St Kitts

June 26th- July 3rd

Well after all the chaos the day before, we arrived in the beautiful island of St Kitts on June 26th.  We stayed at the Marriott Resort and had a great time.  Most of our days consisted of laying by the pool or at the beach.  It was so nice.  

Todd golfed one day and loved it.  The course was beautiful.  The last few holes were all along the ocean.  I tagged along to drive the cart and to be his "caddy."  I did sneak in one hole!

The resort had so many things to do.  Tons of activities and games to play.  I finally found something I can beat Todd at... Shuffle Board! Yes, its totally an old person game (Can you even call it a game?!) but we had a lot of fun playing.  He claims the only reason he lost is because he got a "cramp" in his leg.

We hiked Mt Liamuiga, which is a dormant volcano.  The island makes you use a guide service which we were originally annoyed about but it turned into a really funny day.  There were 4 other people that hiked with us and they were quite the family.  It was a dad, his two daughters and their step mom.  The step mom made the hike so entertaining.  Hiking was definitely not her thing!

We rented a car and drove around the island one day.  We stopped at the Brimstone Hill Fortress, Rawlins Plantation, and the Ottley Plantation for lunch.

Brimstone Hill Fortress was one of the first settlements in the Western Hemisphere.  Both the French and the English settled on St Kitts in the 1620's.  They fought over control of the island leading the British to construct Brimstone Hill Fortress.

Rawlins Plantation was apparently shut down.  However, the gardens were still beautiful.  As we were walking around, we saw an Art Gallery and the door was open so we wandered in.  That's where we met artist Kate Spencer.  She is from England but is now living in St Kitts to paint.  What a life! Her view from her studio was amazing.  We were jealous!  Todd wanted to buy a painting but nothing was in our price range.  Maybe in 20 years.

We also saw some monkeys off the side of the road and a huge pig named Wilbur at the beach we stopped at.

The St Kitts Musical Festival was going on while we were there and they had a reggae night.  Damian Marley was performing so we decided to go.  We soon learned that they do concerts differently.  It was scheduled to start at 8pm.  So we got there a little before 8 and we were the only ones there beside the workers.  So we found a nice seat and finally around 9pm they started with the first artist.  The concert ended up going till 4:30 am! And of course, Damian was the last one to go on.  Todd wanted to stay to hear him.  He finally went on about 2:45am so we listened to a few songs and then headed back to the hotel at 3:30am.  It was definitely a concert we'll remember! Damian was awesome and his dreads were very impressive.  They literally touched the ground.  He was on our flight to Miami so I snuck some pictures of him in the airport!  

We were also able to go to church while we were there.  It was really neat to be back in the Caribbean and see Todd back where he served his mission.  He truly loves these people.

We had a great trip and can't wait to go back to the Caribbean again! 

Step 1 Boards + Tornado = Worst Day Ever

 

(picture taken from the internet)

Todd was scheduled to take Step 1 Boards for Medical School on June 25th. This is pretty much the BIGGEST test of medical school. He had been studying 12+ hours a day for weeks for this test. So the test day came and so did a tornado. Yes, a tornado! We live in Virginia! I had no idea Virginia even had tornados. He was on section 6 out of 7 and was almost done with the test when the tornado came through Richmond. It was the craziest storm. Blue skies one minute and then they turned black and so did his computer screen at the testing center. The power went out. And it didn't look like it was coming back on any time soon. 

 We (and a few of our's friends that were taking the test that day) all had flights booked to fly out the next day. We had booked a trip to St Kitts (an island in Todd's mission) for a nice and relaxing post boards vacation. Well after a lot of phone calls, emails, and not knowing what to do, Todd's professor told him we should still go on the trip since we probably wouldn't find out for a few days what was going to happen. 

Long story short... We found out that Todd has to retake the test. Yes, the whole thing. The school is being as helpful as they can and rearranging their schedule for third year so they can have another crunch month prior to taking it. We should find out this week his new test date, which will probably be sometime in August. 

So to sum it up... Step 1 Boards + Tornado = Worst Day EVER!!! 

However, we did go on our trip and still had a great time! (post coming soon...)

 Also, since we've lived in Virginia, we have experienced hurricanes, an earthquake and now a tornado. Who knew the weather was crazy here!