1st Week of Wonderfulness

Courtney burred in the sand at Zeelandia Beach


Jase on the boat the the Packards and Queens


Katie and Charles -Packards youngest at Zeelandia Beach

Katie climbing a coconut tree in St. Maarten


View of the Quill - island volcano - from our current place



girls playing in the rain - love'n the brief cool rain


Iguana Stuck in the fence - Todd threw a towel on it and saved it
Boy they move fast and have sharp tails


Girls found the iguana.



I know wonderfulness is not a REAL word but for me today it is! WOW its been amazing, and it has a lot to do with some amazing people that we have met. There is an awesome family the Packards who are leaving on Friday morning actually - boo whoo for us! They have showed us all around, telling us the do's and don'ts and just being wonderful. We have been so blessed to meet them. We've met another family, the Queens, who were introduced to us, by the Packards, who have been amazing and whom i'm sure we will see a lot of in the next 3 years - they own a house. They are so easy going and so generous with everything.
We've gone to the beach almost everyday, gone snorkeling, boating, floating, dinner parties, and just enjoying life here on the island.
We live with a lady named Vilma Rivers who is so sweet and kind. We live in one area of her house and share the kitchen and living area with her for now. She taught me how to do laundry here - its much different than home - you need to be quite careful with your water consumption. She has been a good source of information about some things on the island.
Our rental house we should be able to move into very soon actually. We went and looked at it yesterday and it is very nice, i'll have to get pictures of it later.
I've been trying to get the kids into school. The 7th day Adventist is the one the girls will be going to, and we are trying to get Jase into a different school that is for the kids who's parents work for the Oil Terminal here. The schools on the island are actually quite behind the American schools, and therefore are behind our schools at home at least by 1 year. Jase was already a head of his class at home and needed to go beyond his schooling there, so this Terminal school will actually keep up with him and go at he pace is learning. The girls will love the Seventh day school, with lots of music and farm animals and friends to make.
Todd bought a scooter to zip around the island to and from class, we are still looking for a car - hopefully soon!
One interesting story - we got our backpack stolen.
We were at the beach and there were these two boys just hanging around lounging around or stuff. Todd was talking with them giving them pretzels and candy. They are from NY visiting family til January. I walked over taking with them they told us their names and where they were staying. And then we continued to talk with the people we were swimming with and i heard a loud swooshing of material and i looked over and our back pack was gone and ran to Todd and asked him if he had the back pack and we realize thoes kids stole it. We went running to the cars and went chasing, and Laura Packard said I feel like we should go up the Slave Trail - thats what its called, and Randall Cooper looked up and saw some kids running and yelled. We went up the trail and Todd came down - they drove up to the top - found the back pack thrown in the brush, things inside thrown out, the Todd Ipod gone with charger, and we were so panicked because Todds wallet was in the bag, we looked for it and there it was. They had completely missed the wallet with 400 guilders in it. (about 220 dollars) More amazing parts to the story, our camera right before we went to the beach stopped working, couldn't figure it out so we left it at home - it would have gotten stolen, and then we came back home, Todd did something to it and then it works just fine now AND Today Todd went to the police station and they had got the kids, got the Ipod back with the charger and everything. So many blessing in just 2 days! Funny thing Todd saw the main kids who stole it today on the island and gave him a talking to - if you know Todd it was very sensible, and hopefully made this boy think a little more about his future.

Anyway I blabbed on, but its all exciting stuff. Its a small island everyone knows everyone, and life goes on!

On the little plane to Statia

Holding the Lobster in st. Maarten

Our friend we met Junior



Snorkling The kids loved it!!!!

The Girls!


Swimming on the beach off our humble hotel.

Well here we are!

Well we made it here to the actual Island of Sint Eustatius on Wednesday August 18th, 2010. After a Flight to Toronto on the 14th, an overnight 'sleep' in the airport and a flight to St. Maarten and then a Mini airplane flight to Statia on the 18th. We are 3 hours ahead of where we came from in Alberta.
This is Tiffany here and I'll be doing the posts, Todd will be busy working hard studying to be a Doctor. The Island is mostly called by the locals here Statia (Stay-sha) for short. We stayed on Saint Maarten for a couple days, hanging out checking out the dutch side and making friends with some people. We met a nice guy named Junior and he showed us around a fabulious place where the kids snorkled for HOURS. They loved it. The beaches are beautiful and the was ocean very warm. Warmer than here on Statia. We met 2 very nice families on 2 seperate days on St. Maarten. The one family had two girls in it and at first they just stared at Courtney. They would come close and just stare and then looked at her hair just dying to touch it. I asked if they wanted to touch her hair and after that they spent about and hour touching our hair and playing crocodile with their brothers, Jase the Girls and I. (Todd was looking for a way to the Island) They would touch our skin and then our hair and then want me to put Courtneys hair in the water so they could feel it in the water and watch it flow. It was so fun!! They were really cute girls. I wish I had a picture with them but it didn't work out that way.
Our little hotel room was right across from the McDonalds! We actually never went there, Todd got us a couple breakfast sandwiches one morning but that was it - we didn't want to go there when we had other new things to try. We ended up catching the plane to Sint Eustatius, we were hoping for a cheep boat to take all of our things and a bunch of groceries over, but it turned out fine. We've got all of our luggage and all the groceries we bought from Cost-U-less (basically Cost-Co, they were shipped on a cargo boat later).