Who needs turkey?

Family was far, but the Fenton family came to our rescue. They invited us over for an amazing Thanksgiving feast along with a few other families. We were in charge of the candied yams and mashed potatoes-two things I'd never cooked before. Fortunately, we had Christian's mom to call for her yummy recipes.
Our friends Kevin and Rach were dining at a restaurant near the Fenton's house so we stopped by to say hello on our way home. We got to Cheri's Cafe just in time for the nightly drag queen dance show and Christian got an extra special treat from Myeisha.

Lesson 1: Take only pictures...leave only bubbles

My friend Jessie came to visit from LA and joined
us for a dive.

A couple quick lessons before exploring the bottom.
I broke lesson 1 on my last dive. The seas were incredibly rough and I may have left some nacho cheese Doritos for the fish. Nevertheless, I still passed and I'm now officially a certified open-water diver. Woo-hoo!

I could only understand about every eighth word Alfredo, our crazy Peruvian instructor, said. Fortunately, he wasn't really into classroom teaching and preferred to just go for it. For our last couple dives we told him we wanted to see sharks, so that's what we got. Not only did Alfredo guide us to a pack of bull sharks, but he tapped his tank with a rock to draw them in closer and then swam after them trying to hit their fins. This type of shark is more deadly than great whites...normal.

Island Fever

The whole crew

St. Maarten's Day=another paid day off (in addition to all the Jewish holidays our owners kindly gave us)! Since the store was closed we finally got to spend our day off with the other managers, Kevin and Rachel. Along with their friends, Tyler and Stacey, we left the island for the first time and took an all-day boat excursion to the sparsely populated islands Anguilla and Prickly Pear...the best snorkeling and most clear water I've seen since we've been here.

Finally!

We finally got all the digital negatives of our wedding from the photographer! Yay!

BOO!

Pickings were slim at the one store that sold costumes in town.

A little Del Sol celebration. We handed out candy to kids,
but I think I ate more than was handed out!

Kevin's impressive handmade creation...Want fries with that?