We are IN the Caribbean!

So it's been an entire month since I've blogged! And what a month it has been!! It went so fast. We got to visit lots with Jaron's family while we stayed at his parents house. Then me and the boys made a trip up to Canada to visit my family and we had a fun visit there.. I also got to hang out with a bunch of friends from high school while we there. Anyway, lots of great fun with lots of great people. Maybe someday I'll catch up and post pictures but today is not the day.

Yesterday Jaron's brother drove us down to Salt Lake to catch our plane. The downside: our flight left at one in the morning! The boys ran around the airport until Eli crashed at 11:30. Alden followed around midnight. We then had a 3 hour flight to Atlanta followed by a 4 hour layover. Our flight from Atlanta to St. Maarten lasted 4 hours. Even though Jaron and I are running on an hour and a half of sleep each in the last 36 hours or so, WE MADE IT!

As soon as we stepped off the airplane, my first thought was: Wow, it is HUMID here! My second thought was: Wow, it is HOT here! Third thought: Wow, it is BEAUTIFUL here! It has really actually been hitting me how wild of a thing it is that we're doing here in the last 48 hours or so. It is so cool to be here but it is still kind of scary because so much is still so, well, foreign and unknown to us. We found a great hotel, though, and as soon as we had our bags in the room, we hit the pool. NICE! We are definitely going to have to make that a habit while we're here. Then we drove around and found a little grocery store and bought sandwich fixins for dinner. We took them to a little beach we saw on the way and Alden LOVED it! He kept running into the waves (fully clothed) and kept trying to build a "sand castle." Eli couldn't keep the sand off him or out of his mouth. Even though he just sat there, he was covered in sand from head to toe when we left (and now so is our rental car). We then drove around the island a little bit but didn't find anything like what we were looking for (i.e. the ferry we're supposed to take to Saba).

Here are my first impressions of St. Maarten: Even though it is very touristy, a lot of it seems to be kind of run down. I love the quaintness of this place. For instance, our hotel is surrounded by trees bearing coconuts and cages filled with exotic birds and monkeys. Not your average American Inn, by all means.

Sorry, my pictures aren't posting. I sure hope this gets posted!

We've moved! Well...kind of.

We've moved to Idaho. And all I have to say is:

What a trip.

Just kidding - that is certainly not all I have to say. Since when have any of you known me to be a woman of few words?!? So here's the story: (Sorry, no pictures.)

We started preparing to move by selling most of our belongings on Craigslist before we left and kept only what we thought we could squeeze into the back of a pick-up. Jaron's Dad was planning to drive his truck to us to pick up our "junk," as Jaron likes to call it, but wasn't sure if he was going to make it because Castle Rock got the BIGGEST SNOWSTORM OF THE YEAR on the very weekend we needed to move. But in the end h made it and got to our house Friday night and can I say, he SAVED US! We are so grateful for all Jaron's Dad did for us this weekend! Saturday morning Jaron and his Dad loaded the truck - 47 stairs down each load! What a workout for those two! After we were loaded, we cleaned the rest of the apartment and took off around 2:30 in the afternoon. The kids slept great in the car and all was well until we hit a SNOWSTORM in the mountains of western Wyoming. We spent the next hour or so driving 35 miles per hour. Amidst that snowstorm, some moisture got into our headlight and it went out and as our luck would have it, we immediately got pulled over for it, before we even realized it was out! I think the policeman pitied us and our overfull car with me squished in between two carseats in the back at 1:00 in the morning and he let us off with a warning to get the light fixed. So we made it to Jaron's parents' house at just after 1:30 in the morning. WHEW. I was getting ready for bed that night (morning?) thinking, wow, I'm exhausted and it makes this crazy adventure we're on seem even more challenging at the moment. I knelt down to say my bedtime prayer and it totally hit me. I am SO BLESSED. Number one: We made a long trip safely and with our sanity in tact, despite travelling with two rambunctious youngsters and snow-packed, icy roads. Number two: all of our stuff made it safely, despite the wet snow hammering our exposed cardboard boxes in the back of the truck. Number three: We had Jaron's Dad. Like I said before, we can't thank him enough for all the sacrificing he did for us just this weekend alone! Number four: We have a great opportunity to spend lots of time with family and friends in the next few weeks - something we haven't gotten to do in far too long!

If I've learned anything in the last eight months, it's been time and time again a lesson in perspective. Things are only as bad or as good as we think they are!

So we've made it safely this far in our adventure. Our plan is to spend a couple weeks here and then swing up to Canada for a week or two to spend some time with my family. Then we'll swing back down here and organize what we will take to Saba. Then we're off for two adventurous years on the island!

I have OCD.

