Koen's first blog entry

My heart is happy. I really like my school. My teachers are Ms. Rattary and Mrs. Rivers. They are the best teachers. They give me stickers because I am working hard and learning to read and write. My friends are Isabella, Jaina, Carter, and Ezrie. I like to play on the playground and we get sand in our shoes! I like to walk along the ocean because I love watching the waves. I like to play with my Mama and we explore the ocean for rocks and shells and I like to play with my brother on the ocean with my Mom and Dad. I like to get sprayed by the blow hole. I have been learning to dive to the bottom of the pool and bring up stuff that is sitting there. Good-bye to all my friends and family. I miss you! love, Koen

sports heaven date night

our friends took us out on a date to a gigantic sports auction where kelly was fascinated by the autographed pictures, jerseys, and weekend getaways to see the dolphins play the patriots!!!! (he wants me to add lots of exclamation marks)!!!!! This sounded rather unappealing to me but we actually had a great time and managed to get out of there without spending a dime! The boys got to indulge in lots of candy and stay up way past their bedtime which made for an all-around good night.

Kelly's

pre-cayman hair

well, a friend just sent me these pictures and reminded me of life before cayman! i must say, short hair is much more practical in the heat, and swimming every day...sigh!

hospital, hospital, hospital

lest you should begin to think that we are living in paradise here let me fill you in on our latest...we have been to the Georgetown hospital precisely 5 times since our arrival! Kace has been throwing up for 24 hours and threw up again before bed tonight...but he is such a trooper...he insisted we play our new favorite family game- rukus, before he curled up on the couch for the night! not sure you wanted all the details but there you have it... do you want to know what we had for dinner tonight? i should have taken a picture of it all over the floor!

Boat, beach and conk!

ok, so i do not have a camera cord but wouldnt you know it- i met a girl whose mom has the same camera as me and she lent me her cord for a week! so that will tide me over until i get mine over christmas!

we headed out on a sunday afternoon with the Tibbet's to a new part of beach where we saw our first starfishes! after building sand castles and sand animals our friends went diving for conk (i will try to get a picture soon) and they found 2 within 15 minutes. we took the conk home, they sliced them up, added some marinade and we ate it on crackers (tasted like squid to me). i really enjoyed it but the jury is out on the boys- and kelly was NOT a fan! so he probably wont be doing any conk diving any time soon.

Pirate's Week

well the pirates are out and they are everywhere! the island has lots of activities as well as fireworks every night. we had the pirate invasion where a pirate ship came to the island loaded with pirates who stormed the island. it has all been a bit overwhelming for the boys i think but they really enjoyed the fireworks (koen just needed to have his fingers in his ears the whole time)! the fireworks were set off over the water and they were better than any of the fireworks i have seen in Canada- quite the show! you will be relieved to know that there is a dairy queen on island, so we walked along the water with our ice cream cones to finish off the evening.

sweet, sweet family time, and a Daddy who rocks!

we have been soaking up more than just sun here- we are cherishing, and loving, our time together! It has been so fun for me to watch Kel in action: such a hands on, committed, loving Dad! I am so thankful for him. Whether they are wrestling on the bed, sword fighting with foam swords, playing surf board on Daddy in the pool, washing the car together, or chasing each other at the park- there are constant squeals of excitement as they relish in their Dad's undivided attention. We can't get enough of it and thank the Lord every day for it!

movie night

we met a family at church who had us over for dinner and the kids had a movie night together. they were hyper as can be and proceeded to start a dance party that all the adults ended up joining! our new friends names are Kaycee and Joshua. Kaycee is also in one of the classes that i teach in so it is fun to see her at school as well.

turtle farm!

cayman islands is known to be the turtle capital of the world and turtles used to be the primary source of livelihood for Caymanian's for hundreds of years. since then the turtle population has drastically dimished and they have created a turtle farm to breed and keep turtles safe (for preservation and research). We have seen a few baby turtles in the wild that are very cute. the turtles on the farm range in size from huge to tiny. people keep telling us EMPHATICALLY that we need to try some local turtle meat so when we do we will let you how it goes! these pictures are from one of our trips but if you are interested in reading up a bit more on the history here is a few links that has more pictures. the other animal that you see all over the island are iguana's. along walls, in tree's- brown iguana's and green iguana's are the ones we see the most of (don't know if they have different names).

http://turtle.ky/video.htm

http://turtle.ky/history.htm

my excuse...

so we forgot our camera cord in calgary and i have not been able to download any pictures onto our computer (i did go to our friends house and download the ones that are posted, onto her computer) but that is just not a practical thing to do every time i want to do a post. so there you have it...until i get my cord...the pictures are going to be limited!

we made a new friend (yes we did) and she was housesitting at a beautiful house on an inlet. She invited us (and another family) over for a swim. we had a great time eating fruit, chatting, and checking out the boat that was parked a few feet from us!!!!

oh wait, that was last year at this time...

no i dont want to rub it in...just remembering where we have come from :) we will not be doing any ice skating around here...

sharing a bed

Koen and Kace share a bed for the first time ever and it is going really well except that Kace tends to wake up earlier than Koen every morning and wake him up so we are working on teaching him how to leave the room quietly!!!

Off to church

trying not to be too sweaty by the time we get there (we are borrowing our friends vehicle that doesn't have AC) but we are hoping to buy one this week that does have AC! Kelly is excited about that as he has had to wear dress shirts, pants, and shoes to work every day and he says his blood is way too thick for that!

Kace's 4th B-day

We celebrated Kace's birthday on the friday where we went to the turtle farm with our friends the DuChene's. We got to walk around and look at (some of them we could hold) all kinds of turtles that were all different sizes. There was also an aquarium that had sharks and other large fish as well as huge wild iguana's everywhere. we came back to our place where we had supper and cake together afterwards. Happy 4th Birthday Kace! We are so proud of you and thankful for you!

First day of school

Koen is in Kindergarten and Kace is in Pre-K and they both go to school from 8am-3pm m-f. This has been an adjustment for all of us but they really seem to be enjoying it- making new friends, learning lots of new stuff and fortunately they do have the option of taking a nap in the middle of the day if they need it (we have been encouraging Kace to do that but when he has all these people around him who he can talk to it makes it a difficult decision!) Kace was excited to have "door duty" for the week and he did a great job of holding the door for everyone (although he did have a hard time being last). They both leave their classrooms for PE and Music and are coming home with new songs every week. I will have them do a post to give you all an update from their perspective soon.

watching waves crash on the iron shore

family picture

a walk along the water before bed

into the water...

the boys swim almost every day and can't seem to get enough of it! koen can swim the length of the pool now without any flotation device and kace is the jumping king (but doesn't want to take his water wings off in the deep end yet)! the pool is just out our back door and is a refreshing place to go when we get home from school sweaty and covered in sand (because the playgrounds at school all have sand! it has been between 32-38 degrees Celsius every day with periodic rain showers.

we are on the ocean!!!

we have now been on grand cayman island for just over a week and it is starting to set in that we are actually going to be living in this surreal climate (minus the hurricanes!) we hear the ocean waves hitting the shore 24 hours a day from our condo and we step out the door any time of the night or day to a very warm and humid air- wow- i could get used to this! my only complaint is that the school we work at has way too much airconditioning happening...my co-worker looked at me and said "what happened to your lips?" and they had actually turned blue from having goosebumps and freezing ALL DAY!