Christmas is Almost here in Blog Land

 

Christmas Is Almost Here!

Some short moments to start off.

At the end of November we had the kids’ primary presentation organized by Katie Bridge at church!  We were able to take a couple pictures!  They sang, quoted their lines and it was all memorized – Good Job! A musical number by Emilia and I played the piano for all the songs.

The girls also said a goodbye to Emma – Hannah Farrell sister!  It was fun having her here!

Church group as of December 2012.  It is constantly changing every term – 4 months.

While having one of our visits with our friend Miss Mia the girls did her hair most beautiful!

I had parent teacher conference with the kid’s teachers and all my children exceed their teachers’ expectations.  They are all doing fantastic and the teachers really enjoy having our kids in their classrooms!  Courtney’s teacher, Tr. Anna said that she wishes she had a classroom full of Courtney’s!  I took a couple pictures of some of the Dutch work that Courtney is doing. As you can see they are also doing work with Euro’s – they use the bills too!

December 5^th is Sinterklaas birthday!  We have joined the tradition of celebrating his birthday here on this little Dutch Island we call home! So For our own little celebration we made some amazing pepernoten – with big thanks to our friends Beau and Judith for their family recipe - , put out the kid’s shoes for Sinterklaas to put something in them, put out carrots apples and water for his horse, and sing our Dutch Christmas song, ‘Sinterklaas, kapoentje’!  This will be a tradition to keep up every year to remember all of our dear Dutch friends here on Statia.

A little wild chickie friend!  Todd was studying in the school and heard this loud chirping over and over and over, He finally went downstairs and found this little chick all alone.  He tried to find its mother but there were no hens in site.  He/She was a lost little chick.  So we took him home to try and feed him and keep him alive.  But sadly we think that it was all to traumatic for him and he wouldn’t eat or drink anything.  The kids were pretty sad especially Courtney.

We finally had our friend Nathan over for dinner before he left the island.  With Todd schedule it’s pretty hard for us to do a lot of socializing. (Which has changed for this January semester.  More on that later) Jase especially was very excited to have him over because he really enjoyed having visits with him whenever he saw him.  It was a great night of food, treats and games! 

And that night Nate also helped us feed our baby humming bird.  I mean really little.  The mother abandoned the nest that she had made in our kitchen and so after not seeing her come in for over a day to feed them I went and looked inside the nest to see two little birds maybe the size of a nickel.  I tried to feed them but the one died so I took the nest down with the second one in it to try and save it. 

But about 3 day later it died.  Sugar water just wasn’t working for him.  He needed his mommy.

Taking Nate to the airport! Good Luck Nate!

Friendly neighborhood spider came to pay me a visit whilst washing the dishes. I don’t know how his leg went missing?

A beautiful but sad site to see:

This is the last sugar stack in existence on the Island of St. Eustatius and it didn’t look like this only 3 weeks ago.  Unfortunately someone was clearing land right around the stack and was just either careless and hit it with their tractor, or purposely knocked it over then realized maybe that it wasn’t such a great idea.  I’m leaning toward the ladder.  To knock over that amount of heavy rock, which has been standing there for roughly 300 years at the most, I think  it very likely to be more than just an accidental nudge.  But who am I to know, I wasn’t there – but I can be disappointed.  We were all disappointed in what happened.  We love the old ruins on this island and to see one that was still in decent shape come down is very sad.   But we made the best of it.

A little ways off are ruins of what people say is another building used to make the sugar or at least for sure somehow connected to the sugar stack.

On Sundays, when we have time while Todd is not studying, we like to go around the island and tour I guess you could say. 

We went to the sugar shack this same day and then headed off to the Lynch Plantation to check out the view around there – its always so beautiful, you never get tired of it.  On the property is and old house that belonged to Uncle Ismael’s brother but has been abandoned for quite some time.  We just checked it out for a minute.

A big cow or bull – we couldn’t quite see.

This same outing we went to what was know as the English Quarter Plantation – sugar plantation.

Unfortunately there is so much over growth with coralita and other vegetation that you can’t really see all of the ruins but it is still amazing.

To our surprise we saw a bunch of little piglets run under a gated off area so we went to go see what was going on in there.  Now let me be honest - animals are not treated here, for the most part, the way we would treat an animal at home.  And it is very sad.  Have you ever seen a big sow look like skin and bones, well we found this poor mother.

