September 4th, 2012

JENNA’S Visit!

Long time no blog! Ok so in a nut shell, Jenna’s visit was great! We had a lot of fun and did lots of fun stuff. We had 2 great beach days at the beginning of her trip, then we had Tropical Storm Isaac for a few days…which ate our beach. So we had 5 beachless days. SAD FACE! … The sand at our beach is still gonzo (the storm ate the sand… and also brought some jelly fish to our area) The locals say that the sand will return anywhere from a few weeks to a few months. The locals say that we need a northern sea to come, and then our sand will return. So we finally explored on over to Zealandia beach. What a blast! The locals do NOT swim there, and think that you’re crazy if you do. There are dangerous rip tides and people have drowned there. We were desperate for some beach so we went and tried it out. Don’t freak out. We didn’t go in past our wastes so we were fine. We played in the waves and the girls played in the sand. Hold on to your suits!

 

         

   Jenna took us out to dinner a couple of times and we had great meals and lots of laughs. We taught her how to play fruit basket. Baha! We had lots of late nights watching movies (when I say we I really mean Josh, Jenna and Emma. I would make it about 15 minutes in most nights and be ready to hit the hay) and eating salt & vinegar popcorn (big thanks to Jenna for bringing the S&V flavouring!) and pina coladas. We played uno and drank shots of water.

            Auntie Jenna brought lots of goodies with her. Amoungst Fay and Eden’s favorites are their Dr. Seuss books and new swimsuits. Josh was excited to have his free-diving fins arrive and I was happy for all the licorice that she brought ( i think 8 pounds worth!). Her spoiling us didn’t stop there! Ice cream is a delicacy here… it’s pricey. We had root beer floats an a few occasions, and plenty of pink tings (a Caribbean beverage- a grapefruit drink) and apple turnovers form the bakery.

            We are so grateful that Jenna took 2 weeks to come spend time with us, here in the Caribbean. I think she learned that life here for us isn’t always a holiday in paradise. It’s our life for the next few years. I heard a quote that went something like this…”Some people dream of living in a beautiful place, others make a place beautiful.” I think we’re lucky to have a bit of both going on here.

Twenty-Two vs. Sixteen-Months

            August 28^th marks Fay and Eden’s 16 months of life. It’s been great! I love being a mom! It is the most amazing thing, watching them grow and learn new things. They are so stinkin cute! Here is a link to a video of their latest things http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOjl4knGRnc&feature=plcp

I love how allllll the animals are in the pic too :)

            August 28^th also just happens to be my birthday. I turned the big 22. Ha. Sometimes I feel much older and sometimes I feel much younger. The day was perfect. Breakfast in bed, a happy family, Emma and Jenna visiting, lovely facebook messages, amoungst my favorites were some pictures from my family back home wishing me a happy birthday. 

*** And a very sweet letter from a friend.  Jenna brought my favorite shampoo from home, what a treat! And Josh and the girls got me a new swim suit from Lime Ricki. We had a relaxing evening and then went out for dinner to Pink Papaya. Oh my heavenly days! The food is soooo yummy there! I had an Alfredo dish that I’m sure is the best on the planet!

Rolling In The Deep

            So… funny story. Emma and I went out to Zealandia one day, for a couple hours to bask in the sun (aka suntan).  We would listen to 4 songs on her ipod then switch to lay on our backs, then another 4 songs and switch back to our stomachs ect. For our final song I asked Emma to play a wicked awesome song. She asked which song she should play and I suggested Rolling in the Deep by Adelle.

            So there we were, eyes closed, ear buds in, belting Rolling in the Deep, feeling great. The song ends and we stand up to get ready to pack up and …. There are two army men about 20 feet away coming towards us.

            Needless to say we were super embarrassed. After talking to them for a few minutes we learned that they and their platoons are from Holland and are here practicing for hurricane evacuation procedures and they were just scoping out the area for drills. We were relieved to learn that the crashing of the waves masked our loud singing.

Welcome, Welcome

            We have two new families here on our island to add to our LDS group or ‘twig’ as the Hunters like to call it! The Hunter family of seven with both parents (Grant and Angie) and oldest daughter (Brittany) in classes, a son (Truman) working back home preparing for a mission and three other kids (Hailey, Savannah and Justice) are here with them. They seem super fun and we are looking forward to getting to know them better. Emma and I have sung with two of the daughters, Brittany and Hailey, in Girls Choir.

