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

Curacao

I am heading to Curacao. If you don't know where that is here is a link :

Map ;)

It is a very small Island right of the coast of Venazela. I will write more later about how I got to go. I hope to blog every day. But I am not sure. I know I will be busy!

So goodbye for now!

Rebekah

Thank you God, for all my blessings.

Wow. Wow. That is all I can say.

I have been blessed more then I can ever start to say thanks back to my heavenly Father. He is amazing. He knows my every need. My every thought. My every desire. And he gives me exactly what I really need. He loves me more then I can imagine. I am definitely thankful to Him! I am also thankful for my amazing parents. They have loved me, cared for me and raised me to know my Savior. My siblings are amazing. I have so much fun with them. Yes we do fight, but we also have the time of our lives together. My friends, my house, me photography, my precious ones (That is what I call the children I babysit.) All of these, and more then I can list, is what I'm thankful for. And I pray, that I will always and forever remember these things every single day.

I was trying to get a new picture for my profile. I wanted that had me and children, or me and my camera. So Here is what I got.... please tell me if you have a favorite!

My fav: Babies and Cameras!

Sweetest boy!

Such a happy baby!

Thanksfulness-

Thankfulness. This is a word that everyone is talking about this time of year. Even though Thanksgiving comes around once a year, we all are in such a rush to get to Christmas, many of us forget what Thanksgiving is all about. I think God made Thanksgiving for a many good reasons. (He has a great plans you know :)

I have been trying to continually think of things I am thankful for. God has blessed me so incredibly! This is very hard for me, not because I don't have enough to be thankful for, but because I forget alot of times to be thankful, and instead I sit around and complain, or wallow in self-pity :( I have started praying and asking God to remind me of things I am thankful for through out the day, so I can give my utmost thanks to Him, and praise Him for it!

So, today I am thankful for, My amazing family. Not only my wonderful parents and siblings but also my extended family I love so very much!

One last note, something else He has convicted me very much on lately is desiring other man's approval above His. He is my first true love and HE is the one I should desire most of all. Not man's money, approval or time. I realize this in my heart, but the truly hard thing for me is to translate this into my actions, especially around friends. But I have been praying, and I know if it is God's will he will give me His strength so I can!

I am very excited I am getting to take a trip to Curacao (an Island in South America,) in only one week! I can't wait!! I am going to even get my scuba diving license!

Rebekah

So sorry, I feel like I have deserting my blog :( But I have been doing a ton of photography! (and babysitting.) I made bread the other day, yum yum! It's honey oatmeal bread and I LOVE the recipie. I got it off allrecipies.com so if you like to make bread try it! It turned out a little dryer this time, I'm not to sure why, but I think it is because I let it rise a lot longer... hummm it was still very good! Everyone loved it when I shared it at co-op today.

Here is what it looks like after the oatmeal has soaked for an hour, and the yeast has been added.

This is after it has risen twice, and is now in the bread pan ready for the oven!

This is done... YUM!!!

~Rebekah

iheart faces- Autumn beauty

This week over at ihearfaces, is Autumn beauty week! What a fun week! This is the first time in seven years I have lived somewhere that actually had Autumn colors so this is very exciting, I have not gotten to see them in so long!

I did this shoot a couple of weeks ago, I fell in LOVE with this girl, and this photo!

Head over to iheartfaces and check out the other AMAZING entries!

Rebekah