Way Back in September Statia celebrated Tourism week. The first activity for the kids on the agenda was a morning presentation to officially open tourism week and a song/skit was made by the different schools to help celebrate. It was very busy and loud with all the kids from the school but I think they all had a good time. None of my kids actually ended up doing any part of the presentations – which I didn’t know – but it was fun to watch the kids I knew participate by dancing and singing.
I did of course take pictures of the kids sitting with their classes, visiting with their friends and teachers, and getting a yummy snack.
Katie with all of the elementary kids in her school & her principle Tr. Joanna
Katie with Tr. Debra from the SDA School – she just loves the kids, especially Katie.
Jase with one of his friends Shevron. Katie playing with Maia’s Platts.
As we were getting ready to leave the opening cerimonies for tourism week, I started talking with some of the gentlemen around there and one of men I was talk to was Stanley Van Putten. He has been on Statia his whole life and has done a great amount of service for the island. And his current service, and a service he has proudly been doing for roughly 30 years has been to ring the bell in the Fort of Oranjestad at 6am, 12 pm and 6pm everyday. He has never missed a ring. In fact one day I saw him running down the road toward the Fort and gave him a ride so he wouldn’t be late – mind you he was still 15 min early when I got him there and he was only a couple blocks away when I picked him up. He has great diligence. The bell originally hung in the bell tower of the Dutch Reformed Church Tower, build on November 2, 1755, but was broken off by a hurricane along with the roof. So now the bell sits in the Fort to be rung 3 times a day by Stanley. He invited us to watch him ring the bell, as you can see in the pictures it is VERY loud, and take some pictures with him. It was really a neat experience to be able to do that with him.
The next two pictures are of the Reformed church the way it is today.
Continuing on with tourism week they had a set up of tables by volunteers to represent their country. They had all sorts of Caribbean countries, Jamaica, St. Kitts, Curasou, Guiana, lots I can’t remember, Puerto Rico, Netherlands, Philippines, and Statia. Different booths had different foods from their culture to try. It was pretty fun. Katie’s school ended up going earlier in the morning then they were scheduled so I didn’t’ see her and Jase didn’t get to go, so it was Courtney Todd and I.
Miss Puerto Rico Herself! My friend Debbie put together a table for Puerto Rico! Here she is talking with Courtney.
Todd with some ladies that work at the University. Joyce, Todd and Maria (Left to right). We almost lived in Joyce’s suite under her house until we found our current place. She and her husband have a great family and some very nice kids. The youngest boy loves Todd; every time he see’s him he gives Todd a great big hug!
To finish off tourism week they had a parade down Sandy road with the drums playing, and all the school kids lined up on the street holding their countries flag and cheering on the parades! Half way down the street they paused to start a race to the finish line for all the people representing their country in the parade. But the catch was that you had to be wearing a pair of stilettoes to race. You should have see some of the shoes people were sporting. My favorite participant was a man wearing a pair of zebra striped ones. It was pretty funny! He was a really good sport about it too racing down the road to win!
Debbie and I waiting for the parade to start. Debbie was representing Puerto Rico and the USA. I was of course representing Canada – the only one in the parade. If they do this next year I’m going to have to recruit a few more Canadians! They also broadcast the parade over the TV for a period of time and you could see Jase and I one the Statia channel for a week or so…. TV Stars.
After the parade the kids all walked down to the Terminal Park and had a hotdog and just played around for the rest of the school day.
Courtney and Mae-Rubea
Sarah, Niz and Katie
Here is a stick bug I found on the fan one evening, kind of neat bugs. I had one crawling in front of my face one night while I was resting on the couch, I opened my eyes to a large stick but not a centimeter away….
Jase told me a story the other day about an iguana getting stuck in a classroom one day. Kids were screaming the teachers were trying to shew it out, and they got it out but then it ran into the bathroom and then there were trying to get it out with broom. Jase thought it was the funniest and most exciting thing to happen ever.
So one day the kids were real Robinson Caruso’s! They decided that they were going to climb the champagne coconut tree and get juice out of the coconuts. So Katie being our climber climbed up the tree and would tug on those coconuts until they fell down. Jase and Courtney would then start working on the tops and Jase figures out how to work off the top of the coconut and then dig a whole into the center and get the water out of the coconut. Cleaver kids! They did about 8 coconuts collected the juice and we ate some of the jelly inside and Todd made us some smoothies with fresh (well frozen in our freezer) mango, banana, and coconut milk! So yummy. We actually make smoothies like that quite often!
Just a fun day at the beach!!! Jumping off of an old dock supporting beam thingy in the water.
Katie
Katie jumping & Courtney jumping off of Daddy’s shoulders.
Katie in sequence
Jase
The last picture is me with 2 of my good friends Anike (left) and Marcela (right)
Hanging out with our friends the Wolseys from Magrath going to White Wall. It really never gets old going out there to see the view. Its pretty amazing every time we see it and to think that we live here!
Swimming swimming in OUR swimming Pool!! With Kayleigh and Remmy.
So we had our little humming bird back in our kitchen building a nest, which didn’t turn out well because it was slightly slanted and she lost 2 eggs on our kitchen counter, She finally fixed it and was successful in hatching an egg. We knew the baby was growing because the Mom was flying in and out for nector and there was an increase of little bird poop on our stove and counter area. One morning I hear the little call of the baby humming bird (they call each other to meet up while the baby is trying to fly around and the mom find her/him feed them and flies off for more. Well I hear this little peep and look on the fridge and there on our stupid rat trap pads is the baby humming bird and it mother. The mom had come to the babies cry for help and they both ended stuck. Well we did what we could and got he baby off just fine, but the mom lost all of its ‘bum’ feathers and could not fly. The mom was just about dead and we fed her sugar water and it was quite amazing how she piped right back up. We put them on the trees in our house in hopes that we could do something. The baby would peep because she was hungry so we would feed her the sugar water. The mom ‘flew’ off and we couldn’t find her again. And eventually the baby was flying into the rafters and was peeping for food but we couldn’t reach her, and then we couldn’t find her any more. So sad for our poor little humming bird family.
