Life is Good - LIfe as we know it

Life is good! We are enjoying our adventure here in St. Eustatius, the sun and all the goes along with it.

- We miss family, but look forward to their visits (Nana and Papa Yamamoto will be here is 36 days,  and Nana and Papa Harker in 165 days) Can't wait to show them the island. We love our face time chats we share with our loved ones back home. I am very thankful for the technology we have today.

- Josh is crazy busy with school. We see him very little these days, but he always finds time for family time :) When we see him we make the most of it. The kids love their dad and so do I. Josh is really enjoying school and all he's learning.

- We are enjoying the simple life, almost a step back in time. Kids are love having mom to themselves and mom is enjoying being a mom with no job. This is the mat-leave I never had.

- There's no shopping malls, no shopping at all,other then a couple small grocery stores and a gift shop. Surprisingly enough, it hash't been to bad. Other then the taunting emails I get from Old Navy, Children's Place, etc. Good thing Nana's coming to visit to bring us some goods.

-Banking here, we use a ATM machine. It's been good other then last week, no international bank cards could take out money. So we all just have to wait patiently until they decide to let us use it again.

-Getting things shipped here is VERY expensive. The school has a shipment program that comes weekly. We get things sent to florida then it comes over. But we have to pay $50 plus $4 per cubic foot?. So that stinks.

- Drinking water- tap water isn't safe to drink. So you either have to have bottled water or a filer like we do. We have a Zuvo counter filter. 

Here's some more picture we captured on one of our visited to see and feed the pigs.

The picture on the bottom right, this pig will stand up on the pallets if she isn't getting food.

Notice me over here! Lacey is also very fascinated with the pigs. I'd love to know what goes through her head as she watches these stinky, dirty animals.

Lincoln loves making creations with glue and other fun art supplies that we bought. 

You can get the basics craft supplies here, but not much. I really miss my Dollarama's here. The things they have here are more expensive compared to a dollar store back home but cheaper quality.

Picture taken at Zeelandia Beach.

All ready for church!

Here's some Father's Day Goodies all the dad's got from our church group.

There's lots of different type of creatures here that I'm not a fan of. I'm okay if they stay outside and far away from me. There's tarantulas, banana spiders, beetles, weevils ( people find these in their pasta they buy, GROSS!), cockroaches, rats and many more!

 - Photo above it a picture of a silver argiope-  I found this spider and their web near my clothes line. I asked around to find out what kind of spider it was and did a little research about this spider. They average 20-30mm in size (so not huge).  The bite can be a bit stinky and itchy for the 1st hour then the pain usually passes away. However, it may have several health repercussions on children and physically week people. Don't worry Josh took care of this spider and I haven't seen any more since.

Friends

We have been blessed to have great friends on Statia.

One of Lincoln's friends is Eli. 

He has blonde hair just like Lincoln. 

They look alot alike.

We get asked all the time if Eli and Lincoln are twins. 

Nope! They aren’t brothers or even relatives. 

They are friends! And great friends they are.

Here's the boys having a BLAST at the beach. 

They can spend hours at the beach together.

When the waves are really big, they come high on the beach, making huge beach puddles. The kids had a blast jumping, running and rolling in the enormous puddles. Just something different I guess. 

Here's Lincoln having a snack with he Tidmarsh brothers Liam and Caleb, at the Fort. On days when we go to the town library we usually go to the Fort afterwards and let the kiddos run around.

One of our visits to the Terminal park we found a hug pile of leaves. 

The kids had a blast. Who knew we'd experience some fall fun in the caribbean. I always thought it was just summer all year! :)

... And we can't have a post with out some pictures of Lacey.

Lacey loves playing in the sand. By the time we are done at the beach

 she is covered from head to toe with black sand.

She really ENJOYS herself!

It seems that we can never quite get all the sand off of her when we are done. Even after wash her off in the ocean and a bath to follow at home.

We love the beach, but it does have it's down falls too.

 With the sand being black it gets into the lining of our swim suits

 and is practically impossible to get out. 

So you have these little black speckles in all of our swim suits, but so does everyone else! so we all look weird together I guess.

Staying busy

You may wonder what we do to keep busy on a island that's only 8 square miles, with no shopping malls, or fast food chains. It's said that this island is 20-30 years behind the US, sometimes it feels like more then that. Trust me we stay very busy. To me, while living on Statia you have to learn to enjoy the simple things in life. Here's a few thing we do to keep busy.

We like to visit "the horse" on the island. Yes, there is only one horse on this island. The kids have named it brownie because it's brown.  Lincoln loves feeding it grass. When Lincoln stops feeding it , it will stomp it's hoof for some more food.

Our friends have also shown us where the pigs are on the island.  

 Lincoln and Lacey love the pigs. We have started bringing our food scraps 

to them when we go visit them and they get quite noisy when they 

realized we have brought food for them. They grunt and squeal till they 

get some food, then they get louder till we give them more. 

It's a great experience for the kids!

The pigs fence are made out of shipping palettes, kinda sketchy looking.

We aren't sure how much these pigs get fed and how often.

 They always act like they are starving when we go to visit them. 

Maybe thats just how pigs are. I'm not too sure, I didn't grow up on a farm.

Another thing we do is go the the St. Eustatius Roosevelt Airport 

to watch the air planes come and take off.

Here's a picture of the run way. It's almost the whole width of the island.

