Jamaica Trip!

 

VIews

View from the entrance to our room







View from our balcony - even though it was a cheaper "garden view" room - we COULD see the ocean (barely)





Susan on her balcony reading chair -she did lots of reading and I actually read a book and a half too (Covey stuff, not ya ya sisterhood)
This is Tim after church (or was it before?) 

Finding something to do

This is me after the first attempt to fly the kite - didn't happen due to tangled string and I had to go find a needle in the kit provided in the rooms since my fingernails were finely ground down following a manicure :(


David and Sally braved the waved in a paddle boat


Susan listened to Solstice on her ipod and read "Ya Ya Sisterhood books" on the beach


This is what the buildings look like that we stay in 

Jamaica's end

This is what was left on Sunday afternoon of the welcome home sign the kids put on the garage with Aunt Becky for our return

Susan looks good with her Jamaican outfit






David and Sally at the beach party





The beach party before anyone came to party - my theory for the beach party is that once a week they make the guests eat on the sand in the dark so that the resort can get rid of all of the leftover food :) It was ok, and we all went to the Italian restaurant afterwards for some fresh food 

Fun on the balcony

We've been hanging out on our new balcony alot lately - the views are great, the weather is perfect, and the access is easy - right out our bedroom. The kids love watching everyone that goes by out for a walk, we can watch and talk to whoever is at the park playing, and Toby likes yelling to everyone (especially the neighbor's dogs). I know we won't be up on top as much in the summer cause 1. it will be too hot, 2. the sun will be further north and the house won't shade us on the balcony - but I am hoping that having the covered patio will make it easier to be in the backyard in the summer. As you can see below, Toby has a doll that he takes care of - he is talking lots more and is also refusing his naps. At the bottom of this post you can see the awesome view straight from our bedroom!

 

Saturday Morning Bike RIde while Mommy went to Leadership Conference

TJ is an excellent driver now - he gives his siblings a ride.


The entire exterior of the house was freshly painted last week - can you tell?





Toby was sure excited about the new park we rode the bike to . . . even though he was just in a diaper (at least daddy changed his diaper before going on the bike ride) 

Pinata Time

This is Jeffrey, the birthday boy, taking some swings.

This is Jeffrey's brother, Brian - he found a piece of the pinata to dress up with :)




Heather dove right in whenever the candy scattered and competed with all of those boys for candy - she gave me this tootsie roll! 

Friday Night at Park for Jeffrey's 8th Birthday

How many of you have seen this look from Susan before?
TJ and Heather were both invited to the birthday party - Heather was the only girl there! 

Swimming in February

This time we got mommy to join us! We gave the kids a choice between going for a bike ride or going swimming, and they chose swimming (of course, after swimming, they still wanted a bike ride instead of going to bed). Heather was really excited to be able to go straight upstairs from outside and into her bedroom. Hopefully the pool gets more use with this additional access point, now!

 

It's done

Here it is, the final product - a balcony with a spiral staircase. I'm looking forward to having some time to cleanup the backyard after all of the rearranging that happened - it's gonna be fun back there!

We also had the back fence painted - it looks better than I thought it would!



Of course we've been keeping busy otherwise, with superbowl family parties . . .



and going to the park since the weather is so perfect