Big hermit crab – solder crab know here on Statia – that the girls found right on the tile near the pool.
Todd took a couple of friends and me out for my B-day dinner to Ocean View restaurant, probably my favorite one on the island. Our previous land Lady run and cooks for the restaurant – Lauris.
We had a picnic at the botanical garden one Sunday after noon with Saad and the Wolseys. While there Todd fixed the wicker chair swing!
This is a picture of the berry that they actually make hair gel out of – the kids learned this at Junior Rangers II. They are so gooey inside if you break the skin and throw it on the tree it sticks right away. You can eat them but there are really interesting!
Caught a picture of Jase and Courtney dancing together – it was really cute! Love my kids!
Jase it really good at finding itty-bitty lizards. We have had so many around our house lately it must be hatching season! When the kids find them they always play with them for a little bit before they turn them loose again. We got some really cute photo’s of this one.
Some little piggys on the side of the road.
Another form of wild life at our house are snakes. We actually rarely see any snakes at our house, and they are completely harmless. I wasn’t here for this even but apparently the dogs were going crazy over it, the kids were nervous, and Todd couldn’t get it out of the yard so he chopped it with his machete. It was quite a long one and they. Jase & Courtney, Katie wasn’t there, wanted to get a picture with it. So here they are with the snake, and Saad is helping Court with the snake in her picture.
Girls hanging out by the pool with Coco and Patches!
Happy Birthday to Katie! It was Katie’s 9th birthday on October 19th. At her school they have a special birthday party for each birthday – lucky girl. So they listened to music, ate some good food and had some fun! Jase was even able to join in some of the fun and food! (Back left, Matt, Mervena, Winter, Maria – Jase Xavier, Azaria, Sarah & Katie.)
That night we took Katie and the Kids out for her Birthday dinner. We went to Smoke Alley – the kids LOVE smoke ally, they call it the pirate place because the owner, his name is Manny, has a whole bunch of pirate posters and flags and paintings around the restaurant – the kids love it. So we are sitting at the table waiting to be served and Mannys daughter Nikki comes up to the table and puts down this huge chain of blue beads in front of us and says to the kids, “Okay which ones do you want?” I had no idea what she was talking about! What had happened is Todd had an old Statia round trading bead that are actually more rare that a 5 sided Statia bead and asked Manny if he would be willing to trade the bead for three 5-sided beads just for the kids. The kids have all been asking for a 5-sided blue bead ever since we got to the island. Manny thought it was a great trade, and he even let the kids pick out any one that they wanted! The kids are so proud of their blue beads and they thought it was the neatest birthday present on Katie’s birthday ever!
After the night of blues beads and dinner we came home for come cake, ice-cream and presents!
Happy Birthday to Katie and Courtney!! We decided – we’ll I decided and convinced the girls to have a combined birthday party this year. With Halloween in the middle of their b-days and all two weeks apart I thought it to be easier to get them done in one shot. It turned out pretty good I’d have to say. A little crazy, I though I might freak out there for one min, but the girls had a wonderful time. They swam, played games – Todd made a fantastic drawing of a monkey – gorilla, because the girls wanted to play pin the tail on the monkey! They hotdogs, opened gifts, and we attempted to make homemade Christmas decorations but birthday ones. However I learned in this humidity – they don’t work. But I guess it passed some time anyway. I just can’t believe how big my girls are getting. And my baby just turned 6!
Courtney woke up early on a Saturday morning and was playing with one of the bubble guns she got from her birthday. It’s the funniest thing ever, playing music while it blows you bubbles!
I took the kids for a walk on Zeelandia beach one late Sunday Afternoon and it was beautiful!
I’ve been trying to get a good picture of some pigs on the island; this is what I got on our way home from Zeelandia of a Momma pig and her piglets.
This is a Helmet Conch that Todd found in the oceans, we ate the conch inside – apparently according to some people you aren’t suppose to eat this particular conch, but others have told us its fine…. Hmmmm well we ate it before we heard the other person tell us not to. But we were just fine. Todd has always wanted one of those blow the conch sort of thing, one that he’s made all by himself - so that is what he set out to do. He cleaned the conch all up nice and looked on YouTube for how to make your own conch and he found a video! So he got our grinder and set out to work and he made a very nice souvenir for us to take home!! He showed students at the medical school the awesome conch he figured out how to make and Randell wanted to make one to, so he came to the house and Todd helped him make his own. Todd is so resourceful; a true island man. We showed it to our friend Juan ‘Sweet Johnny’ and he told us that on St. Kitts some fishermen will blow these around town when they are going about trying to sell a fresh catch!
Message from Courtney - I had my Birthday On November the 4th and I had very fun! And I was turning 6 years old. I had my friends playing telephone and we ate hotdogs and Cheetos and chips! We were having so much fun and we were opening presents and it was so so fun! I didn't want my birthday over. I was sad becuase ididn't get to play my games but I'll tell you what friends came to my Birthday. Niz, Sarah, Rose, Shaday, Emily, Addie, Sarah (2), Mae-Rubia, Amelia, Maia, Azaria, Katie and Me!
I was feeling good and I have really fun at Statia. I love going to the ocean and we have our own pool!
