Valentines- Never Loved You More

When it was just the two of us I loved going on long walks, moving nights at home. Our late night runs, fun camping adventures and spontaneous dinner dates. I loved sleeping in, and making ourselves breakfast. You'd give me flowers. On saturdays we would go to the grocery store and meander up and down the aisles, then just do what ever. Our family was just you and I, and I loved it.

Now things are a little different. You've been by my side through the ups and downs of two pregnancies and deliveries. There's no more sleeping in, and a night out takes a lot of prep and planning but don't really exist with this med student life. Our love notes are scribbled on post it notes or text messages. We both experience hard long days being apart or not seeing each other much.

I was thinking about what romance means to me now, and a few moments came to mind- watching you play with the kids while I clean up dinner. See you play with the kids under the sheets in the morning with the kids. Seeing you try to do Lacey's hair some mornings when I haven't got around to it. Being surprised by a clean kitchen when you need to study. These things mean everything to me.

Our life has changed a lot and I've never loved you more.

I’m glad you settled for me.

Your my favourite person to lay nexted to as I fall asleep.

You are my best friend.

Thanks for all you do for me and the kids, it's all greatly appreciated/

Love you always.

Heres some Valentine Card from us

Weekly Update: Swimming...

Dengue update: Josh is still suffering with lots of pain. Bad headaches, stabbing eye pain and joint pain. Josh says he feels like a old man. It is getting a bit better each day. Ibrofine helps a bit wight he pain, Ibrofine is only $4.50 here.  The doctor did proscribe Codeine to Josh but that makes him high, he couldn't even walk straight, so he stopped taking that. He's still trying hard to attend his class and keep up on studying as block exams are in one more week. 

We got our car fixed this week, something to do with suspension and welding the frame. So we were car less for two days. Good thing we have a pool in our complex so we didn't have to leave to do anything. Plus we have friends that live close to do things with.

Lacey is actually 17 months now. These pictures are just a bit late. Here's a few of Lacey's new words she's been saying; pool, dog and she's trying to say bath.... Lacey doesn't use a high chair any more, she just like to stand on a normal chair and eat that way... Lacey is my sidekick these days, she's always following me around and is right beside me.

 Lacey now loves her puddle jumper. She will jump into the water by her self, getting water on her face doesn't seem to faze her. This little girl has no fear. She kicks and nows how to move her self in the water where she needs to go. This also makes swimming much more fun for mom :)

Lacey having fun playing with Play Foam.

Here's a conversation I had with Lincoln this past week. 

Lincoln: Mom what is that?

Mom: It's a wheel barrel.

Lincoln: But no wheels, so why is it called a wheel barrel?

Mom: It's suppose the have one wheel on the front but this one is missing its wheel.

Lincoln has learned how to jump into the pool on his own and swim to the side all by himself. He's a kid that hates water in his eyes so he is always have to be wearing his goggles. He also loves wearing his snorkel mask and goggles.

We did the letter B and the number 2 this week. We had lots of fun learning the letter B.

Lincoln sure knows how to make life happy.

Love my two kids so much.

Here's some of the island plants that grown here on the island.

Island friends swimming in the pool together. These kids have a great imagination, they were swimming to California.

 Lincoln is in primary, he has actually been in primary since September as there was no nursery in our branch for him to go to for the 4 months before he was suppose to move up to primary. So he went to primary early. He loves primary... I'm also the first counsellor in primary/ teacher.

 We brought our Statia tub with us when we moved to St Maarten as it costs to much money to fill the normal tub... Lacey is also wearing goggles around her neck as thats what we use when we are washing there hair out at bath time.

Cost  U Less, our Caribbean Costco. I was really amazed with the grocery shopping on St Maarten. It's way better then St Eustatius. But still nothing to Canada grocery shopping. Still have to plan your trip to the store around the shipments that come in to the island and some weeks its still hit and miss if you can get things.

Parking lot at Cost U Less. Gross garbage water that stinks.

My kidos on our Library adventure this week. This Library carries book in four languages; English, Dutch, French and Spanish.

A new snack that we found out about this week from a friend is Animal crackers dipped in Nutella. It's really good!

I miss thrift shopping, there are no thrift shops on the island as the islanders use everything till it's garbage. It's not like the States or Canada where you buy new cause you fell like you need the newest of an item.

Weekly Update: Letter A, walks,....

I’ve always loved this quote! I haven’t always been one to be able to put this into practice but just in the 9.5 months as my husband and I have been far away from home we’ve had to remind ourselves of it more and more. We found lots of joy in being in the warmth and heat of the Caribbean, but we miss our family and friends. 

Surprisingly the little island we are on has many, many frustrations and challenges. It wasn’t until we truly changed our outlook on our situation and looked around us to see what we HAVE and remembered what we were GRATEFUL for that our perspective changed. This is when we began to find joy in our journey. We love our time that we have spent living on the island of St. Maarten so far and we wouldn't trade these experiences for anything. They are special memories to us that we will never forget!

