{Currently}

I am:

Preparing: for Christmas

Can you believe that it is right around the corner again?  I want to get my shopping done ASAP.

Remember these cute stockings?  Now is the time to get your order in.  My beautiful sister, Lindsay,  makes these custom to your specifications.  If your thinking ahead and want some of your own; contact her here. 

Lindsay’s stockings are great quality, a great price, and you get to choose the fabric.

Happy: that the wallpaper on my fireplace is gone.  Seeing above picture reminds me of how much I hated it.

Planning: a girls night

 

I am hosting a girls night.  We are getting together to make some Lily wraps for Ruby’s birthday this year. 

They will be donated to local hospitals.

My sister is planning lots of wonderful things this year for Ruby’s birthday.  If you would like to make some lily wrap blankets to donate visit the link with the info here.  Don’t forget to check back during the month of October for the 3rd annual Ruby’s giveaways.

Thinking about: my kids growing up

I’m pretty sad about it

Realizing: I only have 6 more summers with this little before he goes on a mission

Wishing: They didn’t have to have birthdays at all

Dreaming: of going back here for another visit

Oh Saba, I miss you.

Listening to: my new favorite song FGL “Dirt”

Pinning: costume ideas for Disney and clothing ideas for family pictures

Excited about: our upcoming trip to Disneyland

Busy with: trying to catch up this blog and making costumes for our Disney trip(we will be going to Mickey’s Halloween Party while we are there so Halloween is coming a little early for me)

Recently Enjoyed: a trip to Disney World for a day with cute hubby

Grateful for: my hard working husband who does so much for me.  It is a privilege to be a stay at home mom and he makes it possible.

Trying to: be a better blogger and person

What are you currently up to?

 

What I miss about our life on Saba… and what I don’t.

This was supposed to go up last week when I was writing about Saba.  Somehow my writer didn’t publish it, and I am just now realizing it.  So here is the last of my Saba posts and then I am moving on. 

I hope you have enjoyed getting to know a little bit more about me this week, and some of the adventures that my family has taken since it’s beginning almost 14 years ago.

I am going to wrap this week up by touching on a few of my favorite parts about living on Saba.  The things I miss with all my heart.  There are also a few things I don’t miss, and I thought I would share those too.

As I was going through these pictures, my heart was warmed.  It was fun to have the flood of memories come back.  I am thankful for cameras.  These pictures were taken with my very first digital camera which I thought was so amazing at the time.  Now that I have a big girl camera; I can look at these pictures and realize it wasn’t all that great.  Although, I am thankful to have pictures.  Especially of this time in our life, and I will take any pictures I can get.

First off I want to start by saying that I think Jonathan misses the ocean most.  He loved being able to catch fresh seafood and cook it up.  I miss the adventure of it all. This is a Saban lobster; which happens to be one way fishermen make money on Saba.

 

My favorite memory has to be having cookouts at Cove Bay.  Cove Bay was down by the ocean and just below the airport.  It was a great place to start a fire and cook tinfoil dinners.  We did this often on a weekend night.  We always did it with good friends which made it so special.

I don’t miss the water situation.  It was so hard and such a struggle to conserve water.  We adapted, but man am I grateful for water.  I know how important it is to be conservative with water.  I am just thankful I don’t have to work as hard as I did on Saba to do that.  Let’s just say I am thankful I get to flush the toilet after each use.

This is a photo of Jex in our make shift bathtub.  Saba didn’t have bath tubs because of how much water it takes to fill them.  It is so funny for me to think that for 2 years our kids bathed in a bucket.

I miss the simplicity of life.  I miss that there was no pressure to run around and do this or that.  There was no pressure to be involved with too much.  I really loved that there was no pressure to have MORE.  There wasn’t MORE to be had on Saba.  Everything came by boat and was expensive.  What you had, you were grateful for. 

One of my favorite parts about our simple life was that we had time several days out of the week to go and spend lunch with Jonathan.  I looked forward to seeing him during the middle of the day, and he loved seeing the kiddos.  I know it helped break up the monotony of classwork.  He was one of few students who had children so it was also fun for his classmates to be with our kids.  The kids loved to go for the fries. The school cafeteria had the best cook.  She made the best chicken dish on Fridays.  I looked forward to that each week.

