222 feb 22 09

we rode our bikes to church today. The other churches have church buses that come around and pick up all the members... I think that is kinda cool. There are over 300 churches on this island. Our church building was built only a year ago but the membership is growing rapidly. We have had six baptisms this last two months. Brett and I teach the youth sunday school class. We have only two boys that are 13 in our class but they are really fun to work with. Today our lesson was on prayer and one of the boys said he prayed for a PS2 and eventually got it and that strengthened his testimony of prayer. I thought that was really funny. They are characters. Brett takes charge of the class mostly and I am glad, I think the boys really look up to him...

Our branch is a really great branch.

Tonight Brett and I practiced a medical case. I looked one up on the internet and I memorized my symptoms and he practiced the way he was suppose to talk to a patient, he took my blood pressure and asked about all of my symptoms and he figured out what was wrong with me. He did really good! It was fun to practice!

Brett wanted me to put up our video of our scooter ride. So I am trying to upload our video.

We rented a scooter a lil while ago we needed to travel far and didn't have bikes. so we made a scooter video.

This is the dance studio that I am teaching classes at. Nice huh!

Well the video isn't working but I will keep trying.

Valentines Day & Liat Airline

I am truly blessed to be married to Brett! I love him so much, and I feel so loved by him. This last weekend was Valentine’s Day and we decided to not do anything big no gifts or anything like that. So Saturday I woke up to some yummy smelling coffee cake! He had woke up early and made Breakfast for me! I thought that was an awesome V-day gift. But the cuteness didn’t stop there. When I had gotten home from Babysitting he had cleaned the whole house! It smelled so nice! He then made dinner for me! Then after dinner we walked down to the beach, and watched the sun set!

This is my favorite part, while the sun was setting Brett grabbed me close and we danced on the beach while the sun was setting… Oh yeah we also wrote I love you in the sand it was really cute!

Sounds like a love story doesn’t it!

I loved it. We walked home and we watched the NBA dunk championship. Nate Robinson 5'8" won the Dunk Championship by dunnking over Dwight howard 6'11" Last years Dunk Champion.

It was the most fun and romantic and fun Valentine’s Day I have ever had.

You could say I am bragging about how great my husband is and I would say I don’t care I like to brag about him. I know his life is very busy and I contribute to the business but I never feel like he is too busy for me. He always makes me feel loved and special no matter what. Brett always helps me with dinner and the house. He is always surprising me with funny things. I am so grateful.

On a meaner note.

I know my friends from Dominica will understand but a lot of you who read this may not. The only airline that you can catch a flight with to Dominica is called Liat.

Liat is a terrible terrible airline! In the past they have lost our luggage for a week! And the first time I used my new luggage from my Grandma they ripped a huge gash in the side of it. They stole Bretts cell phone from his luggage and just have a terrible terrible reputation. They have changed our flights without telling us and plain out cancelled flight without telling us. They are scary to do business with. I know some of you know what I am talking about. Well here is the story: We don’t use our credit cards except to purchase airline tickets mostly and so we haven’t been checking our credit card statements on line as much but the other day Brett had a feeling he should check it. So he checked it and he found that Liat had just barely charged us 500.00!!!! just the other day! We haven’t even been in that country for a few months and haven’t bought anything from them since October. Well Brett contacted American Express and they are looking into it and he also is in contact with some Liat worker who could care less if they are scamming us. Anyway that’s not the best part!!! It gets better! So American Express is investigating and Brett didn’t want to just wait to see what they had to say and so he went through all of our statements and guess what he found. The trip that we got charged for was our honeymoon flight that Liat cancelled on us before we took it! He also found that they charged us for the flight when we booked it and when they cancelled the flight they charged us again instead of taking it off or cancelling the payment. So far this airline has charges us over 1000.00 for a flight that they cancelled and we never took. The Lady Brett is in contact with from Liat called him FOUL! Can you believe it! He has never cussed or called names just said they are not reliable and their company needs to get their act together. I really hate that airline. Anyway I am glad I have a blog I can vent. I know some of you feel our pain when it comes to Liat and I wish we never had to do business with them! If it wasn’t such a monopoly!
Anyway good luck to those of you who still have to fly Liat. Don’t leave anything in your bags of value.

