Shallow pool, thou satisfieth me no longer ~Stephanie

Pool? No, the ocean.
My family has spent the last week working with two schools: Spanish and Parrot's Dive School. It's been crazy with double the homework. (Considering we had to read a whole chapter of the dive manual a day and do the worksheets alongside the regular abundance of homework from our Spanish teachers.)
Some of you know that I have insisted the whole time we have been thinking on coming to Utila and the entire time we've been living here that I will NOT go diving. I have a good reason: water is not my friend; you can drown in water. With that being said my mom still had me tag along for the orientation; we watched this video...urgh...I hate that video! It was so beautiful and enticing- I had to have what those people in the video had! Of course, I kept quiet about my change of mind because I despise when my mom turns out to ALWAYS know me better than I do! ( a few years ago she told me I'd like camping...I said I would hate it...urgh, she's SO smart) Our teacher's name is Tatiana, a name which I believe all four of us have decided to give to our own little girls of the future; I love when she explains the rules, different precautions, techniques, and how fun diving is! "Remember! Diving is for under-achievers!" (using the same logic, flying is for over-achievers) I have to control myself during the class; laughing is so hard to contain when your teacher is a 5'2" size 2 energy drink talking with, of course, her whole body and explaining how, "You hold the male end of your weight belt with you're right hand because the male always thinks he's right," and so many more that my sisters and I can't even remember them all by the end of class!
I was able to hold to my guns and not join in on the fun until she handed me the regulator, before any of my family saying, with her Caribbean accent,"Breathe this Stephanie," to which I replied,"But I'm not one of the divers." She smiled at me, it was like she knew that after I took my first breath there would be no turning the rest of the course down, I would be one of the divers. I fell for it, yes, face first into the most amazing experience I've had. My final exam scored a 98%; I could kill myself for missing that one question-I knew the answer was B not A!
Tuesday, 7AM, oral prep and last minute instructions; this would be our first time in the water, no pool...just the shallow part of Little Bight for exercises and then for our first 40ft dive. For some odd reason I had not really thought of how we would arrive at our destination; that is, until she told us to walk to the dock....dddddock? -you mean like the dock that leads to a bbboat? Yep. 'Twas my first boat ride ever.
By 9AM we were still standing on the dock waiting for the guy, who obviously by his strong accent had grown up here in Utila, finished touching up the newly refurbished boat. The wait didn't seem to be that long because we busied ourselves talking about politics, the importance of America's Constitution and our marvelous gun rights; our conversation buddies were a native Utilan (Leon, an instructor but more importantly my buddy), a Marine from Ohio(Zach, a dive master) , and an Israeli...is that right?-or do I call him an Israelite? (ha, that rhymes!) Oh well, he was a dive master also.
I didn't mind stepping in the boat and I more than didn't mind being the first to jump excitedly into the Caribbean Ocean, it was only 20ft where we jumped in for our ten minute swim test without our BCD because that would just be too easy...I'd just float in what Tatiana called the pina colada position. I was swimming in the ocean! That is something I never thought I'd do!...In fact I promised myself over and over that it wouldn't happen...that means I'm a liar; no one has to remind me of Rev. 21:8, I know.
Leon and I were in the back together...I lost him twice...well, actually all I did was breath out so I sank a little lower than him and then moved over to my left a little and voila, no Leon! The first time it happened he tapped me on my head and it scared the berjeebers out of me. Oh, how I loved being under water with all those beautiful fish and the amazing coral! We weren't limited from communication like everyone else because we happen to know sign-language; more like, everyone knows it and I finger spell) Leon pointed out so many creatures I had never seen before then motioned to worst signal ever-'time to go up'. I looked at my gauge and told him I had 1200 psi left...but you know what they say...plan the dive and dive the plan. The boat ride back all I could think about was the next time I would be permitted entrance to that spectacular under water paradise!
Spanish. Going great. I laugh when I type or speak the spanish word for what I want say instead of simply speaking completely in English; it makes me happy that I am understanding enough for the spanish words to be the first on my tongue.
Today over lunch Bonnie mentioned how much bread we eat here, a loaf a day, and how in the States a loaf of bread can last us forever; I kindly reminded her that we're eating so much bread because it's the only carb readily availible, in the States we have tortillas! ...that was unexpected logic since supposedly there would be more of an abundance of tortillas here...but there isn't.
Until the next adventure...which is always only a moment away, ciao!...oh wait...adios...no, bye. (or I could just wave...)
Stephanie
-the natural islander

22, Julio- Mi 16th Cumpleano... and some on diving ~ by: Amanda

Too bad I don't know how to make my laptop have the proper accent marks.

But I'm SO excited to tell you about my sweet 16, because it truly was a blessing!

