good news, great news, and a surprise!

I had my 32 week appointment last week. Fletcher is head DOWN. What a good little boy. Everything is looking great. He is growing like crazy and so am I.

Great news! I found out about my pregnancy/maternity leave and it turns out that I get 12 weeks off 100% paid. 4 weeks before my due date-pregnancy leave and 8 weeks after Fletcher is born-maternity leave. I wish I could just do all 12 weeks after, but the law says that you can only have maximum 8 weeks after the baby is born. I'll take what I can get though! especially when I still get 100% of my wages for the time I have off.

What an amazing blessing.

Brandon finished his first semester of Medical School!!! WOOHOO!! moving right along. The semester seemed to fly by. He got amazing grades and is enjoying his break from studying.

Brandon got to go deep sea fishing with some members of the branch twice in the last two weeks. The first time he went was during the day and so it was nice and hot and he caught a bunch of huge fish! the second time was at night and it rained the whole time. Everyone was freezing and didn't catch anything. He loved it though and is still telling people about it.

I also got to make Christmas sugar cookies with the Sister Smith and Barbel, while our husbands were night fishing. It was so much fun to get together and visit and make and eat cookies together. Christmas just isn't the same without frosted sugar cookies.

The best part of the week was my Christmas Surprise from Brandon. I came home from work Friday night--Brandon had already left for fishing-- to Christmas music playing and a beautifully decorated tree set up in our bedroom with a bunch of presents under it!! There was also a sweet little note from Brandon. How romantic, right? Best Husband Ever Award? I think so.

I don't have any pictures this week--still waiting on some fishing ones to get emailed to us, but I will put some up next week for sure!

Week of Celebrating

The first thing we celebrated this week was Sinterklaas!

For those of you who aren't Dutch, Sinterklaas and his helper Zwarte Piet come on the 5th of December on a boat from Spain and leave goodies and little presents for good girls and boys in their shoes. Zwarte Piet job is to take all of the bad girls and boys and put them in a sack and take them back to Spain. 

This is how to celebrate Sinterklaas and December 5th "Zwarte Pieten Stijl"

If you want, you can learn more about Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet.

Sinterklaas even made it to our house and got Brandon a new watch and left me a chocolate statue of himself! Thanks Sinterklaas!

someone found my chocolate Sinterklaas before I did.

Branch Party

We had our branch party this week and it was a lot of fun! it was a combination of a reenactment of the nativity story and a piano recital for those in the branch that are taking piano lessons from the senior missionary couple. They did great!

Baby Shower

I also had my baby shower this weekend! it was tons of fun. we played fun games like seeing who could change a baby's diaper the fastest blindfolded, who could tie their shoes the fastest with a balloon underneath their shirts without popping it, who could drink out of a baby bottle the fastest, and who could eat "baby poop" out of a diaper the fastest (don't ask).

We also ate a bunch of food, had a delicious cake, chatted, and got to spend some time by the pool.

Thanks everyone that came and an even bigger thanks for all of the gifts!

I got two diaper cakes, a diaper motorcycle, more diapers, wipes, baby clothes, baby bath supplies, some mula... feeling super blessed and jealous of Fletcher. Everyone loves him so much and he's not even born yet!

Unfortunately I don't have a ton of pictures because my friend that took all the pictures on her phone jumped in the pool to save a child from drowning with her phone still in her pocket. Good news is, she saved the kid.

We also celebrated Brandon's last soccer game of the semester and me finishing my online classes! 

Brandon scored an amazing goal in his last game and I got A's in both of my classes. BOOM!

Busy week. Fun week. One week closer to celebrating baby Fletch.

couple things

my innie has turned into an outie. 

I saw my first bonairian double rainbow. #nofilter

randomly our landlords told us that they "accidentally" paid our electricity and water bill for us this month. they are so awesome. plus they have fed us delicious food the last 4 sundays in a row.

we love them and are so grateful for them. 

 B-lessed. 

Thanksgiving Already??

