Park Day

We haven't had our car for two weeks.  The starter went out and unfortunately on this island we count the time spent at the mechanic in weeks, not days.  But the wonderful mechanic Bennett delivered the car back to us at our house last night!  The starter itself was terribly expensive but I suspect Bennett charged us a cut-rate on labor because it didn't cost near what I expected it to. 

In the last couple of carless weeks we've ventured down to Windwardside a few times.  On Wednesdays we've been having the grocery store deliver us home with our groceries.  Other days we're on our own.  A couple of times I've just walked up the mountain with all three kids.  One time I pushed the stroller with all 3 kids in it, ALL THE WAY UP.  Once I carried all 3 about half of the way up the mountain.  I had Gracen strapped to my belly, Alden riding piggy-back and carried Eli in my arm.  It was C-R-A-Z-Y.  If you've ever wanted to lose baby weight, that is one way to do it.

Needless to say, I was getting tired of these trips.  But it was almost worth it just to get out of the house.  We had to pay rent and it takes 3 trips to the ATM, pulling out the machine's max each time, in order to get enough money for rent.  I could've HUGGED Bennett last night when he handed me the blessed key to our sweet little car!

So we headed out to do some errands and hit the park this morning.  Almost every day when I ask the kids what they want to do today, little Eli says, "I wan go to park!!"  We paid our rent to Evette at the trail shop and then took the back way into the park through a neat little trail.

This is how the trail began.   What an entrance to a park!

I don't know about you, but this might be the biggest banana tree I've ever seen!

A mango-strewn path.  What a waste! 

The whole point of going to the park was to sail these cool boats we made out of styrofoam produce packaging, pipe cleaners and construction paper.

They sailed great in the first pond, but the second pond had too much foliage.

As I type this, Alden and Eli are saying, "Let's go to the park again!"  Saba only has two playgrounds, a very small one in The Bottom and this one in Windwardside, that has three small climbing structures.  I can't wait until America when we'll have LOTS of parks to choose from!  We're going to be park MANIACS!!

P.S.  Jaron's new running shoes just arrived on the boat.  (He desperately needed them - his toes were poking through the mesh on his old ones!)  When I opened the package, my adrenaline picked up.  They smelled like a SHOE STORE!!  That may sound obsessive (and you might be right), but if you hadn't stepped in a shoe store in over a year, you might know what I mean!

PPS.  Can anyone tell me how to make the picture on my header a little smaller?  I feel like it's a little overwhelming!