Halloween in the heat!

 i LOVE halloween! We had a good one this year. It was awesome not having to worry about the weather - well i still thought about it - but only because i was worried the kids would be too hot in black. You can't tell from the first picture - but it was HOT and SUNNY when they left to go trick or treating. They met up with some of their friends along the way and got a good amount of candy. Then we went to the school for the halloween party - they had games and prizes and a dance. Kyle and I stole dress ups from the kids - he's wearing a wrestlers cape and I'm wearing a Karate ummm shirt? It's definitely slim picking for costumes on the island. Luckily we found a witch hat for Hazel - it was one of 3 costumes I saw at the store and it was what she wanted to be - phew!

 this is in front of our house



we carved our pumkin the day before halloween cuz its so hot here that they only last a few days

dekker picked out the design from google

 hazel drew on the face

and kyle carved!

I was worried they wouldn't get pumkins so i spray painted a few conch shells

for the kids to decorate just in case

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Dekker is 3!

Dekker really looked forward to his birthday this year - he was excited for the presents, cake and most importantly to wear real underwear to bed (no more pull ups). We unknowingly started a new tradition with Hazel's birthday this year.  She opened her present from Dekker the night before her birthday so she insisted that Dekker open his present from her the night before - and viola - we will be opening presents from siblings forevermore the night before!  Dekker also didn't have a friends party this year! Kids parties here on the island are a bit differnet and we were'nt ready to commit to everything involved. First of all - at birthday parties aren't just for kids - parents come and stay the whole time. Which would be great, but the parents here are used to having the hosts provide alcohol at the kids party! A lady at the branch was telling me they couldn't afford to have a party for her son and I was so confused because I knew she could afford a cake (she brought one to church for him) and I figured what else do you need?  But that was before I knew she would have to have an open bar for all her non-member family and friends (her hubby is not a member as well). 

Anyways long story long - we decided to have a bonfire on the beach for Dekker and invite his little friend Dafka and her family.  His birthday was a school holiday so we got up and opened presents first thing before Kyle left for work and then we spent the day at the pool and preparing for the beach.

Once we got to the beach Kyle built a great fire and we roasted hot dogs.  Completely normal for us - but my friend Joelle had never heard of cooking hot dogs on the fire - the horror! Luckily her hubby had done it before so she didn't think we were crazy. We also had smores and a Spiderman birthday cake! Sidenote - Dekkers favorite food right now is hot dogs and he didn't like the marshmallows cooked - he ate them "raw".  It was a really lovely night out under the stars right on the beach with the fire blazing.  We couldn't believe we'd been here almost 4 months and hadn't done this yet!

Dekker first and formost is a goof - I have a million pictures of him pulling crazy faces. He loves nothing more than to get someone to laugh at him. He has a great smile. Dekker comes into our room every morning carrying his shirt, shorts and undies - he is so excited to get dressed for the day. He loves being a BIG BOY and will always correct me if I call him my little boy. When he grows up he wants to be "a pirate and then a Dada".  He is an amazing swimmer and loves to brag to people that he can swim under the water - he can swim in the deep end easily now. He loves riding his bike, playing swords, playing cars, playing with his sister, being mommy's helper in the kitchen, and playing with his superhero figurines. He's a bit shy with strangers. He loves to play fight. He definitly has some ladies wrapped around his finger and I've had quite a few moms tell me he should be a child model. He is so fun to be around and I love everything about him!

here is one of the many crazy faces!

watching a movie while waiting for the rain to go away so we can swim!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY BIG BOY!

HAPPY BELATED 7TH ANNIVERSARY!

I  booked the kids and my flights back from Canada on August 28 and then realized after the fact that August 28 was our Anniversary - Isn't it the husband's job to forgot his anniversary?! oops.  So almost 2 months later we finally lined up a babysitter and went out to celebrate 7 years of marrieage.