It was so nice and convenient to island hop.  We were so close to many other islands.  It was fun to be able to explore other parts of the Caribbean.  A nice perk to living over there.  There were many Fridays we would stand and watch the cruise ship pass right by our island.  This is a picture of the littles on St. Maarten.

Our friends on Saba were the best.  They are life long friends that I will never ever forget.  They became our family.  We also share something that we don’t share with others.  We know the secret to island life.  We survived it, we survived medical school, and we have unique stories to tell because of it.

I miss being outdoors in such an amazing place.  The beauty there is  unreal.  I enjoyed our family hikes, and my morning runs.  I miss sitting on my porch watching the sun come up, and the sun go down.  I miss waking up early and going to bed early because of how the sun sets and rises.  I miss the smell.

I had a great support network on Saba.  It was a group of all the significant others of Saba students.  We got together often, and I learned so much from each of them.  I miss all of them, and grew to appreciate that each of us are different.  Although we were different we had such a strong bond because of Saba.

I miss sitting on my porch watching the rain fall over the ocean.

I miss the powerful church meetings we had on Saba.  God can certainly be found everywhere.  All of these men are members of our church and held great responsibilities in making our church services happen.  We did not have a church leader called to be over us.  These men stepped up and made it happen.

I missed our families greatly when we had to stay on the island for Holidays.  It was never easy to be away.  I will tell you that those are some of our most memorable holidays.

I miss the bananas.  Oh the bananas.  The majority of the bananas that grow on Saba are called fig bananas. They are shorter, fatter and sweeter.  We had a banana tree in our backyard so we ate a lot of banana’s.  Stella ate many a fresh banana mashed as baby food.  We also ate banana muffins, banana bread and froze a lot for smoothies.

I also miss all the delicious food on Saba.  I swear they have some of the best restaraunts.  This blows my mind because all of their food comes by boat, and they don’t have all the fancy cooking tools.  I wish I could just take you all to dinner right now.  You would have to give me about 7 days to take you to all my favorite places.

I miss Ting.  A delicious Caribbean grapefruit drink.

I don’t miss how hard it was to travel there, the poor internet connection, and how making a phone call home cost an arm and a leg.

I don’t miss the bugs.

I don’t miss paying $10 for a gallon of milk.

I am thankful to live in the Good Ole USA.  I am also thankful that I had the opportunity to live somewhere else for a while.  It gave me great perspective about life.  It also afforded me many opportunities I couldn’t have ever gotten had we not gone there.  Saba is where I discovered who I am, and what I am made of.  I will forever be grateful for that.

Saba will always have a piece of my heart, and will always feel like my second home.

Thanks for being here while I shared all these stories of my past.  If you missed anything that I shared this week about Saba.  You can find them here.

Ok… so I told you I would fill you in about..

water on Saba.

It was tricky.

Remember how all our water came from the heavens?  We lived off rain water that was caught in gutters and ran through pipes to our cistern.  A cistern is a receptacle for holding water.  Ours was a cement building behind our house.  From there, the water was filtered and pumped in to our house to use.

I also had a filter on our refrigerator, and on our tap for drinking.

The water was so delicious.  It was the best tasting water I have ever had.

However, we had to be so careful with water.  You never ever wanted to waste water because you never knew if you would have enough.  We had to count on the rain.

When we showered, we turned the water on and got wet.  Then we turned it off and soaped up.  Then we turned it on to rinse off.  That was something I couldn’t wait to come back to the U.S. for.  I was ready to have a nice long shower.  I think water is something we all take for granted.

The biggest water waster was laundry.  It took some getting used to for me.  I had to have a lesson on Saba laundry; and I hated it from the moment I learned.

I did laundry every Wednesday, and it took me all day. (I hated Wednesday)

This is a picture of our washing machine, and Jex helping me with laundry.  It was called a Saba washer.

The machine consisted of two sides.  One side that agitated and washed like a normal washer, and then a spin side that would spin out the water.

You started wash by filling up the wash side with water from your hose.  Yes, you heard me right; the hose.  Can you see that my washer is on my front porch.  I did laundry outside.

Once it was full, you had to add your laundry soap.  I also added some oxy clean to make the laundry cleaner.

You started out by washing your whites first.  Once they had agitated for about 12 minutes it was finished.