After being shocked a realizing that the sow and half a dozen or so piglets were in a tiny pen with no edible vegetation or water just dust and rocks we set out to find them some food.  They were starving and hot.  As we were out looking for anything to get them these little piglet came running out and just looking at us as if saying, “don’t go!”  I’ve never seen piglets come up to anyone like that on this island – they usually run away.

We found a huge barrel of water just sitting to the side and Todd filled it up 4 times and they drank it up and rolled in it and then they could eat.  They couldn’t at first because they were so hungry.  We then found a bunch of green papayas and cut up as many as we could – poor animals.

My goodness it was so sad because the poor mama was literally crying for help when she saw us.  We wish we could have done more – we call the animal help on the island and they were supposed to deal with the issue, but apparently it had happened many times before.

On our way home we saw somebody had cut out all of their passion fruit vine from their property so we went scavenging for fruit and kept a cutting of the vine for ourselves to grow.

Christmas activities had begun at the schools.  Jase’s class was in charge of the Christmas assembly that week and they did play about the wise men and King Hared.  I only got this one shot and it’s not the best.

Jase also had the opportunity to read on Statia Radio again this year.  He is a very good reader and articulates very well and was able to read the main part for a Christmas productions the school was putting on.  He read about the true meaning of Christmas – our Savior Jesus Christ.  He did a fantastic job along with many of his peers!

Chevron, Sharique, D'Angelo

Teacher Debra always looking good for the camera!

I went to Courtney’s class on a few different occasions to see what sort of fun activities they were up to.  Tr. Anna had a bunch of fun things to do during SinterKlaas time like making pepernoten, putting their shoes out for Sinterklaas, and making little Sinterklaas’!  And they even went on a nice hike with Tr. Anna and had a super fun BBQ at her house for lunch! I know Courtney had a lot of fun doing the activities because she came home every day telling me how awesome it was!

Court was lucky to have another Christmas party at her afterschool activity class at Growing in Love with Tr. Cris! Yummy food, games, gifts, crafts, and treats. I was able to go and help for a few hours that afternoon getting gift sacks ready for the kids and helping to finish some crafting with Tr. Cris.  I love going to activities with the kids and trying to be a part of what they do, and what they love.  It’s the best part about being a Mom and I believe a very important part about being a Mom. 

Pic  52 -  58

Lunch Time! Teacher Cris always has a great lunch for them!

Merry Christmas cheers with sorrel Christmas Juice!

The kids wait patiently in line to wash their hands in the basin while Tr. Julia dries them. 

Coloring with Mae-Rubya

Finished Christmas bags.

Courtney Love's going to Tr. Cris'!  Its the best day ever when she gets to go!  I guess for Courtney almost every day is the best day ever! She has a fantastic outlook on life!

That same night was Jase’s and Courtney’s Christmas Concert, it was a really good one again this year.  Short and sweet but nice.  They sang their songs and poems both Jase and Courtney’s presentations being completely in Dutch. Jase also played an instrument in an instrumental arrangement.  They were going to do recorders but some kids were having a little difficulty so they switch to boomwackers – Jase was a little disappointed cuz he love the playing the recorder part but he did really well with the boomwacker anyway and the song sounded great!  And Courtney sang in the school Christmas Choir ‘Glory to God in The Highest’.

Courtney's Class

All the teachers doing a musical number!  It was really fun to watch!

 Boomwackers ready!

A short play of the Nativity.

 School Christmas Choir

 Jase's Class

Principle Lavern - she does a fantastic Job, and sincerely cares for all of her students.

At the end of the program this year they did something special.  They wanted to thank all the parents for coming to support their children and gave gifts of thanks to the first mother and the first father to walk in the doors of the church to the concert.  And Todd was the first Father to arrive to support his children.  They said they are especially thankful for the fathers coming because it is usually just the mothers coming to support their children.  So they called Todd up and presented him with his gift – which was a nice new toaster! It was a wonderful evening to make any mother and wife proud!

Teacher Jasmine Presenting his gift.

Katie also met up with one of her best friends from the SDA school, Maia, that she hasn’t seem much of since she changed schools.

