Weekly Update: Kelsey, Letter I, baptism

Our family on Sunday

This is our Philipsbrug St Maarten Branch that we attend each Sunday. Our Branch has 200 member but we are lucky is 40 member show up each week (majority are medical families). There is one branch for the whole island. The church isn't very strong here.

This week we were on the letter 'I'. It was a crazy busy week so we didn't get much time to work on the letter I, so we will go over it more next week too when we do the letter J.

TUESDAY: Kelsey arrived!!! This week was a fun busy week. We had another visitor come visit us :) It was one of my childhood friends. I have known Kelsey as long as I could remember. So it was fun to be able to caught up on life and what we are both up to these days.

WEDNESDAY: We just took it easy and hung out at the pool at Kelsey's resort. Kelsey Stayed at Royal Palm Resort in Simpson Bay (5 mins from our place). 

It was amazing. The kids and I had so much fun.... The kids both didn't want to leave.

Lincoln has master summersaults under water. I never taught him, he just figured it out himself.

 That evening we went to the Carousel. Lincoln loves the spinning tea cup on the carousel.

THURSDAY: On Thursday we went to Fort Louis, the Marigot Market and Mullet Bay

Here we are at the Coconut Man Hut enjoying our Pina Coladas.

FRIDAY: We got the opportunity to sail to Anguilla to swim and for lunch. Pristine white sandy beaches and turquoise blue waters. It was amazing and a fun adventure. Other then I got motion sickness on the way there. Not fun when I'm trying to take care of two kids.

This is the boat we sailed on. We left at 8am in the morning and didn't get back till 5pm. It was a long hot day in the sun. Luckly the kids or I didn't get a sun burn.

Anguilla is a small flat island to the north of St Maarten. We sailed from Simpson Bay, St Maarten  to Sandy Grounds, Anguilla. It's roughly 1 hour to cross with a ferry from Marigot on the ferry crossing, but we went from the south side of St Maarten to the north side of Anguilla so I'm guessing 2 hours or so boat ride.

Before we boarded, the kids wanted a picture in front of the boat

Our first stop to swim at.

Lacey's first nap off the day. Only lasted 20 mins while Lincoln got to swim.

Snack time on the boat.

This was another boat that did a similar trip like ours.

This is where we stopped for lunch. The beach is called Sandy Grounds. On our way back both kids fell asleep on my lap. I was a bit worried to take Lacey and Lincoln on a boat all day, but the kids did amazing. They listened so well. We were all exhausted from our fun day in the sun. Definitely made some good memories.

Sorry I didn't get more pictures of the day, wish I did. My hands were pretty full watching my kids on the boat all day and making sure Lacey didn't jump off the edge.

SATURDAY: Kelsey went on 3 dives; to a reef, a ship reck and a shark dive. She said it was fantastic. While she was having fun in the ocean we went to a baptism. Annalisa has been coming to church with her grandma for the fast few months. Her grandma got baptized in October and now Annalisa at the age of 11 years old made the discussion to get baptized. She's one of the primary children that I have the opportunity to teach each sunday and I'm very proud of her and the decision she has made.

It was neat to see a baptism in the ocean. This was also Lincoln's first baptism he has seen.

The group that came to support Annalisa on her special day.

The Primary leader: Left- Megan Maxwell (music leader). Center- me ( first counselor/teacher). Right center - Annalisa. Right- Camille Tidmarsh ( Primary President)

Sister missionaries with Annalisa

That afternoon after the baptism and Kelsey's dives we meet up at her resort and went for a swim again.

Thanks to Lincoln for taking this picture for us.

That evening some of the sisters from our branch got together for the Women's Broadcast that is put on by the church. Love having such great sister to hang out with.

(from the left to right- Sister missionaries, Sister Thompson, me, Camille Tidmarsh, Jessica Adams, Claire Sala). Sister Thompson is from Utah and is serving a mission here with her husband, who is the branch president.

SUNDAY: We hit the Boardwalk in the morning before Kelsey's flight.

Josh came with us in the morning to boardwalk ( it was nice to actually see him for a bit, 2 more weeks then block exams and the shelf exams will be done so we can see him some more), so we were able to get a picture of Kelsey and I.

 Another pirate picture, this time with mom.

 We found a fish store. They had some pretty neat things, the kids loved this big fish.

Lincoln finally found a small license plate for his bike at he boardwalk market. He was a HAPPY boy.

Some of the stores are so cute. I love the bright colors.

Thanks to Lincoln's camera taking skills, I was able to get a picture with Kelsey right before we said our goodbyes.

Lacey enjoying an ice cream on a hot evening in the Caribbean.
Lacey loves saying turtle these days, its so cute when she says it.

Weekly Update: 26, St Patrick's day, face painting

This was the first St Patrick's/ Birthday that I was away from home and family.

