First Visitors on the Rock

As I mentioned in my previous post, we had some visitors last week! Josh's oldest sister Kristin and her boyfriend Brandon traveled from California to spend a week with us in Grenada.  I had such a great time with them.  Josh was pretty busy studying all week, but that didn't keep the three of us from having lots of fun.  They arrived late Tuesday night.  So Wednesday morning, after they slept in a little, we headed to Grand Anse Beach.  We spent the afternoon soaking up the sun and then headed to Umbrellas for a late afternoon lunch of burgers and fries.

Brandon and Kristin

Sisters-in-law!

View from Umbrellas top deck

Later that evening, we went over to the school to watch Josh play in an intramural basketball game. His team won! Yay!  Although Kristin definitely takes after her Mom when watching Josh play sports.  Brandon and I had to keep telling her to be quiet! :)
 

Toon Squad

Thursdays are pool days at the University Club for all the SO's.  So I took our visitors to the pool for the day.  Brandon and Kristin kayaked around the bay and we all enjoyed the pool.

 I think Brandon was really in need of a vacation...

Relaxation at its finest!

We picked Josh up from school around 5pm, but he still needed to get some good study time in.  His first set of midterms are quickly approaching.  So the three of us took a walk up Lance Aux Epines Road to the lookout point to watch the sunset.

There are SO many beautiful flowers here in Grenada.  I tried to make a point of taking pictures of the ones along our walk.

And of course Kristin and I needed to pose by some of them.

Grenada really is such a beautiful place.

Once we finally made it to the lookout point, the sunset didn't disappoint.

It was gorgeous...as usual.  I just wish Josh could have enjoyed it with us.

The first two days were so much fun! But keep checking back for more fun adventures with our visitors!

P.S.  Who's coming to visit next?!? 

Annandale Falls

Today Kristin, Brandon, Kelsey, and I took a little trip up to Annandale Falls.  Kristin and Brandon have been here for a week.  In fact, they leave tomorrow and I will doing more blog posts on our other adventures from this past week. But we'll start with what we did last, first.  We took Miss Grenada Kelsey with us because she is such a great tour guide and I was a little nervous about driving into the Grenadian jungle with just an "idea" of where we were going.  Plus I kinda like that girl's company. :)

The drive to Annandale Falls was pretty easy and there was no "hike" involved unlike my last waterfall adventure.  Which was really good considering it started to rain right as we were pulling up to the waterfall.  But I like Annandale Falls. It's extremely beautiful and relatively easy to get to.

Annandale Falls

The pool beneath the falls was pretty big and looked super refreshing.  So of course Kelsey and I got in for a quick dip.  How often are you in the middle of a tropical jungle at a waterfall?

Then we got brave and made our way under the waterfall.  It was so fun!

Brandon and I even jumped off the side into the pool of water.  Although I can't imagine ever being brave enough to jump from the top of the waterfall. WAY TO SCARY FOR ME!

As we were leaving, some men had some baby armadillos! I don't think I've ever seen one in person before. And I've definitely never held one!

On our drive back home, we stopped for a brief moment in St. George's at Fort George.  It has an amazing look out point to the carenage and Port Louis.

Carenage



Grand Anse Bay



Port Louis

It was such a fun way to end Kristin and Brandon's last day in Grenada.  Both Josh and I will be sad to see them go, but it will be nice to get back into our normal routine.  Josh has his first set of midterms a week from Monday! EEEEK! So he has been super busy studying while our family has been here.  Hopefully all his hard work pays off.

Limes Goes Back-to-School

Next week, the local Grenadian children head back to school.  And that means that the Limes after-school program starts up again!  As the volunteer coordinators, Kelsey and I wanted to do something extra special for these kids to get them off to a great start for the school year.  We talked about wanting to do book bags and lunch boxes for the kids but we were unsure if we were really able to do both.  I decided I would ask my Mom if she could help donate some things to the program.  She and my Gramma went above and beyond.  They made bookbags for EVERY kid and sent supplies to fill them!

Mom and Gramma with the finished product!

Yesterday, we had our back-to-school kickoff party at Grand Anse Beach.  Kelsey, and a bunch of other SO volunteers met at the Limes field and helped walk the kids over to the beach.

When the finally arrived at Grand Anse, we spent about an hour or more playing in the water.

I got attacked...



But Miss Kelsey helped get them back!



And then I found some nicer little girls to play with :)

Eventually, we got them out of the water and ready for lunch.

And finally, it was time for the main event!

Surprisingly, there were barely any complaints about which color book bag or lunch box each kid received.  The kids were all thrilled to get anything at all.  They would have been overjoyed with a single pencil.





A special thanks to every volunteer that came out and helped.  I know that with so many kids it can seem overwhelming at times, but the kids LOVE the attention and you really are making such a difference in these kids lives.

And an even bigger thanks to my Mom and Gramma who spent quite a few days buying the materials and sewing the book bags for the kids they had never even seen or met.  I love you both very much and appreciate all that you did.  And so do the kids.  I wish you could have been there to see their faces when they got their bags.  I guess the pictures will have to do.

Limes afterschool program starts back up on Tuesday.  I hope you'll come out and see us all again!