The Most Important Thing We Have Learned at Med School

FAN BALL DEMONSTRATION

The Most Important Thing We Have Learned at Med School..... HOW TO PLAY FAN BALL

Follow these important steps and you too can play FAN BALL!

Please do not copy demonstration.... copy 2009

1.) Get a piece of paper

2.) Ball up the piece of paper

3.)Standing from a designated tile square aim, and fire!

5.) If the ball hits the fan and gets thrown across the room that is one point. If both players hit the fan the point is given based on how far the ball flys.

6.) Now your opponent aims and fires.

7.) This is what it looks like to score a point.

8.) TRY Remove paper ball from dog's mouth.

9.) Chase dog until you get the ball back!

FOR A MORE INTENSE GAME OF FAN BALL- try teams of two. One team mate throws while the other rebounds. One point for the throw one for the rebound. We also demonstrated this. The winning team was Danielle & Anna. The second place team (there were only two teams) was Josh & Maggie. To ensure full effort is given.... a prize of a pink water bottle is given to the top two teams!

Maggie still does understand that she was not the winner

Its a LOVE Story

Well our weekend is moving right along. Josh is preparing for his block exams tomorrow~ its a very stressful time for him. I have successfully completed two whole days of teaching :-) and I am still alive! YAHHH! We can't wait until tomorrow afternoon when Josh is done with his tests- we have plans to go swimming and grill out at a friends house and since tomorrow afternoon is joshs only true break because then Tuesday morning its back to class and getting ready for block exams in three weeks~ we thought we'd take advantage of the break and go have some fun!

However, back to the topic of this blog. Maggie has a new friend... you could even say a new BOY friend. He is a little younger (only 4 months!) but she has the energy to keep up with him! Our neighbor has a little boy puppy and maggie spends hours on the deck smelling him through the posts that separate our deck areas. Then after a while they both start crying :,-(. And everytime we go out walking she has to stop at their door to give out a little cry. So we have decided they need some playtime together! And as you can see in the pictures they LOVE it!

One thing we are trying to avoid while we are here is the DENGUE FEVER or breakbone fever. Which is transferred my mosquitoes and there was a outbreak after the hurricane of Dengue on St Maarten. As you can see from the lovely picture below of my leg the mosquitoes love me! So I am trying to use bug spray everytime I leave the house and trying to take care of the bug bites properly. We also have to watch the dogs here because they can get sick from various bites and stuff. Also we have to be careful how much outdoor time they have since they are not used to the heat they have problems cooling down.... maggie has resorted to sleeping on her back to keep herself cool during the day ;-)

Just a Thursday

Well Today was my first day of real teaching. I taught all day... and I feel alittle tired after that. But I will have to get use to it because I have a month left :-)

Josh is starting to study around the clock because he has his first block exams this Monday... a little scary but I know he will do well. My tooth is still in place...so thats good news but other than that we are just having a normal thursday nothing to out of the ordinary... but that is okay sometimes

An Apple a day will keep the doctor away...but not the dentist!

So Today was a professional development day at school. So besides a few meetings and preparing to start teaching tomorrow I had a little more free time than normal. However this free time was not spent the way i'd like. Last night I chipped my front tooth...why do they always have to be in the front. So I spent last night asking people for numbers of a good dentist. This morning I kept calling and calling and there were no answers (typical of the island). Finally I got through to one office.... they tried to make me an appointment for Feb 13...yeah right! So eventually I got the number of a dentist that does work for the cruise ships. I get there and right away they take me back to get my tooth fixed. I didn't break to the nerve but it sure felt like I did :-( It was extremely sensitive and everytime he touched it it felt like someone was jabbing a needle into my mouth. I will remind you....there is no pain killers, anesthesics, not even the weird thick yellow stuff they give you to numb where they give you the novacaine... there was nothing but me and my tooth! But 45 minutes later I was still alive but I think it was the most painful thing I have ever felt at the dentist. So that was my day at the dentist~ I hope I don't have any other situations while I am down here :-)

One upside... dental care here is cheap!

You know its been a good day when....

You know it's been a good day in St Maarten when....

You have been told you don't have to go to work until 10:45 and upon arrival you are told your boss's daughter is sick and there is not work today.

You get to take a nap in the middle of the day.

While walking to the store you for once don't get stuck in a 5 min rain shower.

Maggie gets stuck between the bars on the balcony.

You take the time to actually find an Aloe Plant to get real Aloe.

You find out your utilities bill was not sent yet.

On your first real "day off" the power actually stayed on the whole day.

Maggie gets the play with the puppies next door.

When Josh gets out of class on time.

Josh got out of lab early so we can go to the market.

On the way home from the market you see a mama chicken with all her babies walking on the side of the road.

You know its been a good day when the biggest worry you have is if the store is going to have balloons for a lesson you want to teach this week.

But most of all you know its been a good day in St Maarten when the sun is shining, there is not a snow flake to be seen, and you get to wear shorts :-)

The day of the goat :-)

So I thought I'd let everyone out there in on a little secret about st maarten.... there is all kinds of wild life here! Everyday we see chickens, dogs, cats, lizards, and many more animals roaming the streets of st maarten. But today was a special day. We were on a run, running down a main street when all of the sudden the dogs start going crazy! I look up to see Josh turning around and saying to me "turn around!" Behind him I see a goat, i think to myself "oh its a goat". Then I see a few more goats come out of the alley and down the street towards us. Now we have about 6 goats and that makes 12 horns coming down the street at us (I mean like 8 feet away). They were not scared of the barking dogs...so that made me scare of them! So we ran away :-) what else is a girl to do?
Also, we have this pig on the island... I have yet to see it, I have only heard stories of this 300 lbs pig that roams the streets of philipsburg. But I will make sure to blog the day that I come into contact with this monsterious beast! Until then.... I will just keep running away from goats!
Love danielle, josh, anna, and maggie

Finally in St Maarten and able to blog!

So apparently the blog website here is all in dutch and it took me awhile to figure out how to get it back to english so I could log on and post! But here we are.... in St Maarten. So far we are having a good time! We have had alot of fun going out to dinner with friends, taking the girls on walks with other puppies to the beach, afternoon walks with the girls, the welcome back BBQ at the beach, Ladies night at Tijuanas, the white coat cermony, the spouses breakfast at Rics, and just having fun in the 80 degree weather! I feel like the last 2 almost 3 weeks have flown by and soon I will be back in Iowa to finish my student teaching. Josh is coming up on his first block exam and everyday he gets a little busier. Sorry next time it won't be this long before I post again!
Love Josh & Dani