It has again been weeks of exciting events in our lives here on Statia.
But first I need to tell of the worst most heart breaking thing that has happened to us since we arrived here. Our sweet little Honey has died, and we have been so sad about it. The kids have been missing her and Courtney even has dreams about her coming back to life. We were all in tears for a few days but are now starting to feel better about it, with a few sad feelings every now and then, and memories of her. Like the one time Court and I were playing with her and Honey was doing something and Courtney said, “Don’t do that Honey you don’t want to be bald like Mom!” Nice hey! Funny girl! I had a hard time packing all of Honey’s playthings and putting her stuff away. Its pretty amazing that having her for only 4 weeks and she made a huge impact on us. We loved her so much, even the pee spots on the floor don’t seem so bad any more. We got her when she was 4 weeks old and so she was just barely 8 weeks. So sad.
We haven’t had very much luck with pets in our family. Our first dog Kaymen we had to give away because we were moving into an apartment. Our Cat ran away. Fuzzy the chinchilla died, Ginger our beloved dog we had in Magrath we had to give away to move here, We saved 2 cats here, one died the other we had to give away because of Jase’s allergies, and now Honey. Our poor kids!! Poor me too because I loved the animals around but I’m’ not sure about getting a new one yet – it is a WE’LL SEE. Honey is still pretty fresh.
Here are some of the last pictures of Honey that we have.
The girls had Niz over and were dancing to some music with Honey.
Todd was out trying to shoot some really loud roosters on the property. We were wondering whether they are good enough to eat. Honey thought it was great fun! Poor Honey
With Jase and Katie’s Ranger Program they do here on the island they learn all about different plants, animals and insects that I have no idea about! This day they brought home some wild cucumbers. The outside was soft but prickly soft, and the inside looked like a mini cucumber. It tasted horrible though, I’m not sure it was ripe but Katie insisted on eating a lot of it, and that night she was sick! Puked twice, had horrible stomach cramps and I don’t think it was the flu. She was fine the next day. Hmmmmm makes you wonder weather it is edible or not!
If you noticed Katies beautiful dress at her baptism, we took some pictures of her in her dress so we will always remember. I’ll have to take some pictures of her at the beach in her dress too I think.
Then she wanted me to take some of her dancing around. I liked this one the best.
So Speaking of chicken getting earlier well Todd with he superior aim shot us a rooter for dinner one night. Todd was in the sniper belly position and got him right in the neck. The rooster around here are really loud and they cock-a-doodle-doo at any time of the night or day - really loud all throughout the island.
Skinning Mr. Rooster for dinner.
So that night we had wild rooster with roasted potatoes, carrots and onions. It sounds grand but it really wasn’t that good at all. He was a really tuff old roster, could hardly chew’em, and really didn’t have that much flavor. Oh well it was fun to try and see what it would taste like. Jase and Katie said that they really liked it though!? Not sure why?
Besides having wild animals out in our yard all the time we actually get them in the house all the time too! We have this one bird who is dead set on building a nest in the bamboo trees in our house. Ellie (the owner of the house) said its not a good idea to let the birds nest in the house so we have repeatedly taken down this poor birds nest. We end up taking twigs and things down at lest twice a day but he keeps coming back. Either this is a really stubborn bird because this has been going on for well over a week, or he’s a little dense and just thinks that this nest is taking a really long time to build!
You can’t really see him in this picture because it’s a little blurry but he is there trying to build the nest.
We also get a variety of other birds flying in and eating off of the plates, and fly around in the house, and we get a lot of them taking baths in the water feature if the peeing boy in our living room. We get humming birds taking baths in there too.
The other day we had the most interesting animal so far in our house – a Juvenile Iguana.
Here is a picture of him in the peeing boy water feature.
And here he is again trying to get out of the house the wrong way.
He scared the pants right off of Todd as he was sweeping the floor around the statue and the plants moved and this Iguana leap up and on the wall of the water feature and then hopped into the bath part – unintentional for sure – and then was desperately scampering around trying to get out through the window. They aren’t dangerous they are more scared of you than you of it. You just have to watch out for their swinging tails as they are moving because they are sharp. Todd finally coaxed it out the right way with a broom. We have it on video I hope to get it on here!
There are some pretty amazing experiences to have on the island here. One of the neatest experiences we’ve had is watching a nest of turtles hatch out and make their way to the ocean from Zeelandia Beach. They have different kinds of turtles that nest here and the ones that we saw are called green turtles. They were so cute and small, they are just a little smaller then the palm of my hand. They moved almost like little robots with their arms(?) and legs rotating like you had wound their backs! It was too neat!
Some more interesting animals and insects we have encountered.
A little tiny gecko that freaked me out when I felt something crawling on my hand. I almost squished the poor little fella! I’ve seen one almost half this size out hanging the laundry but couldn’t get the camera in time!
Some massive poisonous caterpillars. I think they are poisonous because they like to feed off of these plants and they are poisonous plants. We have quite a few of these plants around our yard. They are pretty with their yellow flowers but the white juice inside of them can make you really sick so if you get the juice on you, you need to wash your hand soon after.
