Monday May 7, 2012

Well… Today was Josh’s Orientation day! I was so excited for him this morning and he was just as mellow as could be. He took the Hippocratic oath today, and received his ‘white coat’ at the White Coat ceremony. Josh is uber relieved that the school is air-conditioned. Hurray for him. 

We spent the evening at Todd and Tiffany Ericksen’s house. It is beautiful! They’ve done work on the house in lou of paying rent. Their back yard is immaculate. We had yummy burritos and had fun visiting. They have a lot of fruit trees in their yard, including coconut trees, mango trees, a lime tree, a sour-sap tree, almond tree, pin-cherry tree, star fruit tree... we had a mango fresh off the tree that was tasty. Todd also machete-d a coconut open and I tried fresh coconut milk and meat for the first time. The milk was more watery than I’d imagined. The coconut meat was yummy!

I went to ZUMBA tonight! Holy FUN! Highly recommended!

We’ve had a few boo-boos over here. Fay and Eden were playing outside with Josh and Fay pushed Eden head first down a step and poor little Eden got  a bump and scrape on her little forehead. Eden is also getting a top tooth coming in! (No wonder she’s been such a mommy’s girl the last couple of days) Fay and Eden are both getting a wee bit more adventurous with taking a few steps here and there. The next boo-boo belongs to me. I stubbed by toe on a door stop thing at Duggins (the local grocery store) this morning. Not only did I stub it, but I cut it open AND split my toe nail L Sad day.

Food. I’ve been eating like a man lately. Josh says he thinks it’s a symptom of culture shock. Some of the food we’ve been enjoying lately include golden delicious apples with cream cheese/brown sugar/skor bar dip, chocolate & peanut butter puffed wheat squares, home made  by Josh pina coladas, pizza on these rectangle flat bread things. Yum. I’ve been enjoying yogurt with soda crackers. Tastey tastey!

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Today Josh had his first day of classes. It was a bit mumbo-jumbo as they are juggling some classes around… But Josh did get a taste of what’s in store for him. I see many many grueling hours of study time. Oy vey. The girls were good for me today. They are just way too cute.

The Shoe Thief

Lately, a rather strange and frustrating phenomenon has taken place. That is that one day Josh’s shoes (Reef flip-flops) were no where to be found. He recalled that he had left them outside the back door and of course found it troubling that they had disappeared. We mentioned the loss to our neighbors and to their astonishment were perplexed as a pair of Dustin’s shoes (Rainbow  flip-flops) had also gone missing a while before and they thought that perhaps a dog took them as the shoes were the only missing things and they had their snorkel gear and other things outside. Now that Josh had also experienced mission shoes it seemed a little odd that that would reoccur. To everyone’s disbelief a couple days later ANOTHER pair of Dustin’s beach sandals went missing. So now that is three pairs of shoes stolen, there’s no way this is a dog. So as you could imagine… this was a little unnerving for myself thinking that someone is lurking around our house at night and has the nerve to steal shoes.

Today, after Josh got home from school, him, the girls and myself were situated nicely on our couch in front of our sliding glass door when I noticed our across-the-street-neighbor’s dog on our back balcony. Josh chased him away and thought ..’ hmmm perhaps I’ll go talk to that neighbor and see if that dog has been stealing our shoes.’ I thought it was a lost cause, wouldn’t you?

I looked across the street out our bathroom window and saw Josh holding 3 shoes! He came home with 5! His pair and one of Dustin’s pairs and some random shoe that someone, somewhere is missing. SOOO relieved that it was a dog and some crazy person!

By the way… I am currently drinking a homemade pina colada. You should be jealous. I’ll tell you what. You come visit, and I’ll have Josh make one for youJ

Glitch

Well… I must say things have been going ever so smoothly since Josh put his application in. Wednesday morning, however, crap hit the fan. Not actually, but something rather inconvenient and horrid occurred. The laptop keyboard would only type crazy math symbols. I tried a few things to fix it but couldn’t figure it out so I restarted it and… nothing. Still typing craziness. So we restarted it and still nothing. Keep in mind Josh is needing the laptop for school :S So … Josh gets on the phone with apple to try to figure this out and long story short … something must have happened to they keyboard that wrecked it…? Hmmmm so anyhoo… luckily Josh got the inspired idea to plug they keyboard from the desktop into the laptop so he could at least use it. So at this point we might have to take the laptop to an apple store in St. Maarten. :S GAH!

