Nerds, Hypocrites, and Assistants

We've had some pretty funny moments with our kiddos recently and I need to document them before I forget them.

The first was a month ago when we took the kids to see Daddy's School. When we drove onto campus, Kate asks, "Daddy, is this a nerd school?" Ha! We got a pretty good laugh over that. (If you've seen Big Hero 6 you'll understand where this came from). Nerd school or not, it's not a shabby campus to look at, that's for sure. Actually, Chris and his buddy Ryan say that it looks better on the outside. Guess it's not so pretty on the inside. :)

As a side note, the airport is on the peninsula that the kids are looking at in this picture. This is also an incredible spot to watch the sunset. It's breathtakingly beautiful.


The next was yesterday on our way home from the black sand beach (which I'll hopefully post more about later). Kate was sitting up front with me and I asked her to be in charge of passing snacks back to Chase and Maddie. She was all excited and put on her best Mom voice and says, "OK, Mom, from now on, I am your assistant mom. Chase and Maddie can call me Mom." After some discussion we decided that it would be too confusing to have two "Moms" in the car so we settled on calling her Kate, but she could still be my assistant. Give that girl a little power and she will totally take over! Sheesh. (Hopefully we can instill a little humility and compassion into her before we set her loose in the world.) ;)

Then tonight at dinner Chase totally drowned his mashed potatoes and steak in gravy. This lead me to make a snarky comment, "Have some potatoes with your gravy, Dude." Then Chris tells him to look at my plate and say, "Mom, You're a hypocrite." (I kinda like my potatoes and gravy too). ;) So Chase starts laughing hysterically. It's what he does when he's nervous. And then the little stinker says it! His face was bright red as he said "hypocrite." He was laughing so hard and it came out super high pitched. I wish I would have recorded it. It was sooooo funny. I don't think he realized it was a real word so we had to explain to the kids what "hypocrite" meant. Then Chase says, "Like when Daddy said, don't climb the wall like this, and then he did it?" HA!! Totally backfired on Chris! Yep, exactly like that, Chase. Exactly.

Our First Experience with Grenadian Healthcare

Today we marked one month of being on the island! Wahoo! To celebrate we took our first trip to the doctor. Sounds like fun, right? We just want to make sure we have the full Grenadian experience while we are here ya know.

So, I picked Maddie and her friend Jake up from school at 1:30 today and drove Jake home. I got a little carried away talking with some friends (go figure) and Maddie was whiney and clingy the entire time. I didn't think much of it because she's been like that a lot the last few weeks. I mean, A LOT. But then we get in the car to leave Jake's house and she full on starts having a meltdown. "My ear is bugging me!" Over and over and over. By the time we get home she's a blubbering, slobbery mess.

Conveniently, I couldn't find my local phone. I had gone to a yard sale that morning and could not, for the life of me, figure out where I had put the blasted phone so I couldn't call any of the pediatricians on the island. When my friend Harmony brought Kate and Chase home at 2:30 I told her what was going on and she let me borrow her phone. And, this is Grenada here (TIG), the pediatrician's office was randomly closed early. Sheesh. Harmony offered to take Chase and Kate to her house and off Mads and I went to the SGU Clinic.

As I parked at the clinic I had a thought to look in the glove box and guess what was there! My local phone!! Yay! I was so relieved. Mads and I waited an hour and a half to see the doctor. (once again, TIG) She cried and cried and cried some more. One of the receptionists was sweet and brought out a magna doodle for her to play on. So we created these triangle and square robots. She actually drew them all by herself. I thought they were pretty cute. I tried really hard to get a pic of little Miss, but she wasn't having it today.

When we finally got to see the doctor, he did a full on exam. Now, I totally understand that she was a new patient and they want to be thorough, but she was pretty much hysterical by this point so it was really trying my patience. That and his phone kept ringing and HE ANSWERED IT. TWICE! Seriously, you have a borderline screaming child in your exam room with you, LET THEM LEAVE A MESSAGE!! (The all caps makes me sound really mad, but I was more annoyed about it than anything.)

Really
Really
Annoyed

M was really a trooper though. With a little coaxing, she calmed down enough for him to poke and prod her all over and listen to her breathing and all that good stuff. But when it came time for the Rx/instructions, I could barely hear a word he was saying because she was crying so much. Did I mention she shed a few tears? I couldn't read his handwriting on the script and half of the medications were Spanish so there was no way I'd remember them anyway...I wasn't sure what I was going to be giving my child, but I was pretty desperate by this time.

