Raising Beach Beauties

West Carat Bay or Bust baby.

So we did it. We moved out of our little Mandhal Bay home aaallll the way out to the country. This little map shows the distance.

The star is our old house, the heart is our new house. The island is only 13 miles long and the two homes aren't nearly that far apart but it's a 20 minute drive between the two houses, due to all the windy, mountainous roads. "West Carat Bay" is country living. When we tell people we moved out there, we get a lot of raised eyebrows and "really?!". There are cows in our driveway. Seriously.

And how did this all come about?

Marley was invited to a playdate back in November. I offered to drive Marley there and when they told me they lived in West Carat, I thought, crap, I hate driving out there. When I showed up at the house (after getting lost twice - GPS & addresses don't really exist in the islands), my jaw dropped. The house was ah-mazing. Even I wanted to stay and play. A month later, we were at Maylinda's circus themed birthday party and I started talking with playdate mom. I told her how much I loved their house and flippantly said, if you ever sell that thing, let me know! The house was brand new, they had just finished building it, so my comment wasn't really serious. Never in a million did I think they were even considering selling...until she says, um...really? Because we're listing it in January.

Come January, I am dragging my husband kicking and screaming out to West Carat Bay. I do not want to live in West Carat Bay, this drive sucks, he would say. I was so tired of his whining (my children have really tested my whining tolerance) that I finally snapped about 5 minutes away from the house and told him FINE, but I'm not cancelling five minutes before we are supposed to be there so just walk through it, be nice, and I can take your whiny butt home. Stu and I remember this drive differently...his version involved a temper tantrum on my part (total lie) and mine is his non-stop whining for 20 minutes (total truth).

But he could not deny it. The house was ah-mazing. It was everything we needed in a house. It was a "forever home" (although I like to say "until the kids get out of college home" - Stu is more partial to the "forever" part). It was a better house for our kids, our marriage and our health. Since that day in January, we had ups and downs about whether we wanted to leave Mandhal, whether Stu would be able to leave his very first home in the Caribbean (strong emotional ties to that house) and whether we could make a bigger ah-mazing house work.

Thursday morning of last week, when we opened that door, it all fell into place. Stu (who will hate me for posting this) had tears in his eyes as he looked around his new home. Instead of complaining, he said, "My life is absolutely perfect right now. I am madly in love with my wife, I have two wonderful little girls and I am moving into a dream house". To say we were both filled with joy would be an understatement. Happiness has been running rampant in these new digs.

Since June is my month to decorate Buddha, I decided to give him a "moving theme". Stu would like me to point out that this first picture is my official "submission" and that the following photos do not count towards our monthly contest (and he would also like me to add that the Cinco de Mayo Buddha is "definitely winning" and he feels my submission this month is lacking - hey - sorry - I've been kind of busy you know, moving & planning weddings).

Buddha loves West Carat Bay.

Maya wanted her photo taken with "Beauty" - she can't say Buddha right.

You know what sucks? Paying $30 for a UHaul hat for Buddha that doesn't even show up in the photos. And that's a map he's holding by the way, because you'll probably get lost trying to find us.

Buddha wants to show you around a little. He's having a great time cooking in the kitchen.

He's enjoying the walk in showers - some of which are bigger than our entire bathroom at Mandhal.

Stu and I have always had bathrooms the size of closets. We always said our next house would have to have double sinks. Now all three full baths have double sinks. The 1/2 bath doesn't but that's ok, I can live with that.

He's totally soaking in the sunset views.

The last owners left behind a lot of furniture they couldn't get sold including this huge wood hutch which I am using now as the craft corner - in fact, I'm starting to call this the craft room for now. It's the fourth bedroom and not really being used for anything at the moment.  I love having a place to keep all of the kids crafts supplies.

Buddha's favorite hang out is the loft area with 180 degree views of the ocean.

Although the couch is a bit more comfy.

But he spends most of his time in our office - someone around here has to make some money.

Buddha took a picture of us as well. Celebrating 7 years of marriage on our new deck!

My next post will show the girls enjoying the house...although who didn't enjoy watching Buddha show it off?! So much joy in his little face.

Great-Grandma Evans

Tomorrow is our 7th wedding anniversary.

And this is one of my very favorite wedding photos.

