Kool Baai Villas

Here's closer look at Kool Baai Villas, what we call home, in the Caribbean. It's a little gated villa/ community located in cole bay. Not like a gated community you would see back home. We love it! It's our own little get away from the local life. I love the palm trees that are around where we live. I'm glad we could call this home for our time on St Maarten.

West entrance to the complex.

Parking lot east entrance. All the fuzz panels are on this brick wall beside the main sidewalk.

Our complex is a gated community of all these island house. 

The houses are owned, rentals and holiday houses. There are four-plexes, duplexes, single story and two-story homes. There are local indians, medical students and families from the UK and France, who all live in Kool Baai Villas

There are little sidewalks in between most of the houses. Lincoln loves riding his bike on all the pathways.

Weekly Update: Back to the real life

 Back to the swing of things. Josh is back to classes with studying late each night.  He has a heavy semester ahead of him. So it's going to be a very busy next 4 months. Kids have been missing him this week after our 3 weeks break with him... and I'm missing him too.  We've tried to stay busy this week. 

The LDS med. wives and kids got together this week. At the Adam's/ Barrett's pool. It's fun having so many friends for the kids here and moms that are going through this crazy med school life to hang out with. (from the left to right: Haley, Krysten, Lincoln, Eli and Quinn). Haley Barrett is one of the daughters to the new family that moved to the island. Krysten and Eli are our Statia friends that we have had from the beginning, they are from B.C./ Calgary. Quinn Adams dad attends AUC and his family is from Utah.

We also spend one day showing The Barrett's around the island and helping them adjust to island life.

 

Letter P for this week.

A poka-dot pig.

I love my kiddos. I'm so glad I'm their mom.

What makes Lacey so fun: When we eat popcorn she will sit and pick through the popcorn to find the popcorn kernels and just eat the kernels. We have no clue why she does this. But she sure gets excited when she finds them at the bottom of the bowl.

I forgot to mention that last week we had a tire blow out. Yes more tire issues. Thats what you get when you have terrible roads to drive on. Luckly Josh was off so he could help get the spare tire on the car for us. Then the kids and I went monday morning to buy a new tire.

The last few days have been quit rainy. It has poured, we've had lightening and thunder storms. Lets just say it has been very wet here. My clothes on the clothes line have taken 3 days to completely dry out. The weather in the day has still been 25-28'c. So still hot but it has felt quit cool for us. I never thought I would ever say 25 feels cool but it does. The kids have asked for their sweaters when we got out and for our walks. I haven't even been putting a fan on them at night in their room and they have felt cool to the touch.

Mother's Day

MOTHERHOOD is not a hobby, it is a CALLING... 

It is not something to do if you can squeeze the time in. 

T'S IS WHAT GOD GAVE US TIME FOR.

- Quoted by Elder Neil L Anderson

These next few words are from a blog I follow. I loved how Becky Higgins put it so perfectly about being a mom.

" I’m overwhelmed that my Father in Heaven has trusted me enough to bless me with children. I’m reminded again of how sacred this role is — to teach, care for, rear, nurture these little people who will not be little very long at all. I never want to take this for granted and yet I know that from time to time, I do take it for granted.

Part of honoring the role of a mother is to pay attention to the promptings we feel as mothers. We’ve been blessed with nurturing hearts. We have feelings that guide us to do what is best for our children and today I want to remind you – and myself – that it is so important to honor our role by not ignoring that feeling in our gut about what we need to do as a mother.

Because the blessing that it is to be a mother is sacred, I want to pay more attention to those “maternal promptings” (insert whatever you want to call it here) … and then ACT. Perhaps you’re feeling that you need to be more patient with your kids. Or maybe you need to be more patient with yourself. Maybe there’s something you know you should be doing (one-on-one time with the kids or reading with them more or teaching one of them something specific) … or perhaps you’re feeling that nudge to eliminate something from your life so you can be more focused on the most important stuff. Pay close attention to your heart. And then put those feelings into action"- Becky Higgins

I love having the privilege of being a mom. I love Lincoln and Lacey. They sure know how to make life fun. Life is good. Life is challenging. Life is rewarding. They make life happy. I make mistakes as a mom, I know I am not perfect but I try. I love being a mom. It's worth every effort.

Cupe Coy Beach

This beach is wonderful! It is off the beaten path a bit. Nestled at the foot of dramatic ochre-coloured cliffs, Cupecoy is a succession of small beaches, gently lapped by the waves.

Mullet Bay

Mullet Bay is one of our favorite beaches. It's only 15 min drive from our house. It's just west of the airport. Mullet Bay Beach sits on the edge of the golf course. The north winds can provide fantastic offshore conniptions for surfers. It's very popular with tourists and locals alike. It has beautiful fine sand. On calm days the water is crystal clear and is great for snorkeling. 

Dawn Beach

Over the break we checked out a few new beaches around the island that we haven't been to yet. This is Dawn Beach on the East Side of the island. The snorkeling at this beah is the best we have found on the island so far. The water was choppy, with minimal waves but super clear. The sand was super soft. We could see St. Barth's to the east. We loved Dawn Beach and will for sure visit it again.

 Guana Beach to the south of Dawn Beach.

 Oyster Pond to the North

Weekly Update: semester break

We had another amazing week with Josh home and we didn't want it to end. We kept very busy with exploring the island each day.

Lincoln's on letter O this week. He loves learning a new letter each week.

One evening we had another beach boom fire. We got together with the Sala's and Alexis ( he's a new med. student from Toronto). I love having a fire on the beach, reminds me of camping back home, which I miss. The kids were in heaven with playing on the beach at sunset and making Smore's. The nights are warm and breezy and perfect for sitting on the beach as a family with friends.

We checked out Point De Bluff, on the french side. It's the part of the island in the picture above, thats at the bottom of the picture. You can also see La Belle Crole ruins in this picture on the center left.

Exploring Point De Bluff

Cooling off after our small hike

We tried Top Carrot out. The have amazing smoothies.

Lincoln found  a cool island tree by Top Carrot

Here's the Eagle sting ray Lincoln spotted while we were on our walk on the docks near the University. It's not the best picture but it's all we got

We found Safe Way all the way in the Caribbean but it's not quit the same

We welcomed a new LDS med. family to the island.  The Barrett's are a family of four ( Taylor, Natalie, Halle- 4, Daylen- 6 months) from Utah. Taylor is attending AUC the over med school University of the island.  We are so excited to have new families join us. Natalies motto she brought with her to the island is "Collect moments, not things". I love it! It's the perfect motto for the island adventure that we are on.

This week there was an LDS med student  from AUC that got robbed and beaten in Cupe Coy. The student was outside the gate to his apartment. He and another student were robbed as they were getting out of their car at about 10:15pm. There were 2 men who were both carrying firearms. The student did not have enough money in his wallet which upset one of the guys so he pistol-whipped him. Poor guy is doing okay now.

Im not looking forward to 4th term starting. Well I am and I am not. I'm glad we are one step closer to having the medical schooling part done and coming home, only 7.5 more months. It also means welcome back to being a medical school wife in a foreign country.

Living in the Caribbean is a huge culture shock. We are a minority here. Another thing that is way, way different is alcohol is cheaper than water out here... yeah. Lots of drinking. Basically every beach is a nude beach, clothing optional. It's just very common out here to not use clothing....Locals are very blunt and tell you how to raise your kids. I've just learn thats just who they are and you can't take it personally.