Growing Up On An Island

Where has the month gone?! We had a wonderful visit with Aunt Kay and enjoyed the pirates week festivities — although the cannons going off during an enactment of the pirates kidnapping the governor did kinda traumatize poor Nathan who still doesn’t really appreciate loud noises. Fortunately for him, we found a nice quiet spot upstairs at the Hard Rock that overlooked the parade route but kept us away from the noise going on downstairs — that and a cup of chocolate mousse, and he was happy again! It was fun showing Kay around the island, and we all hope the whole family will be able to swing a trip back next summer. =)

We’ve given Landon’s school a good try this year, but have decided it really is not a good fit for him or for us (they’re still reviewing things he’s learned over the last two years at his old school — NOTHING new here, lol, among other issues), so we have decided to send him to the British school instead when we come back after the New Year. We visited the school for a tour when Aunt Kay was visiting and were all very impressed with their curriculum–miles ahead of his current school in terms of what the children are learning, and as a Christian school, they’re more in line with our values, as well. Since it follows the British system, he is also VERY excited that he will be in Kindergarten in January to coincide with his 5th birthday! Nathan is doing great at his Montessori school, and it has been a wonderful fit for him thus far, so he’ll definitely be staying there until time for him to start Kindergarten at Landon’s school (yes, Mom, unless of course we move back to the US before then, lol…)

We hosted a small Thanksgiving dinner for some of Brian’s colleagues, and everyone had a nice time…. but I confess I was happy when the day was over after spending 12 hours in my kitchen. We’ve been experimenting with cutting out wheat and gluten sources for the last couple of months, so everything I made for the day was gluten free (who knew Bisquick’s gluten free baking mix would make such wonderful pie crusts?!). We all seem to feel better when avoiding it, and have pretty much determined that Nathan for sure is gluten sensitive…he’s much happier and less fussy when he doesn’t eat the stuff.

Here’s a few more pictures from the month. Now we are all just looking forward to getting home to Florida for a visit next month for the Christmas break!

The last few weeks have gone by in a whirlwind. We had a very nice, but SUPER rainy October…thankfully we were warned it would be that way. October is the rainiest month of the year here, and a couple of those tropical systems that turned into hurricanes sat over us while they developed. Thankfully they moved away once they actually strengthened. We had a wonderful visit from Oma at the end of the month, too! Here’s a few pictures from the month.

Aunt Kay arrives this afternoon for a week’s visit, and she’s getting here at just the right time to help us enjoy all the Pirate’s Week festivities, so you can count on more pictures to come!

Lots of changes around here since my last post! I had been “shopping around” looking at school options for Nathan in the last few weeks. While he was doing pretty well at home with the helper, he was also a bit bored I think and had gotten into some things that he really should not have had he been supervised properly (liquid bandage from chest to nether regions, need I say more?). Not to knock our helper, but as things went on we discovered while she’s a great housekeeper, the kid thing kinda took second priority, opposite of what we needed, lol! So I found this great little Montessori school that’s close to home and actually had space available (lucky for me they’ve only been open for 8 months and are still building up their student list, unlike some of the others around here that have waiting lists a mile long). He started going on Monday this week, and it has gone really well. As is to be expected at this age, he cries a bit at drop off in the morning, but the teachers tell me as soon as my car is out of sight, the waterworks are gone immediately and he gets down and starts playing. So far so good!

On the dog front, we decided to hold off and wait until we could find a puppy that could really enjoy growing up with the boys and be their playmate, rather than an older dog like Tessy or Kai that would have been attached to me at the hip and them not so much…I already have two little shadows as it is, and we wanted the dog really more for the kids than for us! So last weekend the humane society got in something like 14 puppies and we had several to choose from. Our new little Chloe is 10 weeks old, and we brought her home on Wednesday afternoon. She’s doing really well, loves the kids and the kids LOVE her, too! So we are thoroughly entrenched in puppy house breaking right now! Funny thing about this island when it comes to small dogs– one look at the classifieds, and you’ll find tons of ads for Morkies, Shipoos, Shiranians, etc….all these made up breeds of dogs that the “breeders” want to charge $1500 (US) a pop for. I guess they figure you can spend $1500 and up to import your choice of dog, or you can have instant gratification and just get a glorified mutt here, lol, but if you want a dog that is going to stay little, those are your only options pretty much. Our favorite combo was the “Piteranian” — a 120 lb Pit bull father and 5 lb Pomeranian mother — the pups looked eerily similar to our Chloe, except the “accidental breeder” was asking $500 for those little guys vs the $45 humane society donation. All we could say was poor Pomeranian!

