Goodnight friends and family!!      

                  MERRY CHRISTMAS!!                                                                      Don't forget the reason for the season!!

How is everyone this time of year? Cold? Ya, I know what you mean....Just kidding! :P Well I don't feel to bad for you all because you could just hop on a plane or two or three and come see me! :) I would love that! (hint, hint) 

For some reason this year doesn't feel as much like Christmas as it did last year. My hypothesis is that last week we had GBI (Grenada Bible Institute) It was an amazing week by the way.We dug deep into the workings of Grace and the Beatitude by Eugene Summers and learned more about the Holy Spirit and  Worship by Ken Gehman. They were both great speaks and great examples of living what they preach. But back to Christmas... :/ I was in the spirit when we had our Christmas Program with school and a staff Christmas Banquet, but GBI kinda got me back out of the mood. So it kinda came as news at the beginning of this week that Friday was Christmas Day! But its all good. (it doesn't take much to get back into the spirit) 

In other news..we started Holiday from school the 11th and we go to the 4th. Natalie went back for Christmas. So it's just me and Amanda at home. We have kept pretty busy though! The first week as you know we had GBI and then this week we have been busy baking cookies, cleaning inside and outside the house, caroling, having friends over, going out to eat with friends, and running up to a green house and coming back with a poinsettia (planed purchase) and a herb garden (unplanned purchase). 

It was kinda a long walk to and from the greenhouse thankfully shorted but a kind lady who gave us a ride half way. But my arms were hurting bad enough by the time we got home. 

 Its home on a old piece of steps right outside our door that way I can keep a close eye for any kind of trouble. I have Basil, Rosemary, Parsley seasoning peppers and two mystery plants the gardener gave me. The one she gave me a name for but I forgot it. I never heard of it before ...wondering if she used its Grenada name....and the next one she told me she didn't know the name for....so ya!

 This is our dear poinsettia that we got up their as well.


So anyway it looks like beach volleyball , visiting and spreading holiday cheer, and more Christmas caroling  and Christmas day serves coming up so it looks pretty fun.... Not sure but next week will prolly get a little boring. I have a little bit of school work to do but not to much. So I think i will be ready for school when it comes.  :) 

Thought i should let everyone know that my family came down here. AND it was amazing!! It was so fun to let them meet my school kids, staff, friends, church, community, and different highlights of the island. Unfortunately i didn't take many pictures so you will have to ask Amber if you want to see any. But here is a family picture that we took while visiting a old resort that never got of the ground...

Thought i would put a little bit of school on here yet before I go. The last month before school let out was kinda crazy for 3 or 4 Fridays in a row they were all abnormal. Our field trip involved visiting a few business one of which was a potter which was SO cool. One kid asked if it was magic and in truth it looked a little like that. The man had skill! He could whip out something in a few mins. After that we went to a part before going up to two forts to look around eat lunch and play games. It was a very fun day. Another Friday was spent caroling at a grocery store and the last one eating pizza and playing games the day after the Christmas program for a Christmas party. It was a lot of fun but it was so good to have all of that over with! And the kids were getting tiered of school. Now just hope they don't forget everything they learned behaviorally and academically over their Holiday and will be exited about the next Trimester. 
Here are a few picture that I have....

    getting ready to go down on the truck... for our field trip.

   a seamstress or seamster ?

    having a snack top Kenton, Josiah, and Kerrianna bottom(faces you can see) Cadissa, Jaden Neptune, Trey Martin, Kenton. and Josiah.

 Kerrianna pushing someone on the swing.

 Trey trying the monkey bars

 The pottery man, Bottom Anton (1st grade) amazed at the mans skills

      almost finished

       at one of the forts

    having lunch before leaving. they were having a dog party. Something Kerrianna. Its were you throw in all your snacks and then have a party together with them.

 bottom singing at food land a grocery store.

quick random picture not sure if i put this one on my blog yet or not but this is Kerrianna, she was so tired the one day that during class she fell asleep AS she was getting ready to write down an answer in her book. A moment before i had her answer a question to see if i could keep her awake. She gave the right answer but her eyes were already rolling back into her head! 

CHRISTMAS PROGRAM!!!

Well anyway that is kind of what my life was consisting. Well I guess i will rap it up and which you all (yes i know its belated) Merry Christmas! and here is one last pic. that we took on Christmas morning. 

                                                                                                  Love, Crystal

L to R: Miss Sharon, Lori, Amanda, me, Ramona, Shivani, and Stacy

Why do we always seem to blur the picture?

              I learned something new this morning
                  that I have hear all my life..
    Thanksgiving comes this Sunday for Grenadians. So we get holiday from school on Friday, and the next Monday. We teachers chose to kick off our holiday with getting up at 4:45 and going out to a point overlooking the sea to watch the sunrise.

     Despite it being early and rainy it was well worth it!! Here is the setting for you all to see what inspired my thoughts. I hope you are inspired. Let me know in the comments....

