5 more days!

A view of the Atlantic Ocean from our backyard

(although it hasn't been this sunny in over a week!)

Sorry that I haven't been posting lately. With our computer out of commission, I've been uploading pictures onto our friend, Jakki's computer to upload them to the blog and keeping them on my camera, so I can put them on our computer when we finally get it fixed (hopefully on Saturday!) so now my memory stick is full, so I haven't taken any new pictures since Easter! I did find a few to share from when we first moved here that are scenic and I don't think I posted before, so at least they'll make the post a little pretty!

We are going into our final week here on the island before break and Josh, Isaiah, and I couldn't be more excited. This semester has been extremely stressful and challenging and we are all more than ready for a break...and to see all of our wonderful family and friends at home of course too! Today is a big day for me....this evening is my first concert with the St. Christopher Chorale Society choir, which is a community choir here in St. Kitts that I joined this semester. It is our director, Veronica's last concert as she is leaving the island to go live in Greece with one of her sons and his family, so it's a pretty challenging repertoire and I'm looking forward to it! I have a final dress rehearsal this afternoon and Isaiah is going to stay with the Johnson's (Jason, Jennifer, and his buddy Elijah) this afternoon for a few hours while I go practice since Josh will be busy studying all day! Josh is going to take some time off this evening for some R&R and bring Isaiah to my concert. We're not sure how long they'll stay...it'll be Isaiah's first big public event like this, so I think Josh's plan is to stay until Isaiah starts fussing or making a scene (which could be after 5 minutes!) so we'll see how much they get to hear!

This is an area on the coast known as Black Rocks

(This was taken during our orientation week in August)

Tomorrow Josh's finals begin...he's got one exam every afternoon from Mon-Thurs this week from 1-3 pm. Monday is Anatomy II, Tuesday is Parasitology, Wednesday is Immunology, and Thursday is Physiology II. He's been working his butt off all semester, so I know he's going to do fine, but as always he's putting the pressure on himself to have an exceptional semester, so your prayers for his and my sanity in the coming days would be greatly appreciated!

After finals are finished on Thursday we're going to finish up packing and our flight leaves from here Friday afternoon and we head to meet up with Kevin and Sara in Philly! We're going to spend the night with them and part of the day on Saturday since they have too much going on to come home and visit with us and then we should be to Everett Saturday evening. I will be so happy to be home with all the people we love and miss so much. Ella apparently is just about bursting at the seams to see Isaiah and I can't wait to see how happy they are to play together! I hope everything is going well at home and now I can finally say we'll SEE YOU VERY SOON! Love to all.

Happy Easter!

Isaiah's excited for Easter morning! Christ is Risen!

Happy Easter everyone! We've had a great time celebrating this holiday with church events and an easter egg hunt and we're also celebrating that it's now less than 3 weeks until will be back in PA! I know it's been a while since I posted, but I really do have lots of great pictures now, so hopefully you'll enjoy today's post! This last week has been kind of a blur and I'm not sure why. I'm hoping that the time is starting to move faster as the semester ends and I won't be too upset if the next 3 weeks just fly right on by!

Isaiah and Brody playing with Brody's stroller at the pool

On Monday this week, Isaiah and I went to the pool with Kristen and Brody at the Royal St. Kitts and also met up with Tammy and her kids that live there and are part of our Mommy group that meets on Thursdays. I think Isaiah and Brody both had more fun pushing Brody's stroller around, but it was nice to get out of the house and cool off a bit in the pool! On Tuesday, Isaiah and I went to hang out with Kristen in the morning before she and Brody left Wednesday to head home for a few weeks. The boys had a great time playing and Kristen and I always have a good time anytime we get a few minutes for some adult conversation! Kristen and Shawn's car ended up breaking down, so it worked out that I was there and could drive us to pick up Shawn and drop their keys off at the garage to get it taken care of! On Wednesday Isaiah and I took Kristen and Brody to the airport to catch their flight back to St. Louis and I have to admit that I was pretty jealous!