            Brandt and Camille Tidmarsh from Magrath are here with their two little boys Liam and Caleb. So cute! They seem super nice and we are also looking forward to getting to know them.

            Josh got asked by the school to be on the welcoming committee. Which entails going to the airport with Bongo (driver man) to pick up the new students, answer questions they may have about life and school here, and drop them off at their apartments. He does a great job, and is such a personable person. The added bonus is that he also gets paid to do this. Hurray!

The new semester has started, so that job is over now.

Looking forward to blogging again soon! Thanks for all your love and support!

August 4^th 2012

EMMA IS HERE!!!!!!!!!! Finally! Ha!

Last weekend Josh, the girls and I flew to St. Maarten to pick up Emma. It was a fantastic weekend! We got a Caribbean resident discount at the resort that we stayed at which was all-inclusive. The meals were fabulous and we had a lot of fun at the pool with the swim-up bar (lots of virgin pina-coladas for us!) and at the white sand beach. Josh videoed Emma’s plane land and picked her up from the airport. Then they came back to the hotel and Emma was surprised to find… Eden, Fay and myself in the room! She didn’t know that we were all there, in St.Maarten, to pick her up.

            It was the BEST thing ever to give her a big squeeze J Fay and Eden warmed up to her really quickly. It’s obvious that they remembered their Auntie Emma J So needless to repeat, our weekend in St.Maarten was so awesome. 

            The family sent lots of fun things with Emma. So we had ourselves a little Christmas action. Haha . Among the things were 2 little stuffed animals for Fay and Eden. We can’t really tell if they’re bunnies or kangaroos, so we just call them their bunnaroos. They have taken to those little stuffies quite nicely. Britt sent some stinking cute nail-polish  stuff along. Loving that!

So we’ve just been hanging out, introducing Emma to our routine way of life here. Ha. Hopefully she isn’t too bored and missing her peeps back home too much. Especially Grady-pooh. We have lots of fun together – the girls LOVE her, we’re addicted to the show Pretty Little Liars and watch it whenever the girls are asleep. But mostly it’s nice to have a little piece of home here with us. 

July 26^th 2012

Hokay… news… The days just seam to fly by… Emma get’s here in THREE days!!!! BAH! Um.. what else is new.. I hit a car. A parked car L I don’t what to talk about it. Ohhh. Jenna is coming to visit also! She get’s here August 19^th.

July 16^th 2012

When we give Fay and Eden a drink of water we say, “water?” and we nod our head as if we are answering the question for them. They recently started saying wa-wa and nodding their heads while they say it. So funny! They are getting really good at folding their arms for prayer and today it seemed like Fay was trying to pray all by her self! She also said, “amen!”

Dancers After All

I think that all babies love to play with balls. With Josh as their dad, Eden and Fay have an extra special love. The ball is probably their most favorite toy, which is fine with me. However, today Eden melted my little heart. Barney was on TV (and boy do they love him) and on the show they were doing a dance and song thing and my little Eden did a spin!!!!! Over and over spinner girl! Proud mommy moment! Here's a link :)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ar0nSAfQ2Yc&feature=plcp 

This wasn’t their first dance attempt;

Octonauts is a show on Disney Jr. that then enjoy watching and at the end of each episode they have a ‘dance break’ Eden and Fay love to join in. Also at the end of each Mickey Mouse Club House episode the characters do the ‘hot dog dance.’ Fay and Eden also join in. Some days we will have a little dance time with each other. J We play some music, pick up the girls, and dance around the living room. Smiles! They’re gunna be little dancers after all!

July 15^th 2012

News. Not a whole lot that I can think of at the moment… However Emma gets here 2 weeks from today!!!!!! Seriously so excited over here!

My SIL (sister-in-law) Jenna, sent some stuff with Kayleigh’s sister, Kennzie. I can’t even tell you how awesome that was/is as we are still enjoying the bounteous goods. I now know how a missionary feels getting care packages from home. Licorice, nibs, miss vicky’s, some crafty stuff for me, some beef jerkey for josh with a note that said something along the lines of, “this was as close as I could get to steak.” Haha! And cute little sundresses for the girls. So thoughtful!

NO

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Eden has started saying a new word… and she says it a lot. Any guesses?

… ‘No’ … yup, that’s the word! ‘No” and she says it with a cute little diphthong ‘oo’ at the end. So it’s like ‘no-oo.’ Oh boy. Here we go! Eden has 8 teeth, 4 on top and 4 on the bottom. Fay  has 7 with the 8^th on it’s way. They each have a toy rubber ball that they love and they’ve been sitting on them as if they were yoga balls. So funny! We went to a Christian mingle potluck at the school for dinner tonight. It was delish! Can you say chicken parmesan?!