God, No matter what happens.....   (fill in the blanks for yourself)

   * getting use to a different culture      *stress       *fighting thoughts from your past               
           
                            * busy schedule               * trying to make difficult decisions

          I know YOU are still God.
    I feel as though I was able to come to the cornerstone today. And I realized how vitally important it is to base your whole, entire life of off of Him. And when you recognize that then you are more able to live your life the way God intended it go.

   I wish I could talk to the Crystal running around with the cares of school and life and her busy, busy self absorbed habits in tow and tell her to lean on God. It is all that matters. It makes me ache to see her. I wish I could tell her this. How would it change her? and her decisions? The problem is that she can be hard headed and push of convictions to deal with till later.

     When there is time she says. I'm to tired.  

   Life can be scary and decisions that are looming over you can be unnerving. How am I going to handle this? How do I know God is speaking to me.

   I am realizing it s not through a quick thought on the matter and coming up with that ever your feeling at the moment. And its not through obsessively thinking about it either. Its about..
                  BEING STILL and WAITING
empty yourself of your ideas, thoughts and cares. and not fearing what will happen when you are still before Him, and focus on Him.

    Kind of like my camera this morning. With it raining it was a contest to see who could use the lens first the rain to splash on it or me to take the picture. And I would have to continuously stop to wipe it dry.

   The point is..

  When the rain was on my lenses. It couldn't focus correctly or it would fuzz up some of the picture while the rest was fine depending on were I focused. It is ultimately my chose were I focused. The rain or the sunrise. Your own will or Gods will.

 

   It was hard for me to get a picture without at least one drop in it. Which got me thinking. Is it humanly possible to completely rub of the smears?...or will there always be a little still there just because we are human. I don't have the answers for that...but I do know it would take a lot of work to continually die to self.

   Am I willing to be still and let God show me the picture He has for me without smudging it?

                                       ~Crystal
I throw some more pics that I took this morning below.

 the wet rocks and the sea reflecting the morning light.

 our rain cloud mixed with pink clouds and white flowers.

 this crab came out to watch the sunrise I am pretty sure.

 we got to see a rainbow behind us then! :)

 Grenada is a pretty Island!!

    ~OK that's it for now.
  

Goodnight everyone,

   I want to write or rather showcase the lunar eclipse...We teachers went out to Fort Jeudy a point, with some of the Limes church people...So here we go each one has their time they were taken on top of them.

                                                           7:54

                                                      8:56

                                                   9:13

                                                 9:16

                                                     9:21

                                                   9:30

                                                     9:38

                                                  9:43

                                               9:47

                                                   9:51

                                                    9:55

                                              9:58

                                               10:03

                                               10:07

                                              10:09

                                              10:15

                                                        10:42

 Ok there you go sorry about the quality for some of them there are harder take the darker it got.
        Crystal Kennell

Dear friends and family,

   The third week of school is over and done with..my how time flies! Anyway today I was thinking about an update that needed to been done and how I had only one pic. to show for it. Luckily tonight we had a joint church picnic with Limes and we met at fort Matthew which is right beside the 'fort' that I always elude to. Anyway though...it use to be a fort but then it was turned into an Insane asylum! So that is a little creepy to think about. But now it is just ruins and a photographers heaven. Wilma and I had fun roaming over the grounds and taking pictures so I will be showing you some of those at the end of the blog anyway a quick view of my week....

    This week I was in charge of in chapel with the whole school. So I had that to look over.

    Wednesday evening we went to Mr. Redheads for cottage meeting.

    Thursday Shivani made us (teachers) supper. It was so good. Fried chicken..totally was competing with KFC. Coucou which reminded me a lot of cornmeal mush but hardened in a pan that made it kinda look like cornbread. It was all really good!

     Friday we had Limes and LaBorie church youth at Chris's for supper and then a youth night at church. Ryan led in singing. Welding Heading had a topic, and then we had games and snacks. It was a very fun evening just hanging out with everyone.

     Saturday, today we went to Scott and Yvonne's place to help cut up things for the meal that we had tonight at Fort Matthew. But when we got there (yes late) they were almost finished. We did get to help a little later though. and then I didn't do to much except cut out a dress till 3 when we left for the picnic. So anyway that is about all I have to say! So here are my pictures.....

     OK so here is a (bad) picture of my class finally!
L to R Kenton, Jaden (we call him by his sir name Neptune), Kerrianna, Josiah, Cadissa, Jayden (we call him Francis which is his sir name) and Trey.

       Chris and Thaddeus working on a pot. Thaddeus is our main cook. Thanks to Natilie for the pic..

                        Kevona with Kayla

                                           Celina

                               two little friends...

                        Miss Jean and Miss Vilma

                                                       Christian

                                                  Morgan

                                                  Miss Velma and Shivani playing cricket

                                                       Jayden Francis (one of my students)

                                             Bryce

                                      playing games with the kids...water balloon toss

                                           two cute pics of Kayla

                                    blowing large bubbles

                                         and small ones

                                                scenery pictures....

               sunset through a door

               st. Georges down below

that't it folks...have a good night! Crystal