Ready to head to the pool!

Posing for Mommy at the Royal St. Kitts pool on Monday

On Thursday, Isaiah and I had a busy day! We headed downtown first thing in the morning to pick of fabric for our friend, Long, who needs to get a choir shirt made before our concert in 2 weeks. It was a little hectic downtown that early in the morning when everything is opening up and people are on their way to work, but I was proud of us for doing it on our own! Then we headed to the Royal St. Kitts hotel for our weekly swim date with the other kids and Moms on the island. It was a small group, but we had a good time anyways! Afterwards we had to run to the store to get things for our Easter celebrations over the weekend because the stores were closed Friday and are closed tomorrow for the public holiday! Even though Isaiah was almost asleep when we got to the grocery store, he was a trooper and happy as could be until I could get him home to nap. So...even though it was a busy day, Isaiah was very cooperative and made it a lot easier on me then it could've been! Thursday night, some girls went to see the new Nicholas Sparks' movie, The Last Song and I got to go along! I had read the book over Christmas and really enjoyed the movie too!

Isaiah playing with one of his favorite toys!

(Thanks Great Aunt Deana!)

On Friday we made plans to pick up Jessie and Beau and the 4 of us headed to campus to meet our husbands for lunch. It was a nice excuse to get out of the house and I think Jessie and I both enjoy the chance to see our men during the day whenever we can! Friday evening we went to Frigate Bay for a Good Friday worship service with our church group. Josh ended up bringing Isaiah home because he was afraid Isaiah would make too much noise and ruin the service for everyone and I was up front singing with the worship team for the whole service. I was bummed they left, but I think Isaiah was much happier to be home and able to run around and yell if he wanted!

Hugging another favorite toy--his stuffed dachshund "Fritz"

(Thanks Great Pap and Great Nana McCahan!)

Yesterday we hosted an Easter Egg hunt at our place for our friends (mostly just the ones who have children came). It was in the late afternoon, so we just had people bring finger foods and snacks and I ended up having a great time! I think most people really enjoyed it and we were surprised how excited the kids were to hunt the eggs! 3 of the 5 kids are around Isaiah's age, so I didn't think the little ones would really care, but they really liked running around the yard and putting the eggs in their buckets! It was nice for the parents too who got to relax a bit as the kids often kept each other occupied! Last night I went to Bible study and Josh watched Isaiah here at home and Joe came over to hang out with my boys. It was a nice relaxing evening.

Our little streaker!

Isaiah putting an egg in his bucket

(Instead of baskets we used sand buckets!)

Showing Daddy his egg

Hanging out on the porch

Showing Mommy what he found!

This morning, we headed to church at Frigate Bay. We had a potluck breakfast which ended up being amazing and even had some people visiting from Antigua that came in and participated in the service which was great! Isaiah of course had a great time playing with and chasing after all the other kids and I think we had at least 60 or more people there for the service, which was great. I know some people only go on Easter, but we're also hoping that some people who haven't come before might decide to give it a try after coming today! Isaiah wore a brand new outfit that his Grammy Lynne sent in a package that just arrived on Thursday and looked ADORABLE!!! He and his buddy Elijah ended up with the same colors in their outfits and looked SO CUTE together! The service was good and we got to visit with a lot of people that we don't get to see all the time which was nice! Josh is now at school to study for the rest of the day and Isaiah is napping. I didn't get much sleep last night, so I'm planning on having a rest day today myself!

Ready for the ride to church in his hat!

Isaiah and Elijah at church

We hope everyone is doing well at home and are excited to see you very soon! I think we're at 19 days now until we fly home and I hope the time goes by quickly. Josh has a week without exams coming up, then 2 lab exams next week and a week of finals the week after. I think it'll feel so much better when we come back in May for Josh to be a 3rd semester!!! Love you all and know that we wish we could be celebrating this Easter Sunday with you!