Caterpillar Attack!!

Slow yet again. I guess you are going to have to expect that from me (liz). Plan on a bi-weekly to weekly update on our lives. You would think I would have plenty of time to update the blog- which I do, but unfortunately I have become prone to island life and therefore have become lazy. Sad. Who knows if I will ever be able to adjust back. 10 hours of sleep has become a regular part of my routine- about 6 hours for Ben.

So this week we were attacked by caterpillars!! ARGH! Actually we weren't, but a tree down our road was. Earlier this week Ben and I were walking home from school when all the sudden Ben noticed a ton of leaves that fallen from the tree. Which was odd, because the caretaker had just cleaned the yard and there was no storm. It was when Ben looked up at the tree that we saw 60-80 caterpillars attacking the it!! It was crazy! Some of them were eating the stems and caused a ton of leaves to fall off. It was quite a site.

They were the big 5 inch long caterpillars that I had posted about earlier. Only some of these looked more like 6 or 7. They were huge, chubby, and fat. They have 8 stubby legs, some arms, and the red part is their head.

How many can you see? I think there are 9 in this picture.

This picture was taken at the end of the week. Notice how the tree doesn't have anymore leaves?! There's a few more still hanging out. I was hoping that they would make cocoons- but they all left.
Ben admiring the tree and caterpillars. I must have gotten bored.

Moving on.... Ben had his third exam last week and so after taking his test we were able to hangout for a bit. He still had to study because he has three more tests this week. Unfortunately, it seems like the days that Ben can play are the days when it rains. We decided to go outside anyways.

Indian Man.

We were waiting out the rain under a palm tree. Ben wasn't cooperating and letting me take his picture. But he did pose for this one. I like it. It looks like he could be on the cover of a book- like the Lord of the Flies or something.


Me in the rain. I don't know what to do in front of cameras- the peace signs seem to help. hahaha.

Now we are getting into some randoms. Above is a picture of the bay on our way to church. People were tearing down/burning a building on the way. While we were walking back it was completely gone. All in a days work.


Here are some of the girls in my nursery class at church. Fortunately one of us knows how to smile for the camera. And she's a cutie.

Me with some of the primary. I think about 5 more kids are missing. It turns out our branch is the second largest primary in our stake (which includes about 10 islands and some of Puerto Rico). We have about 20 kids.
And this is just a random pick I took today. I was walking along the beach and then walked up to campus. Ben and I sometimes take a secret route under the yoga deck and today I found this old fan. I wonder if it has been there every time I've used this path, and this was the first time I have noticed it. I thought it was pretty cool.

Randoms

Things have been a little slow down here. Ben was sick a while ago, and then we were both kind of sick, and then I got really sick. So things are looking a lot better and it seems like July flew by. I can't believe we are almost done with second semester- roughly 20 more days! Crazy. We are excited to head up to Michigan over the break and enjoy busy life for a week- at least I am excited for the busyness. In the meantime, I have taken a few pictures during July. They are kind of random, but I think people will enjoy them, it's more crabs, bugs, and animals, along with other things. Enjoy!

Before I begin, here I am at the beginning of "not feeling too well". Ben and I think it's a funny picture. Maybe that's just us.

This is the university's swimming pool. It is where I go to for occasional tanning, swim lessons, and a place to catch up and chat with people. I thought it might be neat to see what the pool looks like.
The weekend that I got really sick was the weekend that Dominica was having it's first International Cricket game in a long time. Supposedly it was a pretty big deal. The game was West Indies vs. Bangladesh. The game was Sunday and Tuesday in the capital. But before the game, they had practice at the field in Portsmouth. So on Saturday a friend and I went to go watch them practice for an hour. We got there an hour late and the team just got on the field to warm up. Typical island life. So we just hung out for a while people watched. It ended up being a lot of fun. It would have been neat to see a real game.
The team warming up. I think it's the West Indies team.
Some of the locals watching them practice. It was kind of a big deal.
My friend and I bought some Seamoss from the guy in dreadlocks. Supposedly it's crushed seaweed with "spices" and is an excellent source of protein. Spices = nutmeg, cinnamon, etc. The green bottle has milk and to it and the orange is original flavor. The green was actually really good, the orange was gross and the consistency of slug slime. Maybe that's why I got sick.

This is a picture of Purple Turtle Beach. It was where our church had the Branch Social and was a huge success. I wish I had taken more pictures. I made really good sloppy joes from scratch. The rope on the right is attached to the palm tree and a people could swing on it. If you climb the tree high enough you could jump into the ocean- like Ben- which was super silly because it was shallow and he could have hurt himself.

Ben and I were able to get some sun in between his classes. Here he is playing with a sick crab that died once he flung it into the ocean. We saw it floating on the bottom later.
One day I was walking home from campus and saw this huge katydid, or as I would categorize it as cricket, on our porch. It was huge!!! We took tons of pictures, because it was pretty cool.

As big as Ben's hand.
And here is a picture of our cow in the field next to our apartment. The building behind it is campus where the gym is. But the cow has a white heron on it- so we took a picture. Fun!