Fetch

Wednesday, May 10, 2012

So today was a pretty good day! The girls and I had a lot of fun this afternoon. It’s kind of hard to explain the fun we were having but we were playing fetch. The girls would chase the ball all over the place. It was just so much fun to watch them figure out things like how to get the ball out from under the coffee table ect. I’ll post pictures so you can see. J Fay. Eden and myself also went to the park with Tolman’s this afternoon. The girls love the swings. Lyndsay has a natural knack for photography and she took some AMAZING pictures of the girls.. will post soon.

Zumba again tonight! So fun. Seriously.

Lately

Sunday, May 13, 2012

So today is Mothers Day! <3 I’ve really missed my mom today. This is our first mother’s day apart EVER! I look up to her so much and admire her zest for life and her sincerity for people. Also my Grandma Reagh, a very special woman in my life whom I adore. Also my mother-in-law Marianne, who has a generous and helpful heart. A special Mother’s Day shout out to my wonderful friends and neighbors and my visiting teachers. I love and miss you all. My neighbor here, Lynds, gave a really great talk at church today on mothers. I’ve been thinking about a comment she made about how motherhood is a daunting task and we often times feel overwhelmed and need to plea to Heavenly Father for help. She said that she thinks Heavenly Father intended it to be that way so that we would do exactly that, reach out to Him for help and parent along side Him. Another thing she mentioned was from a talk given by Elder Ballard, I think, and he said that we need to try to live in the moment more with our children instead of focusing on what’s next, what’s next, what’s next. So far I think that I’ve been doing pretty well with that. Of course there are moments of frustration and feeling inadequate and overwhelmed, but those precious moments of pure joy definitely out weigh those things. Their little smiles, big smiles, giggles, kisses, watching them figure out something new, learn new words, give cuddles, look up at you with that most perfect look of love- it’s all such a blessing and such a sacred trust that I will always be indebted to my Father for. I am so blessed and am so grateful and want to do the best I can together with Josh and with Heavenly Father. I love the primary song, I am a Child of God. We sing it to the girls as part of their bed time routine, which is going very well by the way. The words are simple and true. ‘I am a Child of God and He has sent me here. Has given me an earthly home with parents kind and dear. Lead me, guide me, walk beside me, help me find the way. Teach me all that I must do, to live with Him some day.’

Eden and Fay

Eden

OK so THE GIRLS!!! Eden is getting a top tooth in, you can see it and feel it. Fay is getting one too! They are walking a little sporadically, but more and more everyday. It’s nuts. Eden has developed this little scream. Oy. If she doesn’t get her way, ‘AHHHHH!’ Ha. I think she’s going to be a singer, not only cause of her lungs, but because she will switch to a different tone and seems like she’s trying to sing. So cute. Fay, I may have mentioned this earlier, but she has a new word! ‘Ball!” She doesn’t quite have the “L” sound down, but she knows what a ball is and loves to play fetch. We go to the park with our neighbors some times and the girls LOVE the swings :) 

Fay

Eden

Fay

JOSHY-POOH so Josh has a week of school under his belt. It’s definitely not going to be a walk in the park. How ever, Josh had a pop quiz in one of his chem classes on Friday and…. DUN dun DUN.. He got 100%!!! WAHOO!

Our evenings thus far, consist of dinner, playing with the girls, the girls going to bed at 7, Josh making pina coladas, and us watching an episode of ‘House.’

Love and miss you all! Thanks for your love and support!

LOVE, The Farrells :)

May 25, 2012

Fay in Daddy's shirt.

Fay in Mommy's shorts.
She looks like a little Jedi!

