Adventures on the island

So on Nicholas's first trip to India....





Just kidding. But he did get to see his first Hindu temple. Today we went to see the temples by the sea.

it's a bird!.... it's a plane!..... it's an 85 foot tall monkey statue!.....

After the temples we went to a place called Pitch Lake(the worlds largest tar pit). There is one in Venezuela and in California as well. The one in Trinidad is actually connected to the one in Venezuela under the sea, according to our tour guide. As it is the dry season, there isn't much lake left--it was almost entirely dry except a few small streams. We will have to check it out again during the rainy season to compare.

Nicholas on Daddy's back in his backpack.

so we actually walked out to the middle of what would be the lake in the rainy season. We also saw sulfur fires. It was kind of smelly

By the end, Nicholas was tuckered out and ready for his nap.

We then went over to Petrotrin, Trinidad's oil company, to visit their Bird Sanctuary. The Petrotrin complex is huge with houses, the bird sanctuary, an oil history museum, tennis courts, and a golf course, along with all of the machinery and these smoke stacks spewing firey gas.

The bird sanctuary was small, but very pretty. It was a loop around a lake.

They also have a resident cayman-- glad he was behind bars.

the lotuses were really pretty. Apparently one can eat all parts of the plant.

bird house, made of old natural gas pipes

we took a bottle break in the shade

We saw our first Trinidadian waterfall. During the wetseason, there are a few different waterfall hikes that we plan to do, but right now they are all dried up. We did actually get rain today--we missed it where we were but we came home and there were some puddles on the roads in our neighborhood--first rain since January, so it was much needed. Hopefully that slows down some of the wild fires burning in the hills.

A rather ugley bird showing off his feathers, and a turtle sitting on the log.

A red ibus. There are other places on the island where we can go to see these beautiful birds in their natural habitat, which we look forward to doing.

All of the signs throughout the bird sanctuary were beautiful painted tile.

Now we are watching the Final Four games and going to get a good night's sleep. Tomorrow is Easter brunch at the Hyatt and Easter dinner at our friend's Rich and Maren's apartment.

The Diplo-Cat is home!

After an extra month in Ohio and 30 days in the awful quarantine, the Diplo-Cat (AKA The Moe Cat) is finally home! His first activity upon arrival? Straight for the bath. He and David must have had a battle because the aftermath was not pretty....

Did we mention we don't actually have any bathtubs, just showers? Christy misses her bubble baths and Nicholas is about to outgrow his baby bathtub so we are going to have to buy a bigger one.

On the up and up, now Moe is all clean and fluffy and exploring his new home. We thought he'd be hiding under the bed for a week mad at us but he couldn't be more affectionate. He's completely back to normal and enjoys exploring his new house.

Nicholas is also doing well at 6 1/2 months old. He now has 3 teeth that are visible, although not all the way in yet. This has resulted in some rather wakefull nights over the past week or so but we are surviving.

Nicholas has also discovered the TV remote and thinks it's a great thing to play with. David is not sure if he is ready to share.

Tuesday Nicholas had barley cereal and Friday morning we introduced him to sweet potatoes. Next up: carrots, then we'll introduce some fruit: apples, bananas, and pears are in the plan for this month too.

splish splash in the pool

Sunday was daddy's turn to get in the pool with Nicholas.

mmmm.... vegetables!

Nicholas started his first solids after baby rice and oat cereal--first pumpkin, then zucchini!



We used the baby food maker that Uncle Andy and Aunt Jenny got us for Christmas-- it worked perfectly.



Nicholas' first bites of pumpkin. There is also a video at the bottom of the post.

Pumpkin was last Saturday; this Saturday we tried some zucchini. AKA green slime.

Lesson learned: first time eating zucchini= a LOT of green-tinged poop in the diaper later.

The "before" picture--David got his hair cut by a "hair stylist" (not a barber!) who came to our house. Talk about personal service!

after an afternoon of swimming--we love the monkey towel from Aunt Katie!

we went swimming at our friends Dan and Duffy's apartment pool

Last weekend we also went swimming in our own backyard. Thanks Amazon, for sending us the blow up baby pool!

Tomorrow it's Daddy's turn to get in the pool with Nicholas.

our mango tree....there are a bunch of them growing on it now, we can't wait until they are ripe

this tree fell over but David nursed it back to health





Saturday afternoon we went back to Macquerpipe beach in Chaugaranas for a quick dip

Here is the video of Nicholas tasting his first bites of pumpkin.

We are really looking forward to the week ahead. On Monday, Moe cat gets out of quarantine and will finally be home! Tuesday is a Trini holiday so Christy doesn't have to work. Then, we have a four-day Easter weekend.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Nicholas turned 6 months old on St. Patrick's Day. That will always be a fun half-birthday to celebrate.




This seemed like a good idea at the time.... didn't turn out so well. Two good things don't always make a better thing.

We probably should have read the box before we bought these.

as this wasn't exactly what we had in mind for icecream cones

Nicholas snoozing on Alicia's shoulder (our new nanny)

beer can chicken, Caribbean style

feed me!

all tuckered out

my new toy keeps rolling away from me!

I am 6 months old today and I like to play with paper!

so mommy will hold the sign for me

"My first St. Patrick's Day"

There's a smile!

ooh ... nice car!

Are you still taking pictures of me? I'm busy playing!

David has learned to play a new instrument in this video.....