Christmas decorating- and life.

So, since I have gotten home it has been a little (meaning VERY) crazy around here! Not really any stop time... especially time to sit for 30 mins and blog. But I really want to blog our Christmas decorations. This is the first year we have stayed at our house for Christmas in 3 years (the last 3 we went to Tucson where all our family lives, because we lived in TX.) So this year it was very exciting to pull out ALL the decorations and go all out. I absolutely love decorating anything, so decorating the whole house is just the best, (especially with all the joy in the air at this time of year!) So here are some pics of the decorations. I go much more creative this year then I did before. And I really like the result! I did even put up the outdoor lights!

(Alot of these pictures were shot on manuel too!)

After I did the cat's shoot Riley decided to take a try.. (he is not really asleep, but I think it's just too cute!)

I love close-ups!

I love this nativity, my mom's father painted this, it is very beautiful and is sitting in my room this Christmas!

One of my favorite ornaments, I can remember putting this one up since I was little. I love Santa hanging of the ladder!

Same with the Angel, it's old, but there are so many memories with it!

I LOVE string lights up stairs... :)

Our favorite nativity scene, normally put on our mantle, but it does not fit here, so we put it front and center in the dining room.

Our mantle.

One of my favorite spots I decorated. We had a bunch of left over reindeer hats from a party last year, so I thought they would make great decorations for the basement staircase.

Our nativity scene in front yard.

Our wreath. It had never had anything on it before, but this year I got bored of it so I spiced it up a little with leftover ribbon from a sewing project. I love how the colors turned out!

The front of the house. Very simple lights, but I like it, I don't like over wellming amounts of lights.

~Rebekah

i heart faces - "pets only."

So I am not really that big a fan of taking pictures of animals, but then my cat climbed in a bag, and I couldn't resist, then I just had to go and get a good pic for the challange. I will say, it is defiintly not my best, but I am very proud to annouce it is the very first time I shoot completly in MANUEL! I am so happy! Anyways, back to the cat. This is Teal'c she is the cutest fur/fluff/puff ball you have ever seen. She is named after the carecter on Stargate sg-1. When she is in "cuddle" mood she sits and "suckles" on whatever is within reach. I don't like cats at all, but she is fun to have around!

Here is the darling:

Head on over to i heart faces and check out some more adorable pet photo's!

~Rebekah

Airport and home!!

So I am again sitting the the Millitary lounge at the Miami airport!!! It seems like just yesterday I was here, but it has been almost 2 weeks!

So Wednesdeay was not all that exciting, we did go to the beach that afternoon, and collected a TON of sea glass which I was able to bring home with me! Then we walked the nice (marriot) beach at sunset, and burried J in the sand. When I get home I will try to load those pics on because they are very good! Wed night the H's surprised me with a little 16th birthday celebration which was so very sweet of them! Thursady we had a very relazing morning, and afternoon, and then Mr. H, J, Z and I all went snorkeling across the island. It was SO pretty! I still had my disposable under water camera so I got some great pictures. The fish kept swimming right up to me! The wreck was only about 15 ft down so I was able to swim to the bottom look around, and then come up for air with no problems. We also swam around a little but the current was VERY strong, it was crazy! You could barley swim against it. We went to another "drop off" they call it the wall, but it is basically the same thing, just like the drop off in finding nemo with a bit of coral down the side. That night we just relaxed with pancakes, and I packed.

I said goodbye this morning, it was sad, but at the same time, I am very much looking forward to getting home to FAMILY, THE COLD, FRIENDS and CHRISTMAS!!! Going through customs was not problem at all, it was way eaiser then I thought!

So even though the trip is coming to a close. Aww.. life, as it just flys by, no looking back or you will miss even more! Looking back (at the trip) It was an experience of a life time. I got to see yet again, how people live in yet another contry!

Rebekah

Scuba Diving!!

Joyce and I in front of our scuba stuff!

