Happy Mardi Gras!!!

Happy Mardi Gras!!!

Julian and I made a king cake today in celebration of Mardi Gras. It came out pretty good. We brought some over to our official Louisianan's Casey and Yiyi. They really appreciated a taste of home. Julian got the baby this year, can you believe his luck? Haha. Looks like we know who'll be buying the cake next year!

Fridge is fixed and...THE ROADS ARE GETTING PAVED!!!

Only those of you who have been here to visit or lived here will appreciate how exciting it is that our roads are being paved. WE have been living with this road construction for over a year. On the stretch of road directly in front of our house all the way to the school. It has been so annoying but it's finally almost over! This is going to be so nice to drive to school without getting shaken baby sydrome. In my car that is what it feels like. YAHOO!!! It's the little things that I appreciate now. Haha. Also, my fridge is fixed. Cold as the tundra in there. Gotta love a nice cold soda or beer on a hot day. Aaaaahhhhh. I will write more later about the king cake that is in the making.

Fridge on the fritz

Today Julian and I spent the day hanging around the house waiting on a repair man to look at our fridge. When I woke up this morning everything in the fridge was sort of...not cold...I wouldn't say warm exactly but not cold. Cool but less than cool but not quite warm. Follow? So he finally got here around 3:45 and said it needed freeon. I said "So you think the freeon is the problem?" and he said "No, I know it is the problem". So...he had to go get some freeon of course because he didn't bring any with him. So that took another couple of hours and they finally left around 7:00. Hopefully it actually fixed the problem. I am skeptical but I'm a born skeptic anyway so I'll just have to be patient and see what happens. A beautiful day come and gone. At least I got a lot of laundry done while I was home all day!

Our Weekend

So we had our last race in the triathlon training series on Saturday. I finished in an hour and a half which is good for me. Jaime and Julian teamed up and did the race together. Jaime's ankle is finally feeling better but not so good that he thought he could go all out so he decided to race with Julian to give him a taste of the tri bug. He had a great time. Jaime did the swim because it would be WAY too far for Julian. Then they used the trail-a-bike for the bike leg and then they ran together for the run leg. His 5k time was quite good I must say at 36 minutes. Their total time was about one hour and 45 minutes. Everyone was so impressed with Julian. He was perched up there on his bike and smiling at everyone peddling his little legs off. This time we had to go twice up the big hill so it was not an easy 20k on the bike especially for them. But Julian was last but not least in the race and during the awards ceremony Winston created a special category for Julian and Jaime and they got medals. That was really nice of him and the Nevis Triathlon Team was quite impressed with Julian's athleticism. I was a bit bummed because I didn't get a medal. Boohoo for me! Haha. In the last 3 races I have been the 3rd female to finish and this race we had a new entrant who took my place. She is the swim instructor they have on island to coach the tri team and she is a lot faster than me. She's a professional so I couldn't compete with that. Oh well it was still fun. One of the other women competing, Wendy, couldn't believe how great Julian did. I told her that we started making him run to earn his t.v. time and her son was listening in. He is about 10 or 11 years old and she just thought the idea was great. Sean, her son, on the other hand did not think it was so great. He was just looking at me saying "No, don't tell her that!!!" It was really funny.

This was Jaime's mid-semester break. The last couple of semesters we have gone over to the marriott to relax a bit on the break but this time the rooms were too expensive so we stayed here. Our friend Chris' fiancee, Andrea was here so we spend some time with them which was fun. They are a great couple and lots of fun to hang around with. Since we did such a great job in the race we decided to reward ourselves with a night out in style. We went to the Four Seasons for dinner. WOW! That is the one word that sums it up. All five of us went over there for dinner and it was amazing. The food was so good. It was the best meal I have had in a long time. I had a blue cheese crusted veal chop with a garlic cream sauce with balsamic noodles and sauteed veggies. The veal melted in my mouth. We also ordered ahead of time a coconut souffle which was really good too. It came with a passion fruit sauce. Julian had pepperoni pizza which he said was the best pizza he has ever had. He was very good and well behaved considering how tired he must have been from all of his triathlon efforts.

