funnest week ever!

So last week was a really busy one but we decided it has been THE funnest week ever!
We were able to spend time with lots of great friends and also got to spend a lot of time together.

On Wednesday evening our friends Brandon and Tori took us out to a nice restaurant called China Beach.

While I was in the restroom they told the waitress it was my birthday dinner so after dinner I got an awesome birthday song and this huge piece of delicious cheesecake!!!

That night we went to their house played games and saw fireworks off the balcony!
This week my birthday was on friday. So on Thursday Tori, Katy and Aileen surprised me after lunch with a trip to the salon for a manicure/ pedicure! it was so fun and felt so nice! I had never had a pedicure before and I decided that I love them! The best part though was being able to hang out with the girls. We don't have much more time here in the Bahamas so making the most of it is a good idea.

Brandon and Tori were so funny they gave me a card with 5 ec in it.... ec is the money we used while living in Dominica and is worth about 1.60 here or in the states. They did it as a joke and we thought it was really funny!

So I woke up on my birthday to a decorated house and yummy smelling breakfast thanks to my wonderful husband!

We had a bunch of unused balloons so we decided we would have a water fight! at 8:30 AM!

We filled all the balloons and left them on Brandon and tori's door step. We knocked and ran.

So they opened the door to find some water filled balloons and this sign!

We were ready for them! They tried to be sneaky and get around us but we got em! Water balloon fights at 8:30 am are really fun!

later we went to lunch in the port and Brett bought me a pair of earings and a really cute bracelet. It was fun having a lunch date for a change. For dinner Brett made my favorite chicken alfredo. We were given some peppers from a woman in the ward and Brett used one called a goat pepper.... I guess the Bahamians love them.... it was the hottest thing we had ever tasted we were eating with sweaty faces and runny noses because of it! although dinner was really spicey it was really good! Then later friends came over for ice cream cake. Yes that's right Brett made an ice cream cake all by himself! it was so awesome! everybody loved it and it tasted great too!

After ice cream I schooled everyone up to round 4 of phase 10 and then we headed out to see some more fireworks. July 10 it Bahamas independence day so there were parties everywhere. We found out that the fireworks wouldn't shoot off until midnight and so we went walking on the beach with the full moon.

This picture is us on a huge life guard chair!

The prop club, one of Brandon and Tori's favs was close by so we went there and found an empty dance floor so the six of us. Us, Brandon and Tori, Knema and aileen had fun dancing funky for a while!

We made our way over to were we thought the fireworks would be and sat and waited. We were sitting on the side of a large canal hoping the fireworks would be fired from the opposite side. Sure enough we were the ones with the best seat in the house! they went off almost right over our heads! it was so AWESOME!

It really was one of the best birthdays I ever had.

Saturday was the banquet for the fourth semester Ross students. Brett was looking sharp and I finally got to wear the dress I bought when I went home. We had a nice dinner and had fun being with friends. There was a dance floor there and we danced a lot, more than I thought we would. When people started getting tipsy we left. but overall it was a really great night!

Here are some pictures of the fun we had at the banquet.

Modeling With Genoveva

So here is the link to Genovevas photography blog. She was teaching another woman in our branch some photography tips and My friend Aileen and I got the pretend like we were models for a day!
I was looking through her wedding blog and found out that she actually was the photographer for Richie Howards wedding... what a funny coincidence.....
Hope you like them!

http://genwayment.blogspot.com/2009/07/kellie.html

4th of July

Paul Sweeney: “How often we fail to realize our good fortune in living in a country where happiness is more than a lack of tragedy.”
This last year has really been an eye opener while living outside of the United States. I have realized that I was and am a very blessed person. Growing up I never worried about not having food to eat or clothes to wear. Instead I picked through the food on my plate or didn’t eat it because it wasn’t hot enough. In school I remember not wearing many of my clothes because they weren’t in style. I got a job at age 16 not realizing how important a job is to some people. I would complain about having to work and then after earning a paycheck or two blow it on something too frivolous to remember.
I was a decent student but I hated English class, I didn’t realize that many people of the world would pay anything if they could just learn how to communicate in the English language. I came to understand the importance of government and how it can make or break a people and nation.
I have become grateful for living in a country that has dairy farms so you can have fresh milk at the grocery store and not have to survive off of food storage milk. I became very thankful for the clean water that runs from the tap of my home in Ogden. I never once, growing up ever worried that the water might make me sick or might not be there when I turn the faucet handle. This past year I have realized how some places in the world do not have a dependable police force we have seen a drunk driver smash into someone’s home and the officers just laughed and let him walk home no ticket or jail time.
I have asked myself so many times in the past year why was this other person born here... in a country where it is so poor they will never see anything else, and I was blessed to be born in a place where I had every opportunity in the world sitting on a platter waiting for me to take it. As I watched people washing their laundry in the local river I wonder why them, do they wish for something better? Why me? I complained that the washer happened to be in my room growing up. I should have been thankful that we had our own washing machine so we never had to wear dirty clothes.
As I helped with English Classes in Dominica I asked the people where their families are and how long since they have seen them. For some it has been decades and many countries apart. For some of those people they crave America so bad they can taste it. They work for a while on an island to get enough money to get to the next island that is closer to America. All I have to do is book a ticket and I am home.
I realized I am thankful for so many daily things that I took for granted in the U.S. Electricity, water, A/C, internet, school, sunny days, sidewalks, street lights, warm showers, milk, diet coke, drive through, ice cream, friends and most of all family.
This 4th of July will be the first that I truly truly truly am grateful and thankful to my heavenly father that I was born in America to a good family who loves me. I wonder who I would be today if that one circumstance was changed. I have enjoyed traveling and living in different countries the places and people are amazing. The last year has been so awesome the people and places are seriously great! But there are things that you realize you take for granted when you don’t have them and America and all that comes with it is one of them.
I want to say to all my friends and family that I love you and I miss you and I hope you remember that you might not be wealthy or famous but you do have the freedom and liberty to be what and who you want and I think that is really cool.
God bless you and God bless America!