So yesterday was my very last Scuba diving lesson! I am now officially an open water diver! Joyce was back (yay!) And J was allowed to come with us on our last two dives today. It was so much fun! Mr. Hudson came along and took some pictures so now i have pictures of us. We got ready and did one dive, Joyce tested me on just a couple of things, and then we went down for a 40 min dive! We saw all sorts of cool things, yet again. The water's visibility was not good at all though. J and I had to stick pretty close to Joyce so we could see her. She pointed out lost of cool stuff, but right at the begging we saw the biggest fish I or J had every seen. It was a barracuda! That was pretty freaky, it had huge teeth, and was bright blue, and I would guess around 3-4 feet long, I am not kidding! After it swam away we continued on, and I was having fun because I had discovered that you can control were you are in the water just by breathing, (they had told me this, but I didn't really believe them that it worked all that well.) When you breathe in your lungs fill with air, so you rise, when you exhale your lungs loose air and you sink, you can control where you are in the water just by either breathing normally, or breathing more in then out, or breathing more times out then in. It was fun to play around with this! I had only 8 pounds of weight instead of the 10 or 12 I had had the last times. The 10 pounds worked best, but when they didn't have two 5 pound weights, and the 12 pouds woudn't fit in the pocket and was a little too heavy. We mainly used 12 pounds when we were sitting on the bottom doing stuff, becuase other wise I would start floating away! :) Anyways, the first time we went we saw some shrimp too! When we came back we had like a 20 minute break, were we talked with Joyce and Mouse about dutch. That is both of theirs native language. I love listening to them go on and on in dutch.

Us getting ready with Mouse.

We then went out again, this time we went somewhere I had never been before. It was not nearly as pretty as where we normally went, but it was still fun! My favorite thing I saw in all of scuba diving, was the little plant looking things, that when you flicked at them with your finger, would disappear into themselves!

Joyce and I again.

Other then scuba we have been exercising in the morning, (swimming laps in the pool), playing lots of chess,

watching monks, baking stuff, cooking stuff, cleaning the house and kitchen

,

doing lots of school, and science,

and going to the beach. Yesterday morning Mrs. H and I got to go to a british ladies Coffee! That was so much fun, but while I was sitting there I was thinking about how much women are alike. There was a bunch of ladies some from england, Ireland, scotland, texas, canada and more. We were all from different walks of life, but we can still all get together and talk, and talk, and talk (and laugh :) God certainly made us women special!

So that is what has been up with me lately! My time here has just flown by, it is so very hard to believe that I am leaving in 3 days!

And yet another Sunset.

(All pictures in this post were taken by Mr. H, and belong to him.)

Rebekah

I heart faces- sweet dreams

So... The theme this week over at I heart faces is "sweet dreams!" I have so very many adorable pictures of newborns sleeping, but I had just found this picture the other day. It is from disney world, and sweet little Hannah after a LONG last day at Disney was to tired to even make it back to the cabin, so out she went on the bus, and since there was no pillow........ then next comfiest thing was my water bottle! I love her tongue too!

Photoshop is not wanting to work over here in Curacao... so please forgive the horrible post-processing!

Head over to I heart faces and check out the most adorable other "sweet dreams" photos!

Rebekah

Busy days...

So the last 3 days have been very, very busy! I am going to try to sum up most of what has happened. First of all Thursday I had 2 men instructor because Joyce had her day off. I have to say I really, really like Joyce much better! Even though both men were really nice they were.... well men.

Standing on the floating bridge looking at all the pretty houses!

Looking down the street we walked on...

Thursday was a pretty mellow day, not to much happened besides my 3rd dive. Friday was rather busy! School in the morning, and then off to diving where I finished up my academic part of the course, (I got 100 on the forth test and 100 on the final test!) Then that night we went to barbeque for dinner yum... yum :) And then we raced home and watched the final monk episode, which honestly I cried during. It was a very sad one, and I am so sorry to see the show go! In this world of horrible shows it was actually a pretty good, nice clean show!

My very yummy Shirley Temple I got at the barbque.

We were up till like 11:30 watching that, so I didn't get up this morning (saturday) till about 8:30 (they get up around 6:30 here every morning) After a pretty relaxing morning we headed out to the town to do some site seeing, and then shopping. We started by walking around and we got to walk across the floating bridge, (a bridge they have that floats all the way across the channel and then when ships need to get through they will swing it back over to one side. It was very cool! I will have to say, the places aren't all to nice around here. They don't really keep up with anything, but the buildings are real pretty! They all have a sort of dutch look (atleast the ones in town...) and are all painted with bright colors. They look very different and make great backrounds in pictures! We passed a really pretty wall mural while walking, I loved it! Here it is:

The floating bridge pulled across, you can see just the tip of the ship that is going through.

