Merry Christmas

Some Long Over due Pictures from this summer

We were so lucky this summer to get family pictures taken twice, by Ashley's friend Holly Aprecio. We had this photoshoot in down town Seattle near the ferry terminal before I left those 2 lovely girls for Grenada for a couple of months. We had a lot of fun

Random Field Trip Pictures

For our Concepts and Leadership of Public Health class we went an an all day field trip to visit the various government run medical facilities about the island. It was a great opportunity to see why I'm not in love with the idea of socialized healthcare and see some parts of the island I didn't know existed. We saw this wild monkey at our first rest stop and naturally started feeding it bananas and getting the nerve to get close enough to touching it, without getting my face mauled off.

I'm just in my first term of epidemiology but I'm pretty sure this is how AIDS started

This mid level facility provides the region with all the medical support it needs.

We decided to take a shortcut through the old airport on the way back and I wasn't sure if the scene reminded me of 'Mad Max and the Thunderdome' or 'Madagascar' which I know are two entirely different movies but if you use your imagination you might see why. (I guess you just had to be there)

A day on the town

Oh Canada pics

I realized that some of the pictures disappeared from previous posts, weird!

St. George's Grenada West Indies

These cannons protected St. George's natural harbor from the French.

This is one of the most picturesque places I've ever been. The Dutch/French archetecture and bright Caribbean colors dot the lush green sloped landscapes.

This is the Saturday farmers market. Grenada is nicknamed the 'island of spice' and you can find almost anything in you would ever want in a spice rack but as fresh as can be. They harvest tons of nutmed and mace and for me this place had the destinct odor of pumpkin pie. The vendors are REALLY friendly but almost to the point of annoyance. Grenadians are very aggressive sales men and without an understanding of the culture you might feel a little threatened when they get up in your face with a pitch but they are harmless and wouldn't mug you or anything. I also felt that we were the only white people for miles.

Huricane Ivan tore through the island in 2004 and ripped the roofs off several of structures like this Anglican Church which is over 200 years old. We got to go inside and see the damage but interestingly enough they still hold services here (weather permitting) and plan on restoring the roof here soon.

A day on the town

Even though I'm at a school called St. George's we are actually in a small college town called True Blue (because they used to produce indego along time ago). This was our first time getting on the city bus which ROCKS!! you just start walking and a guy will jump out of what we would call a small 15 passenger van and the bus will back up and you get on. From True Blue we traveled up to St. George's down town, where we got off and apparently looked lost enough to where an enterprising tour guide named Randy took good care of us and showed us around the town and got us in the right direction to go swim in a nearby waterfall which is on the property of an old plantation.

We later went back into town and walked around the spice market and up to old British fort sill used today for the police called Fort George, formally known as Fort Royal by the French who were the first to colonize the island. We got an excellent history lesson from our tour guide about the tragic events leading up to the US invasion "Operation Urgent Fury" where a military coup orchestrated by Cuban Marxists and high level govenment representatives killed the Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and those loyal to him. Needless to say the US military came in and conflict resolved is less than a week and the local Grenadians didn't have any problems putting the Cubans hidinig all over the island in US custody. There is a nice memorial and an even nicer view.

Janey's first trip to Oregon

Oh Canada

This is from the middle of July but hey I've been busy so lay off. Its hard to put into pictures how beautiful the Canadian Rockies actually are. They are so HUGE!! and in Banf and Jasper they are all around.

My Dad and brother Ryan accompanied by Chris and Tyler Byron had this little man trip where we returned to nature, just like Walden, only our philosphies actually make sense.