We were lucky enough to have three Thanksgiving dinners this week, but none of them were on Thursday. In fact, on Thursday we ate tacos. steak tacos. 

Our first Thanksgiving was on Monday night with the Elders and the Senior Missionaries. It was delicious.

Our second Thanksgiving was with our Branch and that was on Friday night. Also very delicious.

Our third Thanksgiving was on Saturday with some friends from Brandon's class. Again, very, super delicious. 

Funny thing is we brought mashed potatoes to all three of them and Brandon made them every time. 

Love that guy.

To me the best part of Thanksgiving is the people. We sure missed our families, but we love spending Thanksgiving with our "family" here. 

In other news...

I got my sedula and my health insurance!! I am so excited! I am an official resident of Bonaire. 

Weird. Crazy. Awesome. 

Work was super crazy this week. We had cruise ships come in on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Holy crap we were running around like crazy!

Also--29 weeks. I still get cat calls on my walk home from work and random people that I don't even know try to rub my belly. The joys of pregnancy.

Embrace The Dutch (and spanish)

Awesome things that happened this week:

We got mail.

I have the coolest friend ever. Love her to death and miss her sweet family! Thanks LeeYen!! 

The cool thing is she is having a baby girl a couple of weeks before Fletcher gets here. I have already planned the marriage. 

It was Pilar's Birthday.

One of my favorite people in the Branch had her birthday last Monday. She invited everyone over to her house and we had a quick FHE lesson on Faith and then Brandon had his first experience with Frikendel. Frikendel is like a Dutch hotdog that is deep fried, that has even more mysterious ingredients than an american hot dog. yikes. people order it at work all of the time and I had tasted it before. Brandon wasn't too impressed. Then we had cake, which was my favorite part. I love our branch here and how we are like one big family.

Paul Allen

So Paul Allen, the cofounder of Microsoft is in town. Brandon got a personal tour of his amazing yacht. He got past the guard and asked some of the staff members if they would show them around and they did. How cool is that?  He is selling it, if anyone is interested. $160 Million. NBD.

I had a Doctors--Midwife's-- Appointment

I finally got an appointment with my midwife! I really like her a lot. She is very kind and very calm. Everything is looking great and Fletch just keeps growing and growing. He is getting stronger too and loves showing it through kicks and punches. He has the hiccups a lot too. My midwife, Dr. Lont, told me that I have to stop running. She wants to make sure that I maintain the structural integrity of my pelvic muscles. That sounds good to me. She said I should still exercise, just not run. Time to get creative.

We gave Discurso's in Church.

Well Brandon and I gave talks in church, in Spanish! I was kind of nervous, but everything went great. We invited a bunch of people from Brandon's class and they all showed up! So cool. I talked about how we should live our lives in order to qualify for the most blessings and Brandon talked about the Restoration and then tied that back receiving blessing from keeping the commandments, so our went together pretty well. If you want an english or spanish version of our talks, comment or email me and I'll send it to you.

We got Dutch Bakeried.

Sometimes when you are pregnant and living in the Caribbean, you just need to go to the Dutch bakery and get a delicious treat. The funny thing is, Brandon chose the cookie and I chose the cream puff, but after we each took a bite of our own, we switched. 

Pigs and things

This week flew by, but dragged at the same time.

I am getting bigger and more uncomfortable. Fletcher is moving around all. of. the. time. But mostly at night. He is a night owl just like his daddy. Fletch has found a way to kick my bladder, punch my stomach, and head butt my ribs all at the same time. I'm pretty sure he is at a diagonal spread eagle. Just less than 13 weeks left....

We saw the scariest, hairiest wild pig. He seemed pretty nice though.

We feed the Elders every Monday and last time Brandon said that I didn't make enough food, so this week we are going to FEED the missionaries. The beginnings of chili and rice...

We got these giant cans at a new secret hidden store that we found-- a Bonairian Costco/Cash and Carry. Bulk is back baby. 

