Happy 7th Birthday Walker

Today is Walker's 7th Birthday! I cannot believe that I have a 7 year old!!!!! We started off the day going to church with Mary and John. Both kids went to Sunday School while the adults had breakfast. From there we went home and got ready to go to the beach. After driving the island and realizing that the surf was too high and too rough we decided to go home and have a pool party. The adults sat on the deck while the kids swam in the pool. For dinner Walker wanted to play mini golf and have dinner at Compass Rose. The kids called the golf course a mosquito factory. After a great dinner watching the sunset we went home and had cake. What a great day!!!!

A beautiful view

Shopping trip to St.Thomas

A friend and I were suppose to go to St. Thomas shopping yesterday but it rained so much we did not know if we would be able to get back up to our house at the top of the hill. Some of the roads here are so steep with switchbacks in them it is hard to get up them on a sunny day. Try it in the rain, no thank you! So we went to St. Thomas today to do some shopping. I know what your thinking about the shopping and it is not like that. Once a week or so we will go to St. Thomas to do our grocery shopping. Food is not cheap on either island but it is cheaper on St.Thomas. Think $8 for a gallon of milk on St.John and $5.50 on St. Thomas. There is also a KMart for all of our non food needs. We caught the 10:00 ferry ride which did not leave until 10:15. (The ferry was kind enough to pull back into port to pick someone up) We arrived in Red Hook on St. Thomas around 10:45. Drove up to Kmart. Once at Kmart we got what we needed, if they had it. Lots of stuff they did not have. They did have a great bargin on Christmas trees, 90% off! Next stop Kokopeilis for some yummy pizza. Next up Cost-U-Less. Cost-u-less is like Costco but smaller and with not the giant size quantities. The sizes are kind of middle to large, not extra large. Lastly we went to Plaza Extra, the grocery store. We left the kids in the car and ran into get the 5 things we could not get at Cost-U-Less. You should have seen how packed the car was! Back down to Red Hook to catch the 3:30 ferry. Finally back in St.John to unload and make dinner. At least the sun is shining today!

Bob and Bertha pelican straight from Ft. Myers Beach

Interesting stuff

We visited Maho Beach again today. The kids call it fishy beach because there are so many small fish swimming along the shore line. They both enjoy Maho Bay because it is a calm and shallow beach. It is easy for them to swim along and I do not worry about them at all. After the beach Walker directed me home again using the map we keep in the back seat of the car. It is interesting driving here. The drivers side of the car is just like in the states but you drive on the left side of the road. The roads are very steep with lots of hairpin turns. At times you do not realize you are on a "main" road since there are so many holes in the road. You never know what you will see as you drive down the road. Today we saw some cows and chickens grazing on the shoulder of the "main" road.

Walker on the beach

First few days

Once the sun makes it over the hill behind our house everyone wakes up. That is usually around 6:45. I guess it could be worse. The kids spend the eary morning hours watching tv and I try to catch up on whats going on in the world via the internet. We start school around 9 and end sometime around lunch. We usually do another hour later in the afternoon. The kids have spent 3 out of 4 afternoons swimming in our 10x15 ft pool. They love to try to touch the bottom, its about 8 ft down.

Yesterday we went to Maho Bay beach. All of our snorkel equiptment is packed so the kids used their goggles to snorkel and try to catch the fish. No such luck there! It was funny watching them swim as hard as they could after the fish. The finally figuired out that if you stand with your face in the water the fish will come to you.

All of our beach adventures usually involve pelicans. Instead of pelicans trying to steal our food on the beach, we have chickens!

Our Adventure to St. John

We were ready to move but just waiting for the contract to be approved. We found out we were leaving on Wednesday the 9th of January. The movers came on Thursday and packed everything that we were not taking with us and even some things we need to take with us! The movers loaded the storage unit Thursday night. We loaded the rental car, a mini van, Friday and headed to Jay's parents house in Melbourne Florida. We spent Friday and Saturday there. We left Melboure for Miami on Sunday morning. All 4 of us, 8 suitcases, some of them weighing more than 100 lbs, the dog, and 5 carry ons not to mention 2 car seats boarded a plane bound for St. Thomas USVI. We arrived in St. Thomas at 4:30 local time. We were picked up by one of Jay's co workers, Mary "He is bald" as Quinn put it. We loaded all of out stuff into the back of Marty's pickup truck and headed for the ferry to St. John. We arrive at the company condo around 7. With nothing to eat in the house we headed for Compass Rose for dinner. After that it was bed time for everyone.