Weekly Update: Friends

This week we had three outing with all of our friends plus preschool, Library, and hanging out at the pool. It was a fun week for the kids. 

On Monday we went on a Scavenger Hunt in Marigot with our Preschool Group. The we visited a local French bakery for crescents.

We went to the zoo on Tuesday. It was Hot, SWEATY and lots of FUN! We saw lots of iguanas wondering around the zoo. The monkeys were fun to feed as always. 

Kids had a blast on the zoo's park. The parks are so sad here, they are island parks (old and run down). But we will take what we can get. The zoo park is the only park we can play on, on the island.

I love island trees as they are so different then the trees from back home. Look at there roots growing our of the side of the tree looking for more water.

Freeze time at the zoo with friends. Freezes melt sooo fast here.

Standing up in the back is Krysten Sala. Front row from the left: Caleb Tidmarsh, Lincoln, Liam Tidmarsh, Eli Sala, Lacey and Brenner McMurrary.... Brenner is going to be our new neighbor when the Tidmarsh's leave the island. Brenner has a younger sister Adi who is two.

We visited a new beach on Thursday with friends. Hanging our with friends makes the time go by fast.

 This beach is Cay Bay. Which is about a 5 minute drive from our house on the Dutch side. It's in a area thats just getting developed. The beach was very quite. More of a natural beach, less touristy area. The water was an amazing blue color, as you can see above.

Cay Hill is the area above Cay Bay thats getting developed. It's going to be beautiful when its down. They are doing a tone of landscaping, which is something you don't see much here.

Here's another picture to show the crazy blue color of the ocean. This picture hasn't been edited this is the actually color of the ocean that this beach.

In the afternoons while Lacey's having her nap Lincoln will often play with Liam. This is there little hang out spot in our back yard under our tree. Lincoln's going to miss Laim when he leaves.

Letter X for X-Ray.

Little Jerusalem

Friends reccomned this place. It's a tiny restaurant made out of a shipping container located in Simpson Bay. The food was amazing, definitely two thumbs up. We will be going back thats for sure.

Chicken Shwarma

BBQ Shwarma combo plater

Grand Case With Dad

We thought we better squish in a few hours at the beach with dad before its he's cramming for blocks again. In two weeks it's already block week, which means Josh practically lives at the school. So on Saturday we headed to Grand Case Beach in the afternoon. We had a great time. The beach wasn't as quite as our first visit to this beach, but it was saturday afternoon. I guess this beach is the place to be for locals to hang out on. They had their BBQ's going, music cranked and they were dancing away. I now know why teens have such a hard time living the standards of the church.... So we were planning on sitting by the pier so the kids could jump in the water but we decided to move down the beach a bit farther which was just as fun. 

We meet a few friends at the beach. Lincoln, Eli and Quinn were building hotels in the sand. Grand Case is a beautiful beach with lots of little rocks and shells washed up on shore. The boys were decorating their hotels with the rocks and shells... Lincoln was a trooper even with a sprain foot.

Lacey and dad coming back from a swim

Snack time for Lacey.

Lacey ready to jump. She's sure a little fish.

While snorkeling Josh found these spider crab creatures. When we got home I looked it up online, it's a "yellowline arrow crab". It was sure interesting to look at. It had tiny claws. A pointed head. Eight legs. The kids sure thought it was neat.

Primary Activity

We had a primary activity this week. It was a 'Article of Faith Scavenger Hunt'. We got a good turn out from the medical student primary childcare but only one local came. The activity was a lot of fun. It was a success! It's been fun serving in the primary.

Everyone who came. We split the childcare up into 4 teams

Orange team ( Quinn, Brenner, Halle, Lacey and me)

Red Team ( Claire, Jane, Tegan and Lincoln)

For the treat the primary children got to decorate cupcakes.

Weekly post: Sprained toe/foot

It's been a HOT sweaty week. When I think it can't get any hotter it does. It's the perfect weather to live in water so thats what we've been doing.

It's mango season.... The kids and I still manage to go for a run together in the morning before the heat of the day sets in. On our outing Lincoln spotted a few mango trees and he wanted some mangoes off the tree. The once we saw weren't ripe enough yet. A local man saw that we were looking for some ripe mangoes and he told us he had some for use and to wait a minute and he'd go get them. The kids were so excited that they got mangoes... Look how big they are.  Mangoes fresh from the trees are so much better then from the store.

Lincoln wanted a picture by this huge palm tree leaf thats in our gated complex. It's crazy how big they can get.

Here's another one of Lincoln's finds. He found a little nest with the tiniest egg in it.

Lincoln and his friend Liam. These two play so well together. Lincoln is sure going to miss Liam when he leaves in a month to go back to Canada,

The letter W- waves, watermelon, water. 