A picture of some baby caterpillars about 1 ½ inch long.
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A picture of an enormous mean caterpillar. I got close to it with the camera and it was going mad swatting it head back and forth, side to side, quite quickly actually, looking like it would bite me if I got too close.
Todd decided to have a little activity with the kids of shooting a fancy Beebe gun. Not sure If that is really what it is called but you put these little metal things in them to shoot, not the plastic balls. Anyway the kids loved it especially Courtney. She kept going and going while the other two were done with not as many shots. She was the first one to hit the pop cans we were shooting at. Then Todd drew a target on an old coconut that she started shooting at. It was hilarious to watch her get so excited when she hit the target. The gun was too heavy for her to aim so she would tell Todd whether to move it up down, to this side or that side and when she liked where it was she would shoot. She’d never say – oh wait stop hold it there it was just ‘bang’ as soon as it looked right. Then she’s jump up and see where she hit the can or coconut. So here are some pictures of everyone doing their shots.
Pictures of the girls climbing a coconut tree in our yard. Katie has actually climbed a little higher than that but I won’t let her go any higher! She’ll get hurt but she loves to do it.
Invasion of the cockroaches! Todd and I were sitting in the living room watching TV one night when all of a sudden a huge cockroach was flying aiming at my face to land I screeched and ducked my head to the side. We flicked on the light and noticed a few of them were on the rock feature behind us. Then there were a few more flying in (did you know there were huge flying cockroaches?) and we dodged as couple more. There were some on floor, and the kitchen. I had one land on my right side/back and it scurried up my neck and I yelled to Todd to get it off. He thought it was pretty gross trying to swat it off – their legs are like Velcro. SO GROSS. We thought that maybe there was a storm coming - a change in pressure - and they were finding shelter, and then there were big gusts of wind and a little rain but it was really weird. We’ve never had anything happen like that before. We’ve had a few roaches here and there, but that was crazy. So we did a bunch of spraying that night. Hopefully that will never happen again but living in cockroach heaven I’m sure it will!
The local schools here set up appointments with the local dentist to have the kids get their teeth checked out and make sure they are getting their teeth looked after. I’m not exactly sure why they set it up this way but I think I may be to ensure the kids have good oral health. The school bused Katie and her classmates to and from, but I had to pick up Courtney and take her to and from because of her age. The dentist just gives a quick look and then brushes their teeth – very quickly – with the spinny toothbrush thing and paste at the dentist office. Katie got the fluoride rinse and Court didn’t. It was very nice of the dentist to do my girls for free because we don’t have insurance here and it was through the school. I think the Dutch government use to pay for all the kids, now it is all through insurance. Jase I would have to pay for because he doesn’t go to a local school and he’s older. The dentist told me that it would cost me $50.00 to get my teeth checked and cleaned. Compare that to just over $400.00 back home! I don’t think this dentist includes x-rays or anything though, and I don’t know how thorough the cleaning is but it’s better than a kick in the pants! And Jase is having trouble with a tooth and I have to get it looked at toward the end of February.
Last couple pictures are Jase with some friends of his playing the Wii. Xavier (Zayvee - Standing) and Zay - sitting.
Katie in Gym class – snapped this really quick after taking Court to the dentist.
So I had mentioned before in the last entry that Todd and I were going on a night dive together to put towards our advanced diving certificate. Well it was quite an experience! I usually get a little motion sickness in the boat before the dive – which I did – and a little sick while diving, don’t know why but I just do, and then a little gross feeling on the way back to shore. But this time it was amplified by a ton! I thought I was going to puke after the dive and on the way back. Oh it felt terrible! They think it is just the darkness or something. And then about a ½ hour to and hour later I feel fine. But boy it makes me wonder if I really want to do that again just because I felt so gross which is too bad because it was amazing. Todd really loved it. He said it was the coolest thing he’d ever done. We saw huge sea turtles the size of kitchen tables sleeping under the sunken barge. One swam out toward me and then swam under my belly. I could have reached below me and touched it no problem – but you don’t do that! We saw beautiful coral because of the light we were bringing down you can actually see the real color of the coral. Lot of fish just hanging around, stingrays but the craziest thing we had with us was Berry the Barracuda. This guy is huge, and it interesting because he has learned that when he swims with the divers at night and they shine their light on the different fish, the light blinds the fish and Berry gobbles them up! So this huge massive barracuda swam with us the whole dive. I’m not saying a few feet away I’m saying brush up against you swimming. A couple times he brushed up against one divers head, and a bunch of times I’d look around and he be there ½ a foot beside me. You could count his teeth. And then another time he was swimming right below my belly. If I just pushed my belly out a little I would have touched the top of him. It was really awesome but kind of a funny creepy at times because you’d look over and there would be this ginormous barracuda right there in your face. Good old Berry! I’m sure we will see him again!
I thought for sure by now I would have run out of things to write on this blog, but I think like the saying goes there is always “fun in the sun!”
