An update...2 months later!

It has been a while since our last blog and quite a bit has gone on!  On our last update, we had just rescued some puppies from Nevis after doing the channel swim…now all of those puppies are adopted out and growing big and strong!  The puppy we kept, Nevi, is doing great and we feel really blessed to have gotten such a great Island Dog to keep as our own!  We also have our crazy, manic, kitten Koala who thinks she rules the world…but she’s a cat..don’t they all?! 

Brayton’s second semester ended well and he moved on up to 3^rd ready and eager to learn!  He did well and was glad for 2^nd to be over!  It was a long, tough semester and he worked really hard, I am very impressed by his diligence and hard work!  On April 22^nd, we headed back to the States for the first time since arriving on the island in August.  I know 8 months doesn’t seem like a long time, but we were SOO ready to be back in America!  Upon arriving and renting our car, we ventured out of NYC and hit up a FAST food restaurant.  After living in St. Kitts, FAST food had a whole new meaning!  It was actually FAST!  Talk about amazing!  Our drive from New York City to Syracuse was long and boring, but we made it to Aunt Lo’s and were so happy to be HOME, drive a NICE car, travel on SMOOTH roads and drive OVER 35-40 mph!  The simple things we missed so much!! 

Our time at home was short, but great!  We had many appointments to make, friends and family to see and restaurants we were dying to eat at (Jreck’s, anywhere with a REAL, GOOD hamburger, anywhere with DRAFT beer – the simple things!)  It was really great to see our family and friends and I was sad to leave them but coming back to my SK family was also really nice too!  One thing that makes leaving home and coming to this island a BIT easier is knowing I will have my family and friends at home forever…the family I have made in SK is one of the best groups of friends I could ask for, and knowing I only have 2 more years with them, makes me want to really cherish our time! 

Anyways, we arrived back in St Kitts on Brayton’s 33^rd birthday (he IS getting old) and moved into our ‘new’ house.  Things were going great, we had our puppy and our kitten with us, we were unpacking and settling in and loving the new place…..then we found a centipede crawling under our bed…that is where the hell all started.  A couple days later, our amazing roommates Emily and Andrew returned to the island and the 4 of us were settling in and enjoying our new house…little did we know, our new house would lead us to live a life of pure hell for the next 4 weeks.  Over that time, we tried to get settled and relax as our next semester started, but as we were killing 1-6 centipedes a night (and I mean B I G centipedes) there was no time for anything but centipede hunting and fearing what might be in our beds, on our floors, or dangling on the ceilings above us (we watching a 8-10” centipede crawl from the outside wall into a bedroom via the grooves in our ceiling – AHH!).  Our first 4 weeks were spent with sleepless night, centipede slaying evenings, and many appointments and email with the realtors, Terminix and any other potential ‘fixer of the problem’ (FYI – In St Kitts, not much actually GETS fixed FAST or CORRECTLY…if at all!)  Finally, we had had enough and began looking for yet another (the 4^th place for us since August) house to live in.  Thank goodness for Jo, our past realtor, who found us an AMAZING 4 bedroom, 4 ½ bathroom home that we will be living in with Emily and Andrew and Kate and Trevor for the remainder of our time here (I don’t want to move again!).  The pictures explain the beauty and amazing-ness of this house!!!  We are SO happy AND centipede free!

a SMALLLL view of the centipedes we found...

Crawling on the bedroom ceiling after entering from outside the through the groove 

Our NEW kitchen

New Bedroom (view of the ocean outside the glass doors!

New LR/Dining Room with WIDE open wall!  It has glass doors that shut! 

The open wall, pool, porch and view

The view!  

LR/ Dining Room/Kitchen from the other angle

Aside from all that drama with our house – our car – or should I say Islandmobile -  has also been in the shop because the radiator is not working and pipes and seals are blown and missing and honestly, who really knows – certainly not half the people actually working on the car!  OISK!!!!

Since we have returned to the island, Brayton has been spending Wednesday nights from 8-12 and Friday nights from 8-4 walking the beaches of St Kitts looking for nesting female leatherback turtles.  We has had the opportunity to see some leatherbacks, relocate nests, assisting in the excavating of babies from a nest and learn a great deal about something he has a lot of passion for!  It has been hard on him being up so late/all night long, but he is learning a lot and having an amazing experience!

Baby Leatherbacks after an excavation! 

Female leatherback 

At the Prep School, we are approaching our last week of our ‘normal school year’.  We will then have a 3 day weekend and Summer Camp starts on Tuesday!  Summer Camp is for any students who are on the island still because their parents are working, in school or other reasons.  It is a fun, laid back time with some learning and great interactions and social fun with peers and teachers.  I am working with grades 4-6 this summer and am really excited for the change in age group, although I will miss my kiddos!  Luckily, I will have all of my 1^st graders again next year in 2^nd grade and am only losing 4 2^nd graders!  I am getting excited for another year in 1^st and 2^nd grade although I am nervous as I will have a new group of student, new challenges and a whole new years worth of curriculum – you can’t teach the same thing to the same kids twice!  Lots of planning to do this summer!

I am sure this is only a small fraction of the things that have been going on in our lives since my last blog and now that I have done an update, I will TRY to be better!  I am now counting down the days (although I don’t want ‘summer’ to go too fast) until my family comes to St Kitts.  I am so excited for them to see the good and bad of this amazing and awful place that we call home <3  

PS - i am really bummed that I am missing all my friends and family who are having babies and getting married and falling in love and blah blah while we are away!  It is so hard to see these precious babies in pictures and know I won't meet them until they are almost 2!!  Although, I am VERY happy for them all!! 

Channel Swim and Puppies

Sunday, March 25th, Brayton and I took the challenge of joining many other brave souls and swimming the channel from St. Kitts to Nevis.  It is a 2.5 mile swim, through the open ocean.  There is a fairly strong current and a good amount of waves!  Generally, the swim goes from Nevis to St Kitts (with the current) but this year, being the 10th anniversary of the channel swim, they decided to have us all swim from St. Kitts to Nevis (against the current).  Brayton and I chose to complete the swim using mask, snorkel and fins but there were many people who challenged the swim with just goggles!  We tried to stay together for  a while, but I was swimming 'too slow' for Brayton so went on ahead.  I am out of shape and had a hard time swimming the front crawl (and the fact that the waves kept crashing into my snorkel) and swam a lot of breast stroke - which is so not easy or fast with flippers on!  At first, I felt good about the swim, like I was making progress, had a lot of other people swimming around me, had kayaks within reach and was just enjoying the nice view of the ocean life around me. . About half was across, I started to feel as if I wasn't moving anymore and there were no people, or kayaks around me and I started to get nervous.  I just kept telling myself to put my head in the water and swim!!  But then I looked down, and what was below me but a SHARK!!!!  I think it was just a nurse shark as it was lying on the bottom and not moving, but still - I was scared!  I think if there would have been a boat within reach, I would have bailed out of the water and quit!!  Luckily, I pushed myself on, and on, and on, and on (for what felt like forever!) and made it shore in 2.5 hours!  As I walked up onto shore, with my head spinning and my legs aching, I was happy to see Brayton had made it successfully and about 30 minutes faster than me!  I will say it was one of the hardest things I have ever done but was so worth it and I am so glad I didn't quit!

This is a map of the swim!

The start!

Brayton making his way out!  (notice how little St Kitts looks in the background!)

Me making my way out - my face tells it all!

Most of the group who swam and raised money to support the
St Kitts Sea Turtle Monitoring Network!   Thanks to EVERYONE who
donated money to help us out!  

After the swim Brayton and I joined Kate and Trevor and Beth for lunch and some killer bees at Sunshines.  While we were there, we found some very sick, malnourished puppies..and being vet students and big hearted wives...we decided the best thing we could do was to rescue them..so we did!  We ended up bringing 6 very sick puppies home with us!  2 passed away the next day but 4 of them lived and are turning out to be great little puppies!  Brayton and I were fortunate enough to be able to adopt one of them - who is our little Nevi!

These are our 4 rescued puppies!  So cute!

And here is the precious little girl we adopted <3
She is so sweet!  

Aside from our dog adoption, we have also adopted a precious little kitten who I cannot wait to have a home.  He was found on the side of the road here and is precious as can be!  When I first met her, I said that she looked like a koala bear and she has had the name 'Koala' since!

She may not look it here - but she is about the size of the palm of my hand!

Well - we have two weeks left until we go home and in that time we have:

1) final exams for Brayton (x 5)
2) packing up the villa and moving all of our stuff to the new house
3) making appointments at home for the 9 days we are home
4) take a 3 day CPR instructors course (leann)
5) cancel all our 'stuff' at the villa and renew it for the new house..
6)  Sleep?  eat?  pack to go home?  Maybe..

I am excited to go home, but it is going to be really busy and hectic.  I really wish that it was easier for people to come visit here.. It's really hard to go home and I do not think we will go home again until we are done and its not looking like many people are coming to visit.

We will be home from April 22nd (really late) until May 2 (we leave at 7 am).  We are going to do our best to see everyone and I apologize in advance if we don't.  We will be staying at my parents if you would like to find us =)

Mid-Semester Break

Over the course of our 15 week semester, we get ONE day off and that is our mid-semester break.  This year, mid-semester break landed close to our friends, Venessa and Rob, birthdays! In celebration of their birthdays, we decided to go on a deep sea fishing trip.  In my experience with deep sea fishing, you go on a BIG boat, out really deep, everyone gets a fishing pole and you fish...well, in St Kitts, its a quite small boat, that held 11 of us and a captain, and 7 fishing poles.  The Caribbean sea was nice and calm and the view of the island from the water is really nice!  When we hit the top of the island, where the Caribbean and the Atlantic meet, the waters went from calm to huge rollers.  It was a great experience.  We were able to catch 9 fish (I think) and most people got a chance to reel in their ocean creature.  Our most commonly caught fish was the barracuda!  As part of the trip, everyone gets to keep their fish, so we took them home, cleaned them and have a great fish feast that night! I feel very blessed to have so many amazing friends down here!

Here are some photos from the day at sea!

Not a day here without some CARIB!

Brayton reeling in his catch

Rob was drunk, Brayton had a headache...they ended up in the tiny bed together.
That is when you know you're friends!

Famous Brimstone Hill

His prize of the day!

dinner! 

because we are in St Kitts - it did rain mid fishing. Brayton and Trevor
were bearing out the storm!

fish..

more fish.

our friends kate and trevor

brayts catch again

the boat we were on...all 11 of us + the captain

Friends <3

view of Ross U from the Caribbean

Sam the man - our captain

Who doent fish with a TUNA STICK?

wish that pole wasn't there!

the island!

us!

Aside from deep sea fishing over break, we spent all day Monday with our new roommates Andrew and Emily Cope.   We drove around the island looking at yet more potential apartments and houses, sat around and discussed all the houses, and ended up making a final decision!!  YAY!!  The 4 of us will be moving into a great house up on Fort Tyson rise - not far from where Brayton and I are living now!  It is a 3 bedroom/2 bathroom house, big fenced in yard for Duke - the Cope Dog and a potential Hill dog someday!  There is a small pool, patios, an amazing view, a nicely redone kitchen and lots of space.  We are really excited to be sharing our next two years here with Andrew and Emily!!

Here are some pictures I 'borrowed' from Emily!

The view from our back patio overlooking the Marriott and the Atlantic Ocean

Another Atlantic View!

The view of the Caribbean!

And turtles - as always, we have been housing lots of baby turtles and feeding them via needle so that they can live and be healthy!  Thank goodness for the spare bathroom aka the turtle bathroom!

Three baby Hawksbill in the bathroom sink! 

babies!

Other than the above- school and work is about all we have been doing!  Hope everyone at home is doing great!  So many things we are missing, but nothing like waking up to the Caribbean everyday!  HOME is 42 days!!!! <3