Growing girls

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With Thanksgiving around the corner it sure is making me feel a tad homesick. I know my family will be doing their yearly ritual of going to Banff and spending Thanksgiving there. It sure would be nice to join them but I know we will have a great last Thanksgiving here. Last year My parents were here for Thanksgiving and we cooked a nice thanksgiving dinner…well actually my parents did!!  Not sure if mine will be quite the same but we will see!

Ready for a walk

It has been a very busy crazy last few weeks. Sairalyn has mastered crawling and has no troubles getting around. Cally sure thinks it is funny that her sister can crawl and come and get her now. I am not sure she was ready for the fact that it meant she would be able to get the toys from her !  Cally is getting better at sharing and loving the fact that her sister is a little more interactive instead of just laying on the floor. This now means we can no longer leave the front door open so Cally can play on the porch.

We hadn’t been going on or morning walks the past few weeks because Sairalyn had been getting up early and falling asleep before I could get us ready to go. But we went today to Cally’s favorite place the look out by the ocean and played and had morning coffee. Cally loves going to play there so she can run around and play peek –a-boo behind the weeds and run down the hill and have mom chase her. The past few times there has been a puddle in the gazebo because of the morning rain and Cally loves to take her shoes off and splash in the water. When we go for a walk we usually have to bring a few guys along for the ride, today Cally decided Snuffy, Elmo and Pooh would be coming and she even shared one with her sister for the walk.

Sisters playing at the look out

Playing with her special guys at the lookout

watching her sister play

Jungle Flowers

Showing flowers

Puddle splashing

Last Friday we finally got out to celebrate Eric’ s birthday. We had a friend come and look after the girls and we had a date at the Queen’s Garden Resort. It was magnificent food and we were stuffed when we got back. But our newest discovery when walking up to Queens was the guinea pigs that are all over on one side of the road in the jungle. Of course to us this was weird since we se them in pet stores. I am not sure why there were so many or what they were for…..and I am not sure that I want to know. We plan on taking the girls for a walk to see them some evening, as they seem to come out at around 6 pm.

Cheerio sharing

We are only a few weeks away now from Cally’s 2^nd birthday. I don’t think we are going to do anything very big. We will just do family cake and presents after supper, I am not sure I would have enough energy to do a big party again like last year. I know that it won’t matter to Cally what we do so I think I am just going to go simple. Since we can’t buy much here we had to make sure that we thought ahead and ordered stuff to get here in time. I will give you all a birthday update when the time comes on how it all turns out. Here’s to hoping Cally likes it.

Saba washing machine

I know people must wonder why I am so happy that I get the laundry out in the morning or even get it out at all. Or the reason why it may be one of my most complained about chores here. I am not sure if we every explained how washing your clothes are done here. We have a washing machine that is called a Danby twin tub washing machine. (Thanks goodness b/c we were hand washing all the clothes before we received this). So laundry is a process, water is very valuable here so we had to figure out a way to do laundry with out wasting too much. So it starts out by manually filling the washing machine with buckets of water until you require enough to make it cover the clothes and enough to slosh around. Then you turn the dial and wait for it to be done, 15 minutes is the longest cycle. Then you put all the wet clothes that have come out of the washing part and put manually into the spinner. In order to save water I put the hose that drains the water back into the washer and save the water for one more wash load. After I spin the wash water off I get a clean bucket and pour it into the spinner and let it sit on the clothes, after a few minutes or when the water starts running out of the drain tube I will turn the spinner on and spin out the clothes saving the rinse water by putting it in the bucket when it drains. So this is what I must do for every load and if the wash water is getting too gross I will empty some out and add more clean water if there is more to do. This is then followed by hanging all the clothes out on a line because most places do not have dryers because the cost of using one here is crazy. So once I get 4 peoples clothes washed that is pretty much the morning done. I got into a good routine on how to do it quickly but it is still a process, and when you have a toddler and a crawling baby the process seems to be taking a little longer. I can’t wait for December when I can use a “real” washer and dryer and have the laundry done in half the time. So that is pretty much my day if it is a laundry day! Although I can’t imagine doing it the way I was when we first got here, hand washing all the clothes in buckets.

Other than that I have just been trying to stay busy and make sure everything is taken care of. Now that we have a little bit more of a mobile baby some tasks are getting a little harder. Sairalyn likes to come help in the kitchen when I am making supper and our kitchen is not really child proof. She also likes to help when doing laundry by pulling herself up on the rinse bucket that I use when doing laundry. So this either means I do laundry when both kids are napping, which hasn’t been happening lately, or Sairalyn has to play with toys in her crib and I do it once Cally falls asleep.  But we manage I usually wait till Eric gets home and he will amuse and play with the girls while I get supper cooked and ready to go.

So since this is kind of about Thanksgiving I should probably give thanks to some things. I am thankful for my family, our extended families and friends for all their support in this journey that we have been on. I know without them this would not be an easy experience. Having their encouragement, listening ear when frustrated, help when needed I am not sure where we would be so….Thank you!!