Pinel Island & Birthday Parties

I feel a little behind on keeping this blog updated! I can't believe it's already the end of July; it has really been a busy and eventful month.
July is a month full of birthdays!! A lot of our friends and island kids have birthdays and of course we want to celebrate them all! We started off the 1st week of July celebrating Bindi's 3rd birthday at Kim Sha beach in Simpson Bay. We love Kim Sha and Bindi so win-win! She had a great turnout at her super hero party- we have a really awesome group of kiddos and even more coming next month in the upcoming semester!

Then the 2nd weekend a group of us went to Pinel Island for Andrea and Bret's (Jordan's classmates) birthdays. We had been wanting to go to Pinel for quite a while so this was the perfect opportunity. Ok- Pinel is perfect. It is an island within an island so you either need to take a ferry boat for $12 or kayak (not sure on price) over there. We took the Ferry and rented chairs and an umbrella at Yellow Beach. There is another beach on Pinel Karibuni, and maybe a few more private areas, but we didn't really leave Yellow Beach. There are 2 restaurants, but we brought a cooler of sandwiches and drinks. 

We stayed at Pinel until they closed for the day and it still didn't seem like enough time, even though we were so worn out. Afterwards we went back to Porto for birthday cake. It was a really fun day with such a diverse and awesome group of people. This past Friday night we were able to get a babysitter for the evening (Thanks Nicole!!) to go to dinner at Bamboo in Maho for Robert's 25th birthday. We love Robert; he is a great friend of ours so we were so glad to be able to get away without the kids for a short amount of time. I tried sushi for the 1st time in Robert's honor and actually enjoyed it! Another awesome night in the books!

The celebrations are going to start slowing down a bit though as next week is block week then the week after is finals. Then a 2 week break before 3rd semester that we are desperately looking forward to!! 

Taste of St. Maarten + Parrotte Ville

Last weekend Jordan took a family day before block week. We headed out to Simpson Bay for the 9th annual Taste of St. Maarten at Topper's Beach Bar. There was a variety of restaurants set up offering a sample of their food for a discounted price. Bradley got some cheeseburger sliders, I got a pulled pork sandwich from Hard Rock St. Maarten and Jordan got some indian food. Everything was delicious! They had a kids corner set up with a water slide, dunk tank, face painting, etc. Bradley even went down the big water slide twice! If you know Bradley this was huge for him- he's pretty timid and anxious about trying new things, but he made it and loved it. We walked from Topper's over to Kim Sha beach and rented 2 chairs and an umbrella for the afternoon. We swam for a bit, then just hung out the rest of the afternoon. As we were leaving we saw some of our friends so we hung out for a little bit longer. We plan on going next year for the 10th annual as well!

On Wednesday we met up with our mom friends from the Spouses Org to take the kiddos to Parrotte Ville. Parrotte Ville is in Belvedere, close to the French side of St. Maarten. Luckily my friend Juliana and her two boys drove with us or else I would have been lost! I think every mom was able to come so we had a packed house in the bird enclosure. We were given cups to hold with bird feed then the bird would fly and land on your cup. It was really interesting! Bradley even held a cup with a bird on it- again, a big step in overcoming some anxiety. We had a great time even though it was super, super humid. We have a really awesome group of moms and kiddos. I feel really grateful to be a part of the Spouses Organization.

The rest of the week was training for the Spouses Board on coffee cart, hot food Friday, and bake sale, but more on that later ;)

7 year anniversary

Like I mentioned in my last blog, the boys and I made it home just in time to celebrate our 7 year wedding anniversary. I remember our wedding day June 27, 2009..it was probably the hottest day of the summer in Kansas and the air conditioner at the church we got married in was having a hard time keeping up with the temps. Like every other day in St. Maarten, it was hot and humid and there were power outages throughout the island. But it was a beautiful day, just like our wedding day! I told Jordan St. Maarten is the romantic, tropical honeymoon we were never financially able to take :)

 Jordan ended up skipping classes to celebrate our anniversary, which ended up working out because his Physio class was cancelled anyway. We went to Sarafina's for breakfast and then to Front Steet in Phillipsburg. We parked and walked, but it was like a ghost town in Phillipsburg because there were no cruise ships docked. We went to where we wanted to go- The That Yoda Guy exhibit and were able to actually meet Nick Maley, the creator of Yoda (and many other accomplishments), in person! It was really cool- kind of felt like we were meeting a celeb! Of course Jordan loved seeing all the unique Star Wars memorabilia while I enjoyed the a/c. Afterwards we grocery shopped and went back to our apartment complex to swim! We went to BarCode for dinner and Burger King in Simpson Bay for a little dessert, super fancy ;) We rounded out the night with Jordan watching Game of Thrones. It was a really nice day with my favorite guys.

Happy Anniversary, Jordan! Cheers to many, many more!