Pic 69

Todd is pretty much the handiest Man that I know.  He is always helping people out with a wide range of troubles from food to machinery he’s they best and the friends we’ve made on the island know it too!  Lavern David, the SDA school principle and our friend, asked Todd to fix their school bell a long time ago, which he did, and then there was a power outage that threw the bell off again.  So in between classes we were able to drive up to the school together and Todd fixed the bell.

During the time Todd was fixing the bell I was able to sneak into Courtney’s class and take a few pictures of some of the Christmas fun they have been having.  They have been making melty bead art…

Shamile, D'shanay, and Macure

 …and Christmas decorations to decorate their Statia Christmas tree!  Here is one of Cournteys decortaions.

Obviously here on Statia they don’t grow a spruce tree or pine tree for a typical Christmas tree we have in Canada, the US or the ones we usually see in the movies.  They use a Statian tradition of a Cherry tree – A Statia Christmas tree!  Not the cherry tree you are thinking of, but they can grow a variety of the little red fruit.  I love this little tree and if I would have thought about it a little better I wish we had used one for our tree this year.

Courtney was asked to go with a group of kids selected to go around to a few locations and Christmas carol!  It was fun to chase them around and take some pictures while they were singing their hearts out!  Their first two stops were are the Chapel Peace Elderly gathering place – they gather there every day for a social activity, they don’t live there – and then to the axillary home for the sick elderly.  It was so nice to see the smiles of gratitude on the elderly’s faces and the joy these kids brought into their day!  The children handed out cards they had made to each elder as they finished their program.

And then off to Duggins grocery store! Merry Christmas Shoppers!

Then the group went to the main government office to sing for the Governor of the Island.  Governor Berkel. (He is the island second highest politician who reports to the Island Secretary Jan Helmond who has always been a kind and sweet to the kids and us. )  Governor Berkel was very kind and wonderful in receiving the kids Christmas songs, not sharing the same beliefs, he sang along with them and made them all feel special to be singing for/with him!

Here May-Rubya is making a request in Dutch to the Governor for a new road to the SDA school for Christmas which the Governor replied will be done for next Christmas!  This would be fantastic as the road is really, really bad.

And on the way out surprising Governor Berkel Courtney and the Mae-Rubya grabbed him and gave him a big hug!  It was so cute – wish the picture wasn’t blurry!

The traveling Christmas Carolers in front of the Government building!

One last stop to Peso’s supermarket in Golden rock..

By the end everyone was tired and hot but it was a lot of fun being with the kids and singing with them

One thing that Jase’s teacher told me during caroling is that her class sponsors and elderly lady in the community and took her Christmas presents and maked sure she is loved and taken care of.  Apparently Jase’s class had gone the day before to bring her gifts and sing her songs.  I had no idea and wished I could have gone to take some pictures but nonetheless I’m sure this lovely lady felt loved and appreciated by the children in Jase’s class.

As we were passing by the harbor we notice that a boat had come in from Dominica carrying fruits and vegetables.  They come every once and a while to sell their produce.  This little fruit is called sorrel fruit. The locals here make the most excellent Christmas drink out of it! We absolutely love it!  If I’m correct I believe it is a very traditional Caribbean Christmas drink because I have met different people on Statia from different Caribbean island who all make the drink.  It is sooooo Yummy! They boil it, let it sit, strain it, spice it up Yum!

Red and White Parade!  This is a big tradition in Statia!  To dress up in red and white, march around the town, play loud music, and enjoy some entertainment afterwards.  Last year the parade didn’t turn out very well for us with some of the clothing rules disappointing some children in Katies school who were supposed to participate in the entertainment after the parade – not allowed to participate anymore!  This year we weren’t sure if we wanted to participate or not.  Again this year it was sad to see some little children turned away because they had a blue stripe on the side of their red shorts!   Todd told them to turn them inside out but the little boy – maybe 3 or 4 years old - was too upset to do it anymore.  The red and white Nazi had struck again.  I probably shouldn’t say that but it is a little ridiculous because people end up joining halfway through the parade anyway with non-matching clothes.  It not like there is a Wal-Mart near by.  Don’t get me wrong it is a really fun parade and a great idea and we did have a fantastic time but to me a community celebration should be enjoyed by all even if you have a little blue stripe down the side of your shorts as long as you are trying your best to fit the dress code.