Those Loveable Zany Idiots At LIAT Airlines Still Pulling The Ultimate Practical Joke… “Welcome To Your Vacation - Your Luggage Will Be Here In A Week!” HA HA HA!!!!!

Flying LIAT? You Might Want To FedEX Your Luggage!
Time and time again it happens with LIAT, so it must be a deliberate joke.
Nobody, but nobody, is this incompetent.
Right?

Ha ha I hate Liat!

Update

Well we have been on Freeport Grand Bahamas Island for almost a month now, and we decided we love it here!

The only challnenge we have faced is transportation.

Our neighbor gave us this sweet tricycle and Brett rode it to school last week.

I wanted to ride it too but apparently the door has been bolted shut and I can't fit our trike through only one side of the door I need them both opened. Man you should have seen me pounding on that door trying to get it open, I really worked up a sweat and was really frustrated! Then I looked up and saw the metal piece newly screwed to the door. I was so frustrated but at the same time relieved that I didn't ask anyone for help and then felt dumb when they pointed out why the door wouldn't open. We have seen a lot of cool thinngs here. Start fish, a shark, cool buildings. Brett's first test is coming up this coming monday. Wish him luck. He has been studying so hard. I know he will do great, but it's stillnot the funnest thing for him to have to go through.

The school here is sooo nice. Everything in Brand New and Brett loves it. They clean the school often and take good care of the students. Brett studies really well at the school.

We rented a scooter this past weekend and next to Brett it is the love of my life. ha ha! we used it to go to a baptism saturday and also church and all over. It was fun to have and take rides. We are thinking about getting one, but are not sure yet it's kinda expensive.

It has been cold here the last little while and a little rainy. It has got down in the fifties. The Bahemians are freesing and have beanies and coats and all we have are jackets on. They look at us like we are nuts but they don't realize we just came here form Utah where it's so freezing cold that the fifties for us is nice.

Well we love you all and hope you are enjoying life as much as we are. :)

Hi guys,
I know it's been a while so here is what we've been up to. I went back to that dance studio to talk more about teaching and taking classes. It turns out I will be starting a hip hop class the first week in February. I will teach the class and in return I will get to use the studio in the mornings if I want and I can take any class I'd like free of charge. I was pretty satisfied with the answer.
Brett is doing well in school and today had to dress up, In third semester they will dress up a lot and if they don't they will get docked points. He looked so handsome! He rides a bike to and from school every day it's about an 8 minute comute without the wind that is.
Brett likes riding his bike. We love our place it really feels like home and we find ourselves still saying wow I love our house. I love this place.
Sometimes I will have these Ican't believe we are here moments, married, in the Bahamas going to school. But it is a good feeling. Brett's school is in the same complex as a grocery store that's really nice being as I have no car and have to take buses to any store I want. A bus ride here is 1.25 one way. The bus drivers are usually very nice. The transportation for me is an issue. I would like the freedom of a scooter or car. But we just can't live like that now. One day. One Day.

I have really enjoyed the way Brett's schedule has worked out. He is home with me all evenings all saturday and sunday. I love it!

Well I will post some pics later but that's it for now!
Love, Kellie

So we are settled into our place! We cleaned it already and we feel very lucky! We discovered we have a washer and dryer in our place and that was not mentioned before. When we got to the airport the people were so nice to us. Ross had a representative there to meet us and they gave us a care package with food and things in it. When we were dropped off at our apt. We met Fred and clover a man and woman who manage cove house, the place we live. Fred and clover really took care of us. Fred introduced us to a man named T.B he tells us think of tberculousus and remember him! anyway, T.B is from Colorado and migrates here every winter. T.B gave us a bike to use whenever we want and he also showed us were he keeps his other bike and said anytime but morning we are welcome to use it! nice huh! so we went cruising aroung town on bikes.

