Jacobs "crazy" island life.....

I feel like  my blog revolves around me and my cute kiddos and while we are the ones having all of the fun I feel like I need to write about Jacob and his crazy schedule!

Jacob has a super busy schedule but what more could you expect he is in medical school for heaven sakes! His day starts about 6:30am he gets up and gets ready for school and studies for about  a half hour before he takes off for the day the bus picks him up at  7:30 and he is in school from 8 until noon and then they have a break for lunch and he goes back to class from 1- 3, typically he will stay at the library and study for a few hours and gets home around 5 or so but occasionally he will come home right after his afternoon classes and study from home. Quiz and Exam weeks are a different story he still leaves at 7:30am but we usually won't see him until 9:00 pm or sometimes a little later. these weeks he comes home very tired but of course the kids attack him when he comes through the door!

Weekends are no different he spends most of the weekend studying except for Sundays he always makes time for family on Sundays, we usually use that time to talk to our families back home and get the 411 of what's going on there, we actually really look forward to Sundays and with technology we get to feel like we are there with them in a way!

I have gotten used to being on my own after all our whole married life has consisted of going to school, having him around the last year and a half has been very nice and we have been very spoiled, Kohl is struggling the most with his absence but he has gotten to the point now where in the mornings he will say to me "dad is at school huh?" and I reply "yep" and he says "he has to go there everyday to get smarter huh mom?" and I just giggle and say "yep your right pal!"

Katelyn is just too little to really get it, all she cares about is that he picks her up when he walks in the door and gives her a squeeze and then she goes off on her merry way, she is such a snuggler! I love it!

We are settling in to the being back in school routine a lot better than I thought we would and a lot faster than I thought we would! I would not trade any of it for the world. I can't believe how much we have already grown from this experience!

Every day is an adventure, and by not being together all of the time makes our night time story telling time an even better time! We always have a story for Jacob at night!

After reading through this post I can see why I only write about the kiddos and my adventures.....Jacob is boring...LOL I am just kidding! He works so hard and gives everything he has to us and his studies, I love him more than anything and I am so grateful that I get to go through this the whole crazy experience with him! I love our crazy unpredictable life!

 

Rain Rain Rain....

My blog posts have been few and far between for the last couple weeks because we haven't been going out and doing much becasue of all the rain we have been getting, but I wouldn't expect much less since we are in hurricane season right now.

Hurricane season isn't something that Vincentian people really worry alot about, the last hurricane that made land fall here was back in the 70's they are used to seeing a lot of rain during hurrican season and some gusty winds, but St. Vincent is on the very bottom of the hurrican belt so rarly does a major storm get down to us, that doesn't mean that it can't happen at all but it is rare.

Emergency prepardness is something I have been trying to get better at, we try to always keep basic survival  food and water on hand at all times, just in case we ever do need it, they told us to bring flashlights with us and we have used ours a couple of times already,the power has gone out 3 times I think and we have a very uptight 4 year old since we only have 1 flashlight for all of us to use, we have another one coming but of course it is in our barrel that we shipped that has now been sitting in customs for 6 weeks.....sigh....I really want my barrell!

I would say that we have adjusted really well, shopping has become alot easier for me, it is kind of nice becasue it forces me to plan a menu and think ahead to the next week, I am now spending less and getting more, the hadest part of shopping is that there is no such thing as 1 stop shopping here in St.Vincent, I currently go to 5 places every Saturday to get what we need for the  next week, I could possibly eliminate 1 of those stops but it is the only store I have been able to consistantly get Kate's formula at every week the one week I bypassed it and figured I would pick it up at my other stop they of course didn't have it so I had to back track and by it there any way, so believe it or not it actually saves time to go to those 5 places most weeks!

I am loving the fruit market I try to ask about a new fruit every week, and occasionally I will buy it and try it out so far we havn't been too into the never before seen fruit, so I have kind of stopped experiementing with Jacob and the kids. I however am still eating a mango a day and loving them!
Avacados have by far been ur favorite thing to but here, they are huge and cheap I pay the same for 1 extra large avacado that I paid in the states for 1 small avacado. We eat a lot of guacamole!