The top left picture is Lincoln using a toothing pick to pock holes to make a W. Then he would flip over the page and feel the bumpy W with his finger. He enjoyed this letter exercise.

It seems like some weeks I have more pictures of Lincoln but then other weeks, like last week I have more of Lacey. He's Lincoln being Lincoln. He's giving his dogs a plane ride.

This week we got to go play at Twist & Shake at the Blue Mall, for free!

Lindsay a AUC medical student wife did a pie fundraiser and with the money raised she puts together  fun events for the St. Maarten medical school kids. She's an amazing person, to do all this work so we can have a free afternoon of fun. The kids had a blast. Twist & Shake is a indoor play center. Best part is the have A/C... Lincoln had a accident while playing hard. He crashed with another kid. He twisted his big toe/foot and sprained it.

I couldn't get a good picture that showed how swollen and bruised it was... That night Lincoln wouldn't walk on it or put pressure on it. Josh checked it over and was pretty sure it was just a bad sprain and not broken. So we iced it and gave Lincoln some Advil. That morning Lincoln tried to walk on in with a limp. We just took it easy that day, watched movies, iced his foot and tried to keep him off his foot as much as possible. Which is difficult as Lincoln always on the move playing ... Lincoln has been a tough boy. It hasn't slowed him down to much.

Happy Birthday Papa Yamamoto!

You have always been very nice, thoughtful and kind to me. I am glad to have you in my life. I'm thankful for the relationship we have and for the amazing second father you are to me. Happy Birthday!!! Hope you have a fantastic day. Wish we were closer so we could celebrate with you -Kayla

Happy Birthday Papa Harker!

We wish Papa Harker a HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Wish we could celebrate with you today. Have a fantastic day.Thanks for being a great Papa to us. - Love Lincoln and Lacey 

Just want my dad to know that I miss him a lot and think about working with him all the time, and learning things from him almost every day, whether its a new craft in carpentry or something new we discovered together. As crazy as it sounds I really miss working for 12 hours in a day and being able to see the accomplishment that came from seeing what you had crafted. In school all you get after 12 hours is a sore brain. I think about my dad always telling me that the problem with kids these days is that they don’t know how to work and that they aren’t taught to work. If my dad could claim a top value that he has instilled in his kids, its when he says that "you don’t get anywhere in life without working hard… and those that do don’t appreciate it”... I am extremely grateful for that. It has helped me in so many aspects of my life. I’m grateful for his friendship, whenever I am with with or I talk to him I don’t feel like its a father telling his son something, it feels more like a good friend sharing something he saw or heard that day. I think its why me and scott are so close. He has always been the guy in the middle keeping me and scott happy and making sure we resolve our differences and keep on being friends. I love you dad, thanks for everything you have done for me and still do for me, I couldn’t imagine my life without your influence and your love. - Josh

Grand Case Beach

Grand Case is  a town in the northern coast of St Martin. Grand Case is located on the French side of the island. From Grand Case you have a beautiful view of Anguilla, the neighboring island. 

The Gourmet Capital of the Caribbean. Grand Case is famously known for it's delicious French Gourmet food. People come from all over the island to these restaurants that are located all along the Grand Case Boulevard. Restaurants line the whole beach. It reminds me of the Boardwalk/Great Bay, on the Dutch side without the large side walking along the beach.

Grand Case Beach was beautiful. It was more of a natural beach.

 This local man was sitting on the pier watching some local kids participate in a summer camp. Kids get summer holidays from June-July off. They head back to school beginning of August.... I was fascinated by the hat he was wearing. He said he got it from Guadalupe, he paid $80 for it and it's hand made.

The reason I wanted to check out this beach was because I saw a picture of this cement pier online.

 We found two star fish. One was just on the beach and the other one was stuck to the rocks in the water.Lincoln was pretty excited about our finds.

The kids loved playing under the pier.

(left to right - Lincoln, Lacey, Krysten and Eli)

Lincoln didn't want to be in a picture with mom and Lacey, so that's why he got his own picture with the star fish.

The water was crystal clear the day we went, with no waves. So it was prefect for the kids to play it. We also had a blast jumping off the pier into the ocean. Little miss Lacey was also right in on the fun. She was the first to jump off. She has no fear. She loves to be doing what Lincoln is... Jumping into the ocean with my kids made for a perfect beach day.  I had a lot of fun with them. We were living in the moment and enjoying life. Perfect beach days makes it worth living in the Caribbean worth it.

We also saw a lot of fish off the pier. It reminded me of Finding Nemo, the movie. Next time we are bring our snorkels.

Grand Case as hit bad in the 1995 hurricane Luis and 1996 hurricane Bertha. Damaging a lot of the restaurants that line the beach. In the picture above you can see how the restaurants have decks over looking the beach.

We had a lot of fun at this beach. We plan to go back soon, but with dad next time.