Our house

We took a few pictures of the house, I don't have one of the outside front YET!  And things are very messy, but I was thinking about it right in the middle of unpacking that I should take a few pictures of the house for everyone, so excuse the mess!!!

This is the kitchen (the view with the DISHWASHER!!)

Our lovely Kitchen Table.

Our backyard.

Our Pool.

This is standing at the pool looking at our patio.

Another view of the kitchen

And the front room, taken from half way up the stairs.(ariel view)

The kids room.

They have been so excited to have their own beds, they both wake up first thing and make their own bed.  It is so nice, we used to have to let one make it and then when they were not looking the other one could go pull the covers down and make it again!!!  Problem solved.  Plus they have two closets in their room which is wonderful for toys and clothes.

Our first trip to the beach

Of course when you get to someplace new, you can't see that you will be there for 8 months, you just want to do everything today!!  When we first got here, the kids were so excited and just really wanted to go to the beach.  However that first day was a little crazy so Erick got in the pool with them and we told them we would take them to the beach tomorrow.  So from the moment we woke up they were asking when we were going to the beach.  We had a long list of things that we needed to get done, but the beach was top on the list.  Once we got there the kids did not want to leave.  They had so much fun.  The beaches here are very nice, they are really busy which we are not used to on Dominica, but the sand it amazing and the view is unbelievable.  Since we left all they talk about is going back!!!

 

WE HAVE ARRIVED

It has been a long time since I last posted.  The kids and I spent the last month in Utah for Christmas.  Erick joined us for the last two weeks after he finished all his exams in Dominica.  We had a wonderful Christmas and enjoyed seeing all the family and friends we were able to see.  We missed all of you that we were unable to see this trip and look forward to next time.

Our trip to the Bahamas was great.  We went as far as Atlanta the first day, Kyler kept asking if that was the Bahamas.  They were both very excited to get there.  We had a good night in Atlanta which helped for the next day.  The flight to the Bahamas seemed very short and was a very smooth flight.  We landed and was greeted by a lady from Ross who helped us through customs and getting our luggage (which ALL arrived!!).  They had a van waiting for us and took us to our new home.  Our landlords father was there to meet us with the keys and help us get settled.  He and his wife were very nice and helpful.  He came back in about an hour and took us to the grocery store, showed us how to get to the beach, where the tennis courts are, and a few other things around the area we live.

The grocery store was amazing.  It was a grocery store (enough said)!!!

We will not have our vonage phone up and working for a few days.  When we thought Erick had lost his luggage that had our vonage box in, we ordered a new one and they locked our old one.  However the new one did not arrive before he left.  When I called to reactivate the old one, they told me they can't do that after it has been locked.  So when the new one arrives at my parents, they are going to send it to us, and then we will be up and running.

The house is great.  We love it.  The kids slept pretty well, as did Erick and I.  It is not huge, but plenty big for us.  Erick and the kids went swimming yesterday while I unpacked and they said the water was cold, but they had a great time.  They are looking forward to going back toady when they sun in up and the water is a little warmer.

We have lots of plans today to get things organized and a few errands to go check out.  Our barrels should arrive at our house on the 8th.  Which means more unpacking and organizing.

I will post pictures soon!  

One of Bryn's friends has been taking horse back riding lessons while on Dominica and asked us if we would like to go one day and just ride a horse during the lesson.  The kids were so excited about it and couldn't wait to go.  When we got there, Bryn was a little unsure until Kyler went first and then she was all about going.  The kids had a great time and enjoyed the evening.  The lady who owns the horses will do guided tours on the beach, or up in the mountains.  This is what she does for a living and then she does the lessons on the side as well.  It was a really fun day.

Happy Thanksgiving

We had an amazing Thanksgiving yesterday.  We were reminded of how thankful we are for family and being together, but for the circumstances, we had a great day.  Erick and the kids had school that day, so in the morning I was getting things ready for our FIRST feast!  The day school where the kids attend school had a thanksgiving lunch at the school.  It was every nice with everything you would expect at thanksgiving.  Which was amazing to me since they don't celebrate the holiday here!  After lunch I got busy again preparing things for the SECOND feast of the day!  Ralna and Craig had a Thanksgiving at their home and it was awesome.  There were at least 100 people.  And so much food you could not believe it.  It started at 6:30 and by the time I helped finish up the cleaning and putting away it was well after midnight!  It was a wonderful day.  We missed our families a lot, but it helped to be able to spend the day with our "family" here.  

At the day school!

Ralna's House

Table #1

Table #2

Table #3

The dessert table

We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

"I wanna be like you dad..."

Kyler is always wanting to be just like Erick.  On Sunday Erick was getting him dressed.  Erick already had his tie on and was helping Kyler put his pants on and Kyler grabbed his tie and said, "I want one of these like you." of course we didn't bring any of his ties down.  In fact it is like pulling teeth to get him to wear a polo shirt with a collar let alone a tie.  He kept telling Erick he wanted one and we all knew it was going to be a fight the whole day if he didn't have one.  So Erick took one of his ties and cut the end off and make a tie for Kyler.  The best part is we were in a hurry to get on our way so Erick stapled the ends of the tie to keep it from fraying!!  

Snorkeling

I have been snorkeling almost every Thursday since we got to Dominica.  There is a group of us that go every week.  There have been times that I was not able to go, but just about every week I have been.  If we are not able to go on Thursday, we will try for another day that week.  While we have been snorkeling, we have made friends with a sea turtle.  He is the coolest thing ever. We have swam with him for hours before.  He is really hard to find because he blends in with the coral, but once we find him, we can swim right along with him for a while.  It has been amazing. Something to really look forward to.  Well I have some bad news.....  This week Ralna and I decided to go snorkeling on Tuesday.  We hadn't been last week because Kyler had Hand Foot and Mouth, so we decided to try for a couple times this week to make up for last week. We had a great time, we found lots of sand dollars, a few really neat shells, and tons of fish, we saw two sting rays and the biggest puffer fish we have ever seen.  As we were getting out of the water to go pick up the kids, I saw something floating in the water that looked like a broken plastic chair, so I swam over to it and still wasn't sure what it was.  As soon as I got close enough to get a good look, I looked up to find Ralna and she was already on her way over, we both started screaming, I think mostly because we couldn't believe what we were seeing.  Our friend who we had named Crush was gone.  

  

We took the shell back to the school and asked Mr. Theo who is a teacher at the school, what could have happened to him, and he said that the clean cut on the spine, the knife marks in the flesh and the clean cuts on the edges means that someone killed him to eat.  If a shark had gotten him, there would have been teeth marks on the shell.  I didn't even know people ate turtles.  Especially not Crush!!  So apparently, it is illegal to kill the turtles and so to have a shell would mean that we had killed the turtle ourselves, so we took some pics and then put it back in the ocean.