Then you took each article of clothing out one by one, and wrung out the water back in to the wash side.  It was important to save every drop of water.

Once it was wrung out you wound it down in to the spin side.  You had to do this just perfectly so that it would spin and not get off balance.  You could only spin about 1/3 of your load at a time.  So each load took 3 spin cycles.  Each cycle took about 3 minutes to spin dry.  While it was spinning, it would send the extra water it had spun off out a hose.  You had to catch this water in a bucket and dump it back in the wash side.  NO WASTING WATER remember.

After you finished spinning your first load, then you moved on to lights, and then darks, and then towels.  Yes.  All of the clothes are washed in the same water.  The wash side never drains.  Hence the reason you start with whites.  That is also why I added oxi-clean to each load.

Laundry was an all day affair.  Once it was washed and spun, it was time to hang it out to dry.  We did not have dryers.

This is a picture of laundry hanging in my house.  There were several times that I hung it outside, and then it would rain.  Yes, rain was important to us; but so annoying when your laundry was hanging out to dry.

In our second house, I had a covered porch and could hang laundry there.  It was pretty annoying to wade through it to get to the front door, but it’s what had to be done.  It could take up to 3 days to dry because the island was damp and misty feeling on most days.

At the beginning of our second year of medical school, my husband sent a big surprise for me on a boat from St. Maarten.  It was a dryer.  There were not to many people who had dryers.  I felt so lucky and spoiled and it made laundry so much easier.  Still hard; but easier.  My husband loves me.

When I moved home from Saba, I swore I would never complain about doing laundry again.

Guess what, I still hate laundry and I still complain.

Read more about our life on Saba here.

Tender Mercies/Lessons learned from life on Saba

As I end my week of our life on Saba, it is important to me that I share the most important lesson that I learned.  This is a lengthy story.  However, I want my children to know this lesson, and I would forever be sorry if I didn’t record the blessings associated with our medical school journey. 

Last May, Jonathan and I had the opportunity to travel back to the island of Saba. Saba is a small 5 square mile island in the middle of the ocean; with rainforests and rugged terrain. It is known for hiking and diving. Saba is where my husband did the first two years of medical school. The medical school helps that island thrive and sustains its economy. We were guided to attend medical school there. The island of Saba changed who Jonathan and I are. Those two years in our life were some of the hardest, but they made me who I am today.

I was so excited to make the journey back there. I couldn’t wait to reconnect with old friends and island culture. I had missed the simplicity of island life, and I couldn’t wait for the reminder. We enjoyed our entire trip without the use of a car; which meant a lot of walking for us. One particular morning, we wanted to re-visit the medical school; the place Jonathan spent so much of his time. We made the journey by foot all the way to the bottom of the island. It was a beautiful day, and I enjoyed reconnecting with the smells of that beautiful lush green island.

When we reached the medical school, we ran into a few medical students who were about to start their second semester. They were so excited to meet a Saba grad, and pick his brain about life after Saba.  One student in particular was very excited about Jonathan’s particular field.  After learning more about what Jonathan does and his philosophy of medicine, this student felt enlightened about his own future.

He just kept saying things like, “It is like I ran in to you just for this purpose.” He was so grateful to know more about this specialty that seemed to suit him. He said, “I am so thankful that I ran in to you Jonathan, this completely changes my plans for my career.”

I responded to that by saying, “It’s almost as if God helped us run into you.”

He very quickly responded, “I don’t believe in God.”

At that moment, my heart saddened.  I very much believe in God. 

In fact, it was our time on Saba that deepened my knowledge that God knows me and loves me.

I have thought about that conversation a lot since then.

My heart aches that I didn’t tell this young student:

I believe in God, and I believe in his tender mercies.

Psalm 145:9 says, “The Lord is good to all and his tender mercies are all over his works.”

Tender mercies are just those little moments in life when we recognize God in our life. When we see his works guiding us, reminding us, or blessing us.  Most of the time they are small things; but are the little blessing when recognized can strengthen our faith in a God who knows us and loves us.

I want to share with you just a few of the tender mercies afforded to me during a difficult transition in my life.

It was during our move to Saba that I first really understood about tender mercies in my own life.

It was the Spring of 2004. I was pregnant with our second child, and holding the hand of our eighteen month old little boy, Jex. I was young and naïve. I hadn’t had many life experiences yet. I had never been out of the United States.

