Have you seen one?

Did you ever stop to think what a banana tree looks like?  This is the banana tree behind the boys’ school.  I never imagined that bananas would be growing in that direction.

 

How about a pineapple? Pineapples don’t grow on trees, though. That would be silly. They grow on a bush!  This one is near a friend’s house.

This one is near the place we went to ride horses. 

Looks easy enough to grow, right?  Maybe I’ll get ambitious one day soon!

Sidelines

I’ve always said that I’d only let my boys do one thing at a time.  Who wants to be driving all over the place and spending all afternoon at sports practices?  Not me, that’s who!
This Fall Jackson has been playing Soccer and Tennis.
Good thing I didn’t say that previous statement too many times!
I justified a little since I assumed that Miller would be starting Soccer this Fall.  He surprised me when I asked him if he wanted to start playing soccer and  he said, “No fank you.”  All of a sudden we had a free afternoon!
As you may recall Soccer here is practically a religion. Every boy we know plays. They have practice twice a week and then games start in November. It too is a great sport, but I don’t really have any deep love to make those long practices worth it.
Tennis is such a fantastic lifetime sport I really want Jackson to catch the bug while he is young-- and still thinks that what we do is not lame.  Is saying the word lame, lame?
It was a tough choice because Jackson likes soccer mainly because it is what boys around here do.  It’s just a given.  Tennis is so good at developing different aspects of sportsmanship and coordination. 

I gave in (to myself) and decided we could do both for the Fall and see how it goes.
So 7 weeks into the school year, how is it going?

Great! he still loves them both and we are getting plenty of time to do homework and play outside before dinner most days.
Miller likes being on the sidelines.  And running around like a crazy boy during those practices!

So far the sidelines are treating us just fine.

Flashback Friday

Looking through the pictures when we arrived here got me a little nostalgic.  Hope you don’t mind!


Happy Fall Y’all!

It’s Still Summer

Most of you are probably wearing socks and cozy sweaters.  Not us.  We are still in full on Summer here. It has cooled off a bit, but the highs are still in the 80’s every afternoon. 
Friday was a holiday here. {Discovery Day rather than Columbus Day in these Islands}. After 6 weeks of school the boys were in need of some dedicated play time!
We started out at the tennis courts hitting some balls.  Jackson is really improving.

Later we had a playdate over here.  Fishing, Legos and throwing stuff in the canal.  Doesn’t get much more fun than that!  Right?
We spent the middle of the day at our neighbor’s pool.  The kids had a blast with the tube.

In the end we were very happy that no one got hurt and they kept themselves busy for a couple of hours.
We also capped our afternoon with a third playdate.
Playing, plying playing, It makes me tired just thinking about it!  Lucky for me they were back in school today!

Monsters vs Aliens

We thought we were going to get a bad storm on Sunday.  we went to the movie store and bought lots of movies.  Allen had to work.  The boys and I settled in for a “house day”
After watching the movie Monsters vs. Aliens Jackson put together this scene.  LOVE it!

He was creative and at the same time pretty true to the plot.


Miller made his own version.  Pretty funny as well.

The weather ended up being somewhat decent and the storm that never came was just an excuse to spend some time doing fun stuff indoors.

A Little Photoshoot

Last time I tried to get pictures of Jackson’s adorable new smile I ended up with this.
It’s good if you like blurry and short.  Which is my kind of photography these days.
By the way, my camera woes only took a brief hiatus.  My good camera is all kinds of broken right now. 
I have to send it to the Nikon Gods who will tell me it will cost approximately $40 less than buying a new camera to get mine fixed.  Do I have a crystal ball, you ask? 
Um no.  That’s what they do every stinking time I have sent a camera in for repair. 
I’ve had about 1 or 67 broken cameras.  Approximately.
Some could suggest that it is operator related.  I’d say highly likely unlikely .
So now you are saying where are the pictures?  They are here, but hold your horses. 
I had to stage him in front of really good light to get these, which makes my background a little…unusual. 
Just focus on the smile, ok?  Thankyouverymuch!

This is the face I get to see right before he snorts!

Needless to say he likes to pretend he is a ninja when I want him to pose for sweet pictures.

Then he flat out hid from me, but he didn’t actually bother to move away. He loves the attention.


Then he gave me ONE sweet smile.

Then Miller told me to take pictures of his missing teeth.

He thinks his spaces are missing teeth.  Bless him!

Oh how I wish I could show him the spaces I had before braces.  Hear that mom?  Get out your pictures.  I know I don’t have to ask twice!

2 Years

It’s so hard to believe that we have been living here for two years.  Our little island has become home (well as close to home as can be). 


Miller has lived here half his life and Jackson has lived here one third of his life.   In case you want me to do the math, I have lived here one twentieth of my life.

On one hand it seems like we just got here, on the other it seems like we have been here for ages.  I see and experience new things every day and so much of it is like Groundhog Day.  The weather is beautiful and hot; the beaches are lovely.

We have experienced wonderful, hard, lovely, heartbreaking and everything in between.  We have made some lifelong friends and some friends that we will probably never see again after we (or they) leave.

We are looking forward to many more adventures as we have signed on for another 2 years GULP!