Our Family

This was our first Christmas in Grenada. And let me tell you that it was a unique experience. For our Christmas tree we had few options. Of course they don't have real pine trees here so we could either buy a fake one (for ghastly amounts of money) or we could make one. So being the poor college student family that we are, we opted for the craft approach and decided to make our own Christmas tree. We did this by outlining a tree in black marker, then we all painted it, even the boys. I cut it out and Jas and I made decorations out of construction paper and glitter. And we taped it to the wall beside our bedroom door. All in all I think it turned out pretty well. In fact, I liked it so much I think it will be a tradition in the years to come.
On Christmas morning around 6:00 AM Dyson came into my room and expressed his need of help to use the bathroom. He walked right past the presents sitting on the floor and didn't say anything. After helping him use the bathroom he went back in his room and back to sleep. It was pretty awesome.
Our present opening didn't start until around 7:30, after both of the boys were awake. We all had a wonderful time and received many wonderful gifts. We truly felt blessed to be together as a family.
Jason and I spent our first Christmas together in our own home, but after that year we were living with family. Up until this year. It was a crazy task to try to figure out what traditions we wanted to keep, get rid of, start. This was truly a magical Christmas!

Wow, it has been a long time since I added to this. Since the end of the term I have neglected almost everything except my family. We now get to have Jason around and we LOVE it. He did really well in all his classes so that is an added bonus to the good feelings of the holiday season.
These are pictures of the branch christmas party. Jayson Weir was playing the piano and Ridge was helping. It was so cute. He is going to be a natural!
And the other pic is of Dyson and his friend Ethan. They were angles in the nativity story. They were so cute. This party was right before finals so Jas couldn't make it, but we had a good time without him.

Today Dyson got a new hair cut. I decided that it was time for him to grow up and sport a new look. I have been asking him every few days if I can cut his hair and he would always say "no". But today when I asked him if I could cut his hair, much to my surprise he said "yes". So I sat him down in his chair and pulled out the clippers and set to work. This was the first time I have used clippers on him and he was a little scared but I showed him how they don't hurt and after that he was an angel. He was so brave and sat still for me the whole time, even though he got a little scared at times.
So here is the new and improved Dyson! I think he looks pretty handsome, don't you?

We kicked off the the holiday season by doing the only thing that made sense. Go to the beach! Of course back home not only would this not have made sense, it would have been impossible. But lucky for us we are living on a tropical island and so instead of bundling up to brave the newest cold front, we are stripping down to our bathing suits to brave the banana boat.
It was the end of term party that happens...well...at the end of every term. It is called Bali Hi and it is the biggest event put on by the SOs. We normally have it at a beach called...you guessed it, Bali Hi Beach. It is property that is owned by the Chancellor and he is kind enough to let us use it each year. This year however, the man who maintains the property was off the island and so we couldn't use it. This would have been a problem but, again lucky for us, we were able to secure a spot at the University Club. It was so much better to have it here. There was tons of shade and seating, kayaks, and a pool! It was awesome!
Jason took Ridge and Dyson out in the kayak (one at a time). Ridge had fun for a min but it really didn't last to long for him. Dyson on the other hand had a wonderful time. Jason took him way out into the ocean and he really enjoyed it. That was until he realized that he was riding on top of a wave and freaked out! This of course caused the kayak to tip over, thus throwing both men into the ocean. Jason thought it was fun but Dyson had other opinions on the subject. Needless to say, they came back to shore after that.
I went on the banana boat again this year to see if I could keep my perfect record. Last term I went twice and I didn't fall of either time. This year was a little different. I was "lucky" enough to land a run with 4 other people 2 of whom wanted to be thrown off. This of course causes problems for anyone who wants to stay on....like me. By the time we were done and heading back to shore we had been thrown off TWICE! Oh well. It was definitely the more fun of the two rides.
We all had a great time at the beach, and hope all of you had as much fun bringing in the new month as we did!

Keeping with the tradition of the Johnson's we decided that although we had a wonderful time on Friday night, we wanted to cook our own turkey and have our own Thanksgiving dinner. Mind you I have never in my life cooked a turkey. So my first turkey cooking experience was going to be on a tropical island, far away from family, in an oven that doesn't cook evenly, (or have temperature gage for that matter) and I don't own a meat thermometer. Yeah this sounds like a disaster waiting to happen! Luckily there is God and he was looking out for me and sent me an angel. His name is Richard Teames and he is not stranger to cooking turkeys. He came over and stuffed our turkey, which i have never done before, and took charge of the turkey! YEAH!
The turkey turned out wonderful and all of us got together and had a wonderful evening. This time dinner was not as fancy. Just a nice table cloth, the expensive paper napkins, some plastic drinking glasses and nice styrofoam china. We ate in our regular clothes (which i think i took a bit to the extreme in a grubby t-shirt, but oh well) but it was so relaxing. We invited, Richard and Shauna (and I am so glad we did, Turkey Master), Dustin and Sara Johnson, Amanda Loveless, Travis McDonald, and our neighbor Dave...i don't know his last name.
Everything tasted so good! But I would have to say that the biggest hit of the night was the drinks provided by Travis. He brought some sparkling beverages. Richard couldn't get enough. For me however it was the fruit salad!
We also had pumpkin, banana cream and chocolate pudding pie to finish off the evening.
All in all it was wonderful and if anyone went away hungry, it is their own fault.