Also new this week, Landon has just started going to karate lessons three times a week at Purple Dragon–it’s a Caribbean method of Jiu Jitsu first started in Trinidad back in the 70s. His first lesson was Tuesday, and he loved it. Today we have lessons at 11am, and apparently this will be an all ages contact class — he’ll be wearing headgear, a mouthgard and protective hand and footwear. Never having watched a class like this, I’m very curious to see how it goes! I’d post pictures, but they’re not allowed!

The schools here have a fall break in addition to spring break, and our fall break is the last week of October. Oma is coming for a visit for the week and we are all looking forward to seeing her very soon!

Chloe

Landon & his Chloe

Sweet girl

Nathan giving some love…

Playing with Chloe

Quiet time

Karate boy!

Nathan’s first day of school

before you find one that fits when you’re talking about animal shelter dogs, unfortunately. While Tessy seemed to do great with our family over the weekend, when our nanny came on Monday, it quickly became a different story. She acted very aggressively towards both her and some of our neighbors when we had her out walking on the leash. Finally yesterday she bit Stella (our nanny) on the back of the leg when she had her back turned. We took her back to the humane society yesterday afternoon. Poor Landon was heartbroken but we have assured him we’ll stay on the lookout for another dog… but we just can’t take chances with a dog that acts aggressively to friends and family. It took him a little getting over, but we have agreed to a “sleepover” with another dog this weekend to see how she works out. This one’s name is Kai, and she’s a pretty girl, but seems very timid, so we’ll just have to see how it goes.

In other news…I had made an inquiry to the PTA about getting involved in some capacity back during the first week of school, and apparently that turned into me getting drafted to becoming the “room parent” for Landon’s class. Lucky me gets to organize a holiday party and an end of year party as well as hound all the other parents in regards to fundraising. How excited am I?! Bring it on, I needed one more responsibility on my shoulders, lol!

While we are very happy that we found wonderful homes for all our furry critters before we left the US, we have all been in agreement that we miss them very much. Home just hasn’t seemed completely like home without at least one four legged creature underfoot. Sooo, after a visit to the Cayman Humane Society this weekend, we have added a lovely little mongrel by the name of Tessy to our family. Tessy Chloe to be more precise. Poor thing had been at the shelter since June and they had been calling her Tessy. Landon liked Tessy and wanted to stick with it, but he thought she also needed a second name, so he chose Chloe. We’ve had a wonderful weekend getting to know our newest family member. She’s very calm and friendly and loves to play fetch–quite a feat for us to have a dog that actually likes to play catch, as those of you who knew Daffy well know that she would NEVER give up her toys just to run and go get them again, lol. Tessy even made her first trip to the beach today, and amazingly enough for a stray dog on such a small island, she acts like she’s never seen the ocean before! Here’s a few pictures from the last few days, and for those of you who asked, yes, there’s even one token picture of me. =)

For Uncle Tony — Landon pretending he’s surfing…in the flat Cayman “surf”

Snacks always taste SO much better at the beach.

Hey Nathan, can I please have one of yours? Mine are all gone!

Meet Tessy Chloe…

Guess who’s over the moon to have a doggy again!

The girls and the boys, lol…

What a great day!

Walking Tessy…

Puppy love…

Hi!

Playing marbles…

Happy to report I have TWO big boys now…no more diapers and no more babies in the Roberts household! Nathan got the hang of potty training in less than a day over the weekend and we’ve been relatively accident free ever since! We even spent the second day of potty training at the beach–took his potty chair in the car with us, and he told us when he needed to go to the car to use it. We’re very impressed with our newest big boy, and happy to say GOODBYE DIAPERS! Those things are crazy expensive here, lol!