By this time it was 5:00 and Daddy is done with class! So we picked him up, ran to the pharmacy, which was more like a 7-11 crossed with a drug store, and we got her antibiotics and went home.

She is happily sound asleep now and will hopefully wake up a new girl tomorrow. She's got a big day ahead of her at school. They are celebrating the Grenadian Independence Day and she gets to wear her new Grenada dress. Oh la la!! She's pretty stoked. :-)

Getting settled

We are getting settled here in Grenada and making some new friends. First of all, the Branch (Church group) here on the island has been amazing. They arranged rides for us from the airport when we arrived as well as dinner. Our landlords have also been amazing. We don't have a car yet, which has made sightseeing a little difficult as yet, but they have been so kind to offer us rides whenever we need it. The Whitesides and Jacksons took us to the grocery store on Monday to get some essentials. Two days later, when I realized we needed lots more, I called Holly up and she took me back to the store to pick up more food/essentials. 

Back at home we've been learning the art of drying our clothes outside. I'm afraid with a family of 5 I'm going to be monopolizing the laundry lines. I hope the landlords and neighbors don't mind! Kate was extremely excited about her "job" of holding the laundry basked under the clothes as Chris unclipped them and made them fall into the basket. I wonder how long that excitement will last? (Putting her clothes away is apparently as boring as ever because I still have a whole couch full of kids clothes that need to be put away.)

Our landlords, Daiva and Ashton, have been so, so kind. Daiva is from Lithuania and is super friendly. She made Chris a coconut cake for his birthday yesterday and Ashton drove us to the best beach ever yesterday (more to come on that in another post) and to the kids' school today (I'll post more on that later). They also have a puppy named Coco, short for Coconut. He is a cute little thing and super fun for the kids to play with. Kate has been wanting a puppy so bad ever since Daddy put the bug in her ear last Christmas. I seriously get asked a zillion times a day when we can get a puppy. Now I can just send them downstairs to play with Coco. Problem solved! Best dog situation ever!

Today after school we were going a little stir crazy. So, I sent my friend, Harmony, a message asking if she would mind giving us a ride to the beach and dropping us off for a couple of hours. She said they were actually on their way to the University Club pool and invited us to come. So, we piled our family of 5 into their car with their family of 5 and drove Grenadian style to the pool. Now, before you think we are terrible parents, the top speed on the island is about 30 miles an hour on the "highway." And we weren't on the highway at all, just some smaller roads. So it's not really that bad. ;) I didn't take a picture of the pool, but I should have. It's completely gorgeous. There were a few other students there so we got to get to know them as well. The kids had a BLAST.

So, that's life in a nutshell so far. I'll post more in the days to come, but for now just know we are having a blast and loving it so far! We do miss our friends and family. If you want a Caribbean vacation, we have a place for you to stay!!

We made it!!

On Sunday evening we finally made it to Grenada!! Yahoo! The first thing Kate said as we walked down the steps from the airplane was "Mom, I'm hot." Ha! Get used to it, kid. ;)

I guess I should back up a bit. About 6 weeks ago Chris was accepted to St George's University School of Medicine. After 7 long years of prerequisites and applications, we finally decided to try out the Caribbean schools. And we got accepted to the "Harvard of the Caribbean!" (there's a snippet from the TV show ER where they call SGU the Harvard of the Caribbean. I'll have to look it up and post it in here at some point). Anyway, we accepted the offer, and spent the next 6 weeks getting the house ready to rent and packing up. It was a whirlwind of chaos, especially at the end, but we have amazing family and friends that made it all possible. I seriously think we would still be in OK wrapping things up if it weren't for them. ...I should probably do a whole post on that at some point too...

Anyway, we made it to Grenada without a hitch. A couple of delayed flights, but nothing too traumatic. :) The kids each took turns napping and playing on their new kindles and were amazing travelers.

We arrived, waited in the line to get our visas for what felt like forever. Maddie was getting a bit whiny by this point so we entertained her by scooting her around on the booster seat. She thought that was a blast and it entertained the rest of us while we waited.