Here's a love note from Josh:

 There’s really no contest when it comes to the best thing in my life. It’s you by a long shot. You’re my everything! I love you so much. Happy birthday, Luv you so much! - Josh

Here's our St Patrick's Day decorations

Lacey's St Patrick's day craft with mommy's help

 My birthday was great I got to spend it with my kids as Josh was at school all day and studying all night. I sure do miss not seeing him... We also had a little green party with our friends in the morning for the kids. We all dressed up in green.

 We made leprechaun hats.

 Lacey the leprechaun, she was so proud of her hat.

We decorated cookies with white and green icing and sprinkles.

The kids got their faces painted by Claire. 

Lacey got a butterfly.

Lincoln's a tiger, Eli's a green fox

...And Krysten was a butterfly.

That evening I got to go our with the girls for dessert. Claire and Camille are both med. student wires. Claire is from BC, Canada and Camille is from Lethridge.

Our Library visit. We got at least every couple of weeks. The kids love going. Heres a tree we found just outside the library that caught our attention. The branches grow down wards into the ground, it was pretty neat looking.

We bought a new tire a few weeks ago but it kept going flat so we went back to the tire shop that we bought it at to get them to look at it. Tire shops are pretty fancy here.

Lincoln waiting patiently.... It was just the air valve that we leaking so they replaced that, we are good to go.

Usually when we do chalk we draw in our back yard but this day we decided it would be fun to go in front of our place and draw on the gated complex side walk. Kids loved it as it was something different.
 It's getting too hot to do side walk chalk these days.

We even got to practice the letters that lincoln has learned so far.

Playing in our bath tub out side. Trying to keep cool.

Letter H

 This is a turtle that Lincoln drew on his on

KimSha Beach

 This week we did a beach day date with all the med. student wives (from our university and AUC) and kids at KimSha Beach (it's located just behind the Burger King in Simpson Bay). It's fun getting all the kids together and having some beach fun.

It's neat how each beach on St Maarten has different sand. Some is more white and some is coarse with broken up sea shells.  We also find that KimSha Beach the water is more salty for some reason, it burns the eyes.

Lacey still thinks that she always needs to be snacking at the beach.

Food and sand is not a good combo.

 Lacey keeps me runny with always wanting her buckets filled up with water.

There's a little climb on center at this beach for the kids to play with.

Lacey is cooling off with her foot in the bucket of water.

Lincoln can never sit still for two seconds to eat, he always has to be playing.

Lacey and Krysten have matching swim suits.

Lacey loves following Krysten around.

The boys being silly.

Lincoln and Eli also have matching swimsuits.

Pool Time

As I said earlier Lacey always has to be snacking, well its the same at the pool as we usually go there right after her nap in the afternoon. So she will sit and eat her snack on the bench while she wakes up then she will go swim after.

My fish

Lacey still has no fear. She will jump in the pool all on her own, Puddle jumper or no puddle jumper.

She has gone right under with no jumper even when I have explained to her that she needs to ask for help or get her jumper or she will go under. when i pull her out from going under she doesn't looked one bit fazed. It almost acts like that was fun.

Most days we have the pool to our selves. It's kinda nice.

 Lincoln got to have a nap with dad one afternoon.


On Friday Josh and I got to go out for our 6th Anniversary, we ate at a restaurant call Fusion. It was amazing. It was so nice to get out and go on a date.


Josh's meal - stuffed Halibit with lobster.

Here's some more info on what life is like on a island:
Locals seem to have no respect for you and look at you like your stupid if you ask any questions. 

FOOD: I always dread going grocery shopping each week. Even when I have my car. Grocery shopping is nothing like it is back home. Everything had to be shipped to the island, so most of our food had gone from Miami to St. Maarten. That’s a long journey to keep lettuce looking nice! It isn’t really an option for us to consistently be able to find good produce. Cooking take a lot of creativity, but mostly we just eat the same meals over and over…and over again.  Im not a fan of cooking dinner over a hot stove in this weather. So making meals can be challenging.

 MILK: It definitely took some getting used to, fridge milk just isn't the same as back home. I look forward to drinking a tall glass of cold Diary milk when we get home. You can also get self milk or powder milk.

ISLAND SMELLS: Okay, so on St Marten there are almost no side walks.  I’ve seen, like, one that lasted for 5 seconds.  So everyone has to walk on the side of the road, and usually you would think ‘no big deal’.  But they still have to have a way to drain the water when it rains.  Which it happens quite a lot here.  And so since they have no real curb to be their drain they have these little trenches, that are on the sides of the roads.  Unfortunately the water in the drains gets mixed with dirt and whatever else finds it’s way in there, so when you walk somewhere you are at risk of falling into the sludge, and some of us have. Plus it stinks.... Garbages along the side of the road also get pretty stinky in the heat. And I usually see rats wondering around the garbage cans.