Looking down one of the streets we walked down....

J, Z and me standing on the floating bridge, looking at the pretty buildings.

I just wish it hadn't been so stinken hot. I mean it was HOT! I was dying from walking for 10 minutes, the sun, heat and humidity! Most of the stores were junky, and even their "local" souvenir's were mostly imported. So I only ended up with one little thing. Most of what I will bring home will be sea glass I collected my self from the shore! We passed a converse store though, and I just had to take a picture to show everyone!

We stopped for lunch at a not so nice little cafe place, which like 4 different sellers inside. Even though they were not so nice, their food was pretty good!! I got chicken curry, which was not bad but not the best I have tasted. J and his mom got some intresting pancakes which I almost got but they sounded to heavy. All the food was to heavy! I have absolutly no idea how these people eat all this hot food when it is so hot outside! I would be sitting eating ice cream at one of the many ice cream places! I will have to say that my favorite part of the meal was the ice cold coke made from real sugar (i.e. mexican coke.)!!

After that we went exploring a little and went to their favorite ice cream place, and found a hobbie store. The Ice cream place was gelato and was SO very good! ( I got oreo and turtle! The oreo was definitly by far the best!) Especailly in the heat. YUM! Then we went grocery shopping It is so hard to find some things, and yet others were easy. We again went to the biggest store, everyone that works there had no idea what we were talking about when we asked for.. apple cider, rasins, and cornstarch! It was crazy, but we ended up finding it all. Earlier at one of the markets we had passed, we saw pig snouts and ears... EWWWWW!! I didn't get any to take home... sorry mom :)

The gelato.... so very good!

So tonight I got to go to a community center and experience Christmas Curacao stlye! It was pretty cool to see Christmas from a whole different view (today was their' Christmas, St. Nickolas day.) It was intresting, but some of the drums got so very loud, car alarms went off, I AM NOT KIDDING! It was crazy! So everyone is exasuted and in be, and I hope to follow very soon! This is what I have been doing... time has passed so fast! It has already been a week since I arrived! Only 6 more days to go.... WOW!

Games and Scuba 2......

Just another sunset in Curacao!

So...... Yesterday was quite a wonderful day! I had diving again! First we did the academic part of the course, and I got a 90 and 2 100's on the first 3 tests. They were pretty easy, but I had studied all week. Then it was time for my first real dive! We got all geared up first, which I did pretty good at! (Almost no help.) And then we were off! As we started swimming it was so nice and relaxing, because your neutrally buyout you have to do almost no work to swim around. Right as we went under water we saw a really cool crab. Joyce pointed it out, and after we had finished she told me that it was really rare and she had never seen one before (and she has been diving for 16 years!) Then we got to the drop off. At least that is what I think of it as. It looked just like the one in finding Nemo, except it was slanted, and had coral all the way down, (Even though I would not really know because I could not even see the bottom.) Joyce told me to hold her hand and we started out, we swam along the wall of the drop off, and every so often she would stop and point stuff out. I saw all sorts of very cool things, fish and coral. At first I was scared, it was just weird to be floating in mid water, with like 50 feet below you, and you can't even see all the way down. Couple of times Joyce asked me if I wanted to let go of her hand (We can't really talk, we use hand signals.) and I think she got the point that I didn't by my death grip. At first it felt like she was the only thing holding me up, and I felt much, much more secure holding onto her hand. But while I was holding onto her hand, I was also enjoying all the amazing stuff! Down there it is like a whole nother world! Joyce said there was a big storm, about a year ago, that knocked over one of the docks (Well, it was a dock but not one you would think of as a dock, because it was quite a ways from shore with nothing attached to it.) And there were all the pieces sitting down on the slope. It was pretty cool to see! We where under the water for about 40 mins, and the farthest down we went was 10 meters. It was very cool! She kept showing me so many cool things and I would smile, but forget that I had the regulator was in my mouth and it almost fell out. After a while my jaw got very tired because of my smiling and I had to keep pushing the regulator all the way back in so it did not come out. I couldn't help myself! I finally let go of Joyce's hand about 10 minutes before we got back. We got to log the dive when we got out of the water, and she looked thorough the books pointing out all the creatures we saw! So over all it was amazing fun!

