Weekend Adventures

Saturday was a beautiful sunny day in the middle of rainy season. After waffles in the morning we headed to the pool in the afternoon, where Nicholas tried out his new floating turtle toy. We were bummed that Ghana beat the U.S. in the World Cup, but were happy to watch our second favorite team, Germany, beat the U.K. on Sunday morning. We were probably the only German fans at the British bar by the cricket stadium, but that's ok. Everyone was still nice to us. Sunday afternoon David played softball and then we all went over to a colleague's house for a Sunday evening BBQ.

It's mini-Cam! Nicholas looks pretty cool in his seer sucker shorts-- Thanks Sara and Cam! Oh did we mention these are 12 month size? One of mommy's weekend projects was cleaning out Nicholas' drawers and closets, putting all the 6 month outfits in storage and bringing out the 12 month clothes.


Nicholas liked hanging out with Daddy and floating around the pool in his turtle.

Another first this weekend: we introduced him to his first meat, turkey! He had turkey and sweet potatoes--Thanksgiving in June!

We are looking forward to another busy week. On Wednesday Christy gets to take a little field trip to Central Trinidad and do some reporting, and Friday is our Embassy 4th of July party, plus we are sponsoring a new embassy family who is arriving this weekend, so we will be showing them around, and heading to the Marine House for a proper Independence Day picnic on Sunday.

New Bath Tub

Just a quick post to show off Nicholas' new bath tub!!!

Happy Father's Day! T-Rex, 9 months, and pie

This week Nicholas turned 9 months old. We can't believe it! We celebrated by going to see the travelling "T-Rex named Sue" exhibit that was visiting Port of Spain from Chicago! Nicholas thinks dinosaurs are pretty cool. Afterwards we went to the Hyatt for sushi--a worthwhile splurge!

For Father's Day David enjoyed some golf on Saturday, and Sunday we relaxed and enjoyed being a family. We had some grilled pineapple and teriyaki chicken for dessert, and peach pie.



the T-Rex head

oooooooohhhh scary!

Nicholas doesn't seem too concerned

Happy 9 months, Nicholas!

Daddy and Nicholas, self portrait

Daddy's All Star

crazy crawler!

so much for the 9 months sign

cuddle time with Daddy

Nicholas's first real solid--melt in your mouth baby yogurt bites, strawberry flavor. Nicholas hasn't figured out how to get them in his mouth yet, but give it another day or two

CHEEEEEEEEEEEEESE!

we love our grill-- teriyaki chicken, pineapple, zucchini, mushrooms, and eggplant

peach pie

Giant Leatherback Sea Turtles and Other Happenings

We'll start with "other happenings" in an effort to be chronological.



First of all, our cat is still cute.









Second, we have softball in Trinidad now!

Third, we enjoyed a wonderful Italian dinner, complete with escargo Italian-style (under the pastry) to say goodbye to our friend Michele.

And now, turtle time:

We went with a big group from the embassy and arrived Saturday just before dinner. We enjoyed dinner at the resort, which was right on the beach. Then we went out at night (about 8:30 pm) to see the turtles laying their eggs. We weren't allowed to take pictures at night because the flashes from the cameras (or any bright light--we weren't even able to bring flashlights) confuse the turtles as they used the moon and starlight to guide them back to the water. The stars were amazing, too. So, we saw several sea turtles lay their eggs by the red light that the guide had. We even got to touch them as they go into a semi-conscious state when laying their eggs. These creatures are huge: 600-800 pounds and more than 6 feet long. They come to the Caribbean to lay their eggs and the swim as far north as Canada to be in the cooler waters the rest of the year. They lay their first eggs around age 35, and then come back most years to lay eggs until they die at approximately 100 years of age. These are definitely the most prehistoric creatures we've ever seen. They were around with the dinosaurs.

In the morning we got up at 5 am (not so difficult when you're on baby's sleep schedule anyway) to go see the last few turtles as they finished laying their eggs. We were allowed to take pictures in the daylight so we do have a few to share, as well as a video at the end of the turtles going back into the water.

see--it wasn't even light out yet

turtle!

up close

really close

a baby turtle! the eggs take about 60 days to hatch, and the laying season starts in March, so we actually got to see baby's as well as mommy's laying new eggs.

baby turtle

mommy turtle

eggs in the egg chamber

oh and we saw baby chickens too

ocean front property (?)

our cutie in his turtle hat

we enjoyed a walk along the beautiful beach

wave crashing on the rocks

view from our hotel room balcony

breakfast in bed

the restaurant area. out door restaurants seem to be a theme for beach resorts

this is a video of the turtle heading back out to see after she finished laying her eggs. Amazing!

So Christy starts in the Immigrant Visa section on Monday and we are looking forward to a Father's Day weekend cookoff and golf for David next weekend. We'll keep you posted!

The Sister Island

Last weekend we successfully hosted our first embassy wine and cheese party-- complete with a visit by the Ambassador to our home! The rest of the weekend we relaxed, cleaned, and tried to catch up on sleep. It was all to gear up for this weekend though, our first trip to Trinidad's sister island--Tobago! We took the ferry across so that we could bring our car as well. The ride was a little rocky but all in all went fairly smoothly. We woke up Saturday morning to pouring down rain, but fortunately after breakfast the clouds began to break up and we were able to enjoy a nice weekend.



Fort King George

view from Fort King George

lighthouse

at the beach--Pigeon Point

the benefits of arriving early--our own cabana

the water was beautiful and calm

at the pool at our hotel.... why is our beautiful innocent baby boy raising the Dr. Evil finger??!!??

at the private beach at Bacolet where we stayed

the "treadmill" staircase... hmmmm.....

view of Bacolet from the top of the hill

the beach house and the pool

we took a drive around the island--in addition to mud and rockslides from all the rain, sheep, cows, and dogs were frequent road blocks as well

pretty lookout

more sheep

typical road signs

another pretty overlook

view of Bloody Bay

tropical rainforest

eating adventures--Nicholas is not a fan of pre-packaged baby food

mosquito netting--very necessary

our cutie getting lotioned up after his bath

testing out the lifejacket, fortunately it wasn't necessary!