Thank you for the Birthday Wishes and LOTS MORE!!

Well I did it. I finally made it on here. I have to admit that I would rather be resting or sleeping right now because I feel like I'm always on the go with something. Whether its with or for the kids or trying to keep this house in order, or just your regular living stuff. I'm pretty tired. It can't really be the heat though, there has been a storm passing the last 2 days, i does still manage to be around 27 degrees Celsius in the house though. Imagine when its not raining. It can sit around 30 degrees in here depending on the breeze we can get through here. But all the water is fantastic. they use systerns here so all the water we get to function the house has to come from the rain water. So let it rain! I've heard it can get tricky during the dry season if you don't have a large enough systern and have to get water shipped in which can cost big bucks! So we try to be careful with our water supply. For instance our showers consist of getting wet, turning off the water, washing, and then rinsing off. It works.

I'd like to thanks everyone for all of the nice b-day wishes. It so nice to know people are out there, there is a world beyond this island. Don't get me wrong we are enjoying it, its just good to know people are thinking of you. I had a nice birthday, Todd ordered a cake from the local bakery that we get all of our bread from. Here is a picture of the girls standing in front of our bakery. There are others in town be we really like the people who work so hard to run it.



Anyway so Todd ordered the cake and invited the Coopers over to eat cake with us which was very nice. Later after the kids went to bed one of Todd's friends that he made named Nathaniel and his Dad came for a nice visit and some cake. The girls make me some pretty pictures and Jase gave me a nice big hug and Todd gave me something extraordinary! I have to tell you about it.

the Island of St. Eustatius was one of the busiest ports in all of the Caribbean between the mid to late 1600's to the early 19th century. (I wanted to post the Statia web site on here but there site is down I'm assumming because of the storm). Anyway this is what I've found right now :

When slaves lived in Statia, blue beads were the
form of currency in which they were paid. They could be used
to buy a wife, for example; the price being fixed by the number
of beads required to reach round the prospective bride’s waist.
Rumour has it that on the abolition of slavery, the ex-slaves
flung the beads into the sea as a symbolic act to mark their new-
found freedom. Whereas you will be very lucky to find a full-
sized bead (roughly an inch long) you might well find fragments,
which you are allowed to retain as a keepsake.

So this Island was the main place where slaves were bought and sold. Its very sad, there are still parts of the buildings standing where they kept hundreds of slaves in holes in the basements of 'stores' to sell. These beads were made in the Netherlands back in 1643 and were exclusive to the Island. You can find other beads of different shapes and colours but they were made for other Islands and countries where the slaves were payed with that bead, but happened to be on this island because that particular slave was sold here. To find any of these beads is very hard and some say few and far between, and they say that you don't find the blue bead, the blue bead finds you. So one morning 10 days before my birthday, the blue bead found Todd, and he gave it to me that night because he couldn't wait and I wore it to the first of Todd School Socials that night. It really is quite amazing to think this bead was made around 1643, and it has been rolling around in the ocean since the abolishment of slavery. You can see how its been worn from it journey. I just can't help but think of everything the poor person whos bead this originally was had to go through back then. How blessed we are to live at the time we do!

Pictures of my blue bead. Its pretty amazing that Todd found this in such good shape!





Some people have asked about the place that I live in and what it looks like and what not so I've snapped a few pictures here.

AS you come through our front door this room is directly to your left.



This is what you see to your right through the front door




And this is looking back on the front door. There are sheer curtains like this in all the windows.




This is a picture of the girls room.




I told them I was taking pictures of their room and they wanted me to put this up here!



The other view of the girls room.



Jase's room


Our Bathroom, we acutally have 2. There are no bath tubs here. I really don't think hardly anyone on the island even has one because it takes too much water.





Interesting looking toilet, I think its European, It actually works really good, you can control the amount of water that you flush down.




I had to take a picture of the inside of the toilet. It is so interesting its like a little shelf!



This is our kitchen, its actually a fairly good size.






This is another angle of the kitchen. We've actually reorganized since the picture, but I gives you an idea.



Our gas stove, it actually has a big tank on ground level that we have to full up when it goes empty.







This is the view from the kitchen looking into the dining room & front room



This is a view of our building from the outside. I can't remember if I put this picture up on the site yet but if I have - sorry for the double.





This is my old washer - I say old because I actually just got a new one because this one was broken. the know one is just a newer model of this one. Same general look, and the exact same dimensions. The old one sat on the balcony and I'd get burnt some day doing laundry, but now the old one sits in the house close enough so I have access to the hose to fill the wash basin, and have the used water fall off the balcony. So I just have to day I wish I wouldn't have taken for granted how WONDERFUL it is to do laundry at home.




This is how the machine works, and by the way that is a small container of laundry soap just so you get an idea of how big it is. You take your hose and fill the basin with desired amount of water, (wish I had taken a pic of that) Then you turn to the amount of time you want it to run. Meanwhile you take your big plastic rinsing tub from the side and fill it with water to rinse your washed clothes. So when the washing part was done you would have normally done a light ring of the clothing and put it in the spinner and spun it, then put it in the rinse water and mush it around to rinse it, then light ring, then spinner, then hang on the line. However for the first month my spinner was broken so it was having to ring each item of clothing out twice and my hand were sore and red with almost blister by the time I was done, which took all morning from 7:30 til noon. That was if it wasn't very much laundry and it wasn't raining. Oh and when it rained on my clean hand rung laundry I just wanted to cry. However now with the spinner: (Picture of spinner)...