I am happy to report that my parents have offically booked there flight here! We are so excited to have someone come and visit us they won't be here until August but with as fast as time is going there will be here in no time! We can't wait to show them everything we do here and for them to meet people!

Well as I sit here writing this blog update the sun is actually shining sow we are going to head outside before the evening rain starts in on us!

Jacob got an exam for his birthday!

So glad to have the first medical school exam under our belts! Jacob especially! Last week was a long and rough week! Between Jacobs schedule and naughty kids I was fit to be tied by Wednesday!

We knew that it was going to be a rough week after all it was the first big exam of Jacobs med school career and it was also going to be given on the same day as his birthday! He studied so much I thought my head was going to explode he spent long night days at the school and then came home around 7 and went right back to studying for another 2-3 hours each night!

Jacob was spending a lot of time at the school as well as all of the other students so we did a lot of chilling at home on Monday I was exhausted sleep hasn't been coming easy to me for a couple of weeks now and I had no energy to do anything, Meggie was able to get me out of my funk on Tuesday her and Brie invited us to go to the beach with them on Tuesday so we graciously accepted because I knew kohl was going to go crazy if we didn't get out of the house soon!

We had a blast at the beach and when we got ready to head home Kohl was being so naughty, I was getting very frustrated with him, he kept running away from us and getting way far ahead of us on our walk home, and me not wanting to scare these poor two girls off buried the raging beast inside me from just paddling his bum right in front of them! We were almost home and Kohl takes off running and I am nicely yelling to him "please wait...please wait" of course he doesn't and he darted around the fence so I couldn't see him anymore, knowing that he would never cross the street by himself (because I fear for my life when I have too) I just keep walking assuming that he will be waiting on the corner for us to come, next thing I know my land lord is standing at the fence yelling "Kohl stay there!" "Do not cross!" I panic instantly and Meggie ran up the side walk and grabbed his hand! I was so mad I thought I was going to loose it right there on the corner however I kept my cool and got the kids into the house and we said our goodbyes to Meggie and Brie and I shut the door and instant rage shot through my body fighting back the screaming demon about to erupt from my mouth I took Kohl into the bathroom and got him in the shower and was able to control my self and have a talk with him about what he had done (this is totally out of character for me...I yell ALOT).

We spent the rest of the day on the couch snuggling because I was grateful that he was home with me and not at the hospital after almost darting into traffic but I was still very bugged by the whole thing and the fact that he didn't listen to me!

Wednesday was another bad day Katelyn is trying to cut teeth and is miserable most of the time, napping has become and few and far in between thing for her, it always seems that Kohl capitalizes on these moments with her and makes her more miserable, resulting in myself being more miserable, this was a lot of pestering kind of day for Kohl he would just not stop! Pretty sure he spent most of the day in time out that day LOL! That night when Jacob got home we had dinner and got ready for bed and off we all went to get some sleep except for me....sigh......I had a breakdown....I cried like a 2 year old who just dropped her ice cream cone on the ground! Jacob asked me what  was going on and I told him it had just been a bad couple of days I just needed a good cry and I would be fine which is exactly what I  did!

Thursday....I decided to make my first trip to Kingstown with just me and the kids! Jacob had a study day Thursday to prepare for the exam on Friday which was also his birthday! We headed into town to see if we could find him a little something for his birthday, so we hopped on a van and off we went into town! Kohl loves ride in the vans down here we actually call them "reggae buses" but that is something the Medical student came up with the Vincy people would not a have a clue what you were talking about if you called them a reggae bus, anyway we get into town and we are off! We went to a lot of stores and couldn't seem to find anything we wanted to get so we headed to one last store and found him a pair of shorts! Success! Exactly what we were looking for and they were even reasonably priced! kohl was being to good he did all of the walking and didn't complain once! I think he is finally starting to get used to all the walking we do!