We wanted to do something different this year and take advantage of where we are so we went scuba diving - which of course we have done a bit with in shallow water with the kids. But we went to Smith's Reef which is a really beautiful area and we felt like we were watching National Geographic because there were so many cool fish! I was scuba certified when I went to BYU Hawaii, but they must have taken us to not great areas when we went scuba diving - because I didn't see anything this cool!  TCI coral reef is second in size only to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia - so I guess it's an amazing place to scuba dive and snorkel.

We went straight from the beach to "Somewhere" a mexican restuarant I've been dying to go to. It was super yummy and had a great view of the beach. 

Then we went back down to the water and found that if you splash the water the famous glow worms light up! So that was fun, until I started to feel like they were biting/electricuiting me! So we headed home.

Don't you just love kyle's garage sale beach hat?

wouldn't it be great to live up in these hills on the ocean?

 The view from Somewhere





 

Seven years ago I made the best decision in my life and married this amazing man!

I'm glad we got a chance to celebrate!

Baptism at the Beach

Time to chronicle Willy's baptism. The missionaries called me and asked if I would be willing to baptize Willy and of course there was only one answer. Willy is a 62 year old Haitian who has been on the island for almost his whole life. He has eight kids and is fantastic.

He has been an amazing example of faith and humility. He has been friendly and always thanks everyone at church for helping him join the church. It is funny because he refers to himself as an 'old fool' and can't believe that God would send missionaries out to save an 'old fool'.

When we walked out of the water he started praying in a group and was so full of gratitude and appreciation for the chance to meet the missionaries and be introduced to the church. It has been amazing to see someone who is so full of faith. For a little man, he has a great big smile.


Jumpers, yo!

Elder Luke and Jarmin, Willy, Branch President Otin, and me

Hurricane Irene

It may have been a while back, but I still figured a post about my hurricane would be something worth reading about. And showing pictures about. The hurricane itself wasn't that bad, owing mostly to the fact that we had a place to stay that was safe. My landlord (who is also my boss) was saying that the ceiling on the main floor is made of concrete as well as the walls. It basically creates a bomb shelter (or a hurricane shelter).

As Zoe and the kids were in Canada I offered to let some of the members of the branch stay at the house. Not many of them have suitable accommodations and so it was nice that they could stay with me. I didn't think about it until after the grocery store had closed, however, so we made the food stretch a bit. I was glad that the stores weren't closed longer and that life was able to get back to normal after a couple days.

Anyway, the wind was pretty good on Tuesday but not crazy. The office closed at noon and we all went home. The missionaries came over with Ruben and they stayed until Wednesday night. the office opened again on Thursday. The winds got stronger over Tuesday, but the hurricane didn't really pass until Tuesday overnight. We were all asleep, but the winds were very strong and there was a ton of rain. When I woke up Wednesday morning there wasn't much wind anymore but there was a ton of water everywhere. There are pictures below of the golf course out behind our house.

We just hung out Wednesday and explored the golf course and played Domino's and cards.

In all, I never really felt threatened or unsafe. I'm sure there were alot of people on the island who didn't feel safe, and there was alot of damage on older houses. I had power the whole time aside from a couple hours on Wednesday night. There were some areas that lost power on Tuesday night and didn't get it back until Thursday, but we were fortunate.

Zoe was in Canada with the camera's, so the pictures below are all from the missionaries, which I took off their camera. A video as well of us going around the golf course.

Elder Luke taking video

The parking lot in front of our houses.

Elder Jarmin and Ruben










There you have it. Not much that shows the wind and rain, but the after-effects for sure. There were roads that were entirely wiped out, but were I was didn't really have any of that.

Hazel turns 6!!

Since we just moved to TCI - Hazel didn't have a chance to meet very many kids before her birthday so we got to have our first toned down birthday. The day before her birthday (Sat) we picked up her little friend Mikaella from the branch and went to the smurf movie at the new movie theatres here. The kids loved the movie - expecially the ridiculous villan. Then we went out for Pizza and home to play for a bit. I made cupcakes and the kids decorated and devoured them. On Sunday we had cake twice. One of the benifits of having a tiny primary is that we can get away with bringing cake to church and singing happy birthday! On Sunday afternoon Hazel helped me decorate her cake and we sang again and had more cake. So it was a pretty laid back birthday - I felt a little sad that we didn't get to have a big party with kids - but we promised her we would make it up to her next year!