We packed everything we owned in to a storage unit, and stuffed everything I thought we needed into three suitcases. We boarded the red eye flight on our way to New York City. Although it was late, I couldn’t sleep. I was so nervous and worried about what we were doing. After two more airplanes, we finally planted our feet on the hot muggy turf of the island of St. Maarten. This was our final stop for the day, and I was exhausted. We would take a boat to our final destination in the morning; the island of Saba.

I was relieved when we arrived on St. Maarten. I knew that Randy, one of Jonathan’s mission companions and friends would be there to pick us up from the airport. Randy happened to be going to medical school on St. Maarten.

Randy pulled up in a little island car. The car was only big enough to get our luggage and Jonathan. Standing on the curb with Jex’s little fingers in my hand, I watched Jonathan and Randy drive away; leaving me standing on the curb. He took the luggage & Jonathan back to his apartment.

I remember thinking, “I can’t believe Jonathan is just going to leave us here.” Now looking back, I am sure it was also a very scary moment for Jonathan. This was my first lesson in island life. We were asked to do lots of hard things while living there. I had to learn to adapt to the way life worked here.

There I stood with my little round belly waving goodbye with one hand, and holding Jex’s hand with the other. I was scared, standing on the curb in a foreign land. With a small prayer my worries were hushed some. Randy came back for Jex and I, and because island cars don’t have seatbelts I had to hold Jex on my lap; my second island lesson. Things are a bit laid-back in the Caribbean.

I met Randy’s wife Katie, in my exhausted state. I could hardly string a sentence together after that long journey. However, there was a price club on St. Maarten and I had been told to stock up on groceries and goods there before going on to Saba.

This process coupled with my exhaustion seemed like too much to bare. In stepped Katie, a woman I just met hours before. Katie, a young mother, who also had a toddler, who also knew exactly what I would need to survive island life came to my rescue.

Randy’s wife Katie picked out most of our items for me. I still think about how grateful I was for her that day.  I didn’t see it at them time, but recognized later how God had placed her in my life that day. 

Once we purchased all our items, it was time to box them up.  We put our $800 worth of groceries in boxes and labeled them Swenson and Saba.  Then we took them back in to the store until the were picked up by the boat that would bring them to Saba.  I had never before spent so much money and actually never taken the purchased items with me.  Another lesson in island life. I was learning a lot about island life in just few short hours, and I wasn’t sure I would ever feel peace about it.  That particular experience took a lot of faith.  Faith in this process of buying and shipping goods.

Randy and Katie had arranged for us to stay in a an apartment of a friend who was away that night. It was the first time someone had put us up in their home; but it certainly would not be the last. I was in such extreme overload that night, Jonathan had to give me priesthood blessing. I soon recognized the blessing of being married to a priesthood holder. I was so thankful that my husband could help calm my fears.

We woke early the next morning, and prepared to make it to the boat harbor. Katie made breakfast for us. I was so thankful. I recognized the blessing that morning, that we hadn’t bought food on our trip or paid for any accommodations so far in our journey. This was a tremendous blessing as the cost of moving to the Caribbean and medical school had wiped our bank account.

Once again, it was two trips to the harbor. We made it in time to get a spot and there was room for our luggage. That in itself is a beautiful gift. After living in the laid-back Caribbean for two years, I know how often people’s luggage doesn’t arrive.

This was my first experience with a boat on the open sea. Let’s just say I didn’t fare too well. In the midst of the nausea, I started to have real panic.

This was probably the moment of greatest fear in this whole journey. I couldn’t stop thinking that once we arrived we wouldn’t know anyone. Who would help us get settled?

I was so concerned, and wishing that someone would be there for us. I felt really alone. I soon realized that we would be arriving at a harbor, and there would be no one there to pick us up. I think this was my first realization that we didn’t have family close by; a first for me. I had always had my family. I realized then that this was do-or-die for Jonathan and me. We would need to rely on each other.

As we pulled up to the five square mile island of Saba, I felt a feeling of peace. The island felt so peaceful, and I recognized a woman’s face. I knew that God had sent a friend. I knew that He understood my worries. It was as if he was saying, “I am here for you.”