Stu's sweet little grandma looking up at our kiss. She was the only grandparent that could make the journey and flew in all the way from Utah. This was the first & only time I got to meet Stu's grandmother Marion. It took a lot of work to get her to come down and join us for the group photo. She was a fiesty old bird, who even threw "the bird" at the photographer as she believed an ancient Native American tale that a photo would take away a part of your soul (or at the very least, she used it as an excuse to keep the cameras away....hmmm....wonder if the aversion to the camera runs in the family, this could very easily be a trait she passed on to Marley & Maya).

Marion passed away quietly this afternoon surrounded by her family. Rest in Peace Marion.

New Beginnings...

If you're friends with me on Facebook, you may have seen that we recently moved. I'll be blogging that soon but you know how moving is a great opportunity to go through all your crap and throw a bunch of stuff out? I feel like doing that today with my hard drive full of photos. Here is what we have been up to in the last month or two in between 60 weddings, school, Carnival, Easter, and oh yeah, buying a house and getting our house ready for sale - hello construction & renovation and a fine layer of dust on everything. The new house is so fresh and so clean and it was soooooo nice moving in on Thursday morning and there was dust on nothing. But I digress...

I'll be taking the girls on a walk this morning to discover our new neighborhood. She's hoping she'll be able to find frogs like she did at the old house.

My girl loves her frogs.

I did another wedding with Caribbean Carnival Dancers this spring and I always encourage brides to send me carnival masks, boas, beads, etc for the dancers to pass out at the reception. This bride was on it and sent me AMAZING Mardi Gras quality masks. Of course, I couldn't let those sit in my house for a few weeks without getting some pictures of the girls wearing them.

I have no idea why, but Maya wasn't digging the masks. This is the only one she would try on and then took off for other adventures.

 

Marley was more than excited to get her Carnival on though.

Crickey. Should have just named this post Carnival Masks. And just like moving, I can't find the folder where I had other random photos stored. Typical. So off I go to rummage through boxes. More photos to come soon...

Spring Recital 2012

May. It's busy. It's crazy. And every year I'm nervous that I'll have a wedding fall on the same day as Marley's Spring Recital. So far, I've been lucky and this past Sunday we all got to enjoy her performance. And she is GOOD. It's amazing how different her recital was in 2010 - she performs with such flair!

Last year Maya totally crashed our getting ready party but this year, Maya was conked out for a very rare nap and I got to spent time getting Marley ready and getting pictures. She went to play for awhile once we were done and I caught her off guard with the camera here:

Picture time in the driveway

Maya woke up and immediately put on her ballet outfit.

You'll have to ignore the mess in the background, lots of construction be going on up in our house lately. But how cute is this photo? It was complete luck. They were actually telling me that they were not going to let me take any more photos and were quite happy to team up against me. I said, "oh yeah?" and clicked this photo - they then ran off screaming to hide from me and that was the one and only sibling photo I could grab.

Marley got a little make-up touch up upon arrival.

Another photo of Marley and her friends from Leader's Learning Center (Maya's school). Most of the other kids in the ballet class are Antilles students.

Hanging out backstage...

And showtime!

I really hope she wants to go ballet again next year - she did such a great job and I'm so impressed with her. I would have flat out refused to get up on stage at her age and the fact that she does it and looks forward to it? Makes me so happy.

Happy Mother's Day!

Stu and I have a tradition on Mother & Father's Day of completely avoiding our kids. Nice, huh? I didn't realize this was unusual until I would read blogs and hear from friends of how the family spent the day together. Our jobs provide us plenty of family time and so when that magical day of Mother or Father's Day rolls around, we cherish it for its alone time. Alone time is a very rare & precious thing. Unfortunately, Mother's Day falls in May and that is one of the busiest times of year here. I have a wedding this afternoon and therefore, we've decided that Mother's Day will have to come later in the summer. I may just choose it as the Saturday before Father's Day. That may be the perfect balance. As I type, Maya is screaming at some offensive act by her sister. I have broken up at least 6 fights (it's only 9:26am). I remind them it is Mother's Day and they need to be nice & get along. I get a weary smile from Marley and a scowl from Maya.

The "It's Mother's Day" card worked slightly for pictures though.

Happy Mother's Day to our mommies as well...

May you have your own gift of avoidance or acceptance today!

