Like I said, tentative.....

I know, I can only play into this "tentative" stuff for so long before people are going to start thinking, "These people have no idea what they are doing!"  Anyway, I present you with....... the latest:

*We got an apartment and it will actually be the cheapest place we've lived out of all 4 of our apartments in Dominica! It's pretty well furnished, which is a blessing, and the view is beautiful. 

*We called to change our tickets, which are scheduled for next week, to August and they said it would cost $361 PER TICKET to change!!!  That, my friends, would be a total of $722, which comes SO close to buying a round trip ticket from here to SLC.  We decided that we are not spending $722 with out some REALLY good benefits, so we told them to leave our tickets and that we'd just fly home for the break, buy a few house hold items we'll need over the next 3 months, get to visit our families, and enjoy the good old US of A.  Oh, and then put the $722 towards one of our tickets.  So we are still going home on the 28th, but we are now returning to Dominica rather than Miami. We are happy that we're staying, but kind of sad that we will miss out on living in Miami.

*We have already had multiple things donated/on lend  to us to help "restock" our kitchen for next semester and we are so grateful!  Thanks everyone, we love you!!!

And that's why it's called a tentative schedule......

So--here's the latest.

As of Tuesday at noon: Everything we owned down here is sold, with the exception of the things that we are taking home.  We have 2 meals left in our cupboards, a few in the fridge, and a few in the freezer, just enough to get us through until we leave.  Our bank account's closed, our barrel to be shipped to Miami is payed for, I've been replaced at my job, and we have a nice family moving into our apartment.  As I posted, we have a tentative plan from here until January.

As of Tuesday at 5:00:  We are calling places around here about apartments to live in next semester, praying our hearts out, and no longer packing our barrel.  All because of one short e-mail.  

It said something along the lines of:

Keith, 

I got your information from some of the AICM selection committee.  I am assigned to stay in Dominica for next semester and have recently decided that Miami will be a better place for me.  I was wondering if you would like to switch spots.

??????????????????????????????Say what????????????????????????????

1 week before we are supposed to fly out and someone wants to switch spots?

Well, we prayed about it, thought about it, prayed about it, thought about it, freaked out about it, and then prayed a little more and decided that we will still save a lot of money even if we stay here and have to buy new things, pay to change our plane tickets, and I'm jobless.  So.......

Dominica, you've got us for 3 more months!!!!  We will now stay here until the beginning of August, then fly home and our tentative schedule will pick up from there....... maybe as we have planned, maybe not........   

So, What's Going On?

It has come to my attention that I haven't really clarified what's going on with our lives.  Sorry for not keeping up with it more.  Here is our tentative schedule from now, until January:

April 28th, 2009:  Fly out of Dominica and after 2 days of traveling, return to Idaho.

May 6th (ish): Pack up a car with some of our belongings and drive for 3 days until we get to Miami.  Keith will have his  semester of AICM (Advanced Introduction to Clinical Medicine) in which he will be able to spend some time in the hospital instead of the class room!!  Yaayyy!!

August 10th (ish): Pack up the car when the semester is done and drive home.

September: Keith is planning on being gone all month for a review course before he takes the USMLE Step 1 (a HUGE test!  The better he does on the STEP, the higher chance he will have of getting the rotations and residency he wants.)   During all of this fun studying and test taking, I'll be going to school the fall semester at ISU.  

October:  Keith will take the STEP 1, I'll still be trudging along at ISU

November:  Hopefully find out Keith's scores and apply  for rotations

December:  Hopefully hear that Keith has been accepted for rotations (we wouldn't mind if it were in New York)  I'll finish the semester with an associates, in hopes that it will make it easier to transfer to a school where ever Keith does rotations.  (hopefully they will accept my upper division education classes and I can finish with in a year of us moving)

January: Hopefully move for Keith's rotations.

Lots of hope involved in the next while, but it's one thing at a time.  Most things depend on something else, which depends on something else, which depends on something else.  Kind of stressful, not knowing where we might be from month to month, but it really is quite an adventure.  Anyway, that's what's going on.  After Thursday, Keith will be done with his science classes! We are both very excited!

Last week, we had family pictures taken by one of our friends down here, who is also a spouse.  Here's a quick preview.  We don't have all of them back yet, but I'll post more when we get them!  (double click to see the picture better)

Mount Diablotin

The Wilderness Medical Society Club planned a club hike this semester up Mount Diablotin, which is the highest peak on Dominica and one of the highest in the Caribbean.  The peak is 4,747 ft and the recommended time to plan for the hike is 6-8 hours.  The WMS traveled there, hiked the peak, and made it back home in 6 1/2 hours!  I was really impressed!  I told Keith there was no way he would make it back before  3:00 and was quite surprised when he walked in the door at 1:45!  He was covered in mud from head to toe, but he had a lot of fun.   Here's some of his pictures.