This is what my lens looks like when I walk outside because of all the humidity here!

In my spare time at the house, when we really don't have time to go down to the pool or beach, me and J have been playing Checkers or Chess. I have beat him at the only chess game we played so far, and he has beat me at every checkers game! He He, once I had four kings left, and he had one and he still beat me. I guess I will just have to improve my skills!

This is J's focus face, he makes it alot when we are playing :)

Rebekah

Scuba......

(Last night's Sunset.)

I went scuba diving yesterday.... well not really diving I think the deepest we went was 8 feet, but that's because I am training. My last dive will be in open water around some reefs!

My instructors name is Joyce, she is very, very sweet. She is from holland and is only here for about 4 days. I am very glad I got her as an instructor.

If you have never been diving, it is an experience like no other.

(The place I was diving at..as viewed from the back porch, the big brown roof is it.)

First you have to gear up with your bcd (what helps you float.) Your weight system (what helps weigh you down so that you can actually sink.) your mask, snorkel, fins, body suit, gauge, and of course your air tank and 2 regulators (what you breath out of.) One is back up for you or your buddy. So..... Once we were all geared up, we got in the water right of the coast (it was just high enough so the water was just above my head when I was on my knees... not scary at all. Until its time to go under water for the first time. I wasn't really scared, I had tried breathing out of the regulator above water and had no idea how easy it was, but the first time I went under I didn't have my mask on, so my body atamatically tried to breath through my nose, and I didn't last very long in the water, it kind of freaked me out, I mean after all I was trusting my life and air to this little black thing. But when I went down again I got to put on my mask. That was SO much better. It was an amazing feeling to stay underwater for like 3 minutes, just watching the life around us. At first I was breathing real quick breaths because it just did not feel natural, but after a little I got used to it. We spent about 2 1/2 hours total in the water. I learned to do all sorts of things. I practiced breathing when my mask filled with water, and even when I took my mask off and breathed for over 1 minute. (This I was scared of at first, and it was hard, but after a little bit it was easy.) I think the scarriest thing I did all day was breathe for about 30 seconds from air bubbles. When you turn your regulator upside down, you can breath from the stream of air that comes out. It is hard, and you do take in some water, so at first I almost put it back in my mouth because I thought I couldn't breathe but I lived :). I also practiced changing from regulator to snorkel, and back again. And changing from my regulator to my buddies back up one (sometimes called an octopus.) We did get to swim around a little, which was great fun, there was all sorts of fish and coral I got to see. Over all it was an exsperience I am not sure I can really describe!

(Some good clouds in between the rain.)

We are baking bread right now.... honey oatmeal, my favorite! And having a relaxing day because it was raining eariler, I am not sure if the sky will stay clear, but we will see.

Rebekah

Cuarcao-First day

(The view from the pourch.)

Wow, Wow, Wow. That is all I can say about the beauty here! It is fun to just sit on the pourch and stare out at the blue ocean, the green hills, and the beach. It has been very sunny and the clouds are just perfect balls of white!

(My breakfast at the airport yesterday)

I will say it is humid though! Very humid. I stepped of the plane at 9 at night and imidently felt the humidy cling to me. It is also very warm. VERY warm. It is so weird to just have come from a place that is having 40 degree weather and rain all the time, to warm bright and sunny beaches. But I like it!

First of all I should tell you how I came to Curaco. We have friends that lived down the street from us in TX, that I got very close too. They found out they were moving to Curacao for a year. I got invited to come visit them sometime! They came back about a month for Thanksgiving, and I ended up going back with them, the 28th of Nov! I am so blessed, I get so many chances to explore this beauitful world God has given us.

(the view from the pourch, and the apartments)

I love adventures, exploring wierd places, and seeing life from other people's points of view. So this was quite the chance to do just that!

So, I met up with the firends in the Miami airport, and the second flight went well. It was only about 2 hours and 40 mins. I love flying, so I was wishing that it had been longer, but when I was on the plane I was so excited to get here, I was just wanting the flight to end!

Someone picked us up from the airport, and we headed to the apartment. I love it. Even though it is small, and the washer takes 4 hours becuae it is SO water efficent, it is beautiful. The view from the pourch is just to die for! We get up and go sit on the pourch to eat our breakfast, it's just like a dream.

