The Next War Outbreak

I am almost embarrassed to write this particular blog. If I were you I don’t really know that I’d come to my house. But maybe you’ll love me anyway. It’s only ancient faculty housing, if that makes it any better.

A new war has been declared in my house. This time against a much smaller enemy, but I would almost argue more a difficult one. While I was gone to Collegedale last week Rosa texted me with the news of an ant infestation. I did not realize the seriousness of the situation tho until I arrived home.

Upon first encountering one of these little boogers, I stood in shock at their size. I had been expecting the dust molecule type. My shock quickly turned to anger however and I began to stomp like mad. In mid stomp the guy would run right out from under my foot! I mean he was unkillable! 8 stomps later I decided it was time to bring out the big guns--the stomp and sliiiiiide. Quite sure I had won, I lifted my foot to find little hitler slighlty crumpled but still kicking and quickly unraveling himself! At this point it would have probably been proper to bow and kiss his feet while handing over a purple heart AND the medal of honor but, yeah, no. Instead I gave him a moment to think about his actions while I paused to pick my jaw up off the floor; took a flying leap and smashed him as hard as I could, then finished it off with a little bit of the hokey pokey, if you know what I mean. I assume that in the absence of a crushed black body, he most likely went into the rubber replacement business.

Watching TV with Rosa this afternoon went something like...

"hey Stephanie there’s one" *rips off shoe* wham Wham! WHam!! WHAm! WHAM!!!! WHAM!!!!! WHAM!!!! WHAAAAAAM! *Throws shoe across the room.*

"aah! There they go again!" WHAM! "Hey! Hole in one! How’d you do that?"

"Hey Rosa get that one! eewww wait! Don’t kill it with that!!!" (we’d run out of shoes)

I almost stomped one in bare feet this afternoon. *shudders* Thank goodness I caught that disaster.

As of this moment I have been unable to go to my friendly neighborhood store full of extermination tools, but when I do, mark my words, it’s gonna be ant christmas at my house!

More Abby...cause I can't help it.

This would be a hold up. Give me all your money lady.

What'd I do?

Abigail

The WORST part of my Bermuda trip was that I missed the whole excitement of Abby's being born. I had my phone by me waiting for text messages all day long. But she's here, finally, and I couldn't be happier. I didn't even go to my house when I got back. I went straight to Callie's and stayed there. I'm sorry, not even being partial but she is THE cutest new born I have ever seen.

Bermudaful

First view of the island! That's the Saint George end I believe. It's twenty two miles long but will take you probably two hours to get across it.

This was our major means of transportation. in general we kept them much more crowded then this. At one point we had to fit all 60 of us in one of these.

If you can tell, the roads are VERY narrow. You have inches of space. They have to regulate the size of cars there. By law they also have to keep them looking almost brand new. Basically the whole island is very kept up. Everything is very kept up. the houses are all brightly painted and I really can't think of any run down buildings.

All of our luggage

everything on the island is imported. Even their water. They have no way of purifying salt water so they depend on the rain and what is imported. 11 bucks for a gallon of milk, 7.25 a gallon for gas, found a T-shirt, yes just a t-shirt, for 40 bucks. I'm standing the the grocery store parking lot on the main road. and this is just a random field. They are scattered around in odd places in attempt to grow some things.

Charles took Nancy and I shopping for groceries.

the staff lived in the living room and dining room and pile our things in a corner. you couldn't even get to your suitcase. Claustrophobic doesn't even begin to describe.

the sky produced a rainbow within the first few hours of arrival.

The view out our front door

Getting some sun.

The SDA school where we did some workshops and performed for their week of prayer.

In the windows at Warwick church. (can you tell this is an english colony? sometimes it sounds like you are living in the UK)

Bells...

Smores!!!

Moped parking

Our group

The conference office

Horseshoe Bay known for it's pink sand.

I believe this is a Man-O-War.

The living room

Attempting to play PIT. I won...for the record. but it really wasn't much of an accomplishment.

mainly because they WOULDN'T PICK UP A SPOON!!!! even when told.

At the bus stop

Washing uniforms....

Bermuda Part 2

We had originally planned to have two service days for the kids but it turned out to be a mess. In the end, I and two other staff/parents went out and did some of it for them since they couldn't make it due to a performance and a bus schedule that is very sketchy.

It was pretty hard work. Pulling up bushes and trees.

Mrs. Zule made us lemonade. She as really great. Really the whole thing turned out to be rather fun.
Before

After

I have a new favorite food. Loquats. If you can tell me how to get them in the states I will love you forever. Very hard to describe. Like a cross between and orange and a mango maybe??? Basically they are just amazing and I ate a ton of them. The tree was rather wounded.

One of their two lighthouses. I think the queen of england came to visit this one.

the view was really great but you can't even begin to capture it in a picture. just like most everything else.

The Clocktower Mall at the Royal Navy Dockyard used heavily in World War 1

This is Messina House where we stayed. Right on the water.

We rented a boat and took it out on a tour and swam some too. at least the brave did.

Our illustrious principal

This is the sunken ship Vixon. Apparently they sunk it on purpose to block the bay. Our guide said it was the worst ship ever built anyway. It was built to ram but couldn't ever get up enough speed to even do anything.

A couple of my girls in the stocks in Saint George which is the historical end.

Living was rather primitive. Rigging up a mirror in any corner was rather common.
One of the girl's rooms. 35 girls, two bathrooms, NO space. You felt like you were living on top of people. And forget about getting into a bathroom. It's amazing I didn't end up with a bladder infection.
meal time

This is where I hung out quite a bit. The staff usually congregated in the kitchen and I could actually sit down. Words cannot describe how crowded we were.

Eileen eats breakfast

The Cathedral downtown.

We even got to put on a performance there. Kinda cool really.

Giving them some instructions before letting them lose... I took a group of kids to the aquarium/zoo.

This is a hog fish. I couldn't believe this actually existed.

Thought it rather interesting that this guy was growing a garden on his back.

Seal feeding time.

A massive sea turtle. This was was in captivity but we actually got to see one this big out on one of our Ferry rides.

Sun burn woes

The Ferry stop in Hamilton

last sunrise

The long ride home. We left Messina House at 11 am and didn't fly into Charlotte til after 12 am. There was only 4-5 hours of actual flying time in that too. I have seen enough of the airport for quite awhile.