I recognized this woman from a picture that I had seen. I knew she was a member of the church. I hoped she was there to greet us, and she was. This was the key moment in our journey. This was when I knew for sure that God knew me. This is when I knew that he loved me, and understood my worries. It was something as simple as recognizing this dear sister’s face, and a testimony builder of the tender mercies of Lord.

If we hadn’t already been blessed enough along this journey, after arriving on the small island our life was blessed immensely. All of our meals for the next 24 hours were taken care of in some way. They were taken care of by 4 different families. That says something about the goodness of people. This proved to be significant because we had no food, and all the stores were closed because of holiday.

Our furnished home didn’t have any towels and I didn’t pack any. Word got around and within 1 hour of being on the island, and new towels were delivered to our family by a medical student’s wife. It’s then that you realize it’s the littlest things that can strengthen your faith.

We soon realized that there were several members of our faith on the island. What a gift to have others members of the LDS church to share our faith with. We had no formal church building, but the few of us were able to host church in our home.  The friends we made there also contributed to an amazing two years. Friends are a gift from God; I know it. Our friends on Saba became our family.

All along our journey, we were blessed. I remember one of the greatest blessings was a stack of children’s books that my friend Jodi gave us when their medical school journey came to an end. Jex and Stella loved when we would read books. We still have a few of those books that were given to us on the island. I brought some of them home because they became such a huge part of our life. I am still reading those books to Isaac and Tess, and a feeling of gratitude always comes over me. The littlest things can make such a huge difference when you don’t have much.

When we left the island, I passed some of those same books on to someone else. I realized then there is no way that I would ever be able to repay all of the people who had blessed our path, but I could pay it forward.

One weekend while visiting St. Maarten for vacation, we met another sweet family who happened to be members of the church. She sent me back to Saba with a bag full of clothes for Jex and Stella. She had kids just a couple years older. Those clothes blessed my children.

We are nine years in to our medical journey now. We have two months left. In those nine years, we have been given most of our kids clothing. With four kids, on a residents salary, free clothes make a huge impact on our budget. Not only have they been free, but they have been well taken care of, and very stylish. Tender mercies of the Lord bless in so many ways.

I am here to tell you that those two years on the island of Saba were some of the hardest years, but I have never cried like I did the day we left that place. It taught me things I will never forget. Our entire journey on the island of Saba was scattered with the tender mercies of the Lord.

We have four children now, we are in our ninth year of medical education, and our journey is still immersed with those tender mercies. I am thankful that I have the ability to recognize them.

We recently moved from Arkansas to Pennsylvania this summer. It was a long and tedious move.

On our final morning in Arkansas last spring, we left the home of a friend who had graciously hosted our six person family for two weeks so our kids could finish school. I hugged Lindsey tight just before I walked away and said to her, “I can never repay you, but I do hope that someday I can do for someone else what you have done for me.”

If we are aware, most of those tender mercies come via a friend or acquaintance.

I believe that the medical student we met last year received one of those tender mercies through Jonathan. I hope someday he recognizes God’s hand in his life.

I never thought nine years ago that God would show me just how good people are, but he did. He gave me so much faith in people, and their ability to give. He taught me a huge lesson about Tender Mercies. He showed me that sometimes it is the little things that make all the difference.

I have great faith in knowing that God loves me, and He takes care of me and my needs. I am also very aware that He does this through the kindness of others. God has shown me that sometimes it is the little things that make all the difference. The little things strengthen our faith.

I hope you can recognize the good in your life, knowing that His tender mercies are all over his works.

Read more about our experiences on Saba here.

in the middle of the ocean.

When my husband decided to go to medical school in his last semester of college, I never dreamed he would decide to go to a school on an island in the middle of the ocean.  Jonathan changed his major late in the game and after much research discovered he could move forward with his dream much faster if he chose to go to an international school.  His school accepted students 3 times a year instead of just once. 

After a lot of research, he discovered there were 4 reputable medical schools in the Caribbean.  He applied to 2 of them.  In my mind, I was still thinking we would never move there.  I must have been really naïve because he didn’t even apply to any in the states.  He was accepted to both medical schools in the Caribbean.  AUC on the the island of St. Maarten, and Saba University School of Medicine on the island of Saba.   After much thought and prayer we accepted the invitation to go to Saba.  We had about 8 months to prepare; and I think all along I believed we would never really go.  Then one day I was on a boat crossing the ocean; and I had to accept reality. 