After immigration, we headed over to get our zillion bags (actually 19, but who's counting anyway?) ;) We loaded them all on a tiny luggage cart and headed over to customs. The lady asked me what was in the bags and I seriously couldn't think of a thing. My brain was so fried by that time. "uhhhh, clothes, diapers..." She just waved me and the kids through and sent Chris to the customs lady next to her to verify his school acceptance. Which, dun, dun, dun.... We didn't realize we needed the acceptance letter AND the immigration letter from the school. So the next 20 minutes was a little chaotic with me and the kids and luggage outside while Chris was inside trying to verify his acceptance over wifi on his phone inside. I kept having to run into the airport to bring him different documents to see if they would work while the kids and luggage sat outside. (The kids weren't too happy about that, but they, once again, were troopers). I felt so bad. Welcome to Grenada. But wait, Mom's gonna leave you alone in a foreign country for a minute. The security guards kept saying, "they'll be fine. Just go." I promise, I was barely out of their line of sight when the doors closed for a second and then darted right back out. Don't turn me in to DHS.

Anyway, once that trauma was done, we crossed the road and our entire luggage cart fell over. So we scrambled to pick them all up. It was chaos.

Then this guy from our Church was there to pick us up. (Our landlord had waited for 2 hours and just left, but was happy to come back to get us.) Josh, the guy from church, took the kids and I home. His wife had packed banana bread and ice water for the kids to munch on while we traveled as well as eggs, milk and bread for breakfast the next morning. And some mosquito repellent. It was amazing. Oh, and some mac n cheese. (if you know us, you know that was perfect). They were so kind. The landlord was also so very kind and welcoming. Another family from our Church brought us dinner and we chatted for a bit. We felt so welcomed and loved. They even came to take us to the grocery store the next day. AND, tomorrow one of the girls is coming back to take me to the grocery store AGAIN because I forgot so much the first time. The people here are amazing and so friendly. I'm so grateful to have good friends, good landlords and a beautiful island to enjoy for the next 2 years.

What we've been up to...October

This post may be long or it may be short. Depends on how quickly I get frustrated with Blogger. I need to find a new way to upload my photos.

Anyway, here's a short synopsis of what we've been up to the last three months.

We went camping for the first time as a family. We both like camping but we've never gone in all our years of marriage. Well, Chris goes all the time with scouts but we've never taken the kiddos. I brought the camera. I  also forgot to take pics until we got home. This is Chase's dirty hand as he is konked out in his car seat. We had excellent food from the dutch oven, had a campfire, did a service project in the morning and got really, really, really dirty. Did I mention we camped within OKC limits just about a mile from the amusement park? Kinda funny. But that's where the service project was so that's what we did.

We got sick. Like, I don't think I've ever puked that much in my life, sick. It started with Chase and moved on to Mommy and Daddy. Kate avoided it somehow. Chris will kill me for posting this pic but it documents about a week of our lives. On the good side though, I finally lost the 5 pounds I've been trying to lose for about 21 months now. :) (I think I gained it all back at Christmas, but that's another story)

Kate's been doing a preschool/playgroup with some friends. She absolutely loves it and Chase loves it when it's at our house because he gets to play too. From the left: Jasmine, Hannah, Kate, Addie, Drew, and Chase.

Just before Halloween we went to Chester's Party Barn. It was a bit warmer than last year but not much. We still had tons of fun though. If you're ever in the Edmond area around Halloween, I definately suggest this.

Kate watching the Pumpkin Chunkin at Chester's.

Ward Halloween Party. Gotta love the cheesy (and messy) smiles.

 We totally forgot all about carving pumpkins this year and I felt really bad so on Halloween morning I let the kids paint their pumpkins. Chase had a bit too much fun.

You know, I've tried spiking Chase's hair with gel before and it just goes flat after about 10 minutes. Maybe he was on to something here...

Kate was very meticulious in her painting and only managed to get one hand dirty. That's the difference between my kids. One's cautious and one's...not.

 Me and Chase hanging out at the park while Kate was at preschool. I love my time with my little man. He's getting so big so fast.

Ok, I have tons more pictures but that takes you up to November at least. I've got to go get something accomplished before naptime is over. Hopefully I'll get around to posting some more in the next few days.

New Kitchen!

Now don't get too excited. I'm not talking about my kitchen. I'm talking about Kate's birthday present. She's 3 now (I can't believe how big my baby girl is getting!) I saw a play kitchen that a friend made her daughters and got inspired to make on of my own. Well, not my own, but Kate's own. Seriously, I think I'm more excited about it than Kate is. Maybe.

Anyway, some friends of ours gave us an old bookshelf that they inherited from their office. Here is what it looked like:

So Chris brought it home for me and then I stared at it for like a week. I was all excited to do it but when I looked at this I really didn't know where to begin. It was like having severe writer's block. So I called Holly and told her what I was doing and said I needed help. She's seriously one of the most creative people I know and she got me all pumped up with different ideas and resources. Now that my creativity block was over I grabbed Chris, told him to get a saw and headed to the garage.

