A couple days of fun....

Ben and I decided to make red beans and rice for Sunday dinner. We soaked the beans and ended up having WAY more than we thought. We invited some friends to share them with us... and STILL had enough to feed an army. Ben also got ambitious and made this French Bread... I only helped with the braiding and eating :) It tasted great, but we still have some tweeking to do to perfect it.

On Monday Ben had his first exams of his 3rd Semester... which he did GREAT on!!! Anyway, there were 3 students in his class who had birthday's within the last week. They had a HUGE birthday party for them at Skip Jack's Restaurant. It was GREAT!!
Here is a picture of part of the group.
Here is Candace and Richie Bridges. Ben studies with Richie and they took Great care of Ben while I was home. They are some of the great friends we've made here on St. Maarten!!

Yesterday we went snorkeling. It was kind of rainy and the water wasn't as clear as it usually is. BUT, we still had fun. This is Chad and Brittany. They are here managing a store on Front Street. They have one of the MANY starfish we saw yesterday!
Here is a picture of the Lobster trap. Still no Lobsters, but it was fun to see where it is at.
Okay these next pictures were taken by Justin and Ben when they were out snorkeling. They saw three stingrays in one day! Yikes!

Okay, be sure to click on this picture and enlarge it.... the stingray has spots on it like a leopard and the tail is like 5 ft long!!!

Branch Beach Party @ Le Galion

We had a great time at the Branch Beach Party!

Here is Denisha! What a cutie pie!

Hillary and Denisha

Izaak

RS President, Sister Lake and Sister Bell

Some of the yummy food!

Aubrey, Jill, and Holdyn

Branch President, Elder Coleman and Jill and Holdyn.

Here's our fam-damily!

Elder Coleman, Ben and Holdyn

Holdyn and Violet

Ben with David, Rinaldo and Brother Josef

Rinaldo and Holdyn!

Crab.... under the bed?!

So last night we were just getting ready for bed when we found a huge dead roach underneath our bed.
Nothing too new... except it was already dead, which we were thankful for! Well, Ben was climbing under the bed to get the dead roach when he sees this crab staring him in the face! At first we had no idea what it was. But upon closer look, it was a little crab! How it got inside, we are still wondering. Anyway, we've almost decided to move the lobster trap from the sea to our bedroom.... seems like we'd catch more in it there. (We're still trying to figure out how to catch those dang lobsters :)

Fun with the Neighbors!

Okay, so Sara didn't like her picture on the top of my blog so I had to update! Ha Ha, sorry Sara! I can't figure out how to get pictures on with my new MAC computer, so I have to wait until Ben isn't using his so I can update.

We have been busy as ever, but, I haven't had my camera out as much as I should. So these are the lastest pictures. Holdyn LOVES to play with the neighbor kids.... Anabel, Izaak, and Aubrey. We've got this King sized matress on the floor in part of her bedroom and it is the closest thing to a trampoline that the kids have seen. They can play in there for hours!

We also found Holdyn this little Snoopy chair. As you can see... it is just about her favorite thing!

She has also picked up the strange habit of sticking toys down the back of her shirt. She plays with her little blocks or ducky or whatever and when she is done she tries to stick it down the back of her shirt. Then she gets frusterated that she can't get them out.

We had Anabel, Izaak and Aubrey over for the evening so their parents could have an evening out. We watched a fun movie and packed down the popcorn! They are sure great kids!

Ben is busy as ever with his 3rd semester. His first exams are on Monday. We try to enjoy every minute that we get with him!!

We are loving our new apt! It is working out great! Anyway, that's about it for now... we have had some great moster cockroach attacks I'll have to tell you about later. For now, that's all fowlks!!!

Due to popular Demand...

So I've had many requests to get some pictures of Ben on the scooter.... I need to get one when he is leaving for school with his backpack and helmet for the full effect, but here is a good preview. Holdyn is obsessed with climbing in the footspace in the scooter. She climbs in whenever she gets the chance. Stay tuned for more scooter pictures :)

To those of you who've also been asking about the lobster trap..... no luck yet. Any ideas for bait.... apparantly what we've been using isn't attracting them. We've got some great recipes we want to try so we're hoping to get those lobsters soon :)


Here is Hillary and the kids at Flamingo Beach. Holdyn is still loving to eat sand and whatever else she can find.... today she was muching on the rocks like they were crackers? Oh well, she's going to have one great immune system!

The Return

We arrived home safe and sound after a VERY long night/day of flights. We've been unpacking into our new place and what do you know... the power and water went out. So we opted to go to McDonalds for dinner since it is hard to cook without water and power :). Here is Holdyn enjoying some Ice Cream with a random friend who wanted to be in the picture. St. Maarten...."The Friendly Island." Our neighbors... the Brox's have been GREAT! Justin brought in this old abondoned lobster cage while he was snorkeling. He and Ben spent Saturday rebuilding it. They took it out to sea yesterday and are hoping to bring back some fresh lobster for dinner.... we will let you know how it goes.

While the guys worked on the Lobster cage Hillary and I with the kids went to Tyson Jackson's Birthday Party at the AUC playground. It was great. Holdyn loved the slide and the swings.

The party turned out Great Nicole..... Thanks for the fun evening and the yummy treats!!!

A night or two after we returned I went with the RS for their first "Ladies Night." We ended up going to a little mini-golf course called "Sputter's" It was quite fun.... some of the ladies had never played before so they weren't sure how to hold the club/putter's or how to keep score... it was great!
Here is the RS President (orange) Sister Lake and Deb Joseph going for the first hole! It really turned out fun!

The End of the visit

Here is a sum up of the last week home.

We tried to spend as much time in the hills as we could while we were home. Holdyn loved being able to get dirty.

Holdyn was great on the tractor.
She was a little unsure of the horses.
We had a great time riding up on the Kaibab,

near the Grand Canyon.
Thanks Josh and Tiff!!

Here is Holdyn with her cousin Emma!
We got to watch Kenzie's Rodeo.
Here she is at the beginning of the goat tie.... she is quite the cowgirl!!


A stop on our bunny hunt.
Holdyn really loved the 4 wheelers!!!
We couldn't leave without fishing the streams!


Here is Holdyn taking her first shots with a BB gun.Due to high prices of beef on the island we made sure to eat lots of BEEF!!!
Here we are at the Las Vegas Airport.... getting on the plane to return to St. Maarten. It'll be at least another year before we make it home to the states.