Happy 4th of July!!

After Phillip’s family left, we both spent a few days doing nothing but studying! It was rainy and yucky outside for several days, so that made it easier to study at least!! On Sunday, June 20th, I enjoyed a nice long phone conversation with Dad! Sure wish I could have spent the day with him! Happy Father’s Day to our Dads!!!!

On Monday the 21st, we studied during the day. That evening, we had a class session for our underwater photography specialty! It was a great class (by Sally) and we learned a lot! We scheduled our 2 photography dives for July 3rd…that was the first time that everyone was actually free!

I spent the whole day studying on the 22nd and was so glad that I got a ton finished that day!! The next day I didn’t do any studying at all! (And it was great!!) I went back to Tijon’s for another perfume class!!!!! I hung fliers up at AUC for Tijon, so in return, they offered to let me go back to their shop and make another signature scent! I had a blast, just like the first time! I love that place!!!! I made a clean, ocean type of fragrance that time and name it C’est La Vie! It’s French for “That’s life.” It is the motto of Calmos, a little local outdoor restaurant. They use the saying more like “livin’ the good life.” Anyway, I really like the perfume and had a lot of fun making it!

As soon as I finished there, I headed to Octopus Diving! I figured since I was in Grand Case anyway, I might as well dive that afternoon!!! We dove on the sites “Fish Pot” and “Turtle Reef.” I really enjoyed Fish Pot, because I had never been there before!!! There were tons of fish there!!! I was able to get super close to a HUGE sting ray. It was awesome! I also saw an Eagle Ray, which is a spotted ray. They are not as common around here, so it’s a treat to spot an eagle ray! When I left Octopus Diving, I called in a Pizza from this little French Place called Drive In Pizza. We had heard it was really good. We couldn’t believe the size of this pizza! It was seriously hanging over the sides of the box. It was so big, it wouldn’t all fit inside. The pizza was thin crust, lots of toppings, and absolutely delicious!!!! Too bad we didn’t figure that out till it’s almost time to move!

I spent the day on June 24th studying again! The weather was cooler and I enjoyed having the windows and sliding glass door open. There was a great breeze coming through the apartment while I studied!!!

Jane, our landlady, was here for a few days. She was busy most of the time with a worker here, trying to install a washer and dryer. Doesn’t sound that complicated right??? Well it took 3 whole days and he still didn’t get it to work right! Soooo frustrating!!! Anyway, Phillip and I had created a list of stuff to post for sale and Jane was interested in some stuff. So I went over the list with her that day and was very excited that she wanted several things! Everything that she didn’t want, I posted for sale on Friday evening. The students use a website called ValueMD to buy and sell things. The biggest thing I posted was our CAR!!!! Here was our ad:
White 2003 Atos with 56,600 km (35,200 miles) $3,400 OBO
Automatic, cold AC, radio, 2 new front tires, new spare tire, new brakes, oil recently changed, plates are current and included, inspection valid through April 2011 – car available on July 12th. Great island car!!!!

On Saturday, I actually had several responses from students wanting to buy things! I met some of them that day to sell stuff. On one of my trips down to meet someone, I had my hands full of stuff. I had to walk around to the side of the apartment complex to go out of the walking gate. The concrete is uneven in the parking lot there and sure enough, I tripped on it!!! I have no clue how I managed not to fall, but I caught myself somehow! But it wasn’t fast enough! I looked down to see blood dripping from my toe!!! Ouch!! I knew the girl was on her way here though, so I went ahead to the street to meet her and was just hoping she wouldn’t notice! (She didn’t!) I think the worst part was making myself clean it afterwards…yuck! Needless to say, I had a sore toe for a few days!!!

Jane had a cleaning lady here that day, cleaning her apartments. She offered to send her up to our place to scrub the kitchen and bathroom. I love when Jane offers to do that! I ended up with a spotless kitchen and bathroom and didn’t have to do a thing! (I think I could get used to that!)

I also got a couple of emails about the car that day. One of the girls that emailed actually set up a time to test drive it the next day!

It rained on Sunday morning. I took advantage of that time and washed the car in the rain!!!! That was so much easier than the last time I washed the car, when I had to carry buckets of water down 2 flights of stairs and wash it in the hot sun. I will have to remember that trick of washing in the rain. Oh wait…people have hoses in the US…never mind! ;-)

I met Teresa at 11:00am to test drive the car. She brought along a guy friend who knows more about cars. He looked under the hood, checked fluids, and asked tons of questions. Lucky for me, he liked all the answers! They took it for a very long test drive!!!!! He drove halfway and she drove halfway. I could tell they loved the car! Teresa said they would talk about it and get back with me. Seriously 7 minutes after I got home, she emailed offering $3000. I responded that we were not ready to lower the price yet since I had just posted it the night before. She responded quickly again and said she would buy it at our asking price!!!! Hooray!!!!! She actually wired the money to our account the very next day! She didn’t even mind that we had requested to keep the car till July 12th. (Phillip has 2 rotations coming up soon at the hospital in Philipsburg and needs the car to get there!) I cannot tell you how relieved we are to have sold the car! That was our major investment here and I’m so glad we were able to sell it. Ok this is going to sound dumb…but I’m also glad our car is going to a girl who seems really, really nice! I have to admit I seriously like my little Atos!!!

Julia and I went to church that evening and stopped at Subway afterwards. I think both of our husbands were super excited that we were bringing Subway home! We hadn’t done that in awhile! I got the new Tilapia sandwich. It was soooo good!!! I hope the Subways at home get that sandwich, but they probably won’t!