What exactly is OCD some of you might ask? It is obsessive compulsive disorder. According to wordnet.com, it is defined as "an anxiety disorder characterized by recurrent and persistent thoughts and feelings and repetitive, ritualized behaviors." And here is why I have it:

1. I often check the stove to make sure it is off before leaving the house, even if I haven't cooked yet that day. If I think about it but don't check it, it drives me NUTS.

2. This may gross you out but I pop my fingers and toes in bed right before I go to sleep. Every night.

3. One wall of the Kids Club where I work is painted as a chalkboard. It causes me great anxiety when there is chalk residue all over it. I wipe it down twice whenever I get a chance.

4. After I lock the door when I'm leaving, I always push on it because, obviously the lock "clicking" into place wasn't confirmation enough that someone can't get in.

5. When I make a sandwich, the condiments absolutely have to go on the two "matching" sides of bread. Meaning, the bread has to fit together as a sandwhich the same way I pulled it out of the bag.

This is just the beginning of my list of strange habits. Anybody else OCD out there??

P.S. Because I never post pics of the chillins anymore, here's a few. Most of these were taken at the park. We've been enjoying mostly great weather here lately!

We're moving! Out of the Country!!

Our little family is in for some big changes in the next few years. Jaron has been accepted to medical school and will begin in May! In the Caribbean! Here's the story:

Since starting his own chiropractic practice, Jaron has found that chiropractic is not all we thought it would be. It involves a much bigger "business" side than we had anticipated (meaning, having to constantly market and sell yourself). Jaron has loved helping people with their pain but feels like he wants to be able to help people in a broader sense. So we looked at our options and decided that if we're ever going to change from Chiropractic, now's the best time for our family.

Now, you're all probably thinking, "Didn't they just get done with school?" Yes, we did! But by going back to school and becoming "career students" by going to medical school, we'll open up many doors for our family. Number one, when we graduate we will (hopefully :-D) have better job security. Number two, we will be able to live near either of our families in Idaho or Canada (something we may never be able to do with Chiropractic). Number three, although we'll be WAAAYYY far in debt by the time we're done, we'll probably be able to pay our student loans off quicker.

So where are we headed? To the CARIBBEAN!! WOOHOO!!! When we decided to apply to medical school, we contacted many to find out how long the application process is. We found out that a school in the US will take between 18 months and 2 years to be admitted. An American-approved school in the Caribbean would accept us as soon as we were able to get ourselves there. Since our family is only getting older and our student loans are only collecting interest, we decided to take an immediate course of action! So we searched the different schools in the Caribbean (there are 4) and decided on Saba because: 1) it is one of the safest, and 2) it is one of the cheapest. Our friends and old neighbors, the Swenson's, introduced us to the school and have been a huge source of information for us once we decided to go there as well. Now that we've been accepted to begin at Saba Medical School in May, the plan is to spend 20 months on the island, 20 months somewhere in the US doing clinical rotations and the next 2-4 years in residency somewhere, depending on what Jaron chooses as his specialty.

Here is a picture of the island of Saba:




And here is a map of where in the Carribbean the island is located:


Okay, my map was blurry so Google Earth "Saba, Netherlands-Antilles" if you want to know where it is!!

Thank you Andrea and Jonathan for being such an invaluable resource to us! We really appreciate your friendship!!

Alden's Imagination

I can't remember if I've blogged about Alden's imagination yet or not. If so, sorry. If not, this kid's imagination is amazing. Often when we go places Alden will yell "Wait!" as I shut the door of the car after getting him out. "Wait! We have to get the mouse." When this first started I thought, "What? I didn't know Alden had a mouse toy." But I'd open the door of the car again and Alden would pluck a scoop of air (aka his "mouse") from his carseat. He'd carry the mouse around the entire time we were shopping, telling me to watch it do things and then he'd want it to sit with him on the way home. His other imaginary friends in the car have included fish and doggies.

Tonight, Alden pulled out his pink doll stroller. (Yes, Jaron is man enough to let his son play with a pink doll stroller. :-D) Not only did he push his doll around in it as a stroller but that thing also became a dump truck, a train and a helicopter. Do you remember what it was like to be a kid and have an imagination?!?

Funny Little Eli

This video may get a little long for those of you not as enamored with Eli as we are. We thought this was pretty stinkin' funny, though!

Our New Fishing Game

This fishing game is oh-so-easy to make and Alden has a ball with it. First, start saving all those metal lids from juice concentrate cans. (Don't think we're juiceaholics - I've been saving mine for months!) Then, use permanent marker to doodle whatever you want on one or both sides. We put letters on one side to help Alden with letter recognition (find the "F" Alden!) and on the other we put shapes, numbers, and little primitive animals. Fashion your own "fishing pole" using a big stick, string, two magnets (the big round kind) and super glue. Voila! Enless fun for pennies!!

I told Alden we'd take a picture of his new game and post it online. This was his face when I told him to "smile:"

And this was his face when I told him to "look happy:"

Man this kid cracks me up!!