You see, I had never lived away from home before.  Home was Utah, and I had never lived out side of it.  It wasn’t as if I was moving to Idaho or Arizona for my first adventure outside my home state.  My first adventure was going to take place in the middle of the ocean.

I have thought several times about my parents and the faith they had to have to let us go.  As a mother, I don’t know if I could have let my children move to an island in the Caribbean.  We were adults, and both our parents were very supportive of us.  Not to mention that when we moved, we took an 18 month old Jex and I was 5 months pregnant with our second child; Stella.  These were my parents only grandchildren.  How worried they must have been.  They never ever let on that they were.

I think all the time about how lucky we were that we were both young and naïve when we moved.  I think it helped with our faith.  We really had no idea what we were getting ourselves in to, so we just pressed forward with faith.  Our decision to move to Saba was very much led by prayer and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  It also proved to be the best decision we ever made. 

I will forever be thankful for the lessons and experiences gained from those 2 years in the middle of the ocean.

I wanted to share a little bit about the island that we moved to.

 

Saba is an extinct volcano in the middle of the ocean; named Mt. Scenery.  It is five square miles big, and is home to about 1,800 people including the 300 medical students that inhabit the island when school is in session which is pretty much year round.(wow if there ever was a run-on sentence that was one)  The island is owned by the Netherlands with the main languages being English and Dutch.

It is a very steep and mountainous island.

Which makes the roads steep and windy.  This means that all vehicles are stick shift; which meant I had to learn to drive one.  One of those lessons of stepping out of my comfort zone.  The road on Saba was hand built by the locals in the 1960’s.  I can only imagine how hard it was to build this road.

Saba is known for its different eco systems.   When you are up on Mt. Scenery you are deep in the rainforest.  It truly is a sight to see. You can feel the misty air on your skin.

You can also go down to it’s lowest point and find the lava rock formations with cacti growing there.

There are also tidal pools to be found near the lava rock. 

They are full of all sorts of sea creatures. 

Saba also has a beach, but it is a wandering beach.  It comes and goes with the tide.  It happened to be there most of the 2 years that we lived there.  You can see in this picture the rocks lined up against the cliff.  When the tide takes the sand away, those rocks move back out to the ocean and the sand is gone.  It is actually quite strange.

Saba is also known for it’s diving.  If you are a scuba diver; Saba is a must see.  I never have gotten scuba certified, but I will tell you that I have snorkeled in many a ocean and nothing compares to what I have seen on Saba. One particular time, Jonathan brought this little guy back with him:

Saba has the smallest commercial runway in the world.  This was built in 1963 on the flattest part of the island.  Only small airplanes are allowed to land here; about 19 seats.  Each pilot is highly trained as there is not much of a landing strip.  Each end of the runway is cliff that drops off to the ocean.  The airport does not have lights so all flights are scheduled during daylight hours.

All of the homes on the island look very similar.  White houses, green or red shutters and red roofs.  We had two homes while on the island that we rented from locals; not at the same time.  Our first home was hard for me.  It was a big change from what I was used to.  We were blessed to find another home that suited our family better at the beginning of second semester.  It was newly remodeled.  It was a great house for our family.  This is the outside of our Saban home:

Each home has a cistern behind it.  A cistern is a waterproof receptacle for holding water.  Ours was a cement building in our backyard, while some are built under houses.  our gutters were attached to pipes that ran into the cistern.(you can see a pipe that runs around the house on the front right side of this picture above) Then this water was filtered and pumped in to our house for drinking and all other purposes.  When there wasn’t rain, we didn’t have water.  Needless to say we had to be very careful with our water usage.  This made laundry and showers very interesting; more about this later.

The main transportation on the island when we lived there was hitch hiking.  Because we only had one car, Jonathan would usually “hitch” a ride to school.  He would wait by the side of the road and another medical student or local would pick him up and take him to school.

Saba is a very safe place to live. 

Saba is named the unspoiled queen.  It is so true.  They keep the island so beautiful and clean.

I miss you Saba.

Stay tuned for more about our Saban life. 

If you missed yesterday’s post about our last Saba vacation, you can read more about it here.  I am dedicating this week to life on Saba.