Thanksgiving in Grenada

Tonight we celebrated Thanksgiving with our friends. Although a bit late, we still enjoyed it like it was on the real day. Ashley and Blair had it at their place so they were in charge of the turkey. Ashley decided to cook the turkey in my oven, so I helped her prepare it. Five long hours later, the turkey was done, and it actually turned out really good! We are so blessed to have these wonderful people in our lives. We love you all!

Thanksgiving Thoughts

This morning Cody woke up and told me Happy Thanksgiving! I said you do know that today is Wednesday and that tomorrow is Thanksgiving right? He said that he had his days confused. I thought it was pretty cute how he seemed to be excited about Thanksgiving even though we are in a tropical climate a million miles from home. Last year was the first Thanksgiving that we were alone without family. We were newlyweds alone in the UK. We had our first experience cooking a huge turkey that was way too much for just the two of us. I also cooked all of the tradition things like dressing, mashed potatoes, rolls, and we even had a cake (with help from Sainsbury's b/c I didn't have time to make one). I thought it was great..although we missed being with our families, it was special because it was our first Thanksgiving as a married couple. This year we have decided to spend Thanksgiving with our fellow American friends, but will celebrate it on Sunday due to the guys' school schedules. I hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving!



Our first Thanksgiving as Mr. and Mrs. in our cozy UK apartment!

Sunset Cruise

Cody and me went with our fabulous friends on a sunset cruise. We had a blast! Grenada is really one of the most beautiful places that I've ever seen. The boat met us on shore and took us off to watch the sunset. It was so breezy and cool. The boat had these two really neat nets that you could lay on...the water was directly below you. We got some really great pictures, but we definitely have the "wind blown" look. I am so glad that we were able to do this with our friends...especially because some of them will not be here for next term. My sweet hubby even missed a LSU football game to do this, so that shows how great it was!

Cody and me sitting on the net on the boat

The Sunset

The girls

Some of the guys

We had a great time!

Anxiousness in the Tingle House

I think we are all getting anxious in the Tingle household to make the long journey back to good ole Louisiana. When I say all of us, I'm talking about Cody, myself, and Macy of course. Cody is a "term 4" student this semster which is considered to be the hardest term of medical school, so he's had it pretty rough. I have actually been keeping myself busy as well, with going to Limes 3 days a week, plus trying to maintain a social status. Macy on the other hand seems to be having difficulties lately. She has become super needy. While she's always been a "Momma's girl" (don't tell Cody), lately she has just gone to the extreme to get my attention. My loving, sweet little dog has turned into a whiney toddler. I like to say that she's going through her terrible twos, even though she's four. Macy is a unique dog in many ways, but one way in particular is that she doesn't go to the door like common dogs do to tell you she has to go outside to take care of her business. She actually will come and get me and make little noises to get my attention to take her out...which is actually very smart of her if you ask me. Anyways..lately, she has been asking for me to take her outside constantly, whether she needs to do anything or not. I guess this just means that she's got some house fever. I am somewhat to blame for this new attitude change because recently, I have lived my days in the house in the air conditioned bedroom with Macy by my side. So now she just expects nothing less than to be in the cool comfort of the bedroom..I have created a monster. We still have 3 weeks from Saturday and counting. Hopefully we can manage just a little while longer without driving each other insane.

OK..I'm sure some of you are wondering why I always post pictures of my dog, but just know that this dog is like my child. Maybe one day when I actually have a human baby I will post pictures of it, but until then Macy's pictures will keep coming. This is one of my many favorites of Mace. Note the chewed up football..but that face is so innocent, like she has no idea who actually chewed it :)

Day at the Beach

Cody had his nutrition final this morning, so we decided to load up the car and take Macy to the beach. After we had changed into our bathing suits and gathered up all of our beach stuff, we grabbed Mace and headed out the door. After Cody locked the front door, that's when he decided to ask me, "Do you have the keys?" Of course I didn't have the keys...I never get the keys unless I'm driving, which is hardly ever. Then I decided that he should use his cell phone to call our landlord to come unlock the door. That's when he informed me that his cell phone was in the house. So my husband remembered to grab his wallet, iPod, and the face plate to the radio, but completely forgot to grab the keys or his cell phone. Of course it turned into my fault in his eyes because I didn't have my cell phone either. After some brief moments of frustration, Cody walked across the street to the Texaco to use the phone. After about an hour of sitting on the porch, our landlord came and unlocked the door. We might have decided to stay home after such an ordeal, but a very excited little dog was ready to go to the beach. So off we went! Here are some pictures of our family beach day:



My two loves


Macy running down the beach..She absolutely loves the beach!