Kohl finally broke after we left the last store and asked if we could go home I still had one more store to go too but decided it could wait we had been beating the sidewalk for 2 and 1/2 hours, we caught a van and Kohl and Katelyn were asleep instantly LOL, I laugh because it is so loud on the buses you can't even hear yourself think but my kids go right to sleep!

Friday morning Jacob was off to take his test and Kohl, Katelyn and I decorated the house and made him a card and got ready for the day, Kohl was so excited for Jacobs birthday he made me and Katelyn hid so we could jump out and yell surprise it was hilarious! We decide to had back into town that day and look  around for some other stuff we needed so we spent the afternoon down there and the came home and skyped with our families and then we celebrated Jacobs birthday by ordering Pizza Hut and have cake and ice cream, it was a good day we had some much needed family time after such a long exam week!

P.S. Jacob did really well on his exams!

This weeks piece of paradise..........

                                             Happy Birthday !!

                                           

                                                   Katelyns favorite seat in the house

                                                    Kohl the Mer-Man!

                                          there was no way were getting out of this store ....

                                           Happy Birthday Daddy

 

A busy 2 weeks!

Hello Hello everyone I have missing from the blogging world for a couple of weeks now and in all honesty I didn't realize it had been that long!

Everything I going great here in paradise we have doing a lot of walking and a fair amount of beach time the last couple of weeks, we have meet some new people and are continuing to expand our horizons here in St.Vincent!

So here we go I will do my best to catch you up, Kohl and I decided to go for a little walk a couple of weeks ago, we had been stuck in the house for a couple of days because of all the rain we are getting and he and I were going crazy so I put Katelyn down for a nap and told Jacob we were going on an "adventure"!

We headed up the street not really going anywhere and Kohl is still pretty whinny about walking more than 30 yards so as we got about 1/2 a mile from the house he starts in on wanting to go home but I just needed to walk a little longer so I told him we were going to go and explore a new beach and he pepped right up!

We dashed across the street (seriously you have to run for your life here) and headed down to the beach known as Indian Bay we had never  been there before so we just followed the two ladies in front of us and they lead us right to it! It is beautiful there are a lot of  "mini" islands just about 10 or 20 yards off of the shore, one of them there is actually a rock path all the way over to it if you get down there on a low tide day you can walk right over to it without getting too wet but this was a high tide day so you couldn't see the path very well and after Kohl's incident at church the previous Sunday we had to keep his foot out of the water so we walked around on the sand for a while and picked up some really huge pieces of coral that wash up all over the beach Kohl thinks they are sea shells no matter how any times we tell him that it is coral and we just had to bring them home!

After about an hour or so we decided to head for home carrying our new home décor, can I just tell you 1/2 a mile is a long way to walk with 30 lbs of coral in your hands that your adorable blue eyed 4 year just can't leave the beach without!  We finally make it home and Kohl can't wait to show dad his "sea shells" so Jacob comes out with him and says "dude that not sea shells that is coral" Kohls response "no dad! these are my sea shells.....get it right!" Never a dull moment at our house!

So the next day we decided to head back down to Indian bay again but take Katelyn with us so Jacob could do some much needed studying and to get the kidlets out of the house so I take my phone and $5 and the two kids and we head out! We walkout on to the sand at the beach and start picking up more coral to take home and it begins to RAIN....not just rain torrential down pour! There was no where for us to go no trees close by no nothing, so what do we do....stand there and just let in pour down on us LOL we were giggling and laughing about it, well Kohl and I were Katelyn wasn't amused by any of it!  It let up a little bit so we started playing again and walking down the shore line to some other beach and we run into a family playing on the beach with there two kids so of course Kohl invites himself to the party and they had a good a time 10 minutes later DOWN POUR again so I run for the trees with Katelyn figuring Kohl would be right behind me WRONG.....he heads for the water and jumps in! I yell to him "what are you doing its raining" he yells back "but mom I am already wet from this rain"  how do you argue with that? We were completely soaked to the bone so I did what any good mommy would do I went over to the water and told him to be careful and have fun! He played for over an hour with his new friends and had a blast, Jacob wasn't to ha[[y when we got home and his foot was soaking wet but a little alcohol and some "sporine" and he was good to go!

