If you are someone interested in attending the Sint Eustatius School of Medicine and have been reading our blog for information about the school and island use the link below to apply.

https://www.applyweb.com/apply/eumed/

Please use my husband, Todd Erickson, as a reference.

We get a credit credit for every person who decides to attend using us as a reference.

 Thank you.  :)

The girls LOVE to make bracelets out of embroidery thread! Well Katie for sure, Court has a little bit of a rough time with it. Our friends Lyndsey Tolman, and Cara Lott really know their stuff when it comes to making these bracelets, and Katie is memorized at all the different bracelets they can make sooooo we had a BRACELET PARTY! The girls were really excited and invited some little friends to join them in the fun. Lyndsey and Cara were so patient and sweet with the girls, a couple of them got the idea of it, and for some – like Court – it is a working process! But non the less they had a really great time, and had a nice cool swim to top it off!! 

Everyone From left to right: Top: Cara & Lyndsey Girls: Emelia Beckett, Niz Vos, Katie, Sarah Rodriguez, & Courtney! 

Courntey was chosen by her teacher to work on and read a long paragraph for the assembly her class was doing for the school. It was about coconuts and how if you don’t open it up you will never eat of the sweet fruit inside. Just like the scriptures, if you leave them on the shelf and not open them to enjoy the wonderful things inside you will be missing out! That’s what her paragraph was about and she did such a good job!! Everyone clapped at how well she read – she was so proud of herself because she was very nervous! 

One of Katie’s very bestest friend on the island – Sarah – had her 9th birthday toward the end of March. And for her birthday she was able to invite one special friend for a very special dinner, and Katie was that friend. She had such a wonderful time going out to dinner with Sarah and her family. For Sarah’s birthday Katie bought her a pendant of two little silver Dutch shoes, one to represent Katie and one Sarah and their friendship on a Dutch island - to never forget each other when we have to move away. That will be a sad, sad day. 

Vroom, Vroom – This is Todd’s new baby. A 2005 Suzuki Boulevard S50. He loves it and says he wants one just like it when we get back to the main land – somewhere. I guess we will see what happens, just like everything else! Every once and a while he’s given the kids rides or like in this picture he has just come home from picking Courtney up at school. She thinks its so cool! 

More pretty sunsets – you never get tired of them! These are not necessarily on the same night. 

We had some friends over for a swim, Niz and Zay Vos, and the water truck was there filling the pool, and the kids thought it was hilarious to stand in the water. Anyway this is them having a bit of fun. The reason we had to have two truckloads of water brought in was because we had some friends over for a swim once and one of them decided it was fun to pick at the silicone on the underwater light fixture. And well the next morning we were in for a surprise when about 1 ½ feet of water had leaked from the pool! It took us a while to figure it out – I had to call Todd from school to try and fix it. Well we got it under control and eventually got Al Brown to bring us the truck loads - $150.00 later… an expensive play date!

Earlier in the year I had mention to Joanna – Katie’s school principle, that they would be very welcome to bring all the school children sometime to come for a swim and BBQ fieldtrip to the house, and they took me up on the offer! I’m so glad they did! It was nice to have them there enjoying themselves just before Easter weekend! There are only 5 elementary children, and 4 high school students! Having such a small school you can do some pretty fun things! So here they are in a few of the many pictures I took! In this picture you can see Jasper, Tr. Hilda, Xavier, Maria, & Katie. 

This one there is: Katie, Jasper, Sarah, Matt, Maria, & Tr. Victoria. 

Tr. Joanna, Azaria 

Mervina & Winter 

My Katie

Tr. Hilda the Chef, and everyone just relaxing by the pool. It was a nice afternoon! 

And then it was Easter! The kids had a great time colouring their dozen eggs! 

And then the next morning we went on a walk with Megan, Stuart, Emelia Beckett and their friends Jason and Will. It was a long walk that turned out to be a lot loooooonger than we thought!! Mind you it was a great time until we got toward the end when it got hotter and hotter, we were baking, out of water and dying!! Well we obviously lived and on the last stretch home Meg’s husband – Steve – can a rescued the kids while Meg and I walked and pushed the stroller to Megs house where we cooled down, had some drinks, rested and then Meg drove us home. We had walked all the way to the Botanical Garden from our house, enjoyed the garden, shade and hammocks and then walked back in blistering heat. That might be a little dramatic because the girls were still singing songs toward the end! Our crew on the way to the garden! 

Uncle Ishmael happened upon us on our journey and said he had just come from our house trying to deliver a fantastic coconut pie!! They are sooo good, homemade strait from the coconuts on the island!! So he handed me the pie and took Katie & Emelia up to the Botanical Garden where he was heading. The other kids were already up there! 

On the walk back – I’m a little sad cuz the only pictures I have of Courtney is her backside! Cute little backside all in pink!! 

While we were gone on our walk the Easter Bunny Came!!!! 

That picture is hilarious!! We walked up the driveway to see he had laid little nest of Easter treats in sandwich bags in the grass and trees – what a smart Easter bunny wife thinking of the bugs! The kids were very excited and ran to get their little baskets and go on the hunt! 

So after we enjoyed some Easter treats!

Our Easter Bunnies! Shhhhhhh! I know Todd always has a ton of fun hiding the kids’ treats and this was Saads first Easter hunt EVER!! I think he had a good time too! 

Then Todd said we needed to go some where to get something and this is what we got. 

I had a feeling what was going on as we stopped at Kermits house because I knew he had puppies, honestly I was thinking “Oh NO!” But the kids were so excited and had always been talking about Ginger and in fact there was one that looked just like Ginger there and we almost took him, but we got this little guy instead and the kids wanted, at first, to call him Ginger. But Daddy suggested Dusty, and it stuck. So this is our little Dusty. Cute, but a big pain in the neck! Love him but hate him! (But now as I am writing this at the end of May he is doing really good, potty trained for the most part and a nice little dog.) And that afternoon we were scheduled for a bracelet party too! It was a fun filled day! 

Some fun with Dusty! Our big dogs love little Dusty. We weren’t sure how they would react at first, but they love having a little playmate around! Its pretty hilarious to see these big dogs just roll over and let this little thing attempt to pounce on their faces! 

In the last picture, just like his older sister dogs, Dusty loves coconut! 

 To finish off Todd’s second semester we had a little BBQ get together at our house for Todd and some classmates in his term. Todd had another great term! What a smart old man! 

Here is some of the friends left to right back first: Me, Iman, Megan, Steve Todd Anjali, Saad, Joel, Kayleigh, & Sherifah 

We had a few other friends join us as well! Kayleighs family was visiting from Alberta so they joined us, and Katie’s friend Maia hasn’t been over to play for such a long time and she was able to come today so we had her join us also! 

 I don’t think I’ve ever posted pictures of what a soursop looks like. We have a bunch of these trees and they are in season. They are quite a yummy fruit – better chilled, just have to get rid of the seeds inside! Mmmmmm Smoothies!

 I have to share something awesome Courtney told me about her class. Something maybe we should adopt back at home. There are 3 different signs you can give to the teacher when putting up your hand in class. 

1. Raise your hand and put up one (1) finger to ask the teacher a question 

2. Raise your hand and put up (2) fingers to go to the bathroom

3. Raise your hand and put up three (3) fingers to step outside the classroom (very easy because their rooms are open to the outside) to fart. 

I absolutely love it and think it is ingenious! How many times have you sat in a classroom where someone has made a stink and it hasn’t been pleasant? This way it’s not an embarrassment to the child because it’s see as just a natural function of the body to eliminate in a polite way by raising your hand to go outside – just like using the bathroom.