It’s hard to believe Landon’s 3rd week of Pre-K is now completed. I haven’t posted about it before as it’s been a bit of a sore topic, but have to say it has been a bit of an adjustment– for him and for us. The school policies here are much more strict than what we’ve been accustomed to, and in our opinion initially there were WAY too many rules in place to expect a four year old to follow and still be happy going to school. Thankfully, as of the last couple of days here and one more heart to heart with his teacher, we do feel like things are smoothing out — and we are ALL getting used to the rules. As I write, Landon is playing his favorite video game (Lego Batman) in exchange for having an excellent Thursday and Friday at school.

Nathan is doing great with our helper, Stella, and I think we’ve made the right decision in keeping him home this year rather than sending him to school. They go for a long bike ride every morning before the sweltering heat of the day kicks in, and then they have fun painting and coloring and reading and dancing to their musical choice for the day….and amazingly he has a very enjoyable day without ever turning the TV on. =)

I’ve started a super early morning workout routine with a personal trainer that was offering a great deal to share time with a couple of other ladies, and I’ve had a lot of fun with it this week and enjoyed meeting a few new people. I’ve also signed on to help with swimming lessons for Landon’s class at school. They do them every other week on Friday, and today was the first day. They all did great today…I was really impressed with a couple of the kids that were already great little underwater swimmers. Now I just have to get Nathan going with swim lessons again…unfortunately, Landon’s teacher tells me there’s not too many instructors on the island here that are interested in teaching kids under the age of 3… no ISR here! She said she might know someone who would take a 2 year old on and will get back to me next week.

Brian started teaching his first classes this week, and all is going well there, too.

Not sure what plans might be for the weekend, but I’m sure we’ll figure something out–guaranteed it will include at least one trip to the beach, the only question is which one?

Just a quick post to give some updated pictures from the last couple of weeks…some pictures of Landon in his school uniform, as well as pictures from our fun day at Stingray City and Starfish beach today with Andrew & Heather and their kiddos! We had a great day out on the water, followed by a visit to Camana Bay to rescue a bat (Heather is in charge of wildlife rescue here) and then home. All are tired and should sleep well tonight. Figured out how to insert a whole gallery of pictures at once here, so you can click on a picture and it will bring up the full size version.

Hard to believe we have now been here for over a month, with August having gone by in a whirlwind! We visited the turtle farm/ Boatswain’s Beach over the weekend. On the way we stopped at Tim-Buc-Tuu in West Bay for breakfast, and Nathan devoured a JUMBO chocolate muffin that must have been at least half the size of his head. I really should have had my camera out for that one — sorry! Anyhow, I’ve uploaded a few pictures here from our day there.

School started for Landon today. I dropped him off and he waved goodbye with a big smile on his face while playing with a box of cars. His teacher, Gillian, is from Sydney, Australia, and he really likes her! Unfortunately, there was apparently a 5 minute crying stretch after I was out of sight this morning, which Gillian told me about after school. Landon says he can’t wait to go back tomorrow, though, and that the tears are a distant memory. When I picked him up and asked him how his day went, he said, “It was a lot of fun…I only got TWO time-outs!”. That’s my Landon, lol… one time-out for running and one time-out for not listening… he promises to do better tomorrow, with the goal being no time-outs tomorrow! We shall see…

I took my camera along for the ride this morning to school, but it has been raining non-stop here since yesterday, so I unfortunately didn’t really want to take it out of the car today! I ended up taking a picture of him in the car before we left the house, but that was it, so I figure I’ll take more school pictures and post them in a few days.

Look Mommy, I’m petting him!

Pretty bird…

Cayman Sea Turtle

Checking out the big ones!

Two of them were happy to pet the turtles… one was not.

Cheessssseeeeee….

Look at the sharks!

I could almost touch him!

Inside the bird sanctuary…