My classes for my MBA are going good so far. I write A LOT of research papers. Between my two classes, it averages to one 5-7 page research paper every week, but I am more than half way done!

Even though writing is my least favorite thing, I'm still kicking butt and taking names.

Brandon is still doing great in school. He is learning a lot and tutoring a lot. We got a desk from our landlord this weekend. Brandon is so excited. Studying at home has been miserable for him lately, but after we got this desk, he told me that he can't wait to study. Is this really my husband?!

Also here is a great example of how Brandon loves to push my buttons. I like things even and in order. Even amount of cookies, squares cut in straight lines, etc. Here is how Brandon left the brownies when I was in the other room.

He thinks he is so funny.

Bonaire Birthday

Yep. It was my birthday on November 1st. 23. Crazy.

I love my birthday, especially this birthday, because for the first time in four years I'm not in the middle of the cross country season, so I was unlimited in my sugar intake. 

Also I'm pregnant, so eating two pieces of cake, or the whole thing, is totally acceptable. 

On the morning of my birthday Brandon gave me some presents. He is so sweet. 

He found some candy corn for me and I totally ate it for breakfast. delicious. 

Brandon also snuck away from school and surprised me at work with flowers and candy. So sad I forgot to take a picture, but he has given me flowers on my birthday every year since we got married. He is the best.

After work he took me to a restaurant called Eddy's. Free meal on your birthday!! awesome.

He got the most giant hamburger I have ever seen. I have also never seen someone eat something so big so fast!

The day after my birthday our favorite senior missionary couple had us over for another birthday dinner and birthday cake. I even got to blow out candles. They are too good to us. Love them so much.

So many candles.

A sweet sister in our Branch remembered my birthday and have me this necklace and earrings. She is seriously so sweet.

Also Brandon found an iguana in our hallway. gross. It better not sneak into my toilet...

Aaaand I found out that they don't even offer epidurals at the hospital here. I wasn't planning on getting one, but not having the option at all makes me a little nervous.

Tennis for Two

Since moving to Bonaire, Brandon has decided to play tennis on a regular basis. He's never really played before, or been interested in it at all, so it came as kind of a surprise to me.  This new obsession of his, he thinks he's a combination of Sampras/Agassi/Federer/Nadal (who ever they are), began from a class-wide invitation by his anatomy professor, Dr Kishore, to join him to play tennis. Brandon didn't volunteer at first because there were quite a few people who said they knew how to play and would play. Turned out that nobody ever showed up to play so then Brandon volunteered, figuring that at best he would be able to make his teacher look really good because of how bad he was. It turned out that he is actually pretty good--natural athletic ability I guess. So he now plays with his professor twice a week, usually singles, but sometimes they play doubles with some Dutchies. 

Here is Brandon with Dr. Kashore and some action shots.

We bought him a tennis racquet because the one he was borrowing was "broken" and "didn't work." Ha. He is in love with his new racquet though. New best friend. He thinks that tennis is a white old man game that doctors play so he is going to keep up with it. It's been good for him as well to be able to pick his professor's brain about practicing in the US, residencies, USMLE exams, etc. and it makes him more excited to be a physician. The other night I went to watch and it was nice to meet his professor. The tennis courts are connected to a bar and restaurant so afterward, Dr Kishore bought us drinks and we sat around talking for a while about interesting medical cases, India, and the Caribbean. It was a lot of fun. 

We went on a dessert date last Saturday to Captain Don's and it is safe to say that we will never go back. The dessert were super tiny and super expensive and not better than Gio's. 

This is our $8 "piece" of cheesecake.

Plus there were a MILLION mosquitoes. Randomly, I wore long pants, which was the first time since we have moved here, so the mosquitoes only got my feet, but Brandon's legs were covered.

Also. 

We voted. 

The presidential election has been so exciting and we have watched all of the debates. Well, Brandon has watched all the debates while I was doing my homework, but it feels good to do our civic duty and turn in our absentee ballots.