We celebrated Thanksgiving last week just like the rest of America, but we did our celebrating on Friday instead of on Thursday. Grenadian have their own thanksgiving in October, so the students still had class on Thursday and we celebrated on Friday.
We all got dressed in our best and went over the our the Weir's house where they, along with the Monroe's put on a lovely, very fancy dinner. It was the most fancy Thanksgiving I have ever had. It was complete with linens, place cards, table decorations, party favors, and candle light. We had a wonderful time eating wonderful food. It was dinner complete with all the trimmings. We started eating around 7:00ish, and by the time we were getting ready to leave Dyson had fallen asleep, and it was all Ridge could do to stay awake. Ridge went as far as to smash a cup to his face! The boys were very well behaved considering we left the party at 11:00ish and bed time is between 7:30 and 8:30.
During dinner we all went around and told either something we were thankful for or a family tradition. Everyone had great things to say, but I think the best was when Dyson stood up and began a long list of what he was thankful for, most of which didn't make much sense. He was so cute and wanted to be apart of what the adults were doing and acted much older than he is. He is growing up so fast!
We were very thankful to the wonderful hosts of this meal. We had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

Ok, so this video took all day to upload to the computer and when I started to write this, I deleted it! Luckily Jason saved me by telling me to push ctrl z, so I did and it came back!!
On Friday morning before our weekly book club I was cleaning and making sure everything was put away, and I decided to mop the floors. Of course this cannot be done without help from the peanut gallery. Trying to instill in them a good work ethic I decided to let them help me and the above video was the result. It was the cutest thing I have ever seen happen when moping the floor. After they were done i had to put them in the shower and it took me 20 min to mop up all the water! They had a blast and my floor got clean.

Today was a great day! We were invited to a friend's house for a party. It wasn't for any special occasion, in Grenada we don't need excuses to have parties, we have them because we can. My good friend S.W. planned a great get together for all the ladies and their kids. The theme was "Blue and White." There was food and a craft and games for all. You can see Dys with his art work here. S.W. made stamps out of potatoes and let the kids create their own works of art. Dyson had a blast but it only took Ridge 0.3 sec to stick his hand in the plate of paint and get it all over his clothes. I was worried about Dyson getting paint on him so I put a paint shirt on him (which was free from any paint when we were done) but I neglected Ridge. And so it is my own fault that the red soccer shirt that he wore to the party is now red and white. Oh well, what can ya do? After the craft we blew up a balloon and played "Duck, duck, goose" the kids had never played this game before and it was really fun to watch the kids try something new. Some of the kids understood how to play pretty well, others made up their own rules. It was so awesome to see them all play together and take turns, cause let's face it- that doesn't happen very often. After the organized game all the kids got a balloon and ran around out side playing with them. Of course in the heat, slowly the balloons began to pop and the crying began. Ridge was holding his balloon and it popped on his arm and left a big welt. He cried so hard. Of course he cried harder when he realized that his balloon was gone.
By this time it was way hot outside and we were all getting hungry so we went inside S.W.'s apt (where the AC was on, thank goodness) and had a yummy assortment of treats. Each of the kids had a balloon again and began to play their own version of "Duck, duck, goose" this of course does involve hitting people with balloons and running, but not in the same organized fashion of the earlier game. We had our share of injuries and tears, but for the most part it was a fun game.
It was a wonderful party and the kids had tons of fun!

This is a picture of Dyson with his friend at their creative movement class. She was a little shy at first and Dyson was a great friend and would hold her hand and do all the movements with her. In this picture she wasn't doing the moves with the other kids and so Dys went up to her and took her face in his hands and told her it was ok and he would be there with her. He is such a cutie! Whenever all the kids get together he tries to be friends with everyone. Don't get me wrong, he still has his moments, but for the most part, when I'm around, he is always trying to help and play with everyone. He loves to take care of the little kids, like Anna and Spencer and Ridge. To me he kind of seems like the big brother of all the younger kids. I just love him!

Being far away from everyone i know and love can be difficult at times. Luckily i have some great friends here to help fill in where i need it. in this picture from left to right is Bettina, Me, Casey, Shauna with her son Spencer, Sara Johnson and her daughter Anna, Sara Weir, and Kristina. I am so glad to have great friends here to help when things get tough.
Speaking of tough days, today was one of those. I could swear that i potty trained Dyson a year ago, but the events of today would contradict that in every way. Needless to say...I have tons of laundry to do tomorrow.

This last Sunday was the primary program for our small branch. The kids did so well! They all had speaking parts and did so great when to came to singing the songs. I was so proud of them. After church was over we had cinnamon rolls for the kids. When we took the tin foil off the rolls and showed the kids what we had for them one of them said "It's just bread?" Inside I was protesting "this is not just BREAD! what are you thinking!?!" of course I didn't say this to children but even after I explained what cinnamon rolls are they were not impressed. Apparently they don't have cinnamon rolls in Grenada. Next time I will have to keep them to myself. Next time you enjoy a tasty sweet roll, remember how luck you are to even know what they are.

Here is our dear Ridge sitting in the window. He climbed on the back of the couch and ended up like this. It almost seems like he was trying to tan the bottoms of his feet. He was quite content to stay there, and he put up a fight when I got him down. It took about a week but i was finally able to stop repeat offenses. He is so much like his older brother. Before Dyson was 1 I would find him on the table, or the washing machine. So this is not new to us.

Dyson and Ridge are such turkeys! Here they are one night after a bath hamming it up for the camera. It seems that they are cute and funny whenever it is time to go to bed. Oh, well. I'll take that over the screaming fits any day!

Ok, so a good friend introduced me to the world of blogging, and i have yet to actually do anything with that knowledge. I started this blog a month or so ago and did nothing with it beyond naming it. But now i am going to try and keep up with it and post some pictures so that i have some kind of documentation of what we are going through here in Grenada and how much the kids are growing.
So here it goes. Enjoy!