Well, well, well. It’s been a while. I’ll bring you up to speed on things… So Fay and Eden are BOTH screaming for fun now… Fay’s is more high pitched than Eden’s. Eden’s top front teeth and an eye tooth are coming in, and Fay’s top front teeth are coming in as well. They choose walking over crawling now and are getting better and better at it! They are beginning to have a fascination with shoes. They bring me my flip-flops and try to put them on. Yesterday I put their little flip-flops on them in the house and it was so funny watching them walk in them. They did pretty good, surprisingly. They also bring me their clothes, or anyones clothes really, to put on them. So funny! Definitely girls! Last week we were singing ‘na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey, good-bye’ you know that song? Ha… well anyways Eden started going, “na na na na.” She has sung the whole thing a few times and it is soooo cute! Fay started doing it too! They are still enjoying playing fetch.

Last week, the waves at the beach were pretty big every once and a while. Josh and I took the girls out to rinse the sand off before we left and a big wave attacked us! I’m super glad that we had a good hold on the girls! The water went over all of our heads. Luckily the girls weren’t really traumatized by it too much. Fay is still working on getting used to the sand. Eden is walking at the beach now. You can imagine how interesting that makes things… oh boy! It’ll be really hectic when Fay starts wondering around too! Eden loves exploring the water that comes up the beach after a wave crashes so that’s where she heads-straight to the water. Life jackets? Check! 

Josh has his first block exam today. Dun dun dun. He has another one on Monday. Aint no walk in the park, that’s for sure! He is enjoying his professors and is trying to get a study schedule down pat.

One would think that picking up and moving to a tiny little island would be quite daunting. Especially not really knowing what to expect. But I have to say that it has been quite the adventure so far! Something that has been an incredible blessing for us has been the built in, effortless friendships that were here when we arrived. Especially our neighbors the Tolman family. They are so kind and so helpful and make everything seem so effortless and like it’s no big deal. They are so happy and willing to help us out. Lydnsey has 2 little boys Bekham age 3 and Maddox, almost 2. She is also pregnant. She helps me with my girls and takes us grocery shopping, to the park, to the beach, and anywhere else we need to go. She’s been an angel and it’s been so nice to have an instant, effortless friendship.

Keeping you posted!

The Farrells :)

Sunday, May 27th 

Maggots

Maggots. Sick nasty.

Ok this is gross. So my favorite meal is Hawaiian hay stacks.. So we were going to have that the other night for dinner. I don’t know how to use our rice cooker. And thank goodness because there were MAGGOTS in the rice. SICK NASTY! Anyways… I have finally calmed myself down. Josh cleaned out our pantry really good and got rid of the nasty creatures. BARFNESS. So we had Cool Corner for dinner instead. It’s a little restaurant here. It was delicious. 


On a less maggoty note... Josh had his first block final in organic chem on Friday. Can you say 95%? Yes sir! One proud wife over here! That test is worth 45% of his final grade in that class. He's doing well. Two more block finals coming up this week, Physics and inorganic chem. 


Eden has another bottom tooth coming in! BAH! Fay is now playing in the sand. Success! 

Eden 

Eden and Fay

Fay

Eden

Fay

Eden and Mommy

Eden

Fay 

Fay and Eden

Happy Birthday to my Grandma Reagh this Tuesday! She's a very special woman and we look up to her a lot and admire her amazingness. Love you Grandma!!!

Fay and Eden! "Happy Birthday Great Grandma Reagh!"


Well, that's all for now!Love you all!
The Farrells

The Adventure begins...

Well here we are in Statia and ... wow. I think we are loving it. It's our first week, and school hasn't started for Josh yet, but it is B-E-A-utiful here. Packing up our house was... nasty. Ha. I used to say that i loved moving. That is now not true. It's stressful. ANYWAYS... we had a huge sob-fest at the airport with both our families. It was super sad and super hard to say goodbye, for now. :(

Our flight's were good and uneventful. Everyone was super nice- it totally helps to have two super adorable babies ;) The flight from St. Maarten to St. Eustatius was a white knuckle flight for me.
Noisy, little 20 seater flying over the ocean- YIKES! But, alas we landed and we survived. Ha.