Sandy Toes & Salty Kisses

Our days are filled with fun adventures. We are always on the go. 

 Visiting the beach is almost a daily thing around here. 

How could you not when we live so close to the ocean, 

temperatures are around 30˚C (feels like temp. is close to 40˚C right now)

...And the kids love it!

.

Since we've moved to Statia, I love this saying " sandy toes and salty kisses".
I found it on Pinterest one day. This describes how life is on Carribean island.
You somehow always have sandy toes and when I give the kids a kiss,
there is always a salty taste to them... hopefully that makes sense.

Here are a couple pics of my little girl loving every minute in the sand.

9 months

It's crazy how fast time goes with these kids! Lacey is 9 months old already:

Here are a few points and milestones that I can think of off the top of my head for up to 9 months.
- Lacey is crawling like crazy. Non-stop moving... That keeps her mom very busy.
- She pulls herself up on everything and walks along things. it will not be long before she's walking.
- She is food crazy! She pretty much eats everything that we eat now. She cant miss out on anything. She doesn't like being fed, she has to do by herself. She will actually refuse food from us, but when we put it on the tray she will eat it. Stubborn. :)
- Around 8 months Lacey got her first two bottom teeth.
- She has mastered drinking from a straw, which seemed to start with her love for noodles and spaghetti.
- Lacey loves playing with her brother, bugging him, annoying him, yup she's the perfect sister!
- Lacey is a very determined little girl.
- She loves reading books and music. She's starting to jibber jabber a lot lately, she loves saying" ba ba ba" or "ma, ma, ma" or "ya ya ya".
- Lacey's been sleeping thought the night for some time now, but she's not a fan of naps in the day. We usually get 30 mins in the morning and afternoon. So she keeps us busy.

We love her so much and can't wait to see the little girl she becomes. Luv ya Lacey!

Soccer Field

There's a sports center here, that includes a soccer field, base ball field, swimming pool and an indoor basket ball court. Lincoln likes to go to the soccer field that is astro turf to ride his bike around. Its one of the few spots that are flat on the island. 

Happy Father's Day!

You can always have fun when daddy's around. Walking along Zeelandia Beach, searching for sea shells and running from the water. This last time we went to Zeelandia Lincoln kept saying " I don't like this beach". He wasn't to happy that we couldn't go swimming in the ocean, but he still had fun being the busy little boy that he is.

Josh, 
I just want to let you know how much I love you and how grateful I am to be blessed with you as my children's dad. Thanks for being the BEST dad I could ever ask for, for our children. You’ re PERFECT for them in every way. They LOVE you dearly. I can tell by, how sad they get when you leave for school with the tears in their eyes and how HAPPY they get when they see you walking up the hill from school. They love the great big HUGS you give, how you will sit and PLAY with them  and make them GIGGLE. "Dad just have some fun" as Lincoln would say trying to get a water fight going with you. They admire everything you do. They always want to help you with what your doing. They look up to you and try to be like you. Your an AMAZING dad! Knowing how much you care and love our children means so much to me. Thanks for being a DAD!!!

Men on earth have the opportunity to become fathers and experience some of the same joys that our Heavenly Father feels for us. Fatherhood is a divine responsibility to be cherished.

We are thankful for all the father's in our lives!

The Quill

Claire Sala and I decided to take our kids on a hike up the Quill. Not with the purpose to climb to the top but so the kids could have a fun hiking adventure. The kids loved it!

A picture taken near the airport of the Quill.

 Lincoln and Krysten  checking out a sign of natural medicines 

you can get from plants that grow on the Quill.

 It looked like a lush rainforest.

There was some neat plants/ trees along the trails.

Snack break.

 Along the trail we found hermit crabs. 

The kids loved spotting and looking for the crabs along our hike.

 Eli, Krysten and Lincoln taking a breaking. (Sorry for the bad quality, these are

 iPhone pictures. With me trying to juggle holding Lacey and taking pictures).
But it's better then nothing :)

Lincoln did great! I expected our hike to last an hour max. Nope!!! 

Try 2.5 hours later! All 3 kids were troopers. 

We will be doing another hike in the near future, they really enjoyed it.

Lincoln's hiking stick he found near the end of our hike. He was pretty proud of it.

When he got home he couldn't stop telling dad how fun it was to climb the volcano.

Here is a little info I found on the Quill for those that are interested. 
The Quill is a dormate volcano on the island of St. Eustatius

FACTS:

-The summit elevation is 601 metres (1,972 ft) above sea-level. 

- The Quill formed between 22,000 and 32,000 years before present to the southeast of Sint Eustatius (Statia) in the West Indies.  Pyroclastic flows during the initial eruption joined The Quill with Sint Eustatius. The Quill has been active since its birth; the last known eruption, as determined by carbon dating, occurred between 1,755 and 1,635 years before present. Since volcanic eruptions from The Quill have included pyroclastic flows, and groundwater heating indicates that The Quill is only dormant, the volcano must be regarded as potentially dangerous.

-The crater of the Quill contains a lush rainforest populated by native and introduced tropical trees and plants.

Food!

This girl loves her food! She'd rather feed herself = big mess for mommy to clean up. She also thinks any thing that goes in her mouth needs to be taken out, inspected, and played with before it is eaten. Lincoln was never like this, he was the cleanest eater around. Some of her favourite foods are, bananas, oranges, baby puffs, craisins,  Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, spaghetti,  pancake/ waffles and  grapes, just to name a few.