I was told by my Spanish teacher that a tradition in Honduras was to sprinkle flour on the birthday girl until she is completely white.... I would have loved to take part in this tradition, but the washing machines aren't that grand... and I was wearing my newer dress.... so she let me pass on tradition :D

Although I passed on that tradition... I NEVER would pass on ours... what is ours you may ask? Well, of course Banana Baby Food!!! I, being the birthday girl, got two!

We have been doing diving, a ton of bookreading each and everyday.... but we took my birthday off (today, the 29th, we went diving... in the water ... 40' 0_0 it was great... but that's for another post) So after Spanish, we did some homework and then began to prepare for my party. My sisters all did very well with helping brainstorm game ideas, and Mom and I went to bake a cake. This would be the most Cherry cake anyone had ever had. Originally I had wanted white cake with strawberry frosting.... but nope... I wanted Cherry. We had tried to make brownies once before, to test the oven, but they had burnt around the edges, and was still totally uncooked in the middle. Also the oven only went up to 300 degrees... the cake called for 350... so we went to the Pastor's house. We baked the cake, came home, and waited.... waited for it to cool. Have you ever noticed that it takes FOREVER for a cake to cool? Oh, I hate that. So we worked on the games, and ideas, then about an hour later we got to decorate it. Meaning, frost it with Cherry frosting, some sprinkles, then cherries around the edges of the cherry cake :D ... I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story :) <3>

Getting birthday braids

All ready

My YUMMY cake!

Oscar is helping Andi untie the balloons... or the
other way around... who knows :p

Pastor Julio opened with some Spanish, and

worship songs, along with a cool Spanish game

song... :D

you don't have any idea how hard it is to play
'flipbooks' with a language barrier!

This was great, and everyone loved this game

It's a dress up game, but a big hit even with

the males in the room :p

I L-O-V-E their birthday songs.... they're long,

I was afraid that the cake would soon be frosted

in wax :p We didn't get a video of them singing...

but we have two more birthday's here :D

All 16 candles out in one quick breath... my wish

my dream will come true :D

God wanted to make my birthday really special for me,

You see, this whole time we've been in Utila, It's been SO

cloudy, that we have only seen one star... but as we walked home

from the fellowship with all of our sweet new friends, we glanced up

to the night sky, and stopped. It was the most stars I have ever seen!

So beautiful. And to think God had them wait to show themselves just

for my special day!!!

now onto some other things....

Spanish has been going VERY well, and we are
finally working on past tense :D

I got a mean blister :*(

.... it's better now though.

As I mentioned earlier... lots of diving reading

Stephanie just sat there.... wasting time, because,

"I don't wanna drown!"

Our first breath of tank air! 21% oxygen, 79%nitrogen

Texas definitely does dive :D


Here are some of the children playing on the streets

The girl looking away is Yessy.

Well.... I'll have to post about diving today another time. Hope you enjoyed this post :D

Always Sending my Love,

Amanda- The one who NEVER wants to leave.

P.S. the ovens... we found out later that they aren't Fahrenheit, they're centigrade, thus no 350

We are still doing great! ~ by Amanda

I have just had the most wonderful Sweet 16 on the 22nd, and I want SO badly to tell you all about it right now!!! .... sadly, we have not had Internet at the house. It shows that we have 4 bars... 54Mbps... which is what we have where we are right now.... but it doesn't connect. Not exactly sure what's going on with that. But it does cause us not to be able to post and reply to everyone as much. As soon as we get Internet at our house again, we will have more time and be able to tell you how awesome our week has been, and how amazing July 22nd was :p and show you tons of pics to prove it!!!
Until then...
AMANDA ROBIN :D
(representing the entire 5 Mills' girls residing on the Island of Utila for these short 90 days)

Heres the pics of the island~by Stephanie and Bonnie~

We hope y'all enjoy this round of pics!!

Our first children's service last Sunday morning.

Amanda did a marvelous job telling the Bible story with an interpreter!

Darling children!

This little girl is the daughter of a couple at the same language school we're at; they've moved here to learn Spanish and after two months will be going to the mainland to work at a boys home as missionaries.

After children's church with Erika, Yessy, and sadly I can never pronounce the girl in the red shirt's name...

Getting some tutoring from Jose. He helped a lot!

The girls went on a walk to see the parrot at the dive shop together.

On the trial to the water tower. Beautiful!

Andrea with a little papaya tree

This has something to do with a coconut; we(Jose) cracked one open, it was good.

Here's our view!

Pumpkin Hill

My family, together on this adventure.

Some of our frequent guests at our house seem to be these next few creatures...we haven't got one of Geico yet. (just in case you didn't guess, he's a gecko)

This dog actually isn't as confused as you think he is....this is his family's house....we just happen to be living in it for now.

Our home.

The one with the pretty blue gate.

Amanda painted these for her 16th birthday party invitations. They're SO beautiful!