The last few weeks are what Alexander would refer to as "terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day[s]." It's a good thing we don't gamble because good luck has not been our favor. Austin had pneumonia, Eden's eye has been acting up again, people have been dishonest, we are losing things, and that's just the beginning. Good thing family came in the middle of the chaos to make us forget about the most of it. Keep reading... you'll see.
What you see to the right is Eden being a good sport. She helped me clean the church. Really, she does help! She is great wiping, sweeping, mopping, and putting up with me. PS. I HATE mopping, so we skate instead. Good thing Austin lets me use his holy socks as wearable rags!
I might have started off complaining, but thanks to our good friends, it hasn't been all bad. Joanna took Eden and I to a new beach where the sand is half black, half white, and the shore is lined with palm trees. It is a new favorite.
It has been really hard to get Eden to eat lately, but she does love broccoli. This is proof! Thanks to Grandma, she eats fruit snacks just the same... all at once!
Sitting on the counter is a favorite seat in the house (for me and her). Eden gets to help me stir and eat pre-dinner while I keep an easy eye on her. It's a win, win, except for the ants, which she always smashes. "ANT!"
Part of the fun of living on an island involves tropical storms and big rainstorms. We thought we would experience much more of those than we do- and what a shock learning that an island can be in a drought! A small tropical storm hit Saturday and Sunday a few weeks ago. The rain just happened to start the minute we parked the car coming home from church.
If you can't tell, Eden's hair is wet and we are watching from the porch.
The random picture below is something you won't appreciate unless you zoom in really close. You are looking at a trail of 12 cockroaches. Yum. Right outside our front door. Unbeknownst to me, you have to clean out the drain box or they stink horribly. I didn't even know we had a drain box... but we do, and we had it cleaned out. This was the result- an army of cockroaches to greet us the next morning. Oh! and did you know? Just because they are belly up, doesn't mean they are dead! I won't be sad to leave these buggers.
This is another "aren't I cute?" picture of Eden. We had to model her new shades and hair do. Her hair is long enough for braids! And sadly, we lost her other glasses, so we got new ones. On the bright side, I talked them down from $12 to $10. Sigh...Walmart was a good invention and it's waiting for us. PS. If you look closely, you can see the keys in the door. Yep, Eden is tall enough to reach and smart enough to put the keys in the hole. Since when did my baby grow up?
This may look like a lot of fun, but let me tell you what (and I'm not even going to complain about the mess because that wasn't the bad part)- On this very wet day, Eden and I were at Joanna's house tending- more like playing with- her kids while she oversaw Youth Conference at the beach. On our way to their house, our car just stopped. Stopped while I was driving! We coasted to a halt and luckily I was smart enough to pull over. Our hunk of junk died on me. Thankfully, I was able to call Joanna and she came to pick me up. Sometime while we were at Joanna's house, someone hit our already dead car, the result being what you see in the picture below. Lovely. I hardly care about our car, but I do need it for 4 more months. 4 months! That's it!! Long story short, we hired Yaba as our AAA and he found a guy to tow it back to our place. After Yaba's "guy" and "guys" spent $700 on unnecessary fixes, our car is now back to it's functional as it will be self. All it really needed was a new belt. Oh, but don't worry- Yaba said he'd take care of the cost. We can just leave the car with him when we finish in December.... right, because $700 EC somehow equals $4000 US. 
Things like this are never in good timing, but this happened to be block week for Austin, just when he was studying for his tests. What that meant was no car for afterwards, which is why you will see Austin pushing the stroller. We decided to go for a walk to find some hot food. That was in vain since it was a national holiday on Monday and Tuesday and everything was closed (including the places to buy car parts). Instead, we ended up at the Movie Theater. Again, I was shocked. It was almost American. It looked like America, smelled like America, showed new movies like America. The only difference was the security guard blocking the arcade and the dress code. Yes, dress code. No tank tops boys! (But it's okay if you are a girl.) Besides prescription drugs, the movies may be one of the first things that is actually cheaper than the States. It's only $6.50 for a movie and free air conditioning!
What you are looking at is a tourist stop in St. Kitts and it's just up from our house. Maybe an hour later and those trees would be completely white with birds. These peculiar birds are all over the island- Egrets, they are called. I'm not sure why they nest here, but I think I overheard a tour guide say that the trees have thorns that offer protection. Take a minute and appreciate how beautiful it is when overcast. I wouldn't mind if it were like this all the time. Clouds feel amazingly good!
Ah yes! Family and the Marriott. They are coming soon, but not soon enough. Apparently, our bad luck spread to everyone else because their plane was completely cancelled and the soonest they could get here was an entire day and half later. We were happy to take the first night in the Marriott, but definitely would have preferred having the family there instead. It's fair to say that everyone had a decent island experience from an ant infested rental car that 9 of us squished into, finding bugs in the macaroni and ramen noodles, and coming home with a rotten bag of frozen peas. I'd like to call that bad luck too, but it's just what comes with living on an island.
We did have a great time once everyone made it though. You'll see...!
Saturday morning, the boys, Austin, and I drove half way around the island to hike St. Kitts' volcano, Mt. Liamuiga. It was a tough hike after so much rainfall- muddy, slipper, and dirty- but so much fun. Austin's professor, Dr. Mungli, led us to the top. We even made it half way into the crater before having to turn around for time's sake. The pictures hardly do justice. Going into the crater was as close to repelling as it gets without a harness. It was an 80 degree angle and slick! We also swung on vines like Tarzan- in the jungle! You'll just have to watch the movie. There's too much to tell. (If the video doesn't work, try this link: https://goo.gl/photos/HsUaauDwfp1R9Ump6)
We couldn't wait to take everyone to church. The boys got a few mangoes and Gregory and Bryce did an AWESOME job singing. I managed okay on the piano, but they are the real stars. Later, we walked around the Marriott and enjoyed the light rain.
These pictures are from Carambola Beach. We just had to make sure Dad went snorkeling at least one more time. The kids were pretty good at their handstands and sand castles!
The week went by all too quickly, but was filled with fun and good family time. After checking out, we had time for one last game of golf. Austin would have you know that he won :)
With only a minor delay this time, off they went. We will be off in just a couple days too! America, here we come! I don't think we have ever been so excited to go home. Austin is just now finishing his last final of fourth semester and then the fun begins!
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