...I no longer have to hand ring everything really good twice, just lightly ring twice, and use the spinner in between the rinse and hanging on the line. And I tell you when it rains on your laundry you will still be trying to dry it 2 days later because of the humidity. Yesterday It took me all day to do laundry cuz I had so much and then the storm came and rained on all the laundry. I had to re-spin everything and most of it is still trying to dry in my living room. Uggg, now thats laundry nightmare!

Picture of our view looking toward the west



Looking from the front balcony to the east toward St. Maarten




This is part of the road that I take everyday to take the Kids to school. Right now there are beautiful little pink flowers covering all of the greenery. I need to take a picture of that!






Speaking of school, this is what Katie wrote on her homework the other day! Its hilarious! We checked back a couple pages to see what else she had written and she had too other questions finished with the same answer!



Also school related, at the girls school they learn and sing a lot of different religious songs, and sometimes when Courtney sings them for me the odd word has a little Statian accent. Its pretty cute. Songs like "Jesus love is a bubbling over", "Jesus is the winner man", And "There is a book I love to read and Bible is its name oh" (sung to the song about Bingo the dog)! Courtney love to do her homework and has recently begged to do it!

Jase's school is going really well. He is working very hard and is amazing to me. He has completely skipped grade 4 - except for math because he was never exposed to that level before but he should just zip through grade 4 math. And all of his schooling is for grade 5. I love his teacher, and the other teachers in the school. Its is so perfect for him.

Todd's schooling is going really well. He is working so hard and studying a tonne. Right now the biology 1 course he is taking will be done within 7 week and then he continues on to biology 2 for the next 7 weeks. Its a lot of studying, and memorizing in such a little time, but he is doing amazing. The other course that does the same is physics 1 & 2. The rest are 14 weeks. Really fast. Good thing he's so smart! He got a 98% on his 1st biology exam. Yay Todd!



The girls and I went to the beach together on a day that they had off school, Jase still had school, and then we went walking for coconuts and found a bunch and this is Todd getting one of them open for us.





Most people don't eat the coconuts because it take too much work to get it out. I just hate the waste, so yummy and the girls love them! Oh and fresh guava's are wonderful, the seeds are interesting but you just swallow them. Haven't tried a mango yet, they aren't in season right now. We had a papaya tree in our back yard but it blew over in the hurricane. They have lots of different fruits all over you just need to know where to find them and if they are in season.




We got the kids all library cards at the public library. the girls love it! Jase has already got quite the collection of books to read from our friends the Packards who already left the island. Poor Jase seams to always be in school when the camera is out!



The last couple things I have to talk about are
#1
Todd and I are starting the PADI Diving course to be certified open water divers. I start my 1st part tomorrow, where Todd did his last week, and then we will continue together to finish up! Should be fun!

And Lastly We've had twins! Kitten twins that is. We were picking up a friend to go the the beach and he said we had to come and take a look at this and there were 3 baby kittens quite freshly born laying on the cement far apart from each other. They were still attached to the placenta but there was no mom in site. The land lady there said she's been hearing crying for a while now and there were ants all around them. One poor kitty didn't make it, it was dead when we found it. One of them who were still alive looked really good, but the other one not so good. WE picked them up and took them home a bathed them, and luckly I had some syringes to give kids their medicine to feed the kittens some milk. They gulped it down, and we made them a bed in a box, with a warming light and thats where they have been sleeping ever since. I've gotten up at night to feed them and wipe their bottoms, you have to do that after every feed. Boy I've been really tired getting up about every 2 hours on average. But its been worth it. they are so cute, the kids love them, and though its hard for Todd to admit he really likes them too. The kids named them Chocolate and Lucky. However Lucky's name really isn't holding true. she is quite sick and we are not sure if she is going to make it. It breaks my heart every time I have to force feed her to keep her going. I sure hope it helps her, she is all skin a bones now while chocolate is a chunky little thing and her eyes just started opening early this morning. She is so cute - they are both girls. I'll have to remember to get a picture of Chocolate up here so you can see how cute she is, but I won't put any recent ones up of Lucky, because she is really sick and sad looking. They only have a vet here on the island Thursdays every other week. My poor Kitty! They were actually born on my sister Christa's Birthday - September 23. So we have had them almost 2 weeks. Its like I'm a new proud mother, I guess you get kind of connected when you take care of their every living need!

When we first got the kittens - the very first bottle feed.




In there bed for the 1st time.



A couple days old.





About a week old.





Just over a week old. It was hard to get a good picture when they were squirming all around!





Fewf! My goodness I am so glad to be almost done! I've been going almost 3 hours on this! - with a kitten feed in the middle.

So as for me, Tiffany, Well I am enjoying myself a lot here. I really don't have very much 'just relax time' with all of the cleaning, and kids driving, kitten feeding, and Important date mornings with Todd, But I do find a little time to sit and read a book for a little. I'm sure it will change a schedules and kittens change. Generally I find its just a lot like home. Just different people, things are done differently, but i have the same responsibilities, with a nice beach near by to take the kids too!