Lately

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Babies.

Hard to believe my little chickellettes are going to be a year and half soon! I love our cuddles and snuggles and story time. I love listening to their babbles and watching them dance and listen to them sing. Being their mom is my greatest joy and my highest honor and privledge.

 Fayleah Reagh :) My little squiggly girl! Her new favorite word is no. Oh boy. She has been quite the mama's girl lately! Giving me extra cuddles and saying Mama! A kazillion times a day. It never gets old :) She was singing in the car the other day- so adorable! We had just been singing, Jesus wants me for a sun beam, and she kept going. She's working on her manners, saying please and thank you. Her smile brightens my day. I love my little Fay.



 Eden Beverly. My little pibsqueak! This little princess likes to bite her sister. She is good about staying in her time out and saying sorry to Fay and giving her loves. She is very good about using her manners. She, as well as her sister loves to read books. She gave me a teenage attitude look the other day! I couldn't believe it!
She's got a lot of spunk but is such a little sweetheart. She's our little face maker. I love my darling Eden girl.

Eden left Caleb center Fay right

We started a little play date group called Toddler Tuesdays. I love alliteration. Big fan. Camille has two little boys, Liam almost 2 and Caleb now 5 months. It was so interesting to see how Fay and Eden interacted with baby Caleb. So cute I tell you! Eden especially loves the baby and gave him lots of loves.

One day not too long ago, Emma wrote this amazing tribute to our mom and posted it on her blog. She read it to me while still in it’s rough draft. I sobbed like a…baby. Emma let me cry on her shoulder and said, “You must miss mom so much.”

Eden and Fay hurried over to pointing at me and said, “Baby? Baby.” We laughed through our tears and Fay and Eden gave me hugs. Such a tender little moment.

 Santa came…

So we’ve been living with a very small fridge. It’s been beyond annoying as you reach for one thing, five others topple out. It’s always stuffed to the max and just… plain annoying! So… just because we are broke students doesn’t mean that we can make smart investments. Right? Right. Buying big ticket items like a fridge here on the island is stupid expensive, so we had it shipped on the school shipment from Florida. We know we’ll get at least what we paid for it when we are ready to sell it when we leave. So,  yes! We ordered a new fridge! And it is a gift from above! Good news, our landlord already wants to buy it!

Facing Death Square in the Face, I’d say!

I can’t believe I forgot to mention this crazy experience of Josh’s in the last blog post! Shame on me!

So Josh went spear fishing with Todd and Andy a while back. They went out by White Wall. The weather had been a bit stormy, but hey, why not go fishing!? When Josh finally got home he recounted to me of the excitement of his fishing trip, which I ‘ll sum up to how I see it.

Near death experience number one: Rock climbing down face of mountain.

Near death experience number two: Hugging to rock face cliff for dear life as waves, big waves crash upon you, waiting for the wave to recede so you can jump in the water and ride the wave out away from the rock face.

Near death experience number three: Spear fishing amoung … SHARKS! Yes. I said the word sharks. Reef sharks. Black tip Sharks. Ranging in size from 3-6 feet, ladies and gentlemen. So yes, Josh was swimming and fishing in the water for say 2 hours with sharks. Might I add that Todd never told Josh or Andy that there would be sharks where they were going until they were climbing down the mountain. He told them about a time that he and Sod went fishing there, and a 6 footer came and snatched a fish off of Todd’s spear. Todd gave the shark a little jab to make it go away. It did go away… and came back with MAMA! A 12 footer!!!! BAH! He then left the water. Smart boy.

Near death experience numbers four, five and six: Exiting the water, getting back onto hugging rock face and climbing back up.

Glad he lived to tell about it! I won’t lie, I wasn’t too impressed when he told me about this. He was amused. I was not. But hey, it does make for a great story, and what an experience!