Andrea has been fun to have around. I met her last year when she came to visit in June. This trip we have spent a lot of time together. We even got to have a girls night out which was really fun. It has been a long time since I have done that. We went over to Coconut Grove and sat on the cushy couches at the bar, had a couple of drinks and talked girl talk. It was a lot of fun and it gave Chris a chance to get some studying in before the weekend. During the week Julian and I took her to the beach and dragged her around with us during the day doing all the "exciting" stuff we do in Nevis. All the while listening to her stories of life as an ER nurse which is what she does with most of her time when she's back in the States. She is also in school to become a nurse anesthetist (I think that's what it's called). We also spent a lot of time all 5 of us which was fun. It was good for Jaime and I to have another couple to do things with. They came over and hung out one night at our house just watching t.v. while Chris read out loud the answers to the questions in the Why Do Men Have Nipples book. We are all now much smarter in the weird and wacky medical question arena. So that's about it on our end. Jaime's big one day break is now pretty much over so he'll be back to hitting the books hard. He had a full day off from the books on Saturday but did get some stuying in yesterday and spent most of today at the library. Julian and I spent the afternoon at the beach with Chris and Andra. Chris and Julian played like little kids which was great for me. I got a day off from burying Julian in the sand and making sand castles. Chris helped him build a village and then had a hurricane come and when that didn't destroy things King Kong came along and smashed the rest. They had lots of fun. We watched King Kong one day on the weekend. I didn't love it much. I would have liked it better on a big screen. We also watched The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe which was really good. It stayed pretty true to the book which was good. That's it...ta-ta...

Julian's dinosaur project and Fireflies!

Julian finished the dinosaur diorama that he has been working on for the last few weeks. He did a great job and is very proud of his creation. He started out researching dinosaurs and writing info on index cards. Then we found pictures and put them on cards. We painted up a box and decorated it and put all the dinosaurs and their info inside the box. It is really cool! Our next unit will be on habitats which I know he will enjoy too.

Another cool thing that happened this weekend is that he caught a couple of fireflies!!! All by himself. He was outside running for t.v. and it was dusk which is his favorite time to play outside. Probably because it is cooler out there at that time. I was in the shower and he came running in with his bug catcher box. He was all excited and told me that he caught some fireflies. I couldn't believe it! I can remember doing that when I was little. It was so exciting. We have a lot of fireflies here. Lots of bats at that time of day too. They swoop right down in our yard and whiz up the roof line. It's cool to see how fast they go and watch them dipping and flying back up catching all those mosquitos I hope! Our weather was better this weekend. Not ideal but at least we got some sun today. Yesterday afternoon was ok but the early part of the day was rainy and overcast. We had a barbecue to go to for one of the families that is leaving. The wife and kids are going back to the U.S. so she can get a job and make some money to help out with the finances. She's going to be living with the in-laws. The party was fun. Lots of yummy food which is always good. So, right now I'm watching the Olympics. So far Bode Miller has not performed to my expectations. Haha. He is on my favorite list. I'm not sure what else he is in for these olympics but he didn't win the downhill or even get a medal. Shawn White got a gold and he was one of my faves. He's a snowboarer. They call him "The Flying Tomato" because of his red hair. Michelle Kwan has dropped out which is really too bad. And Jeremy Bloom is my other favorite. He'll be running moguls. He's from Colorado and he's...let's just say...easy on the eyes. Haha.

Mid-Winter Slump???

Well...it's been soggy here in the middle of the ocean. We have just gotten through our 3rd weekend in a row of wet rainy weather. On Sunday I met some friends at the pool just to get out and the kids pretty much played in the rain while we hung undercover and ate. Julian just needed to get out with some kids being that our beach day that week was rained out and horseback riding was cancelled that week too. Our weeks have not been great either with not many consecutive hours for drying clothes. Not fun at all. I really don't have much to say and it looks like most of the other people who's blogs I watch are having the same mid-winter slump because they aren't updating either. So...just thought I would let everyone know that there isn't much exciting going on here in Nevis. I was happy to hear that my friend Tracey on her honeymoon in Jamaica had good weather and a great time. So the bad weather is not Caribbean wide. As a matter of fact on Saturday it was a black cloud pretty much hovering over my house. I left in the early afternoon to go to the store and got a mile away before the sun was shining down hard. I went all the way around the island until I got to Oualie Beach (a few miles away, where we wanted to go that day) and the clouds were thick and it was raining. So...not sure what is up with that! I have been out riding my bike more than usual which will help with the triathlon and swimming very little which will not help. It has been so cloudy that I know the water must be cold too and don't dare to get in! Tomorrow is beach day so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for good weather.