Island of St. Maarten

 I have started working on letters and numbers with Lincoln in more detail. We do one letter and one number per week. So this past week we did the letter Aa's and the number 1. Lincoln is so into learning. We recognizing the letter, practise writing them, the sound that the letter says, etc... We have a little song that we use for our letters, here it is." A says AAaaaa, A says AAaaaa. Every letter says a sound, A says AAaa."

Morning walks:

Lincoln looking for fish in the gutters along the walk ways in our gated community.

Here's a picture of the gutters. They are kinda gross.

We have been going for walks most morning. Lacey loves the stroller and Lincoln either rides his bike or has a ride in the stroller too. I'm so glad I brought my Chariot with us. Walks in the winter are the best, its actually just summer year round here. Which has been very nice.... Here's a little of what the neighbourhood looks like. There are a lot of alley cats and stray dogs, which the kids love to look for on our walks. 

Here's a dry boat dock right beside our gated parking lot.

The road we use to get to our house. It's the roughest road on the island.

Close up on the road.

Gross rain water sitting beside the road.

There's garbage every where, its sad to see that people just don't care.

There are some decent island houses. Most decent houses outside of our Kool Baai Villas are usually gated. These following houses are on the bump road we use that I showed you. 

Most houses are built like the ones in Statia. They are build to they can rent portions of their house out.

Another island house.

Island Water Works is a store that is along the road to our house.

This house also has a restaurant in it. It always smells very good when we walk past it.

Mini trucks.

One thing able living on a island like St Maarten is there are a lot of island smells. From garbage sitting on the side of the road in this heat. It's nasty!

The island has no drainage system so they have these channels along side some of the road. It's crazy, this would never pass the safety codes back home. A kids could fall in the water and drown.

If you turn right off of the bumpy road once you get to a T intersection, you are then on this road that leads to the university.

The university is right on Simpson Bay Lagoon. I didn't get any pictures of the school but I will get some to share.

We also like to stop at the university if dad is having a break so we can see him. Heres the view towards the Lagoon from the front door.

We also like to go to the boat docks right be side the university to look at the boats and look for fish.

The development across the Lagoon in this picture is Simpson Bay. 

Looking for puffer fish that live under these white barrels.

Water Taxi

In this picture you can see the university in the background.

Passort Pictures:

 We have been wanting to check out the public Library here but it just hasn't happened, till this week. In order to get a kids library card which is free, you have to bring in Passport pictures of the kids so they have a picture on their cards. So we got the kids pictures done, $24 later ($12 per kid). So it worked out the $24 for library cards for a year for the kids. Which isn't to bad, I think its worth it as we will go to the library at least every 2 weeks and its so nice to have some different books to read before bed.... It crazy how Lincoln and Lacey look so much alike a times but then so different.

 Lacey and Lincoln love to Bake. They love to help and get right in with helping make a mess :) I love that they love to help, it makes baking that much more fun.

We also had a Welcome Back Party put on by the school. It was at Buccaneer Beach Bar. It's a fun restaurant as it's right on the beach. So you can have dinner and run along the beach after. The kids did great and had lots of fun too. It was a fun family outing, plus we got to spend time with Josh/ dad.

 Lacey is now 17 months. This little one just got another tooth, the one to the left of her centre 2. Lacey is also in love with playing iPad games.

 One of my happy moments of the week, was buying a watermelon for $5.55US. Thats a good deal for a watermelon here. We have paid up to $18 before.

I have to say that I have never worn flip-flops or swimsuits as much as I have in the last 9.5 months.  I am not complaining one bit. I have never worn flip-flops or swimsuits out before. All my swim suits I brought are so sun faded, thinned and stretched out. Our swim suits have had enough, time for some new ones. Lincoln’s elastic in the waist of he's swim bottoms is so stretched out to the point that his shorts don’t stay up very well, they look too big. But when we put on his new swim bottoms the next size up, they fix him perfect. That shows you how worn out are swim suits are.

 The University got some new GREEN scrubs for all the students. They are sure the talk around the University lately. They are BRIGHT!!! They have many names for them Ninja Turtles, Teletubbies, avocado dieraeu, inmates….. Let’s just say they are BRIGHT and not everyones favourite color.  Josh’s class all wore their scrubs the same day. Here’s the picture to show you there brightness and Josh’s class (3rd term) the Green Team.

 Josh has come down with Dengue Fever or Chikunounya.  He went to the doctors clinic already knowing what he probably had. It’s a virus you get from Mosquitos. You get a head ache, fever, joint pain, eye pain. Let’s just say your in a LOT of pain. So it hasn’t been the best of weeks for Josh, it’s been a tough week. He has to get blood taken on friday to see if it’s Dengue or Chikunouya. There’s not much you can do when you have this, other then you have to just let it run it’s coarse and suffer, it lasts on a average of 2 weeks. Lincoln keeps asking “is dad better yet?” It’s cute to see Lincoln cares so much bout his dad. He’s always wanting to help.

Here's a old picture that I just came across. Of our Statia Relief Society enrichment crag night( Hannah Farrell- Cardston, me, Claire Sala- BC , and Tiffany Erickson- Magrath) I really miss our Statia church group. I loved how even though there was so few of us we made our church group work so smoothly as we all worked together.... But I do really miss what church was like back home , one day.