Of course I must mention something about the beach. As you know, we’ve been borrowing our neighbors’ kids ‘puddle jumpers for the girls. We hardly hold the girls in the water when they have those on. They just float around and giggle and kick their adorable, chunky legs. We say, ‘Kick! Kick! Kick!’ And they kick both their legs at the same time. SO cute! Fay especially is getting more and more fearless with the crashing waves.

Any new words other that ‘no?’  … Cracker, cookie, blue, pleeeeease, thankyou.. Fay for a while (like quite a while) has been mimicking a similar sound to a jumbled ‘iloveyou’ but lately it’s becoming more clear that that is what she is actually saying and it is my favorite.

The girls are enjoying coloring… I have them color on big pieces of scrap cardboard but they still end up coloring on the tile floor. Luckily for me it comes off really easily. They also love dancing J HURRAY! I’ll turn on some music and pick them up and dance around. After that they don’t like being put down. They just want to keep dancing. They give the best kisses ever! They say, ‘Ahhhh” and lean in with their open mouths for kisses. So fun. Love it!

The Farm… haha

My mom gave Eden and Fay a book about farm animals at Christmas and when we were getting ready to leave to come to Statia she told the girls that they wouldn’t know first hand what farm animals are and she would be sad that she couldn’t show them the animals at her house.  Yes, it is sad that they won’t be seeing the animals and Nana and Papa’s house, BUT don’t worry mom! There are cows and chickens and goats and sheep all over the place here! There are even a few random donkeys that you can see if you’re lucky! So we are working on our animal sounds and when we ask, “What does a chicken say?” The girls respond with, “bawk-bawk-bawk!” SO CUTE! They are working on the sound that a rooster makes. “cock-a-doodle-doo!” It’s a work in process, Eden says, “cock-a-oo.”

Last week we were lucky enough to have one of our favorite meals for dinner, Hawaiian haystacks! I was feeding the girls and said, “want some chicken?” And they said “bawk-bawk.” It was so funny! Back home Hawaiian haystacks were a staple at our house, as was eating chicken, and the girls LOVED it! Here they have a whole new spin on what chicken is, bawk-bawk.

Josh and I continue to be in awe about how smart our little chicklettes are! (trying not to be biased ;) )

Our little neighbor Maddox had his birthday party yesterday. Dustin made a pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey game, however it was a put-the-cookie-in-cookie monster’s-mouth game. Eden and Fay went last and when they were given their paper cookie, they went right up to cookie monster and stuck it on his mouth! We were in disbelief really! I didn’t expect them to do that at all! I just thought they would hold the paper cookie, look at it for a while, maybe try to put it in their mouth or throw it on the ground or something. But boy, were we wrong! Those little cuties are 2 smart little ‘cookies!’ BAH! I could go on and on and on and on about them! I’m sooooo grateful to be their mom. I’m so grateful to know of the love that a mother has for her children. It is immeasurable and there are no words to describe it. BAH!

July 7^th 2012

Today is one of those ‘livin the life’ kind of days.  Contrary to what you might think, living on a beautiful tropical island doesn’t always seem like paradise. It’s a lot of work! You have to hang your laundry out on the line, keep all your food in ziplock bags so the bugs don’t smell/desire/get-into them, it’s as hilly as can be here, the bugs freak the heck out of me if you haven’t noticed, and you’re always sweeping. Now you are probably listening to the worlds tiniest violin sad song and thinking that I’m nuts. It really isn’t that bad. BUT today has just been one of those days where you take a breath and slowly exhale while thinking, “man, this IS the life!’ Josh, the girls and I went to the beach this morning. Josh took the top off the jeep (driving top-less is what he calls it) I like to not call it that. Roofless. That’s much more appealing. Anywho we strapped Fay and Eden into their new car seats and off we went. The water was so perfectly clear. We had such a great time just relaxing and soaking in the sun, the experience, and time spent with our cute little family.

Today was an “I <3 Statia day!”

The Girlies

So I know I say this in every blog, but for real, the girls seriously love the beach more and more each time we go! A few days ago Fay and Eden were wearing Bekam and Maddy’s puddle-jumper life jackets in the ocean and Fay was none stop giggles! It seems every week Eden gets a new bump on her head. She got 2 this past week. Poor girl!