We chopped off the left hand side and about 6 inches off the bottom of the right side to lower it to Kate's size. Next we cut the left side in half and turned it on its side to be the fridge. Somewhere I have in between pictures of it but it really just looks like a pile of wood (which it was) and I'm sure you've seen a pile of wood before so I'll spare you. :) The scariest part of this whole project was doing all the cutting (and not just because I'm afraid of cutting my toes off). I was so worried I'd get it all cut up and then wish I hadn't. My advice if you're planning on doing this: just take a deep breath and do it.

The next week or so was full of more cutting, sanding, nailing, drilling, painting, sewing, more painting, shopping for knobs, hardware and accessories. Of course, Kate decided she didn't need to nap in these two weeks so I had to do it when either Aunt Stacey could babysit or after the kids went to bed. I messed up a few times and about gave up a few more times but I stuck with it and I'm so glad I did. It turned out GREAT!! I absolutely love it. It's not 100% finished. The fridge doors aren't cut straight so I need to fix them a bit but the kids don't seem to mind.

Here's the finished product:

Happy cooking to you!!

Washington

May also brought us to Washington! This trip was LONG overdue. The last time I saw any of my family was  in August. It was probably the longest stretch I've ever gone without seeing them. When we moved to Oklahoma I made Chris promise me I could go home whenever I wanted. He's done a really good job keeping that promise but between his job and school we didn't have any time off. Anyway...to the pictures!

This was the first night at Mom's house with all the cousins together. There was a mattress pulled out in this bedroom and Kate and Hayden started jumping on it. We all told them they couldn't jump on the bed. After I put the bed away Kate asked if they could jump on the blanket. So they did. For like 20 minutes. It was hilarious! Laughing and screaming and playing. I loved it. Chase missed out on all the action but he was happily engaged with his dinner so he didn't feel too bad.

I love how Cindy is pinning Cayla's head down in this pic. They were sooo hyper.

Kate really took a liking to Hayleigh. Hayleigh drew a picture for Kate and she carried it around for like 2 weeks after we got home saying, "Hayleigh made it for me!"

So, Mom always says how Cayla's smile can light up a room so I devoted much of my time on this trip attempting to capture it. This is not it...

I'm telling you, Kate LOVED playing with the cousins. This is my mom's backyard. On the lake. Sigh. It's so beautiful. If you know anyone looking for lakefront property in Central Washington, let me know. She's selling soon!!

One of my good friends always makes a trip out to see us when we are in the area. Thanks Eliza! It's so nice to see their family and visit for a while. This is little Weston. I think he and Chase are like a week apart.

And this is all of us. Facing the sun. The kids aren't looking. Seriously, we took like 20 pictures and NONE of the kids are looking in ANY of them! (Now that I see how we're all squinting I can't really blame them though.)

Kate made a new best friend. My sister Kim was very patient with Kate following her around all the time. Kim did Kate's hair so beautifully, don't you think?

My cousin has a cute little dog that Kate just adored. She let Kate take the leash and walk around with him. Kate thought she was pretty cool stuff. She was on cloud 9 until she tried to snap his head off by dragging him around. And that was the end of that.

And this is Jake. He's the cutest, most serious little man I've ever met but I did manage to catch a little smile.

This is definately not the smile that lights up the room. This is more like, Chrissy, get that camera out of my face!

All the cousins and my gorgeous sister.

My aunt and her grand daughters, Hannah (the infant) and Kaelee (the toddler).

Kaelee has the hugest, most gorgeous eyes ever. So cute!!

Kate thinking she's big stuff playing frisbee with the big kids.

And the biggest kid of all is my husband. :) Konnor is pretty close to passing him up though

Proof that I was actually there!

I think she needs a grandbaby, don't you?

Yeah, so for any of you Okies that try to tell me that Oklahoma is flat and brown. I tell you, you haven't seen flat and brown until you've been to central Washington. Here's proof. This is the most scenic view around ML.

Nothing like sharing some ice cream with Daddy. I just remembered that we snuck this out of the freezer. I don't know if Aunt Paula knows we stole this but she does now! :)

Yeah!! I finally got it!!

Roasting her first marshmallow!! It was the most perfectly roasted marshmallow you ever did see.

Did she eat it?

Nope.

The kids had so much fun they were plum worn out. So were Mommy and Daddy. We just don't have the luxury of falling asleep wherever/whenever we want to.

It was a fantastic trip. We love seeing family and we miss everyone!! Until next time...