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Ay ay ay ay AYREBA!

iPhone Pictures

I was looking through the 899 photos taken with my iPhone the other day (I'm guessing 689 of them are of Maya's feet or face - she loves the rapid shutter and taking pictures with my phone) and realized that many of them are never seen by anyone other than myself. Some are put up on Facebook, but they're not really documented. So I emailed a few to myself to share on the blog:

A few weeks ago at ballet practice. This was the first day they saw their recital outfits. Marley, Maylinda & Zinny. Maylinda was pretty insistant that she & Marley trade outfits. Poor thing did not want red. Marley gave her a "too bad, so sad" attitude.

Maya's school texted me this photo shortly before Easter - they had made bunny ears in art class.

I took the girls to the flea market one Saturday morning and Marley walked away with this straw hat that she found to be fabulous.

Ice cream break on a hot day.

Marley and Mommy on the ferry to St. John to join daddy for dinner.

Marley in the Carnival!

Maya rocking her baby (this Beanie Baby was her flea market find).

 Goofy girls.

Children's Parade: St. Thomas Carnival 2012

We had the very best time ever doing the parade this year! We (more so I) were pretty convinced Marley was going to bail on this whole parade thing. She told me many times leading up to the parade that she didn't want to do it. It didn't help that we didn't have her costume until an hour or so before the parade began (because you know how my girls can get excited about costumes). The costumes were supposed to be done by Tuesday and we got a call Thursday night at 8pm to be at the school at 9pm to pick them up. So at 9pm, I drove out to the school and all the parents waited while the poor, overworked seamstress finally showed up with the costumes. St. Thomas has had rolling power outages all week and I can only assume the stress she was under. When she passed me Marley's costume, I noticed that Marley did not have a skirt, but pants. I really didn't want to say anything as I was pretty sure the woman may have killed me but when they asked if everyone had their costume, I spoke up and said I had it but I think it was a boys costume...the woman looked at me and said, "Marley's not a boy?" with pleading eyes that begged me to will my daughter into a son for just one day....a part of me really wanted to say "it's ok, she can wear the boy outfit" but knowing Marley, there was no way she was going to be willing to wear the pants when all her girlfriends had on twirly skirts. So off the woman went, home to make yet another skirt (sorry poor overworked stressed out seamstress). When we got to the parade in the morning, we waited and waited for the skirt and when it showed up, it was just a touch too snug. Fortunately for us, another of the girls decided she no longer wanted to be in the parade and we were able to use her costume instead. All this to explain why there are some pictures of Marley in blue trim and then finally in her yellow/orange trim.

She was pretty excited about her make-up.

All these girls are in her kindergarten class. Izzy, Siena, Marley and Alessandra.

Keeping each other entertained while waiting for the parade to begin.

My camera got a serious workout.

This little boy is in their class but he was in a different Carnival troupe. His name in Kendrick...I hear a lot about little Kendrick from Marley...first crush?

Stu had volunteered to troupe along with Marley so that left me with the littlest of our rascals. Carnival Parade is about a two mile walk and it is slow. Very slow. We had to have Marley there at 9am and she wasn't officially done until 2pm. I knew without a doubt Maya was going to make me carry her all day. I was not going to want to do that. So the day before, I went to Kmart and dropped $20 on this stroller. Best. $20. Ever. Spent. She was THRILLED to be in a stroller. I had to drop some marriage licenses off at the courthouse so we strolled down to Carnival VIllage while we waited for the parade to begin.

The infamous ferris wheel.

We headed back to the parade...

and anxiously awaited big sisters arrival.

I only saw ONE moko jumbie!

Picked up the paper while we waited.This was a picture of jouvet from the morning before. We have never been to jouvet...there is an element of danger there. They were selling t-shirts with the logo "Remember...if you see your man or woman dancing with someone else, don't get mad, join in! It's a celebration!" It should have added, "please don't knife anyone".

And here they come - the Sibilly School Sunrays!

And there's Stu, proudly leading the group!

And there's our girl!

Of course, Maya didn't want to miss out and jumped right in.

They had to perform their dance in front of the judges and all the TV crews. This was the most crowded part of the parade, it was hard to get in there and get pictures.

The Sibilly School steel pan band is killer.

She was having a blast.

My favorite costume of the day.

