USA Tomorrow!!!!

It stormed all day again yesterday! No beach for me! I did get BB’s for lunch (AGAIN) though! Delicious!!!! You just can’t beat tons of BBQ chicken, Caribbean rice, and macaroni salad for $5.00!!! Yum! I spent the rest of the day packing, cleaning, and praying for better weather today! I really, really wanted to head to the beach just one more time! However, the weather was NOT looking good. We are in the middle of a big storm circle and it’s supposed to rain straight through Sunday.

I woke up this morning to a bright sunny sky!!!! I was so excited! I met Julia at 9:00 and we headed to Mullet Beach. We played in the big waves for awhile, then laid out for a bit so we could dry off. Alicia (and baby Kendall) picked us up around 10:15 and we all headed to Baie Prune. Alicia likes that beach because there are never many waves there, so it’s easy to take Kendall in the water. We played there for another hour or so, then headed home. We all split up for a quick lunch, but then Julia came back over here and we spent a couple hours at the pool! The first hour and a half were great!!! Bright, sunny, beautiful. All of a sudden it was super windy! About 5 minutes later, it started raining! We stayed in the pool for another half hour in the rain anyway! It rained the whole rest of the day. I seriously think God was just looking out for me and gave us a nice day even though it was supposed to be stormy. I am so grateful for a beautiful day, 2 beaches, the pool, and great friends!!!

I can’t believe it’s time for me to leave St. Maarten. I must say, it is very bittersweet! Of course, I can’t wait to get home to Mom and Dad! The hardest part of living here was being so far away from them!!!! I hope to actually get to see Sara (my seeeester) sometime soon! I haven’t seen her for way too long! I can’t wait to spend time with Tina and Sara also. They are great college friends!!! Tina lives in Louisville and Sara just moved to Newburgh earlier this month. It’s going to be great for the 3 of us to be able to hang out again!

I miss all of our family and friends! I can’t wait to see you all!!!!

A year ago, I would have said I can’t wait to get back to the US where we would have:

electricity that stays on
running water that stays on
a bigger car
a bigger apartment
a normal size frig
a normal size stove/oven
a dishwasher
a washer and dryer
a closet
Dr. Pepper
fresh fruits and vegetables
milk that doesn’t spoil after 3 days
ice cream
Walmart
a bedroom with a higher ceiling so we could actually stand up
a comfortable couch
fast food places nearby
nice roads to drive on
stoplights instead of speed bumps and round abouts
street lights
being able to go outside (safely) after dark
being able to drink tap water
free refills on sodas
someplace to buy clothes/shoes/anything else we could possibly want

Since then, I have realized that none of that really matters. I suppose I have adjusted to St. Maarten very well. I have my priorities straight now! I have learned how fortunate we are. We have enough to eat and clothes to wear. That alone is more than I can say for a lot of people that I know. Truth is, most of us have much more than just food and clothes. We are lucky!

My mom told me something before I moved here. She said I would grow up a lot. I was actually sort of offended! I told her I thought I was already grown up! Ha! Boy was I wrong!!!! (How do Moms always know???)

I am a much stronger person now than I was 20 months ago. I have learned to handle situations that I would have previously avoided. I did things with the car that I would have previously begged my dad or Phillip to do for me! I dealt with the mechanic myself, got the car inspected myself, dealt with insurance myself, and sold the car myself. I have learned to handle the locals and I feel like I do it quite well. If you are polite to them and respect their culture, you usually don’t have problems. I have even gotten much better at understanding their accents!!!! It was very hard for me to understand them when I first moved here. I even learned to adapt to the “island time” lifestyle and actually kind of like it. Things aren’t so rushed. Why is everyone always in such a hurry anyway? Slow down and enjoy life!!!

Phillip and I are so lucky to have each other! I don’t think we could have done this alone! We learned to depend completely on each other and I must say it brought us even closer together! We sure do make a great team!!!! (I remember Beth telling me this would happen and she was so right!)

The electricity has been out for about the past hour. It just came back on for about 10 seconds, then went off again. That would have made me mad when we first moved here! This time I just laughed. I mean really, what’s the big deal??? At least we have water at the moment! Sometimes they’re both out! (When I get back to the States, I will feel like I should keep water stored in the bathroom to flush the toilet!)

I am going to miss so many things from “my little island.” I will miss my little Caribbean church! I will actually miss my little apartment. It feels like home. I will miss looking out my living room window and seeing the ocean! I will miss being surrounded by palm trees. I will miss our beautiful pool! I will miss all of the amazing beaches here! I will miss taking a ferry to explore another island. I will miss scuba diving!!!! I will miss the gorgeous weather! And most of all, I will miss our friends. We are lucky…we have made some amazing friends here! It is painful to think that we are all moving to different parts of the world and we really don’t know if we will ever see each other again. We have gone through so much together!!!! It’s hard to leave them.

(Hahaha, the water just went off also! No water or electricity now!!! Oh well…windows are open and I have jugs of water. “It’s all good, Mon!”)

I am very grateful for the internet that we have had in St. Maarten. That is truly what saved me!!!! I’m not sure I could have survived living here without my daily phone calls to Mom and Dad and my almost daily phone calls to my seeeester and Tina! It truly helped me get through. I guess I didn’t feel quite so far away from them since I could still just pick up the phone and call them! (Of course, sometimes we got cut off when the electricity or internet went out…but they always understood!)

I guess what I am trying to say is that I’m a different person now than I was when I moved here. I guess I grew up a lot! ;-)

I fly back to the US tomorrow! I’ll arrive in Evansville late tomorrow night and can’t wait to give Mom and Dad a big hug!!!! :-)