On our walk home that day it rained the whole time, Katelyn was asleep in my arms and we were walking up a street and a lady says to me "please take my umbrella, your baby is so wet" I politely declined her offer and told her we would be fine, after 3 more offers she finally gave up. We turned the corner to get on to the main road and another lady says to me " where is your umbrella? you should always carry an umbrella in St. Vincent" she laughed at me when I told her I left it home because I didn't think we would need it.

We finally made it home and head for the shower to get cleaned up and dry and Jacob comes in and says to me "I was beginning to wonder if you were going to make it home" and the laughs hysterically at us because we look like drowned rats!

After our rainy day we decided to stay in the nest day and just chill for the day which worked out because it rained a lot that day too, we are in hurricane season here right now but the Island is usually never hit directly by any of the passing hurricanes because we are on the very bottom of the hurricane belt so we get a lot of rain and some pretty scary wind storms but they haven't had  a hurricane make it to land for a long time, I believe the last hurricane to hit the island was back on the early 70's
that doesn't mean you aren't prepared for one but they don't anticipate them either.

We convinced Jacob to take a short study break on Friday of that week and go for a walk with us back down to Indian Bay, it was a much calmer day and the tide was out so we could see the rock path they lead over to one of the "mini" islands but we still didn't want Kohl walking over there without better shoes on so we made plans to go back another time and walk over to the other island.

We strolled down the beach for a while and let Kohl play in the water because weather we wanted him to or not he was getting in....we finally got flipper out of the water and were heading home so that Jacob could get back to the grind of things and we ran into Brother Drake from our branch and we had a good talk with him and he showed us his talents for carving on what they call a Kallabash it is a type of gourd he gets and he carves designs into them and sells them for a living. It is really neat to sit and watch him do it he has some physical limitations so to watch him work is really amazing. I am pretty sure we sat and watched him for an hour or so and just had a good talk with him about church and meeting new people and serving and we talked to Jacob a lot about school.

We parted ways with Brother Drake and headed for home, it was nice to get out with Jacob for a while and just relax we don't see him a whole lot because of the demands of school which this may sound weird but its great! He is doing well and enjoying it too, we miss him but wouldn't trade this time for anything!

Saturday I had my usual trip into town for groceries and my "alone" time Jacob calls it. Which I  really do enjoy I like walking around and seeing all of the things in the different stores and talking to different people I have been able to find something new every time I go down.

Sundays have become a little difficult for us we live about a mile and a half from the church and it is nearly impossible to catch a bus on Sundays here so we have had to walk to church for the last 3 weeks and it is a challenge trust me when you have the two small kids and you have to walk that far it is very tempting to just stay home and not worry about going but we don't we make the trek and we may be sweaty and smelly when we arrive but by golly we get there! I have teaching primary for 3 weeks now and I am enjoying it a lot but I really struggle with the ciaos and  limited structure that we have, I have said before the church is still very young here on the island everyone is learning and the primary kids are not exempt from this! I was very frustrated after the first 2 weeks of teaching so when I got there this last week I was able to talk with Sister Bird a little about how I was feeling and she just listened to me and talked to me about it she is amazing I absolutely adore her and her patience she has with me, after talking with her I was feeling much better this past week when I began to teach the lesson and it went really pretty smoothly I was actually able to feel the spirit there and felt like the kids were taking in what I was saying! That is always a good feeling!

Well everyone life continues to go on here I will be writing another post about my adventures last week and Jacobs first exam! Your piece of paradise................

                                      These are typical lawn ornaments down here

                                        view walking down to Indian Bay Beach

                                           "mini island"

                                     
                                    The water is so clear here I love that you can see where you are walking

                                    I was taking pictures of the different algae and water life

                          I was about to reach down and touch this one when I spotted the red ball
                         attached to it....it is a sea urchin! You have to watch really close for these

                                       This is another view of Young Island you can see the small
                                      island behind it they do a lot of cliff diving off of the smaller
                                      island.  

                                          They call this baptism bay but Kohl likes to call it
                                           "little T" Island!