Top 8's of 2008

I've decided to compile a few lists of 8 as a way to remember and end 2008. There may be something I'm forgetting, but for now these are my lists and I'm sticking to 'em!

Top 8 moments 0f 2008

Realizing I could make it onto the car ferry to St. Thomas ALL BY MYSELF

Getting a dog

My brother Danny's Redneck Party

Being a classroom helper in Ella's kindergarten class

My brother Danny's Vegas Party

Sailing around St. John on my 30th Birthday

Being able to reunite the kids with their Paw-Paw

Learning to play tennis and making new friends in St. John

Top 8 places we visited in 2008

DisneyWorld (for the 4th time)

Fairbanks (2 times, February & August)

Anchorage

Puerto Rico

St. Thomas (more times than I can count, but does that count??)

Miami/Ft. Lauderdale

Tulsa

Top 8 fun things we did in 2008

Miami Children's Museum

Sharing our warm climate home(s) with traveling family and friends & showing them around

DisneyWorld's Pirate & Princess Party

Vacation Bible School in Anchorage with the cousins

Went ice skating with the kids for the first time

Attended the St. John Carnival Parade (so fun, but so hot!)

Visited Xcaret with my Mom & Dad

Countless trips to the St. John beaches & finding sea turtles, starfish and conch shells

Top 8 Things I never thought I would do in 2008

Learn Spanish (learning)

Miss St. John so much

Have a maid

Move for the 4th time in 4 years

Start a blog

Have one of my photos published online (& win a digital camera!)

Hold a crocodile, starfish or iguana

Become used to driving on the left side of the road, steep hills & all

What are your Top 8's?

And you thought your neighbors were bad

Remember at the beginning of the month how we went to visit Crococun to see some crocodiles and other Mexican wildlife? 

Turns out we didn't have to travel that far. Christmas Day Patrick walked to our quickmart about two buildings away and saw a lounging baby crocodile. This was not in a secluded swampland, it was sunning itself a mere 10-15 yards away from a busy sidewalk!!

Just goes to show that no matter how many security gates and guards you have, sometimes you just can't keep the bad guys out.

Go White Boy, Go White Boy, Go!

I have a million and one things I could write about, but I am being lazy, enjoying spending time with the family here. So instead I leave you with this video of Jackson. We took it at Patrick's office holiday party last week. And by "office party" I mean we were at the beach eating ceviche and fajitas. What, your office party wasn't at the beach this year?? Anyway, the video is of Jackson and Ella participating in a sort of "Hot Potato" type game.

Enjoy.

Puppy Love

As promised, here are some pics of our new baby girl, Maho. Due to some uncontrollable circumstances, she had to be delivered a few days, but no big deal, the kids were so excited. In fact, I don't know if the rest of the Christmas presents will live up to this now! She is so sweet and so little!

Kaley told me this morning, "I love that dog so, so much." Yes, I have a feeling there will be no lack of love to go around at this house! Now if she can just survive the revolving door of guests in the next couple weeks!

Welcome home Maho. We love you already.

Shhh....

We're adding another member to our family! Our beautiful baby girl will be joining us very soon, rounding out our family at 6. I am very excited and so it Patrick, but the kids have no idea. You see, our girl will be arriving via special delivery from the big man in red on Christmas morning, all wrapped up in a nice bow.

I guess I better mention this new baby also has four paws, lots of black fur, likes to lick your face and will wear a collar. We are finally getting a dog!

We decided to call her Maho, after one of our favorite beaches in St. John. Patrick picks her up at noon on Monday (while me and the kids are conveniently away on a day trip to Cozumel) and she'll be staying at our neighbors until Christmas eve when we can stealthily bring her back to our place!

It's going to be so much fun! Will post a photo soon.

Birthday Roundup

I realized I never posted any birthday pictures from Ella and Jackson's big days. Sorry about that oversight, but I am without internet most days since the stupid phone company takes 5 (+) days to connect your internet signal and in the meantime your phone signal goes out and on top of that you don't speak really enough Spanish to get the problem resolved on your own by calling said phone company, plus with all that you leave on an emergency trip out of the country. Hopefully it will all get resolved soon and I can once again spend my days surfing the web from the comfort of my couch. For now this blog is brought to you by my unsuspectin, I mean, friendly neighbor's internet signal.

