Well, my blogging this summer may be a disappointment to some of you. In addition to just spending time enjoying our summer with the kids, we've had massive internet connection problems which has put us at dial-up speeds. So...loading photos on the blog was a time-consuming process! But don't worry...we're having a great summer as a family and we now have some more pictures to share!
We spend a lot of time at home, reading, playing, swimming and saving money! The kids are so good natured about being together in such a tiny place. It isn't always easy, but we make it work and hope that good memories are being formed! So, the following are just some pictures from what some of our typical days look like.
This is a cute one of the kids "marching" to patriotic music on the 4th of July!
Jack and George occasionally get to play on the iPad - they love Angry Birds - but we try to keep it to a minimum.
We go to the beach about once a week. The boys love riding on the paddle board and last week, Jack went out with Josh to explore a cave carved out by the sea. They found many different types of coral and saw beautiful new types of fish.
Sarah crochets a lot...currently she's working on a pair of baby booties for baby Joe!
Jake is our master chef and baker...spending lots of time in the kitchen each day and honing his cooking skills. This is a huge help to me!
And, we all spend a fair amount of time in our backyard pool! It is so nice to be able to cool off when the heat and humidity get to be unbearable.
Jack and George like to dry out in the sun afterward. :-)
Jake and Jack come up with craft ideas...making play dough or "Magic Mud"...or here, building a castle out of various boxes and odds and ends they collected.
RISK is a favorite summer game at our house...and even Jack has learned to play the basics!
On our stay-at-home days, you can often find the kids in a pillow/blanket "nest" or a fort out in the family room. At night, Jake and Jack amuse us with a hand shadow show.
And, once in a while, we bring out the big bucket of Legos.
When Josh is home from work, we try to continue our tradition of taking "Mystery Drives" to see different things on the island.
We went to Park Tropicale - the island zoo. It is very small, but the kids were interested and we saw some South American animals we've never seen before.
The boys' favorite was the Puma.
This was probably the most interesting: a capybara. It is a large South American rodent with webbed feet. So strange!
We also enjoyed seeing the Crested Caracara birds up close. They were interested in the kids and did this strange clicking sound while bending their necks completely back!
After our zoo trip, we made a stop at FroYiu! (Yiu is a popular phrase here in Curacao, so the American owner modified "FroYo" to fit the island!) It is a delicious treat!
This week, our mystery drive took us to Hofi Pastor - a small local nature park which is home to Curacao's oldest tree: an 800-year old Kapok tree. These trees are also called "silk cotton" trees for the silky material that comes from their pods and grow throughout South America and the Caribbean. The roots of these trees are like fortress walls, some taller than Jack and George! Amazing!
After seeing the tree, we took a 30 minute nature walk on a trail. It was hot and humid and we had to do a lot of bending under branches (not easy for a 7-month pregnant woman!) but it provided a great backdrop to try out our new camera! We were blessed with the gift of a new Canon SLR camera from my dad and mom for our anniversary and in preparation for Joe's arrival. We've been having so much fun using this and seeing the difference a really good camera can make!
This church near the park is a typical Catholic church building on the island - always colorful!
We tested out our camera at night by trying to capture pictures of the fruit bats that fly around our banana trees at night! I was able to catch a few shots.
We hope you are having a good summer, too! We have just about 2 weeks left here on the island with Josh and then we head to Ohio for a few days before the kids go back to get ready for their new school year in Pennsylvania. We hope to post some more photos in the next weeks!
3 comments:
Okay, gotta LOVE all the cute kid pictures. Everyone looks like they are having such a good time and growing up so fast! And then there is the BEST CLIMBING TREE EVER IN THE ENTIRE WORLD!! How awesome was that?? But gotta tell you this poor Grammy is gonna have a ton of nightmares over fruity bats and webbed footed rodents! EEEEWWWWEEEEWWW!!!!! Praying all goes smoothly for you all in the next few weeks. Hugs and Kisses, Grammy
Your so called lack of post is still a lot more than mine. Glad you are all enjoying your time together. What cool tree! Mia is asking what is their next surprise?
Wow, Jake is getting so tall! SO fun to see all the creative things you guys are doing. Love and miss you. (Tessa when she saw this post said "I miss Jack and George.")
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