Cassi’s visit: How to Stuff Statia into a Week

About 2 weeks ago I got a facebook message from my friend Cassi asking me what our plans were for Canadian Thanksgiving… hmmm let me think, tough one, um beach maybe? Ha. No plans. She asked if she could come for a visit, I got very excited but didn’t get my hopes up too much, just incase it was just an idea she had rather than an action plan. She then asked me how to go about booking the flights, and lo and behold the next message I received was, “Flights booked!”

SUCH excitement! Such spontaneous-ness I love it!

So Cassi arrived safe and sound Sunday, September 30^th at around 6:30 pm. The sweet thing came baring gifts  (PS THANKS MOM AND DAD!!!!)

Monday morning Cassi, Fay, Eden and myself went for a small drive around Statia. We got bread and sugar donuts at the bakery, checked out a funky store called Yellow, and drove out to White Wall, where we then got rained on.

That afternoon we all (Farrell crew, Cassi and Emma) enjoyed the beach… and the pouring rain at the beach. Josh (in his infinite wisdom) took the windows off the jeep before we left to the beach so we continued in the wetness until we were safe from the elements in our cement walled home. That evening we went to ZUMBA where… Cassi endured little movement as she was having malfunctions with her shorts. Haha. Monday ended with apples and skor-dip as we had our weekly girls night watching The Voice and chatting about life.

Tuesday began early for us all… (normally it’s always early for the Farrell crew as our little chicken-nugget girls get up at 5:30am, Emma generally sleeps in til… 1pm. Just kidding more like 10ish or so.) Anyways… Josh took Cassi and I out snorkeling for our very first time! Josh had been before but this was my first time here, and Cassi’s first time snorkeling ever! Big thanks to Emma for watching the girls for us! It was a little scary at first… but hand in hand in hand (me holding hands with Josh and Cassi) we went out to explore the big ole blue.  And let me tell you! It was soooooo cool! We saw lots of coral reefs and lots of fish. My favorite fish were ultra-violet purple with a bright yellow stripe, and darkish blue ones with glowing aqua colored polka dots! We drove out to the Botanical Gardens that afternoon. Then we had more beach time that afternoon.

Wednesday, I took Cassi out birght and early for a photo shoot. There’s this cool perched boat that I’ve wanted to take some pics at. Then when we got back Josh took us snorkeling again! This time we went to a rock jet out and saw a little SEA TURTLE! He was so cute! And surprisingly beautiful! The sun reflecting from patterns on his shell were so pretty! We all got multiple stings by tiny jellyfish; it got rather annoying so we called it quits after a short while. 

what the?

On our way in Josh and I saw the craziest looking sea creature!

spot the turtle!

Cassi, Emma, the girls and I went to the fort before lunchtime. It’s pretty to cool to look around there and see the beautiful view of the ocean. Last time we went to the fort, Emma wandered off and found a path to an old, old church and graveyard. So Emma showed that to us, and I’m so glad she did! It was really neat, and another great location for pictures. We went to the beach again that afternoon, surprise, surprise. Then I took Cassi out to my favorite restaurant here on Statia, Papaya. We had great food and even better conversation. It was so nice getting all caught up with each others lives. When we got home we played a funny game with Josh and Emma. It’s off a show called Trust Us With Your Life, where they bring in a mime that acts out the lyrics to a song and the person trying to guess wears noise-canceling headphones so they can’t hear. – So we acted out songs and made each other guess. It was pretty fun.

Thursday morning we were pooped. So we just chilled during the morning. While Fay and Eden were having their afternoon nap, Cassi and I headed out to Zealandia to get our suntan on. We layed down on our towels and watched this grey wall move towards us. Then… we got rained on, so after being there for a grand total of 5 minutes we packed up and headed home. That afternoon we went to the beach. Then went to Zumba that evening.