(Courtney is so cute in this picture but I noticed an undesirable elsewhere in the picture and had to crop it out - I hope to be able to fix it later!)

So the reason we really decided to join the parade this year was because of two men – Rusty, and Gary Brown.  Rusty an all round carpenter and new owner of his restaurant in Golden Rock – Opa’s, and Gary Brown the well know great mechanic on the island.  They both called up Todd asking him to lead the parade with them riding their bikes!  Honestly it was a great honor for Todd to have these two guys call him up and have him join!  They met up at Gary’s shop to shine up the bikes and then head on down to the parade!

Left to right: Todd, Gary, Rusty.

 Katie was the lucky one to ride behind Daddy, Jase and Court were lucky to march with their school, and I ran back and forth taking pictures and video, and spent a short stint dancing with the Zumba girls!

Jase and D'Angelo

Zumba girls! - Well some of them anyway.

We did have some fun marching and riding with our friends and enjoying a cold pop together afterward rear the outdoor court in Golden Rock where they were having the entertainment.  By then it was already almost 7 O’clock so we decided to head home because we done for the day and the kids were tired. Another great memory of Statia.

Jase’s class Christmas party!  They had a Christmas Cherry tree too and a class gift exchange!

Da boyz!

Jase had his friend Chevron this year…

…And Delvin had Jase this year but Delvin not being there for the gift exchange left Ameeka to hand Jase his gift. I don’t know what’s with some of these blurry pictures but if you can see their faces its kind of cute to see how embarrassed they are to hug each other as everyone said, “Give him a hug!”  Jase got a great gift of headphones that he uses all the time and good school pens.

And on went the party went for the remainder of the school day!  I think Jase had a fantastic time!

I also stopped by Katie’s school to see some of the activities they were doing.  They decorated each classroom with homemade Christmas crafts and here they are making snowflakes with Teacher Joanna.

The three elementary girls. Azaria, Katie and Sarah.

 For each member of my Church – The Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints – we are given the opportunity, if we would like, to serve in the church in different capacitates.  Whether it is in the primary, the ladies group (Relief Society), Nursery, with the Youth, building maintenance, Bishop (the leader of a specific area), usher, missionaries, - there are a hundred or so callings (service positions) to be offered out. Anyway – for your interest sake – we are the only church to have a non-paid ministry and service in the world.  So for instance the Bishop or leader of and area, and his councilors, have their own personal full time jobs with their service to the church & members of the group they presides over. His service can be as demanding as another full time job.  We believe in not being paid for our service in the gospel, to our fellow men, and our Father in Heaven.  Just as Christ was not paid and he cast out the moneychangers in the temple seeking to make money off of the people worshiping.  It is service being given and shown to one another creating a unity and a Charity - which is the pure love of Christ. Some confuse Charity with just giving people things all the time, but it’s not just that, it is loving, serving, empathizing, caring – even if you don’t agree with something one might believe or do, you can disagree with it but love them for who they are.  I am not perfect and as we all know nobody is perfect but we can always try to do what we can and when we fall we pick ourselves up, carry on and try again.

So anyway I have a few callings right now – small group sometimes it happens - playing the organ/piano, just recently Sunday school teacher (January 2013), and the Relief Society leader.  (One will be thinned out soon I’m sure) But the one I am talking about is the Relief Society leader.  Once a month we have a formal organized get together and share the responsibility of preparing a spiritual thought, activity, treat and Statia trivia! (I put that one in because I think it important to know things about the fantastic place we are living and to appreciate it!)  Simple as that! Its always really nice to get together and anyone and everyone in welcome.  This particular Christmas activity I wanted to plan something special for the ladies. We watched a Christmas slide show I had made in a previous year with Christmas music and pictures of Christ birth, life, resurrection, restoration of the gospel, our lives in general, and returning to live with him again.  I love this video and to me it truly brings out the true meaning of Christmas.  We ended off the evening with a Christmas craft of the Nativity and yummy treats that everyone brought to share complete with home made apple cider!  I think it was one of the best enrichment nights we’ve had on the island!

The Hunters - Angie, Brit, Hayley, and Savannah

Our friend Lauren Ricks who were were so happy to have with us!!!

 And Camille Tidmarsh!

The final projects!!

And here are two of my little girls showing off the Nativities they made a few days later! 

And we couldn’t wait for Christmas to come!