Lemon Sharks and Baptisms..........

On February 1st, A little girl in our branch, Aspen, was baptized.  The Baptism was held in the ocean.  When everyone got to the beach, the Branch President noticed a Lemon Shark in the water.  He told everyone it was there, but it just swam around and was gone.  They did the baptism and as soon as Aspen and her dad were out of the water, the Lemon Shark was back.  He was swimming right where they had been standing!! It wasn't very big, but it was still a SHARK!!!  

The witnesses

The Sunset that evening.

Meet Bear Bear......

For Christmas this year, my Mom and Dad gave each of the grandkids a bear from Build-a-Bear.  They recorded their voices into each bear for each of the kids.  It was such a great gift.  The kids have had so much fun with them.  It is like they are real people.  My kids have named their bears: Bear Bear.  They love to get them dressed and feed them meals, and basically treat them like babies.  So this is a glimpse into a day with Bear Bear......

BREAKFAST

This is Bear Bear helping to make toast (our favorite breakfast)

Ready to eat at the table

By the time we get the bears set down and Joseph Smith, there isn't room for Erick and I, so we usually have to wait until Joseph Smith is done and can take his seat!!!

Getting ready for the day

SUN-BATHING

A quick trip to the courts

A very nice long nap!

Getting Ready for Bed

This was my Favorite!  I walked in and saw the kids doing this.  They use the middle drawer of their dresser as a bath tub.  They get "tub toys" and everything.  And of course they have different items that they pretend are shampoo, conditioner, body wash etc....

Dressed and ALMOST ready for bed.

Combing their hair....

Having a bottle.......

Brushing their teeth.

They talk to the bears like I talk to them.  Kyler will say "open your mouth like this" and then open his mouth as wide as he can.  They even remind their bears to spit!

They get serenaded by Kyler before story time!!!

Then it's bed time.

I went back in to get these pictures, because I love to watch my kids sleep, but I think it is so sweet to see how they snuggle up to their bears and hold them like that all night!

I don't know what we would do all day if we didn't have such great imaginations.  I do know our days would be very boring.  And honestly there is never a boring moment at our house!  

Erick's new RIDE......

When we first got to the island we decided we would get Erick a bike to get to and from school.  We went to the hardware store and looked at ALL the bikes.  They had mountain bikes, beach cruiser bikes, and these little BMX bikes.  It appeared that the BMX bike was the cheapest at $195.00!!!!  Plus Erick was so excited thinking about being able to pump the kids on the pegs, and of course they were excited about that as well.  So we bought the bike and got it home.  Erick took the kids for a few rides and had a great time.  On Monday when he rode it to school, he come home and said it wasn't going to work.  Apparently he is a little big for the BMX!  So we took it back to the hardware store and got the mountain bike.  It was marked at $255.00.  So we were prepared to pay the extra $60.00.  Well when Erick gets up to the counter they charge him $2.11.  We thought we had just made a huge deal.  However, the bike would be delivered on Monday.  So come Monday the guy brings the bike and an envelope with $30.00 in it and said we had been over charged.  We are not really sure what was going on with the whole situation even still, but we ended up getting the better bike and spending even less than we thought we were going to spend when we were getting the cheapest bike they had????  

Notice how Erick gets ready for school.  He has his school back on one side and his tennis bag on the other!!!!

Joseph Smith

As we were sitting it testimony meeting today, a little girl got up to bear her testimony and in the middle she said, "I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God."  Kyler of course heard this and since he really doesn't have a whisper voice said REALLY LOUDLY, "Hey, that is MY Joseph Smith."  Of course everyone turned to look at us and see what was going on (at least all those around us)  

What a funny little guy!

The New Addition to Our Family

NO- I am not pregnant!!

Kyler has his first imaginary friend!  Yesterday was the first day I met him.  I was playing tennis with Kyler and he hit the ball way over my head- yes he can really hit it over my head.  So I went to chase the ball.  When I came back he was swinging his racket in the air, and doing his little grunt noise that means you are a REAL tennis player (according to Kyler), and I just said to him, "are you ready?"  He turned around and said, "yes, I was just playing with my friend."  This is how the rest of the conversation went:

Me: "oh, what's your friend's name?"

Kyler: "Joseph Smith."

Me:  "Joseph Smith?"

Kyler: "Yes, Joseph Smith."

A few minutes later, he went to the door and was talking through the screen and when I asked him who he was talking to he said:

Kyler: "Joseph Smith!"(said with disgust that I had already forgotten his friends name)

Me: "what's he doing?"

Kyler: "He just hit that girl."

Me: "tell him that is not very nice."

Kyler:  "I can't, he is in time out now.  I will tell him when he gets out of time out."

So I thought it might be a one time things, but nope.  This morning Kyler ordered a waffle for breakfast and Joseph Smith ordered a bowl of cereal!  

Where we live

A few days ago, the kids and I decided to go check out the golf course that we live on.  We actually live on Hole #5, but we went on the course and took pictures from all the angles.  It is very pretty, and there are always people golfing on the course.  Erick is hoping to get in a round before we leave, and Kyler is sure he is going to get in on that as well!!

The Church

When we first got to the island, we were not sure where the church was.  We had looked up the address on the internet and so we thought we knew where it was.  On Friday we rented a car for a couple days to get some groceries and do a few things to get ready for school for Erick.  We got the car and had been to costco and a few other places and we were driving down a road actually looking for another store and we saw the church.  We were so excited to have found it for a couple of reasons, first we didn't know where it was and we needed to find it, that was the next thing on our list to do was find the church, and second it ended up being closer to our house than the original address that we found on the internet would have been.  It is still about 2 miles from our home.  We had the rented car this week, so I will let you all know next week how long it takes us to walk there!

The church is still green, but not as green as Dominica!  It was a really nice building about a year old.  The branch is small, all the LDS Ross Students about doubled the size, but it was really nice.

Here are a few pictures of the building: