Mike & Sindy's Family Adventures

2010-03-04T11:40:00.002-05:00

Quick update - October

2009-10-10T10:57:00.006-04:00

The kids and their friend Ben

Meeting Grandma at the airport

So time is really flying by, I can't believe it has been so long since I posted something. So here is a quick synopsis of the last 2 months. Mom came out for a visit in August. It was great having family here and the kids had a blast showing grandma their island. We made a trip to Cabrits one day and saw the old British Fort Shirley. That was really cool cuz they still have all the old cannons and musket balls, and it is a great view over the bay. We also made a trip around the island visiting Carib Indian Territory to buy baskets and hand made crafts and also hiked to Emerald Pool. It was absolutely beautiful. We also took a trip down the Indian River where part of Pirates of the Caribbean was filmed, the kids got a big kick out of that.

View of Portsmouth from Cabrits

Fort Shirley Cannons

I finished my 1st semester of med school at the end of August, it was a huge relief to make it to that bench mark. We had a two week break with the kids between the semseters and we had a good time just being together. We also started another business of buying and selling books which turned out to be a lot more work than we had anticipated but it paid off in the long run.

Indian River Tour

Just before 2nd semester started, I was called to be the Relief Society President. It was a huge shock to me, but I accepted the calling and have been incredibly blessed for it. Our little branch has really grown and we are now at just about 80 members and are quickly outgrowing our space.

Our Church Building in Portsmouth

The kids started back into school in September, Zak is in the 4th grade there are only 3 kids in his class. Burke is in 2nd grade and is the only boy out of the 4 kids in his class. Paige is in the junior kindergarten and there are about 7 kids in her class. Mike is in his 3rd semseter of Master's in Counseling and stays really busy with the ice cream business.

Over all things are great. We have set the date for Burke's baptism for February 24th, for any one who is able to come we would love to have you. We went to a convert baptism a few weeks ago and now Burke is really excited to be able to be baptized in the ocean.

My favorite study spot

Pictures

2009-07-25T13:56:00.004-04:00

I've had requests to post more pictures so here you go...This is the ice cream sandwiches that we sell at school. I make the cookies then Mike makes the sandwiches out of them. They are a huge hit!
The kids went to a birthday party at the pool this morning. This is Burke jumping in, I can't believe how brave he has gotten. It took him awhile to get over his anxiety about water, but bit by bit he keeps improving and doing more things.

Zak won't stay out of the water, unless he is running back around to jump in again. He has really gotten into doing cannon balls and diving in.

Paige got water wings and nothing stops her now, she is all over the pool when she has them on.

We made our first ice cream cake this weekend, you can't tell but it was really big. I would kill to have my wilton stuff right now.

This is the sewing shop in town, the sell some of the woven baskets and mats that the carib indians make. They are absolutely beautiful, I'll definately be getting some of these before I leave the island.

July

2009-07-19T17:32:00.003-04:00

Mike has had a bit too much free time on his hands lately because he is on break from his schooling. He goes spear fishing with the guys very regularly and has brought home several squid, octopus, and lobster tails. Unfortunately I haven't been able to eat any of them (I start gagging at the site of them) and I really wish he would just catch some plain old boring fish, but I guess that's just not as much fun. This week Mike took over an ice cream business from another student who is done on the island and leaving. He makes ice cream sandwiches out of chocolate chip cookies and sells them on campus along with brownie sundaes and plain scoops of ice cream. He did really well this week and we are hoping that the ice cream sales will help us make ends meet a little better. However, I have discovered that having that much ice cream in my house is really not good for me, it has become my replacement for drinking milk. I may need to have some one send me some bigger pants soon :) Mike on the other hand has been very good and doesn't eat hardly any of the ice cream, he is continuing to lose a little weight every week and I'm very proud of him. I did get to have some real milk last week, I was very excited and it tasted sooo good! And at $18 for a 1/2 gallon, I will never complain about the cost of milk at home ever again.

Mike's octopus marinating in sauce, notice he left the suction cups on (gag).

We have had a lot of rain the past few days. It is nice because it cools down a little bit, I even had to sleep under a blanket last night because I was cold though I doubt the temp got below 80 degrees, I' pretty pathetic., I don't know how I will handle going back to the snow. But all the rain does make life a little bit harder. We usually filter water at home to drink but when it rains a lot the water gets a lot of sediment in it and the britta can't filter it out so we have to walk to school and fill up bottles of water there. It's the same story in the shower, it just feels wrong trying to wash your hair in dirty water but it's better than being stinky. I also can't do the laundry when the water gets dirty because it can plug up the washer and the clothes don't come clean. I wouldn't be able to dry them either since it is raining so much. On a plus note, we do get some amazing rainbows just about everyday.

The kids are doing well and enjoying school a lot. They finished the school year at the end of June and are now in the summer program. They get to go on field trips around the island each week and go swimming in the pool every day. They have made a lot of friends and are excited that for the first time, they live close enough to friends to be able to have them over quite frequently. Since we have the biggest house, the kids and adults tend to congregate at our house to play.

2 Months Done...14 To Go

2009-06-24T11:29:00.003-04:00

Sorry I haven't posted for a while, we've been busy having fun! Actually Mike and I both have been very busy with school. Mike finished his first semester towards his Masters degree the same week that I had my first set of tests. It was a pretty rough week for us but we made it through. Mike has continued to go spear fishing with his buddies and brought home an octopus for us to eat. Of course neither one of us had any idea what to do with it, so Mike let our friend Lilly cook it up. Mike got to try it and said it was really good but he forgot to bring some home for me to try.

Our landlord is really nice and bought a washing machine for us to use, I was sooo excited! Most students have their laundry done by the locals which I guess is pretty nice because they iron and fold it up for you. But it costs about $15ec a load and there was no way we could afford that with as many loads of laundry we have each week. We had been washing our laundry by hand in the bathtub before the washer came. The washer is not like a US machine but it is an LG brand, it has a large barrel with no aggitator in it and uses a bunch of jets to get the stuff clean. It can do a lot bigger load than a regular machine too, I can get about 2 1/2 times as many clothes into one load now. For the most part, they don't use dryers here because the power is so expensive so everything goes outside on to the clothes line to dry which can be a problem since it rains pretty much everyday.

Mike showing off his smaller waist line!

Some of the flowers in our yard.

This little humming bird is always buzzing around the front yard, he is fun to watch. I loaded up a few more movies onto our you tube channel, some old and some new. You have to click on the Youtube button to go to the website to see them all.

Just for Mike

2009-06-02T11:12:00.007-04:00

Mike is so proud of this that it deserves it's own post! He and his new friends, Nick and Wes, went night snorkeling on Friday so they could see the bioluminescence and maybe catch a few crabs or lobsters. Nick and Wes both have a spear gun and this is what they came home with...
They caught a 44" Baracuda

Check out the teeth

Mike, Nick, and Wes

Nick the fish and the spear gun

Wes getting a good look at the teeth.

Big Fish

The also caught several lobsters.

On another note, I know it's hard to tell :), but Mike has lost over 15 pounds since we got here. Yay for him, I only wish I could say the same.

White Coat Ceremony

2009-05-19T09:32:00.004-04:00

Friday was our white coat ceremony. We were officially "coated" by MD professors and given a pin by the PhD professors. It was pretty cool but the keynote speaker was really boring. I'm going to get a DVD copy of the ceremony since I'm sure you are all dying to watch it :).

Mike managed to burn himself again, you would think he'd learn the first time but no, he went snorkeling twice on Friday and is now a crispy critter.
We go to the "market" every Saturday morning in Portsmouth. You have to go around 6 am to get the good stuff. It's set up like a farmers market so you can get fresh fruit, veggies, eggs, fish, and meat there. This week we tried the fish. I got 2 pounds of fresh tuna for about $4 US. We weren't sure exactly how to cook it cuz it was cut in steaks so we just fried it up with some Mrs. Dash and it turned out really good, the kids even liked it. The other option they had last week for fish was a blue marlin, I didn't know if they were good to eat so I passed on that one. You can buy beef and pork there as well but it is a big slab of meat they just chop off how many pounds you want, not a steak or a roast so until I get some knives for my kitchen we are passing on that.

This is some of the stuff I got this week, the Tuna, some really small potatoes, carrots, celery, mangos, and corn on the cob. I also can get a huge bunch of bananas for about 75 cents (we eat bananas a lot).

First week of school

2009-05-14T11:03:00.002-04:00

School started on Monday for me and the kids and things are going really well so far. I have class all morning and then I meet Mike and the kids for lunch. After lunch, I either have more classes or anatomy lab and I’m done by at least 5 everyday but usually 3. The kids get done at 3 so we camp out on a deck that over looks the ocean and all five of us do our homework together. So far classes are all review information for me, but there is a lot of info they get through in a day so I’m working on reviewing and remembering everything. The first test is on June 8th. The kids are loving school and making new friends.

We have a great branch here, it’s about half students and half locals. We had 49 people there on Sunday and 22 of them were kids so we have a nice size primary, but only one young woman and one deacon so Zak is the second oldest boy in the ward. We have talked to the missionaries about Burke getting baptized next year, it will definitely be in the ocean and we can arrange to do it any time we want after his b-day so if anyone is interested in coming for it let me know so we can coordinate everyone being here at the same time.

We have made friends with several of the families here, there is even a family from Boise (they proudly sport their BSU shirts). Mike is getting involved in the spouse’s organization, he calls it the wives club, but there are several guys in there including a couple from our branch. The club has a lot of connections and info about how and where to get things done which has helped a lot.

The island is absolutely beautiful; it is about 80 all the time even at night and the humidity has ranged from 70 to 85. It rains just about everyday, sometimes hard and sometimes light but it usually only lasts a few minutes and then is beautiful and sunny again and the rain is warm and feels good. Because of all the rain we get to see a lot of rainbows which Paige always gets super excited about. The ocean is warm and nice and clear, warm enough that even I get in it! Mike went snorkeling with a friend yesterday at 8 am, not fair right? It’s ok though cuz he got a massive sunburn on his back (he didn’t want to ask the other guy to rub sunscreen on his back). There is a reef just off the beach that has everything, Mike could go there everyday and never see it all and that isn’t even one of the nice reefs here.

I will take the camera out with us this weekend so I'll get more pix and videos up soon. We miss everyone a ton, and really wish we could be there for Jen & Kade and little Paxton.

DOMINICA!!!

2009-05-09T12:17:00.004-04:00

We made it to the island!!! Everything is going really well, we are adjusting and getting settled in and the kids love it here. I'm posting a couple videos of our new place and some of the things we have seen but I promise there will be many more videos to come as soon as we get the internet hooked up at our house. This caterpillar is bigger than Mike's hand!

This is all the luggage that we took with us.

We have a little 4 bedroom house about a mile from campus, and we get to walk everywhere. Church is in town to the north of us, its about a 20 minute walk, and we have a great branch there. Classes start for me and the kids on Monday and we are all excited to get going.

This is an old sugar mill on campus, it was built in the 1700's.

February

2009-03-01T17:45:00.005-05:00

Wow, I can't believe it's been a whole month since I posted last. Time is flying fast now, I'd should say it's because I've been so busy studying but it's not, I've been having a lot of fun with Mike and the kids! So a brief summary of the last month: Burke celebrated his 7th birthday! Holy cow my kids are growing, I can hardly believe it. He really wanted a new stuffed animal for his b-day since he has outgrown the pooh bear phase. After much searching he finally decided on a new stuffed aligator, rather fitting for Florida I thought. My mom and dad flew in for his birthday too, the kids were all excited to get to see someone from home. My parents gift to Burke (and the rest of us) was a trip to Disney World. I can't take time off from school, so we drove to Orlando after class on Friday. It's about a 3 1/2 hour drive, but it's was fun because we got to see the Dolphin's stadium, lots of orange groves, and several aligators and armadilos off the side of the road. We spent Saturday and Sunday at Disney, it was short but it was great. The boys hit all the big rides and Paige got to see her princesses. We all had a blast but I must say that I like Disneyland better.

The day after Burke's B-day was my second Mini. I felt much more confident going into this one knowing what to expect. And I was pleasantly surprised when I got my grade and found out I scored even better than I did on Mini 1. Yay Me! I'm bummed though that some of my friends in class did not do well and will probably not pass, and I feel bad for them. At this point I have 3 more weeks of lecture, followed by a whole week off for reviewing and then the final on March 27. We are hoping to have everything packed up and ready to go so we can hit the road as soon as my test is over. If all goes as planned we should be back in Idaho by April 1st or 2nd.

In the mean time, we are trying to sell the furniture that we inherited here. We will be buying our airline tickets within the next few days and have applied for our passports. We have been looking at apartments on the island and will hopefully decide on one within the next week or two so I'll post more details about that when we have it. We are also going to be shipping some barrels with food, clothes, books, etc to the island and I've put Mike in charge of handling all of those details. We are starting to get excited, can you tell!

Back to the Basics

2009-02-01T15:38:00.004-05:00

Strawberries are in season right now here in Florida, how weird is that? So since all my homemade jam got left in Idaho, I decided we should go ahead and make some to eat while we are here. I pretty much left all of our stuff back in Idaho, including most of my kictchen stuff, I only have the bare essentials with me here so I was happy that I brought the potato smasher. All the kids helped mush strawberries, it took quite awhile so I only ended up with one batch. But it turned out really yummy, maybe too yummy cuz we've already gone through half of what we made and it hasn't been a whole week yet. I think we'll end up making a couple more batches this week :)

Paige is missing having girls around so she planned a Royal Ball for us all to attend this week. She was the Princess of Diamonds. She got to dance with daddy and Zak, and I danced with the boys. Zak was such a good sport, he surprised us all when he came out wearing his church suit so he could be a proper Prince Charming for the princess! (I was banned from taking photos of it though.)

We spent one afternoon at Key Largo this week, they have some great snorkeling areas there. The boys each got a snorkle set and are practicing using them. I think Mike is more excited about it than they are. And I think we made it through an entire week without going to the zoo!

Things are going really well with school, most everything has been a review for me so I haven't had to put in a lot of time studying, yet. I'm sure at some point it will get difficult and I will have to put in a lot more effort. But for now, I have a lot of free time with the kids. Mike and I joke that we are making up for the past several years of not having enough time with the kids. It's been really great. It is nice just getting back to basics as a family without all the extra filler like meetings, sports, tv, etc. It has given me the opportunity to really experience what matters most in life. And best yet, I never have to tell my kids that I don't have time or I'm too busy. I love that!

Mini 1

2009-01-19T18:48:00.000-05:00

This has probably been the most stressful week I have had in a long time and I'm glad it is finally over. We had our first test (MINI) on Wednesday, I studied my butt off for it. The hardest thing was that all of the classes had a section on the test, so unlike tests in undergrad, I couldn't just study biochem take that test and then move on to the next subject and test. Trying to study properly for all of the courses at the same time was difficult, but I have a better idea now of what to do different next time. We had to go downtown to the Hyatt to take the test, which was a pain as far as traffic, but I did like how they had it set up. Instead of craming us all into a classroom to take the test, they got a big conference room and gave everyone their own 4 foot table. They gave us a little over 2 hours for the 100 question test, it took me about 1 1/2 hours to do everything. They finally released our grades today and I passed everything with flying colors, YAY!!! Huge relief! The next mini is exactly one month from today, time to hit the books again :)

We've done a few different activities with the kids lately but I'm going to let them talk about it on their blogs so be sure to check out their sites and they love it when people leave comments for them. Also, we've got the webcam hooked up and are set up with skype. This is the best way to get ahold of us (cuz it's free) if you have a webcam or a microphone on your computer. Our skype account is sindybyington if you want to give us a shout.

The Apartment

2009-01-02T17:14:00.000-05:00

Everyone keeps asking about our new place, so here's a few pix for you. Kitchen
Dining Room

Living room

kid's bathroom

This is the kids room.

Part of the lake behind the apartment.

The kids call this the hills. Its a large grassy area between the lake and the apartment, we go out here a lot for the kids to run around.

This is what the apartments look like from the outside.

The little swimming pool.

Key West

2009-01-02T16:51:00.000-05:00

We decided to make the drive down to Key West before I start school again on Monday so we loaded the kids up early yesterday morning and went. We weren't really sure where we were going or what we would do when we got there, we just thought it would be a neat experience. Turns out its a 3 hour drive which we hadn't planned on (thank you mom for the new car dvd player!) The drive there goes through the lower portion of the everglades, they have road signs that say watch for crocodiles! When you get to the end of the mainland, there is a series of bridges that go from island to island to the end of the Keys. Key Largo was the first island and it had a lot of scuba diving shops that Mike and I are going to go back and shop at one of these days. There is also a large state park that encompasses a coral reef there which is supposed to be good for diving, we need someone to come and babysit though so we can go dive, any volunteers?

I lost count of how many islands and bridges we went across, there were so many. This picture is us standing on one bridge looking across to the next bridge. Most of the old bridges are still there and tons of people stand on them to fish. The largest bridge was 7 miles long, kind of freaky when there is nothing around you but ocean! Key West wasn't all that great, it had a nice beach which we spent several hours at, but the streets were tiny and hard to drive around and there were a few touristy shops. We did go to the southern most point of the US which was kind of neat too.

Everglades National Park

2008-12-29T19:54:00.000-05:00

Today we spent a few hours at the Everglades. I didn't realize how close we live to the park, it's just a couple miles west of our place.

Our goal for the day was to see some alligators!

At our first stop we found this guy sunbathing on the trail.

We saw a few more down the trail hiding out in the water.

This is part of the slough (slew). This whole grass land is covered in a few feet of water.

Now seriously, did they really need a sign for this!

Princess Birthday Girl!

2008-12-29T07:34:00.000-05:00

I can't believe how fast my kids are growing up, I'm pretty sure that Paige must have skipped a few birthdays cuz there is no way she just turned 4! She informed us that her name for the day was Princess Birthday Girl and she corrected us when we said it wrong. We started the day with presents, she got some new dolls, bracelets, shoes, and cash. One of the dolls came with a crown so she insisted on wearing it all day as well, including to church. So for those of you who know Paige well, you know that she has been telling everyone for that last year that she needs balloons for her birthday. Lucky for me there is a party city just down the road so we hooked her up with the biggest princess balloon they had.

Princess birthday girl wanted pineapple and scones for dinner, by the way pineapples here are super yummy! Then we had to have pink princess cake and ice cream for dessert. We played a pin the shoe on Cinderella game, the boys were great sports, they played along and hammed it up for Paige. I think she had a great day!

2008-12-28T22:15:00.000-05:00

This is the old light house at Key Biscayne, it was built in 1825 and is like 95 feet tall I think. Mike and the boys climbed to the top of it, you can see them waving on the left of the pix.

This is part of the skyline from Key Biscayne looking back toward Miami.

These pix are from the Miami Metro Zoo, the kids love going there cuz they have so much to do and see.

Christmas in Miami

2008-12-27T14:56:00.000-05:00

Happy Holidays to all our friends and family! It was definately a big change for us to have Christmas here in Miami without the usual holiday chaos. We spent Christmas eve at the Miami Metro Zoo for awhile. Mike and I bought an annual pass to the zoo as our gift to the kids. The zoo is absolutely enormous, it took us three trips there to see all the exhibits and they have great playgrounds, splash parks, and a Go, Diego, Go show that Paige gets a kick out of. After the Zoo, Mike and the kids went swimming in the pool back at the appartment. Then we had dinner and the kids each opened presents from each other.

Christmas morning the kids managed to let us sleep until about 7 which I thought was impressive for them. We spent the morning opening presents and had the traditional biscuits and gravy breakfast. Then I spent most of the morning getting Christmas dinner cooked, I definitely prefer splitting up the meal with my family, it was a lot of work! Anyway, we had a nice meal and some pumpkin pie. We spent some time outside so the boys could play with some of their toys, the weather was awesome 80 something degrees. Over all it was a nice, quiet holiday for us and we are looking forward to spending Christmas back in Idaho for 2010!

Welcome to Miami!

2008-12-21T17:18:00.000-05:00

Hello to all our friends and family! Things have finally settled down enough that I have time to start this blog that I promised everyone I would do.

After 4 very long days of driving, Mike and I made it to Miami just before Thanksgiving. We found an apartment right away that's in a great neighborhood and since we took over a lady's lease she gave us all her furniture too. We have a lake out back with a walking path and little beach areas for the kids to swim in. We also have 2 swimming pools, a hot tub, excercise room, and raquetball court. We also have a shopping complex and library right across the street from the apartment.

School is going great so far. There are about 140 people in the class, most of them are from California and the north east. I'm the only Idaho native, big surprise! We just finished our third week of class and started a two week holiday break so I'm relaxing a little bit. Most of the material so far has been review for me so I've aced all my quizes. We have our first big test coming up in January, it's called a Mini. The Mini is one big test with 25 questions from each of the classes, so that will be interested to see how it works. I'm taking Anatomy, Biochem, Histology/Pathology, Microbiology/Immunology/Virology, Physiology, and Clinical Medicine this semester.

The kids got here about a week and a half ago. They seem to be adjusting well, Mike is staying home with them for now and doing home school. They are having a hard time adjusting to the temperature and are missing the snow for Christmas. Paige started taking decorations off the Christmas tree because she said it wasn't Christmas time!

Over all things seem to be going really well. We miss everyone very much and hope you all have a merry Christmas!