Uncle Scott's Visit/ Our Last Week

Our last visitor who visited us on St Maarten is Uncle Scott. 

Tuesday December 9th - Waiting for Uncle Scott to come visit was like waiting for Christmas. We made a count down chain and took a ring of each night before bed. The kids were buzzing with excitement counting down the hours till we could head to the airport to pick Uncle Scott up. Since Josh writes his NBME exit exam on Wednesday we picked Josh up on the way to the airport for his study break. We haven’t seen Uncle Scott in 20 months, so we were excited to finally get to see him again. Lacey was only 6 months old when we left so she actually wouldn’t remember him but since we FaceTime weekly she knew who he was. After we picked Uncle Scott up we headed to Jimbo’s restraunt for a bit to eat. We had a quick dinner then had to drop Josh back off at school so he can get his final hours of studying in. Once we got home the kids wanted to go swimming with Uncle. We had a swim in the dark and finished our night of with watching Christmas movies. Scott says 

St. Maarten reminds him a lot of Mexico where he served his mission.

Wednesday December 10th- Today was the day Josh wrote his exam, so we kept busy for the morning with Uncle Scott by going to Fort Luois and Marigot Market. It's weird to think this will be our last time visiting these places on the island.

As soon as Josh was done writing his exam at noon. Scott and Lincoln went to pick him up from the University. I stayed home as Lacey was having a nap before we headed to the beach. We ate lunch then headed to Mullet bay. The wave were huge. We have only seen them this big two other times.  It was fun playing the waves and watching the surfers.

After an afternoon in the sun we went to Josh’s grad ceremony. It was fun seeing all the students one let time before we say good-bye. After the ceremony a lot of the student went to the restaurant SPN to visit. Lincoln and Lacey were tired at this point so mom headed home with them to put them to bed so they'd be well rested for the next day.

Thursday December 11th- We started our day off with showing Uncle Scott our local bakery Carl N Sons. We are sure going to miss their dealious baked treats. After we hit up a few little island shops... One thing we were looking for was a St Maarten flag for Lincoln. Funny how hard it was to find one, but we got one. Lincoln was one happy boy. Lincoln has always shown a interest in flags as there are all the country flags that were hang up around the airport road.

Little Divi Bay was no disappointment once again. We had a great time riding the waves, snorkelling and making sand castles.

Friday December 12th -We had a great time at Pinel Island. It’s such a fun play to go for a day trip The kids love the 5 min boat trip through the waves. 

 The hit of the day was feeding the iguanas the lettuce we bring for them. Way better then the pet stores back home. Lacey calls them dragons.

Saturday December 13th-  We went to go see David's Arch Way then off to explore La Bella Creole Ruins one last time. It's amazing to see what a view the old resort ruins have.

Following the morning of exploring we met up with some island friends for lunch and The Edward's family for dinner. We are sure going to miss our island friends. They were just like family. Then home to pack and clean the house.

Sunday December 14th - The day finally came, moving day back to Canada. We made sure we were mostly packed the night before so all we had to do was put a few thing in our suit cases.  We started taking our suitcases to the airport around 10:30am, it took two trips to get all our belonging there. That's 8 suitcases, 3 carry ones, 4 personal items, a stroller and a carseat.We were finally all checked in at noon, just enough time to grab some lunch at the airport before going through security. Our flight was suppost to depart at 2:30pm but for some reason the plane was delayed getting to St Maarten so we didn't take off till 3:30pm. Lincoln and Lacey did amazing on the 6 hour flight. We kept them busy with iPad games, movies and a felt book from Nana Yamamoto. We had a connecting flight to Chicago with a 1 hr 53 mins lay over then off to Calgary. We were pretty much sure we were going to miss our contacting flight as we had to go through customs, check in all our suitcases again and go through security. But some how our pilot was able to make up the hour time the plane was delayed so we had 1 hr and 30 mins by the time we got off the plane to. We rushed as fast as we could and we were able to get  through with 10 mins to spare. Good thing I pack subs for supper as we had no time for supper at the airport. We departed Chicago at 8:30pm for a 3 hour flight to Calgary. By the time we got on our second flight the kids were exhausted as they were trying to fall asleep at the last 20 mins on our first flight. They fell asleep pretty soon after take off. Lincoln slept the whole flight and lacey sure tried to but she has a hard time sleeping if she not stretched out, luckily we found a extra chair and did some shuffling so she could sleep a bit better. 

We arrived in Calgary at 11:18pm. We had to wake the kids up to get off the plane. We collected our 8 suitcases but couldn't find our stroller and carseat. We went to the airline desk and they confirmed  that the stroller and carseat were still in Chicago. Our airline were very helpful and made arrangements for our stuff to be deliver to our place in Lethbridge. They also had a replacement car seat  we could use till we got our. Since We originally plained to find a hotel and crash for the night then drive back the next day. Uncle Scott had slept the whole second flight he we ready to drive back to lethbridge.  So we opted for that as we could safe that hotel costs. I stayed up with Scott to help him stay awake. We arrived in Lethbridge at 2:30 am ( which is 5:30am in St Maarten which is the time our bodies were still use to). Feels so good to be home!