Well we’ve been Residents of the Caribbean for 6 months now as of February 15, 2011. Its unreal to think that that much time has gone by. It’s feeling more like home more often than it use to. – If that makes sense. We are still loving the warm weather with the occasional longing for snow – at least for one day ;). A relief from the mosquitoes would be nice though they are still alive and kicking. They’ve been worse this year because of extra rain we’ve been getting, and our indoor water mosquito feature doesn’t help much. We live with bug spray and citronella candles. Kind of annoying but I guess you get use to it. They are a lot more potent down here though, super itchy and fast! You’ve got to be really quick to get them.

Our neighbors/land lords are so nice. They’ve helped us out in so many ways. My favorite is the fact that I am able to again love my Jari Love!! If any of you know her she does workout videos, and our neighbor’s let me use their workout room with weights and all! She doesn’t have a step though but that doesn’t matter, it’s just so nice to be active again. It was almost 5 months before I was able to work out again – it feels so good, and my butt doesn’t feel as jiggly any more, hehe! I tried running before but that just wasn’t working out for me.

Todd is doing really good in school. He’s quite burdened with his 7 classes this semester but he’s handling it like a trooper. No one ever does 7 classes! He’s been gone every night and all day studying or going to classes and preparing for mid terms. He got a 95% on his histology midterm and is currently studying hard for his Chemistry midterm coming up. He is doing so well, he’s definitely known as one of the smart ones! So right now we don’t see him very often, almost single parenting but thank goodness I don’t have to work. Its amazing to think that he will be done 3 years of premed courses in 1 crazy accelerated year! He’s handling it really well!

Check out this picture



It looks like Honey has been resurrected! Sadly she hasn’t but we have had not one but two rascally puppies to add to the family. There is a little bit of a story behind all of this. Not long after Honey died we got a call from STANAPA telling us that they found two abandoned puppies on Zeelandia beach, which is quite deserted. They figure someone had dumped them there, so they asked if we would like to have them. Todd talked with them initially and told them he would have to talk with me. I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to have any other dogs again and so we just never followed through with any plans.- and we never told the kids about it even though they had been asking to get another dog. Then one Sunday afternoon a lady comes to the house looking for our Land Lady and she has these two little puppies following behind her. The kids fell in love with the puppies (Todd and I looked at each other – reading into each others eyes!) and It turned out that she was fostering them until the animal shelter – who she volunteers for - could find them a home. Again we looked into each other’s crazy eyes and then we said we’d take them. The lady said that they wanted to find a home that would take them both. And also that they were going to be put down on the Thursday if they didn’t find them a home. So a long story short Kay (the animal volunteer lady) left the house without the puppies. They are pretty good little things. The kids named them – the one that looks like Honey is named Coco, and the one with the brown and white is Patches. Patches was really skittish at first like she wasn’t sure of us and was really skittish when we went to pet her – she acted as if we were going to whack her. We are still working on the potty training but they seam really happy. They love the kids and you can tell they like us humans as lot more. Before we were just kind of ignored now they can’t get enough of us – It’s kind of fun – except for the 6:00 morning call. I have to be up anyway to get the kids to school, but on the weekends it’s not so great!





Courtney loves to pick up the palm leaves and brag them on the grass because the puppies love to tug on them! I don’t know if you can see the expression on Courtneys face, but I love it – it is pure joy!



I love being able to go on field trips with Jase and his school! This trip we went on a hike to Cora Cora Bay. It was fun walking with Jase and just in joying the fantastic view the whole way along. It got pretty hot though even though we started at about 8:00 in the morning, and we missed the actual ‘turn off’ to get down to the bay, but it was still fun to be with Jase. I think he had a fun time. We walked back to the Botanical garden – where we started from – and hid teachers put on a BBQ for everyone. Jase really enjoyed going in the hammock with his friends and playing checkers. We played a game together too. And he really wants to learn how to play chess. So we had a fun morning together on his field trip!

Some cute donkeys we saw on the walk. Look at the furry one – cute!




You can see a cannon there in the hill.



It was Courtney’s day for assembly. He class went up on Valentines day and expressed the importance of Christ Like love. The school has not been allowed to acknowledge valentines day as part of there system for years because of the issues they have been having with kids not knowing or confusing the difference between loving a friend and an inappropriate love for the age they are at. So with prodding the school board by the Principle and Uncle Ismael the day was celebrated in hopes to educate the kids and open their eyes that they can love their neighbor without having to be romantic about it. They shared a really good message and I think its so important to talk with the kids about the different ways to love because apparently, for some, it is being misunderstood.
Here are some pics of Courtney doing her assembly.



Check out our tree with Pink and Orange blossoms. I just thought it was really pretty with the bees cross pollenating.



This little gecko I found in my kitchen. He was so cute I was trying to take a good picture of him forever and then he perched on my finger just perfect to snap this shot. He’s not the tiniest one I’ve seen but for sure the smallest one I’ve held and got a photo – then I couldn’t get him to get off!



