The latest and greatest!!!

We've had a great few weeks!  Ben is back in school and going strong for the fifth and FINAL Semester here on St. Maarten!!! YIPPEE!!  We've only got 3 more months here!  Plus in about a month we will be having our little Kimber!  I'm sure the time is going to fly by!  

This past Saturday we had the Spouses Club Welcome Breakfast!  It is mainly for the 1st semester girls to get to meet everyone and everyone to meet them.  But, it is also a way of keeping track of the time here.  It was weird to already be one of the 5th semester spouses.  This is the group shot of the Spouses  who could make it! It was fun to see everyone! 

The above picture is me with a great friend, Natalie!  She has a boy, Jack, who is Holdyn's age and I just love her to pieces!!!

Here I am with Rachel. She is the best!  She was my diligent walking buddy until a month or so ago when I had to "take it easy."  She has been soo much help with pretty much everything!  When we would walk through the ongoing construction, the guys we passed thought we were sisters.  That's a compliment for me but I felt bad for her :)  Anyway, when I saw this picture I saw that we really do have a lot of "sisterly" similarities!

I also had a GREAT Birthday! Here are some of our friends that came over!  (L to R Cody, Rachel, Tom, Laura, and baby Ella) We had about 20 people over for a swim/Navajo Taco/Birthday party.  It was fun to see everyone!  Thanks Ben for all you did!!  I had a great Birthday!!

Here are Holdyn's two favorite neighbor friends....McKenzie and Sydney.  They are GREAT with her and I really appreciate all of their help babysitting!!!  This is also at the B-day party.

Here is one last shot of some friends at the b-day party, Natalie and Jack and Kim!  Thanks for coming gals!!!

Happy Mothers Day!!!

Jill, Holdyn says that you the Best Mom EVER!!!

Ready and waiting... but still have 6 weeks

This picture should be more than enough to explain why I do the picture taking and not the posing!!!  As for the hair.... no more island haircuts for me thanks!  I keep ending up with uneven gross hair.... Kandice you'd better put me down for a full day's attention in the Salon in August!!  Seriously!   Anyway, it has been sooo hot lately and I just can't seem to get myself cooled down!  At least our power hasn't been out in awhile... knock on wood!  Really though, things are going good for us!  Just counting down until Kimber will be out instead of in!

Philipsburg Branch Photo

We finally took a new branch picture a few weeks ago and I forgot to post it. (Click on it to enlarge) This is our church building in the background....notice the windows are cranked open.... no A/C.... each Sunday we come home just about drenched with sweat... but we love every minute of it!

Can anyone guess what this is????

If you guessed that this is what my midwife uses to hear my baby's heartbeat you'd be RIGHT!! It is her Stethescope.  I found these images on a medical antique website. 

 Is this going to be a primitive birthing experience or what?!

More fun with Daddy!

Today we had a great family outing :)  

We went to the home of Gladys Busby.  

She is a very sweet local woman we know from church.  

We've adopted her as our Caribbean Grandma.

Anyway, we've been wanting to learn how to make some local foods and she happends to be an excellent cook.  So she had us over this morning to make Johnny Cakes.  

They turned out GREAT!  We are excited to try them on our own. 

We had a great with her!

We've also gone to the little park near our house so Holdyn could release some energy.

Here is the bathing beauty sporting her floaties at the kiddie pool. 

We sure love having daddy around to do this stuff with us!!

The Caribbean Toddler Bed

Here it is!! It can be hard and expensive to find cribs/beds here on the island. So thanks to the Spouses Org. (through the school) we can get the hand-be-downs.  Which are always greatly appreciated!! This Toddler Bed has been through 6 Medical student families. We were fortunate enough to score it from Nicole:)  Notice the bottom legs of the bed.... they broke off somewhere along the way, so we've got it sitting up on two step stools and Ben also added the board along the side (With zip ties) so that Holdyn doesn't roll out :)   So far Holdyn LOVES it!  We also got the little black puzzle foam mat thing to go around the edges of her bed. Now, if she rolls out she won't land with a splat on the tile floor.  She goes to bed much better than we expected!  Hopefully the next kid adjusts to changes as good as little Holdyn!