Monday the 28th was Phillip’s last block day!!!! He had 2 exams that afternoon! Afterwards, he actually took some time off and we went to the beach!!!! It was so nice to hang out at the beach together after block. That’s what we always did first semester, but never seem to have time to anymore! I made cupcakes while he was taking his exams, so we enjoyed celebrating by eating some delicious devil’s food cupcakes with dark chocolate icing. YUM!!! He was already back at school that evening studying though…the break didn’t last long…

On Tuesday, Julia and I swam laps together! It’s so much more fun swimming with someone! Julia and I have to try to hang out more because we realized we don’t have much time left here!!! After laps, I studied more…

Phillip studied all day Wednesday and I goofed off all day. I felt a little guilty…I went diving all day without him! I needed just a few more dives to get to my goal of 50 dives! So that morning we dove Creole Rock and Anse Marcel. I helped Aure with 3 discover scuba divers! I didn’t really do that much to help out, but I still felt important! :-) The owners even gave me a tank top to wear and called me staff! Fun!! That afternoon, we went to The Gregory (shipwreck at about 55 feet) and the Bridge (around 50 feet). Sally found an awesome stonefish at The Gregory. I was super excited to see it and got a cool picture of it! The Bridge was a new site for me!!! I love seeing new sites! It was the old Simpson Bay Bridge!!!! It was dumped in the water years ago and a nice reef started forming on it. So the dive companies started diving there. But it just wasn’t really big enough to be its own site. So 3 more little ships were placed nearby. You swim as a group from one to the next. So it’s like 4 dives in one. It was really cool! We even saw a reef shark!!! (Ok, it was just a little shark…but it was still cool!)

Thursday was July 1st!! I can’t believe it is already July! That just seems crazy to me! Phillip had a big exam that day!!! That evening, we both went to AUC for another diving class. We completed a Nitrox class. Nitrox is a different type of air that actually has more oxygen and less nitrogen in it. You have to be Nitrox certified in order to dive with Nitrox. There are different charts to use and tons of math to do when diving with Nitrox instead of air. We had to pass a Nitrox exam in order to get certified. It was actually kind of hard!!! Everyone passed though! Several of us really wanted to finish the nitrox certification that day because we were planning a trip to Saba the next day. The dive company in Saba has Nitrox and doesn’t even charge extra for it. We finished our certification just in time! After the class, Phillip and I were busy charging our camera batteries and packing for Saba. We hoped to get to bed early but didn’t make it. That 5:00am alarm Friday morning sure came early…

We met a friend at 5:40am and headed to the airport! We have been to Saba twice before, but took the ferry both times. This was our first time flying there. It was a little scary…Saba has the world’s shortest international runway! It seriously just drops off into the ocean, over a cliff, at the end of it. A little freaky, but no problems!!!! It was the tiniest airport I’ve ever seen! A lady from the dive shop met us there and already had a taxi driver with a huge van ready for us. (There were 13 of us in our group!!!) The diving was fun, but the water wasn’t as clear as the first 2 times Phillip and I dove there. We did three dives and two of them were sites we hadn’t been to before. The first site was Tedran Wall. This was my first wall dive!!!! It’s crazy cool! You basically just stay close to a wall with coral growing all over it. You can’t see anything underneath you!!! It went down super deep, just kept going and going. I think they said it was 300 feet there. We didn’t go deeper than 100 feet though. It’s just a cool feeling to be that deep, look down, and still not see the ground! Weird! Our second dive was Babylon. It was a pretty reef with different sections formed by lava. Interesting. Our 3rd dive was Hot Springs. We had been there before, but took a different route this time, so got to see more of it at least. It’s weird…when you stick your hands down into the sand, you can feel it get warm. Crazy! We saw a nurse shark and a sting ray at Hot Springs! We also saw a couple of crazy eels!! One was HUGE and one was spotted…different from any we had seen before.

After the dives, our taxi driver took us back to the airport. There is no security in the little Saba airport. We checked in and then waited in a little outdoor waiting section. There was a bar, so several people waited there and watched a soccer game on TV. Our little plane held around 20 people total. The flight back was totally full. It was such a weird feeling taking off from Saba! We could see out the front of the plane and we came sooooo close to end of the runway. Freaky!!! The first time we were in Saba, Phillip bought a shot glass that said “I survived the Saba landing.” It wasn’t fitting at the time since we took a ferry there, but it was seriously the only shot glass we could find on the island! That shot glass now has a whole new meaning…

We were absolutely exhausted by the time we got back Friday evening. We went to bed early! Yesterday morning, Phillip studied at school. I unpacked our bags from Saba and re-packed them for diving again that afternoon!!! We had our 2 underwater photography dives scheduled with Sally that afternoon. (I posted on Facebook that we were diving again. Tina commented “Are you going to spend any of your time left on the island outside of the water? ;)
Hehehe, funny!!!!! :-) We went to Anse Marcel and Creole Rock. We learned several new photography tricks and think we are getting better at taking pictures! The ocean was super rough yesterday and the boat was rocking like crazy. We were even airborne a few times. One of our friends fell when we hit a huge wave. She hurt her knee and Phillip and I ended up taking her to the hospital yesterday after diving. All three of us were kind of excited to see the hospital. Their facilities are certainly different from what we are used to at home!!!! It was quite the experience!!!

I lost Phillip back to studying today…Sure was nice to get to spend so much time with him the past couple of days though! He studied all day and I mostly worked around the apartment today. I did laundry, put away our stuff from diving the past couple of days, and then went to church with Julia this evening! I sure will miss Julia and our little Caribbean church!

Happy 4th of July to everyone!!!! I am truly proud to be an American. I was always proud to be an American, but I must say it has a whole new meaning now. God Bless the USA!!! :-)