One fun thing about living in the summer sun all year round it that the kids have swimming lessons all year round! The University has lessons for anyone living on the island of Statia every Saturday at noon, when the University is not on semester break. It really a great opportunity and it is totally FREE! What an awesome service. Its mainly set for the local population where a lot of them don’t know how to swim or have never set foot in the ocean before. They have kids class and then adult class right after. There has been a fairly good turn out sometimes, but it seam to be getting bigger and bigger which is fantastic. The kids are becoming really good swimmers and Courtney can now swim the width of the pool. It pretty fun. And Jase and Katie are working on all sorts of strokes including the breast stroke, back stroke and treading water for a long time. Close to 5 minutes! Oh I almost forgot to say that Todd was teaching our friend Pallov to swim at one point, and he also helps every once and a while to teach the older group of kids – including Jase and Katie- to swim!

I have this group picture but unfortunately the day they took one most everyone was late and then I missed the retake shortly after this was taken, but what can you do! The kids with Jeremy – the main swim coach and a little girl from the Netherlands named Abbie.





Well we have had a lot happen church wise within the last month. The Mission Presidents Counselor and his wife – the McIntoshes. (They have counselors in these missions with a lot of little Islands because there are so many little group everywhere that need organizing and support from a mission president that they have counselors) were here on the 23rd of January to set us up as a little group here on Statia. We now have about 19 members here and needed some organization. They came and called a group leader – Randal Cooper – and set us on our way. Three of us are continuing our little primary for the kids - now teaching every 3rd week instead of every other week - which seem to be going pretty good. We take turns playing the ‘piano’ in primary too – Rebecca and I. People are asked to do a Sacrament talk or teach the Sunday school class – I’ve taught once so far, Todd taught a few times – and then I play the ‘piano/organ for sacrament. It really is a nice little Sunday we’ve got going. Some Sunday mornings are a little crazier than I would like because we do have church at our house every week and it always seems like a panic scramble to get everything ready. I probably just need to get myself a little more organized. Sometimes its just hard however I’m a firm believer that it will always turn out just fine in the end when I thank my Heavenly Father for all he has blessed us with (which is more than I feel I deserve sometimes) and try to help others along the way.

Here are a couple of pictures for the get together with the McIntoshes. I had Katie’s take some pictures and tried to pick the best – lots unfortunately were blurry.

Pico Degio – I know that’s not how its spelt but that’s how I will spell it. We make this quite often because the ingredience (?) are usually easy to get here – except the cilantro.



Our sweet Station Bar-B-Q we had made when we first got here!




Jase’s Birthday! I can’t believe my oldest baby is now 10! Double digits! This happened back on February 20th. He finally got a 'summer' time birthday to play outside! He had a really wonderful party, I think he and all of his friends had a lot of fun. It started out on the Friday before the big day at school. His school had a party for him, and Teacher Victoria made a cake for him and Teacher Hilda brought some snacks for everyone to share. I came with the girls to share in some of the fun. I had the girls and Jase’s Teacher take some pictures for us. I know it made him feel really special.





This is Jase and Teacher Hilda – Jase’s classroom teacher.



The party then went on to the house on Saturday. Todd busted a coconut open for them, then they played a game called 4 square, the played hide and go seek, soccor, eggs on spoon, and what Jase wanted most was to have a wiener roast. We weren’t sure at first because people don’t have them very often around here. No roasting sticks on the island so we made some out of coat hangers but it came together way better than I thought and the kids had fun!










The boys all then settled down, if you can call it that, and watched a movie and ate popcorn to finish off the party. I think Jase had a lot of fun!

Jase’s actual birthDAY day was pretty busy but we had his favorite breakfast, waffles with whipped cream and fruit. He opted for the picture of him with whipped cream on his face. He had some nice cuddles with dad and that night his b-day buddy came over! It was Pallovs B-day the same day so we had a little cake together with him and Jase an visited for a little










Just some fun picts.

The girls with the dogs welcoming them home.




Jase is Flying the kite he got for his birthday.


This is Katie and we are showing off the start of some of our mangos – mmmmmm can’t wait!!



One more experience I had back in January that was pretty neat for me. I met a lady named Cecelia through my friend, Laura Packard who has since left the island, and Cecelia teaches voice lessons to kids on the island and was having her big final recital/ adjudication day for the kids. Laura had told her long ago that I play the piano and Cecelia was looking for someone to ‘judge’ her students along with another lady named Jacintha (whom I know and has her bachelor in music) on their Preformance. This included if they were on key, presentation, conviction, breathing, posture, and I thought there was one other thing but I’ve forgotten. Anyway I said yes I would help her out – feeling completely unqualified – but it turned out really wonderful. I think doing all of that music with the Young Women before I came here really helped prepare me for this. It was so fun watching these kids sing their hearts out – some nervous and some not so nervous. They sang quite difficult songs actually, kind of like Whitney Houston but gospel songs. Too hard for young vocalist I think but it was a neat experience both in learning a little bit about adjudication, but also seeing another part of the amazing cultural I have been so privileged to be a part of.