We were welcomed at the airport by Lyndsey (our new neighbor...who is awesome BTW) The Wolseys (Joel, Kayleigh, and little Remy-who are also awesome) and Steve Becket and his two kids, Stewart and Amelia- who are super nice) We had EIGHT suitcases, 2 boxes (cribs) 2 back-packs, 2 carry-ons, and a diaper bag...and a little cooler. That's all. ha. So the wonderful people loaded us and our luggage..oh and our double stroller into their cars and we headed to our new home.

We were grateful to everyone who helped haul all our stuff over and for the cheerful chatter and welcoming that we received. After the last person left, Josh and i looked at each other and were like... um what the heck are we doing here? I think we both felt a little discouraged and confused and down. But after such a long day of travel and the emotional and physical exhaustion, i think those feelings were rather normal. So ... we went to bed wondering what the heck we were doing here.

Fay and I were the first ones up the following morning. My eyes opened, the sun was out, and excitement filled my fibres. (haha.. fibres) Anyways, it's true. I woke up so excited and so happy. Fay and I went outside and had the first glimpse at our new view. And man, oh man, was it ever breathtaking. I couldn't wait for Josh and Eden to wake-up so they could see it too! And so that i could ask Josh how he we was feeling about things. ...And by the way, he was excited and happy too. ... SO we had breakfast (some sisters from our church group had box of food waiting for us so we wouldn't starve... SO SWEET) .. we had toast with this delicious, homemade guava marmalade. You should be very jealous because it was sensational. Then we got ready for the day and our fabulous neighbour took us to the local grocery store, Duggins. I'll have you know that it's not as deprived as i thought it would be. We won't starve here, and it's not just fish. They have all the necessities and then some. Upstairs of the grocery store is the 'department' store.. which is kind of like a glorified dollar store/a not so glorified fields store. But alas, they have some essential things in there. So we loaded up on groceries, and i'll have you know that i did not cry when we got the receipt like i thought i would. Success! haha. The prices are a little higher on some things than back home, but not too shabby, no, not too shabby.
We also went to the beach that first day. :) Yes, you can be jealous of that too. ha. I guess y'all will just have to come and visit. The girls liked the water at first but then not so much, it'll take some getting used to. I'm happy to report that the only thing i've been burned by so far, is NOT the sun! ha, just my glue gun. Yes, i did bring my glue gun.

The next day, Saturday, April 28th = Fay and Eden's first birthday! We had a birthday party for them at our house :) it was a success, i'd say. We had the Tolmans, Wolseys, and Bridges over. I made cupcakes in our little oven, Mille. And constructed a cupcake tower using paper plates, mason jars and tape. It held out pretty good for the most part. It later collapsed. We had fun visiting with everyone and watching the girls eat their cupcakes in their party hats that i 'reupholstered' for them. It's so hard to believe that Fay and Eden are ONE! Growing so fast. They make us sooo happy :)

Sunday. We met with our church 'Group'. It's too small to be a ward or a branch, however our family and the Bridge family just about doubled the numbers there. We meet in a rented room from the school, which is nice because there is air conditioning. Steve Becket is our group leader and Dustin Tolman (our neighbor) is his councillor. I've been asked to talk in church on May 27th ... so feel free to come to that. HA! Ahhh! Later that afternoon we went with the Tolman family to Crook's Castle in search of seashells, little crabbies, and blue beads. It's been quite interesting to learn about the blue beads. Blue beads are what the slaves used to get paid with, so they are 300 years old and pretty rare to find. It's everyone's goal here to find a Blue Bead (aka Statia Bead) while they are here on the island.