WMS

Keith is constantly looking into rotations that he wants to do and different residency programs and internships that he is interested in doing.  Somehow, he stumbled across some information about a few different Wilderness Medicine rotations and was hooked.  For those of you wondering what wilderness medicine is, I'm not good at explaining it (because I'm not entirely sure what it entails) and I especially won't be able to explain it in 3 sentences or less, so you'll have to google it.  Not the point of this blog post though----So, through a string of events and more reading on the internet, Keith found the Wilderness Medical Society (WMS).  It's an organized society in the states but there are student clubs all over.   Keith decided he wanted to start a club here at Ross and so far it has been a great experience.

He started organizing it last semester so that it could be official this semester.  There are now over 50 members in the club and some people with really great ideas.  I like to go and sit in on the meetings, everyone seems to have a little sparkle of excitement in their eyes.  Keith has a great presidency for the club, which I am grateful for.  Everyone is really dependable and more than willing to pitch in and help with everything, which has relieved Keith of some of the stress I think he was feeling. 

Anyway, they have been able to do some fun activities so far and I am excited to see what else comes from this semester!

Their first event of the semester was showing this years Warren Miller film, "Children of Winter."  Keith was especially excited about this for multiple reasons.  The main reason being they got the film and advertising poster for free, which is a $1,500 package.  Since they had no representation down here, they sent this years film along with 2 older films all for free!

The second event they hosted was a bonfire "welcoming social" of sorts.  They roasted hot dogs and marshmallows and had a local lady talk about the herbs and other natural things found on the island that the locals use for medicine.  It was a lot of fun and the sunset was absolutely amazing!

The club also organized a hike up the highest mountain in Dominica (and in the Caribbean I hear) but that will have to be in another post!   Stay tuned......

Beaches

Dominica doesn't have beautiful white sand beaches, like some of you may imagine, (and I don't sit on the beach soaking up the sun while reading a book all day like some of you may imagine) but we do have some fun beaches and I do get to enjoy them often.  Here's a look at some of the beaches I've gone to lately.

Quite some time ago, the Ross Spouse Organization went to Batabou Bay, which is on the north end of the island.  It was absolutely beautiful and since it's mostly on the Atlantic side, we got to ride some really fun waves!

Marissa, Ben, and I out riding the waves! (Marissa's smile in the top photo was too cute not to post)

Here's the view when you are hiking down and finally come around the last corner to the beach!

View of the Bay along the trail that you hike/walk down.  

Another beach I love that's a lot closer to our neck of the woods (but far enough you still need to call a taxi) is Purple Turtle Beach. All of the other times I've gone, the beach has always been nice and clean and raked.  This time there was litter everywhere, which made me sad, but we still had a lot of fun!  I went with a group of friends that Jacquelle, from our church, has been getting together on Thursdays to go and do fun things.  (Thanks Jacquelle!)

Tamara showed everyone how it's done on the rope swing. (Don't miss her in the top photo, she climbed the palm tree part way but blends in a bit!)

This last Thursday, we went to Coconuts Beach, or PBH as the students know it.  (Portsmouth Beach Hotel is right on the beach where we often times go)  This beach is about a 5 minute walk from Ross campus and the beach that we most often go to.  I went snorkeling and was blown away with how much I saw!  It was one of my best days snorkeling on the island!  I was able to get a few underwater photo's with our new digital camera, sadly, it died after I took about 10.  Hopefully I'll get some more underwater pictures taken and posted on here before we leave!

Here's some of the Roy kids again.  I had to post this picture--look how cute little Kemiahs sandy-bottom onesie is.

My sand ball.  These things are harder to make than they look and I was FINALLY successful in making a big one!  Sand balls are surprisingly heavy too!  

And here are some of the snorkeling pictures.  It's really hard to take pictures under water.  It's too dark to really see the camera screen so you just aim the best you can, take a lot of pictures, and hope that you capture some of what you saw!

"Kick to the Crunchies!"

I know, I know---the title of this post is absolutely disgusting and inappropriate.  It's a phrase that has been banned from the Taylor household (by me) except for really appropriate occasions, which is now.  Since first semester we have been seriously considering staying in Dominica for our 5th semester, rather than going to Miami or Michigan.  Over the past year, we have really got our hearts set on staying in Dominica.  We love it here (although it may not seem like it at times) and we're nice and settled.  Anyway, if we stayed in Dominica rather than going to Miami, we would save a lot of money, close to $4,000 just in rent (between May and August).  Anyway, we put in our application to stay in Dominica and sadly we were assigned to go to Miami.  :(  We are really unprepared to leave next month but I'm sure things will come together.  So, in 5 weeks we will be leaving the life that we love in Dominica,  flying home, we'll try to find a car we can afford, pack it up, and head to Miami.  

And so the adventure continues......