Back to the photos. Here is Ella and her cake(s). The dresses were made from cake and cupcakes. the dolls were just inserted into the top. Ella helped decorate. Can you guess which one she did?

Jackson's birthday cake wasn't anything amazing, but since he is waaay into Spiderman I made a spiderweb and put one of his Spidey action figures in the cake. He liked it, that's all that matters.

School is out on Thursday and we are getting visitors next week and again after the new year, so that means lots of touristy stuff to do! Stay tuned, I promise I'll have something more interesting for your viewing/reading pleasure in the days/weeks to come.

A Walk on the Wild Side

This weekend I walked among dozens of crocodiles. Alive crocodiles. No fences, no guardrails, nothing separating their jaws of steel and humongous teeth from my defenseless human body except the clothes on my back (and maybe my purse, it was kind of heavy). Oh yeah, I also brought the kids along on this walk of danger and they loved it.

For Jackson's belated birthday we decided to visit Crococun Ecological Zoo, which is a totally interactive wildlife preserve with animals indiginous to Mexico. We had an awesome guide who also took some great photos for us (with my camera, no charge) and we saw, fed and held lots of cool animals. Besides all sizes of crocodiles, Crococun had spider monkeys, snakes, iguanas, parrots, turtles and deer.

To start the photo tour we will begin with the parrots. We all got a kiss from the parrot. See in the photo below the sneaky monkey in the background? He saw our food bags we had purchased to feed the animals with and was ready to eat. Our guide said that you need to hide the food because the monkeys like to steal!

After we all got kisses and fed the parrot it was time to feed the monkey! They got bananas. Isn't it cute that I got Jackson AND the monkey to smile at the camera at the same time? Yeah, I'm just that good.

Kaley's turn to feed the monkey. I should note that you were not allowed to touch the monkey, just hold the food out in your hand.

Next was on to the baby crocodile tank. We all got a chance to hold the crocodile. None of my kids were scared. Not sure if that is a good or bad thing. Did you know crocodiles live about 80 years?

Kriky! It's Patrick the crocodile hunter. Our guide took this special photo. He got the croc to open wide and stay that way. 

The crocodile felt squishy and was a very cool temperature. It was kind of heavy too. See how I am expertly squeezing it's neck so the croc cannot turn and bite my head off?

Next up is the snakes! This snake was slithering it's way back behind Kaley's arm.

After meeting some snakes and iguanas and a snapping turtle, our guide led us to a metal door marked NO PASAR. That means do not enter for you Spanishly-challenged. Anyway, what were we doing going into a door marked do not enter? Going into the crocodile lair of course. As we stepped in and onto the path there was nothing between all the lounging crocodiles and us. It was a little nerve-wracking. And by nerve-wracking I mean grab your kid by the collar and uncomfortably walk thisclose to him/her so they do not stray into the teeth of a waiting crocodile. Even though none of them moved a muscle while we were in there it was a little scary knowing none of those crocs were restrained. Here are a couple cool shots our guide took of us and a croc. We are not as close as it looks, but still WE WERE RIGHT BEHIND A REAL LIVE CROCODILE.

Some of the sleeping crocodiles.

Last on the tour was the much tamer deer. We fed them leaves and then the rest of the food we bought (bananas, peanuts, sunflower seeds and grapes) Jackson got himself a buck.

Wait now he's got two bucks. Don't fight fellas there's enough to go around!

Ella chose to stick with Bambi.

It was a great day and really cool to learn something about some of the local wildlife. Maybe we'll go again in the future, but even if we don't I can always say I walked among dozens of crocodiles, can you?

The more things change, the more they stay the same

You know how some people look exactly the same as they did as a baby as they get older? Like the ones that there is no mistaking whose baby picture it is when the graduating senior class baby photos are posted and you have to guess who is who? 

My son will be one of those people.

He turned 6 yesterday and the older he gets the less he is changing. Which to a mother is good in some ways. I need to keep my babies, well, babies for as long as I can get.

P.S. Sorry for the wonky eye in the photo on the right. My camera seems to think it is so smart and "fixes" redeye before saving the photo to the camera....

P.P.S. I may be able to get online regularly again! I am off to get our modem right now.