Monday... Monday morning we went to the beach. We walked to the beach- which isn't too bad. It's all down hill (you can begin trying to imagine our walk back home...) There's a path here called 'The Slave Trail. It is SUPER steep and cobblestoney, one needs to press the brake on the stroller the entire way down.  Josh snorkelled for a while and i sat on the beach with two sad little girls. They didn't like the beach and didn't like being covered in sand. Time to climb home. BAH! I am SOOOO glad that I had Josh with me on this walk. Holy Nelly! I really can't imagine pushing our girls in the stroller all the way up that trail! I don't understand how my neighbor, Lyndsey used to do that! When we were talking about moving here to Statia, i had it in my head that i would be walking with the girls everywhere and that we would have no need to buy a vehicle. That is out of my head now. HA. I'm convinced that there is no way to survive without a vehicle here. How did those pioneer woman do it? As soon as we got home Joel Wolsey and Todd Ericksen invited Josh to go spear fishing with them. They were gone for 4.5 hours! Josh had a blast. That night Ericksen's invited us to their home for dinner. Any guesses on what was served? ... If you guessed chocolate covered scorpions you are wrong. If you guessed freshly speared FISH you are correct. If any of you know me, you know that i am x-nay on seafood of any kind. I do NOT eat fish. No tuna, no salmon, no nothing. Well, ladies and gentlemen... to be polite and to appease my husband i tried a very small piece of a bar jack fish. I put it in my mouth, chewed it, tasted it, swallowed it, looked up and announced, "Huh. Well, i'm really upset right now." You see, i thought it would take me months to even think about trying fish and alas, IT WAS GOOD! How ever i tried another type of fish called a glass eyed snapper, and it had a fishy taste to it and i didn't like it so much. But the bar jack fish doesn't have a fishy taste. It's almost like chicken! So there you have it. Todd also made mango smoothies for us. Delicious. His wife is Tiffany (Bishop) She is super nice! We had a nice evening over there.
Josh and i also got our first sunburns this day. :( SAD FACE! Having a sunburn on your shoulders is one thing, but having a sunburn on your shoulders and two babies that hold onto your shoulders is another. We have yet to try an actual aloe-vera plant that are around the island, we are looking forward to that!

Tuesday, Josh, the girls and i ventured to 'Duggins,' the grocery store. The shopping isn't as 'slim-pickins' as i thought it was going to be, and i don't find the prices as crazy as i was expecting, so that's a plus! We walked down to the beach again, and this time we remembered to bring the presents that we got the girls for their birthday...which are.. water floaties! One is a turtle and one is a rhino i think... Anyways! Those were a HUGE success! The girls loved them! AND they loved being in the water with them. Good day!

Now here we are on a fine, sunny Wednesday. Today i gave Josh a hair cut! If you are Nathan, Gen or Jodi, you know that for me this is a big deal. AND i did a pretty good job if i do say so myself! :)
In talking with our neighbors, they've informed us that the weather here lately has been strange. It's been cloudy and breezy with an occasional rain pour, which i guess isn't the norm. I see this 'strange' weather as a blessing from Heavenly Father. I can't imagine trying to get acclimatized to the 'normal' weather, which is no breeze, scarce clouds, and less rain and hot hot hotty hot hotness. It's interesting to see what the humidity does here... within seconds of pulling something out of the fridge, like ketchup for instance, condensation is BAM, right there. The humidity has done some 'happy' things... Fay and Eden's hair is super curly, it's rather adorable :) The dry weather back home and the constant hand washing that comes with raising babies caused my hands to be quite dry, like to the point where my knuckles would crack and bleed (disgusting i know) ... but alas we've been here just under a week and BAM! My hands are model worthy! ...Well...maybe not model worthy, but they are nice and soft now :)
We brought along some mini-cribs that Josh found online and we are trying to sleep train the girls. ... We just started today and ... i don't like sleep training :( .. can't you tell? They're one year olds and are still sleeping with mom and dad. Ha... But alas, i know that they should be in their own beds in their own room, and that's what we are working on currently. We'll keep you posted on how that goes this next week.
So hard to believe that tonight marks a weeks time that we left home for our crazy adventure. So far we are liking it a lot. Still a lot of things to get used to and learn but so many things we are grateful for. Thanks to all of your for your continued love and support. Sure miss you.
Love,

The Farrell Family