Our first visitors!!!

Well its been over a month since they were here and we are missing them, but we were so excited to have my parents come visit us on our tiny Island! We had a great time exploring the Island and just playing at home:)

Eli and Krysten were very excited to welcome Grandpa and Grandma. Sorry for the picture over load, there is a lot you can do in 12 days!!!

Love these two!

My two fishes...

At Zeelandia Beach

Let's go fly a kite...

My Mum loved swimming in the Ocean

Fun beach time with Dad...

My Dad and Camille's Dad helping out the locals bring their fish net in.

Ready to hike the Quill

Up we go. There are 10 switchbacks on the way up. You are covered by trees the entire way so its not too hot!

Made it to the top!

On our way down into the crater, nothing can stop this 65 year old, I mean 55;)

The trees were amazing inside the crater. 

My parents brought the BC rain with them, it hasn't rained this much since we have been here and since they have left:)

One of Eli's favourite rainy day activities, playing on Grandpa's IPad.

Krysten loved to play and chat with her Grandma.

They loved playing what time is it Mr. Wolf and Jailer with Grandpa.

Krysten's came out of her room one day and looked at Grandpa and said "you're wearing no hair today"! As if he had a choice;)

White Wall

View of St. Kitts

Botanical Gardens

I love this picture of my Mum, it looks so serene.

Just another day at the beach.

A final squinty eyed pic before they left to go back home:(

We love our hooded towels, and all the other gifts you brought us. Thanks for coming Grandma and Grandpa, we love you!

Deep Sea Fishing...

Living on an island its no surprise that fishing, snorkelling and scuba diving are popular activities here. Although he hasn't tried the latter, Monty was able to try out spear fishing and deep sea fishing over his break after completing term one. He did awesome on his first term exams by the way, yay Monty we are so proud.

He wasn't a fan of the spear fishing but he really enjoyed  his first deep sea fishing trip. Todd, Josh, Andy and Monty left early in the morning and unfortunately it was a rainy day so they didn't stay out as long, but they were still able to get a few good catches. They caught a Barracuda, king fish and a Mahi- mahi. That night we went over to the Erickson's to enjoy the yummy fish.

We Moved...

After 5 Hyundai Getz trips of our stuff and luggage to the new place and maybe an hour later, we were all moved in. Thanks to our friends Todd and Brant for the help. Monty and I call it the Hamptoms of Statia, not quite, but its a lot nicer than our last place and we are loving it here. The area is called upper round hill, and if you watch the video below my dad took you can see our house on the hill:)
The kids have a huge yard to play in, we have fruit trees, a regular washing machine and small dryer, we inherited a dog (Fergie) she belongs to our landlord, and the view is not half bad either. Did I mention we have a regular american sized fridge as well. I think we will be very happy here for the rest of our time on Statia.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM0ttXYxLaE

Our new pad

My favourite tree on the property, and the kids love to play under it and swing on the rope swing.

Getting ready to sing Happy Birthday to Grandma H:)

A pomegranate tree

A banana plant

A mango tree

Our new hill to walk up, another killer:)

Fergie the dog. She is great with the kids and they absolutely adore her.

Happy Birthday Monty!

We celebrated Monty's 34th B-Day with our friends the Tidmarsh's. They had us over for dinner on his actual birthday, it was a yummy chicken dinner and I made an oreo cake. Since it was now break, we were able to get out one night, thanks to Camille for babysitting and enjoy a yummy dinner at a local restaurant.

 Love him...

Check out the portion sizes, I wont tell you how much or little we had left;)

Queen's Day

On April 30th Queen Beatrix abdicates the Dutch throne and crowns her son Prince Willem-Alexander. Since Stint Eustatius is a municipality within the kingdom of the netherlands and part of the lesser Antilles, there was a big celebration in town. I believe they started the festivities at 6am and as much as I wanted to be there we don't move that quickly so early on, well my kids do, me not so much. So we ventured out a little later and basically saw the after math of the ceremonies. It was fun to see everyone dressed in orange and some houses were even decorated. There was a parade in the afternoon but the funny thing about Statia is that nothing is scheduled, if you see it then you got lucky, but Eli needed a nap and we were not about to wait around all afternoon with no idea where and when it began. We actually saw a bit of it on TV a few days later. The capital of Statia is called Oranjestad, which in Dutch means Orange:)

Fort Oranje