Me and my sweet girl


Our little family

Lunch at Linzee's

Above is a picture of me and the girls at lunch today at the cutest place called Linzee's. It was outside and had comfy couches and chairs where we could lounge around while we ate and chatted. We are trying to take advantage of these last few weeks that we have together in Grenada. We have 4 weeks from tomorrow until we will be home for our Christmas break. It is bittersweet..although it means that I will be with my family, it also means that I will not see these wonderful girls for a while. Some of them will come back to Grenada next term, but some of them are off to the UK for term 1 and another is off to New York for rotations. I feel so blessed to have these wonderful ladies to spend my free time with and will miss them dearly.

Our New Apartment

We are going to be moving to a new apartment in January when we come back after our Christmas break. This apartment is in Lance aux Epines, and I am excited to be closer to everything like Cody's school and all of our friends. This apartment is actually in a house. It is a 3 bedroom house, and below it are a one bedroom apartment and a two bedroom apartment. We are going to get the 2 bedroom apartment. The house is located on top of a huge hill (or could be considered a small mountain). The breeze up there is amazing and there are 360 degree views of the island. The house is fenced with automatic gates, and there is even a small yard where Macy can do her business. Here are some of the pictures that I took of it when we went to view it. These are not the best pictures because we have not actually moved into it yet, so the furniture is all kind of pushed together, but you'll get the general idea. This place also has a pool, but it is not yet complete. They told us that it should be ready in a few months, so hopefully it will be ready when we move in!

The house..our apartment is on the bottom left

One of the views from the house

The kitchen

The living room (the washing machine will not be there..it is just sitting there for now, and the grey table and chairs will go out on the balcony which is through those brown french doors.)

Our bedroom

The bathroom

The guest bedroom

The Time Traveler's Wife

So I just finished reading the book The Time Traveler's Wife. I thought it was the greatest book! Probably one of my favorite books of all time. Well tonight, me and some of the girls went and watched the movie at the theater (Grenada is a little behind on their movies). Although it was a bit different from the book, the movie was also amazing! I highly recommend the book and movie to everyone, but be prepared to cry!

Scared of Balloons

I took this video while I was blowing up balloons for my Halloween decorations. I noticed that Macy didn't want to come near the balloons. I thought this video was pretty cute and just wanted to share it. Poor baby doesn't like balloons...I guess it doesn't help that her Momma is throwing them on her!

Grenadian Halloween

Last night we had a little Halloween get together at the Tingle household. We had a few of our closest friends over and had Halloween treats, Grenadian style costumes, and watched the movie "Signs" on the projector! We had a great time! I had to get a little crafty and a little creative with my decorations. Grenada does not celebrate Halloween, so there were no pre-made decorations that I could just buy in the stores. I had to make mine all by hand, which consisted of drawing, cutting, and pasting along with a little ribbon and balloons. It was a lot of work, but I had fun doing it. I also made spiderweb cupcakes. Again, I had to use my imagination, because I couldn't find cupcake paper in the store, so the cupcakes had to be eaten with a fork, and the store didn't have black icing gel, so I had to use blue gel for the webs...they still turned out pretty good for my first attempt. We decided to dress up as golfers. This was an easy thing to do in our house, because Cody brought his golf clubs with him to Grenada. So we put on our golf clothes (which is Cody's everyday clothes anyway) and posed with the clubs. We had to include Macy in our little dress up fun, so I put Macy's little polo shirt on her (luckily I brought it with us to Grenada) and called her our "caddy". I made a little sign and taped it on the back of her shirt so that everyone would know what she was. It was fun, and we got some cute pictures of it. After we ate our yummy treats, we watched the movie "Signs". The plan was to watch a scary movie for Halloween, but after discovering that most of us are wimps, we decided to go with a less scary movie. We still had a blast watching it, and there was still some jumping and screaming going on...I guess it was a good thing that we didn't go with a true horror flick! I have to say that we all had a great Grenadian Halloween!

My homemade Halloween banner

My spiderweb cupcakes

Our family of golfers

Our little "caddy"