Yesterday morning, we got to sleep in a bit. When we finally woke up we scronged for breakfast (they had almost no food, because they had been gone for so long.) And then me and one of thier children, walked down to the beach. There is a bunch of beahces around here, but their favoirte is a private beach owned by the Marriot hotel. They have a membership to it, and that was the first beach I went to! Aww... I can not even describe the amazing feeling of walking on the beah in a sun dress, with the wind blowing, and the water laping at your feet, in DEC! It was so fun! After that we met up with their father and went down to get me signed up for Scuba Diving lessons. Yes, that's right, SCUBA DIVING! My first lesson is today. I am SO excited! I think it is going to be very cool! I can't wait to write about how it went.......

We decided to go into town to the biggest grocery store on the island (which is about the size of a very small grocery store in the US. But first we headed to lunch. We parked and walked quite a ways before finding a restraunt that was open on Sundays. The one we found was SO busy because it was one of the only ones open and it had shade. We waited forever for a table in the shade and then for lunch, but we kept our mind off how hot it was in the meantime by playing I-spy. One thing I forgot to mention eariler.... the Iguanas! They are absolutly every where and I am not kidding. You see them just running here, and there, and sitting in the branches of trees sunbathing. It is so funny! Yesterday while we were eating lunch a dude came by holding one showing it off. I am not kidding, it was the size of his arm!

Some parts of the town we where in where not so nice, others were ok. It defintly reminds me of pictures I have seen of mexico, but some of the buildings are alot more colorful, and parts of town are much prettier. They love to eat fried plantes here, which I have come to enjoy. They are so sweet though it is almost like desert! We stoped at a floating market which was so cool! It was sitting along the river, and people had little boats that were sitting behind the the stands, they just brought the fruits and vegtables up from the boats and sold them. There were flies everywhere and it did seem a bit dirty, but I love markets like that!

The grocery store was fun, they had basically the same food that ones at home do, just mixed with the local foods. I bought some weird hazelnut spread (kind of like nutella) That I hope to try today for lunch. Over all it was a fun, but VERY exasuting afternoon. We probally had walked over 4 miles at this point.

After getting home and unloading groceries, we decided to go snorkiling, before dinner. This is something I had never done, before, but I was very excited about it! The first minuted I got in the water and started swimming I was a little scared, we were just floating in the ocean and I had it felt very weird to be trusting my snorkel for air. But after a while I loved it! We didn't go to far out, just to some reefs off the coast, they we beautiful! I saw so many cool things I had never seen before in person, it was like a whole different world. We even spotted an ocopus whihc is an extremly rare thing! The ocopus was only about the size of two hands together. But very cool! I kept trying to dive, but I never really got to hang of blowing the water back out of the snokel, I ket inhaling first, or blowing it out of my nose, whcich got my mask filled with water and salt water down my throat. Over all, an exsperience of a life time! Defintily something to do if you get a chance!

So that was basically my day yesterday, this morning I am gettting some schoool done, but mainly just enjoying being here!

Airport

I am in Miami in the USO (Millitary lounge.) We left our house at 6 am this morning for the airport. I didn't go to bed till 12:30 last night, becuae I was packing! For the second time I got stopped at securtiy (same bag) and they had to do some type of test on it. I don't know what happens. They won't tell me, and I get it back in like 5 mins. I watch them take a wand with some type of pad on the end, then they stick the pad in a machine. Then when it beeps they let me go. I think it might be some type of test for drugs.... the first time I thought it was just random. But now that it happened again, I am thinking not. I had to go out of security to get to the USO so I am praying real hard that I have no problems at all getting back in! The airport was real quiet this morning, I had trouble finiding some good breakfast becuae alot of the restraunt were busy. But I ended up with a malt, sauge and a muffin.

The flight went well, no problems. But I swear that miami is the most confusing airport in the world! I printed off a map before hand, but that didn't really help that much. It is horrible! It is also not the nicest. But oh well, atleast I didn't have any problems. I did ask like 5 people where to go though, which is a first for me (at airports atleast.)

When I got ot the lounge it was filled with smoke and a very loud beeping was going off. I thought there was a fire and almost didn't go in, but he said come in. It was just something had burnt in the microwave. But BOY! Was the somke! You could barley see. Then the fire department arrived, but they just icnored us.

So I will try to write mroe later, but It is going wonderfully so far!

Rebekah