucaya and danced a little at the band stand. It was a pretty great day. We found the hotels hot tub. I love hot tubs.

I forgot to say that the whole hotel thing was supposed to be surprise, but my friend didn't know that so she mentioned it in passing. I pretended to not have a clue that saturday but finally confessed on sunday. It might have been a little mean to pretend I didn't know, but I didn't want him to think his whole surprise was not so surprising. Sunday was a surprise though. We had a bunch of friends from Ross over for dinner and we made this amazing Italian soup. I thought we were just making food for us, but sure enough right before everyone turned up I was told to go make myself presentable. (In a nice way) We ate and played darts and Steve serenaded us on the guitar. He is such a good birthday planner. The fun thing about this was being a tourist for once and just relaxing.

Right below our room was this giant chess board. I so want to get a ton of people together and play on it like on Harry Potter. When I was little my family traveled a lot and I remember seeing one of these somewhere. Wish I could remember where, but it was just so cool. I think this could prove just how dorky I am.