The parade ends at Lionel Roberts Stadium where the kids get up on stage to perform one last time before being finished. This was around 1:30pm and Maya had been a real trooper all day. One the last leg of the walk, she accidentally spilled water on herself and lost it. She was incredibly upset about having a wet shirt and sat in her stroller and pouted. Also on the last leg of the journey, one of the other parents handed me a beer. So I'm strolled along with my Solo cup and hit some gravel. Some beer spills out of my cup, lands on Mayas head and drips down her back and onto her shirt. I'm mortified and say "OMG, I just spilled beer on my daughter, she is going to smell like a bar!" and I'm waiting for Maya to lose it, to get incredibly upset about being wet again. Instead, when I look down, sister is sucking the beer out of her hair.

Performing on stage!

The real stars of the show - Stu and Alessandra's daddy Paul.

After a long day of troupin', Marley was excited to get some stroller time.

Maya had a strong opinion on that.

I'm thinking of troupin' next year. I think that hat suits me.

So proud of our little St. Thomians.

Marley told me next year she wants to be a Carnival Queen (each school has 2 or 3) and I instantly had visions of her all dolled up in the awesome Queen outfits. Then she adds..."that way I can just sit on one of those cars and won't have to walk". She is a St. Thomian to the bone.

And while the Scott Clan was busy Carnivaling it up, the May Clan was busy welcoming a new baby to the family. My newest nephew, born on St. Thomas Carnival! Welcome Nicholas!

Carnival Village

Since Food Fair was a bust yesterday, we took the girls down to the Children's Village last night to enjoy the rides & games. My friend Kimberly had gone last week and told me to STAY AWAY from the ferris wheel. She and her boyfriend rode it, thinking it would be a romantic little twirl around with views of the harbor & village. I said, "it wasn't?" and she says "I have never heard children screaming in terror on a ferris wheel!". Apparently the thing goes like 80 mph and she and her boyfriend were white knuckled the entire time! She said her boyfriend wouldn't even open his eyes! I cried with laughter. Then I saw that thing move last night and said "nuh uh". Keep in mind these carnival rides travel frequently from island to island (salt filled air and metal = not a good combo) and they must be at least 40 years old (and are put together by drunk pirates-slash-carnies). We steered the kids clear from that - and any other piece of machinery that we thought may fall apart - and enjoyed the other rides instead!

Maya would NOT go on Gutsy the Caterpillar Roller Coaster last year. This year, she hesitantly climbed aboard.

Even Marley looked a little uncertain.

You can't blame them. Gutsy does look like he likes to eat small children.

There was a bit of a jerk when the ride first started to go - both looked like they may poop themselves.

They actually had a lot of fun once they realized they weren't dead. The carousel was a good time too.

But it was long. I swear I think they went round and round for 10 minutes. Towards the end, Maya seemed to be dozing off (props to daddy for keeping up the enthusiasm!)

We headed to the food village and had chicken roti and flying fish from Barbados (they get a line every year - it's good stuff!).

I want a copy of this poster.

Marley saw it and said, "I will NOT be wearing that in the parade!" and tsk tsk'd the girl.

After dinner we headed back to the Children's Village for some games & more rides.

I love a guaranteed win. Pick a duck...win a prize.

Swing a mallet...win a prize.

Prizes - woot woot!

Marley really wanted to play the balloon dart toss game.

One throw and she realized it's actually kind of hard. Daddy stepped up and won her a prize.

Then it was off for more rides.

At one point, Maya either started to feel a little sick or a little scared. Big sister gave her some comfort.

The last ride was a little bee thing-a-jig.

My girls scored on this one. Their bee flew up high and stayed high the whole time.

You can see what I meant about shoddy carni rides - their "safety bar" didn't even latch.

It was a fun night. Going to Children's VIllage at night is way better than sweating through it during the day. Tomorrow is Children's Parade and Stu and I are excited for Marley to be dancing in it. Marley...not so excited. She's worried about the heat, how long the parade route is, that she's going to get tired....it will be hot, it will be tiring, but we're hoping she'll be rallied up by the crowds and will have a blast.

It's Carnival Time...

And this year, we have a daughter in a Carnival Troope! You just know there will be a ton of pictures to share of that next week! Here are some pictures from Marley's troope practice last week.

Steel pan players practicing:

    

Practicing her moves.

One very bored little sister. She entertained herself with finding an empty beer bottle and smashing in on the ground. Nice...

Tons more Carnival pictures to come...if I can ever find parking down there (took the girls to Food Fair today, drove around for 45 minutes looking for parking and Marley complaining the whole time about her ear hurting...said 'screw it" to Food Fair, went to the doctor and dropped $95 on a visit & antibiotics instead of conch pate & stewed pigs tail).