Hazel is such a great little girl - in a nutshell she is creative, has a great imagination, loves to play with her brother, loves to teach her little brother, is a good helper if she is motivated properly, has the sweetest smile, loves to swim, and play barbies, is very into fashion, is already on her second crush,  is getting better at letting me do her hair, is finally growing out of her night terrors, hates to be too hot or too cold (just like me), loves playing with her friends, misses home and especially her cousins, loves her new school,  dreams of going to NYC to see central park and the statue of Balto the dog, is a great little artist, wants to be a teacher when she grows up and is SO funny. 

I LOVE having Hazel around and I'm so excited for the future - it will be amazing to watch her grow and learn.

 even without a big party - she still did OK for presents!

 strawberry shortcake on the beach - complete with REAL sea shells and hand crushed sand that Kyle painstakingly (is that a word?) made out of cookies

 she was sad when she finally lost (pulled out herself) her second front tooth and found that she didn't sound as

funny as she tought she would - especially while singing "all i want for christmas is my two front teeth.

eatin cake with milk just like her daddy

home agian, home again

I think my dad use to say that all the time? or was it mom? - "home again, home again"

So I knew when i booked an overnight flight home to TCI that i was in for a treat, I just didn't know how BIG  of a treat it would be!\

It started Saturday night with Dekker waking up with spots that quickly turned into hives a swollen upper lip. The last time he had hives we thought it was an immunization reaction because we were told it couldn't be from his antibiotics for his ear ache. By 3:30 am in the hospital it was pretty clear that dekker is in fact allergic to amoxicillin. He was in the middle of a dose of amox for his strep throat.  Thank goodness for steroids and benedryl! He also now has an epi-pen (for the slim chance that he has only gotten hives each time he is on amox, but coincidentally is allergic to some other random thing)

So then when we left Sunday night at 10:30 for the airport I already had a VERY tired boy on my hands! Long story short - we arrived in TCI 3:30 local time. The flights were pretty uneventful - thanks to a last minute addition of a sheet and a pillow for dekker (he slept on the floor) and a purchase of a blanket on the plane for hazel(she slept on the seats). Dekker was knocked out the whole time(i was sitting up with no room for my feet or body, so no sleep for me)!Hazel slept on both planes, but was wide awake during our 3 hr Toronto layover.  On our flight from toronto to TCI the plane was basically empty - the flight attendant joked that we had a private jet! so i did move to another row of seats and got my first bit of sleep on the trip.

So we got to TCI and had the joy of dealing with a mean immigration lady on a power trip. Kyle and I came in on a 30 day temporary visa which of course had expired. His permanent visa was being processed and we were told it wouldn't be a big deal for me to get back into TCI. Not true. This lady says "Your husband is illegally in the country and is committing fraud by working here. He should be getting a huge fine for this blah blah blah"  So I could tell she was trying to scare and intimidate me. Whatever. I wasn't too worried because I knew that Kyle's company would have to pay for any fine etc. So they brought Kyle back and interrogated him in the other room and tried to scare him as well. Then they had him go buy me and the kids one way tickets to canada. So he went and bought refundable tickets and we were on our way.  Kyle did have to go into immigration the next morning at 9. So his boss (a partner) (who is on the committee running TCI since the government was found corrupt and disbanded) sent his wife (who is a very powerful and rich woman on the island) with kyle. She walked in there, demanded answers and found out Kyle's visa is approved and just needs it's final signature. So all that for nothing. So the Partners wanted to know what this lady's name was so they could make a complaint and get her in trouble haha.

Sorry long story, but it's my blog and I want to remember...

We finally got home around 5 - so it was a long day. Dekker and I slept in till 12 the next day. And I thought that was it for the drama. But the last 2 nights the kids have gone to bed at 9. Then woken up from 11-3am. Yup we are still suffering from our all nighter flight. Today I woke them up at 8:30, so we are hoping tonight will go better!

 In Toronto - Dek passed out and Hazel being an angel coloring!