The people are so nice here. Everyone talks to you and when they hear you'r from Ross they get a big smile on their face and start asking all kinds of questions about the school. We think the school will really help the economy here. The tourism thing isn't very strong here and hasn't been for a few years. Brett and I both have blisters from walking so much. Some of our friends have gotten cars and scooters but I think we are going to stivk with bikes. We have been to the beach, oh man it is so nice! long white sandy beaches with clear blue water! The best part is that the water is not very salty! On our walk yesterday we found our church builing, we were so excited!

Our church building is light olive green and looks like a building you might see in Utah. The steeple is typical of an LDS church building steeple . Across from the church building is GB fitness and inside GB fitness there is a dance studio. We went in the studio and talked to the lady there. Her name is Garret. I told Garret that I wanted to take a class and we talked a little and I told her I have taught for the last like 8 years. and she got really excited because her hip hop teacher just left and so did her gymnastics teacher. The only problem is that you are not allowed to work here at all. A work visa is really hard to get and by the time I got it we would be leaving. So brett and I talked a little about teaching to Garret and Brett suggested maybe I could take a class and not have to pay for it if I teach a class. I am thinking I will teach her hip hop and maybe suggest a lyrical class if she will let me use her studio durring the day one or two hours a week so I can teach the little girls from our branch. That way I am making money by teaching my two girls and not have to pay rent for the studio. besides I loves teaching hip hop so that wouldn't be bad at all. I am really excited about this and sounds like they are too. The studio is called the Louis Sieler Academy of Dance. Today Brett and I went to the food store as they call it here. We haven't heard it called the grocery store yet, it's always food store. We walked to the store and loaded up as much as we could and packed our back packs and headed home. A man named Dave cook picked us up and turns out he was a double for Bootstrap Bill in pirates of the caribbean Brett says he looks like a pirate. Dave has a lot of gold teeth but was so nice to us and his boat is in the marina behind our apt. He also wrote a book called pirates of the Bahamas. So today we realised we still have alot to learn, we bought fabric softener and we thought it was laundry detergent. :)

We really like our apt it has 3 ceiling fans a huge table and a huge enterinment center with a itty bitty tv. we have a mini couch and chair. We created a desk and moved the furniture around to look really nice! The mattress here is so much better than in Dominica. In Dominica Brett always had a sore back and so far he has had a good night sleep and no sore back. The homes here are huge and this place is full of older people that you can tell are probably here for the winter. They are all really nice so far though. We have a movie theater here and two dance studios, we swam in our pool today it was a super nice day

This island has a Wendy's! yesterday we had a #6!!! and a diet coke! a weird thing is that every buildig wether it's wendy's or the bank has a security or door man at the door who will open the door for you.

family

Paige was doing my hair

 

So it's been really nice to be home and hang out with family. here are a few pics from our family get togethers.

Brett & Brylie being goofs.

Good Times

We are so blessed to have such great friends and family! 

Tonight we were able to have dinner at Tacanos in Salt Lake with a few friends from our branch in Dominica. It was so much fun to actually be in America and be with our friends from Dominica. We love that these people are our friends, they are all so wonderful and great. It's good to have friends like these people.  It's kinda sad to me to say good-bye and watch them walk away not knowing when we might get another chance to see them again. But the good thing is that you know they are there for you even though you are not around each other.  

For New Years Eve we had dinner at Grandpa Checketts' we ate yummy lasagna and breadsticks. It was so nice to get to see all our cousins and their new families. Jen's Baby London is such a doll!!!

After Dinner we played bunko as New Years Eve Tradition. Between Brett and I  we made 2.00! we figure thats a good amount to start our children's college fund! :)  

Speaking of children... is it just me or does everyone have a baby? I swear maybe the lord is sending me a message but I have held so many babies since we have been home. I love it! Babies are so fun and cute! Even my Yorkie dog Koellie has two babies!  ha ha but really no babies for us for a while.

We have had a few family parties on both sides of our family and have picked up all the things we think we will need for the Bahamas. We are going to go to the temple soon and after that I think we are ready to head for the Bahamas! 

We are very very excited to get there and get settled in.

Tonight was a blast! to get to chill with friends from the island!