Friday. Oh dear. So Friday morning us girls went to the beach. Found lots of cute little seashells… then we packed up and headed for home. While driving past the park I looked over to see what was going on, as they were setting up tents and stuff and…. BOOM BOOM! :S I ran into a concrete wall on our side of the road. How embarrassing. And bad. We were all ok, thankfully. But the poor jeep… Some kind locals stopped to make sure we were ok. I hadn’t brought my phone to the beach so a man named Jose Romero gave us a ride home so I could get a hold of Josh. Jose was very nice to us and told us to be so grateful to God that we were all ok, and that the crash happened while I was driving slow and that no one else was involved. I am grateful indeed, but feel very foolish…So I called Josh like 4 times cuz he didn’t answer…he was taking an exam. Anyhoo…. Long story short, the jeep is at the mechanics now… I broke the steering box and one of the pipes to something sheered off. …. Moving on. Coincidently enough, our scheduled plan for Friday evening was to show Cas the Slave Trail and walk to and from the beach, stopping at a bakery on the way home to get butter bread. Crook, the beach dog followed us home that night. Then we had a BBQ at Bridge’s place with Nate and Wolsey’s. Then Nate came over and we watched Phantom of the Opera. It’s a great show but man, I forgot how long it was!

Saturday morning (again, thanks to Emma) Josh, Cassi and I hiked the Quill. Hike is a settle word…. It’s starts as a hike. We hiked up to the Crater Rim and looked around at all the beautifulness. Then decided to mountain climb up to The Panoramic View. Seriously you yank yourself up with skinny trees most of the way. Once you get to the top though, it’s quite phenomenal.  On our rather careful descend down that second part of our hike, the fresh air or sun or something must have gotten to us because we all thought we were pretty funny. Then on the rest of the way down we almost got lost 3 times. Fewf that we didn’t!

Apparently we didn’t think that our 3-hour morning hike/climb/intenseness was enough for the day. We decided to walk down to the beach again. Crook (the beach dog) followed us back down to the beach. Josh, Cassi and Emma went out snorkeling and saw a very big stingray.  We left Crook and the beach to head home. When we got to the top of the Slave Trial a local man, that we now know is called Saggie, was sitting down and started talking to us. Saying things like how he knew us and stuff. Then he gave Cassi, Emma and I each an original drawing of his. Pretty nice! Pretty funny! We had Cool Corner for dinner that night. Yum.

Sunday morning was chill. Josh and I took Cassi to the airport to see her off. It was sad to see her go. We had such a fun great time and were so thrilled that she came to visit us. Her plane took off into big dark grey clouds. I was happy to hear that she is home safe and sound.

And that, my friends, is how to stuff Statia in a week! Success!

Canadian Thanksgiving.

Sunday evening we had our Sunday regulars over for dinner, Nate and Lauren. We’ve become pretty good friends with these two! Josh made sweet and sour meatballs and rice for dinner. Super yummy! I made pumkin pie for dessertJ

We invited Bridges over for dessert and we had a fun little gratitude night. Everyone handed some pieces of paper and wrote things that they were grateful for on them.  Then they folded them up and put them in a jar. Then we passed the jar around and took turns reading eachothers thankfulness. Here is what everyone came up with:

I am thankful for…

The gospel, my wife and kids, the support from all my family

The cool breeze that comes every so often

My family

My apartment, my food, and for my air-conditioning and nice bed

Belly button lint (silly Josh)

My bed

My Dora bed (cute little Lucy Bridge)

A supportive family

All the joy that pumpkin brings to my life.

The gospel of Jesus Christ, for being guided by the Holy Ghost, I am grateful for my Mom, Dad and Nana, for my friends who love me and support me, for love and the                 

       Church

This awesome thankful jar

Awesome neighbors

Lucy

Forgiveness

Jesus Christ, people who love me for who I am, Mormon-Canadian- Statia friends!   

   Freedom, nature, love, laughter and fun times, memories of my favorite moments, 

   health, the family I was born into and the family I’ve found along life’s way.

   Hannah’s pie! Dreams, hope, the chance to make a difference, my home in heaven.

To be able to go home for Christmas! So thankful for family and friends

New friends

Canada, where there are yummy chain restaurants and modernization galore! J

A living Prophet

We ended Sunday night answering and explaining questions that our friend Lauren has about our faith. Nate especially did a tremendous job teaching her.

It was a pretty special thanksgiving, one that I’ll always remember.