adventures in island time

geeez it's windy here!

this is definitely an adventure- we are losing shoes like crazy and spent the better part of yesterday and today trying to find an atm machine that was working. The power goes out on the whole island quite regularly and makes things difficult for us gringos who like order and speed. We are getting by ever so slowly...

Mary, Kate and I did the zip line today and I gave in and let all four get those hideous braids yesterday. Francie immediately demanded that hers be removed at which point i realized they'd applied liberal doses of "goo" to make the braids stay in place. She spent the rest of the day with greasy hair. Here she is being forced to do the unspeakable- have her hair braided....

it's torture, really.....



Elizabeth is either allergic to the sun or to sunscreen and we are having loads of fun scratching her itchy back 24/7- she's covered in red welps that I would think were a sunburn if I hadn't personally covered every inch of her body in spf50 and it didn't go away when we rubbed benadryl gel on her. However- and it's a shame she's having all of the itchy issues, because she has been the biggest unexpected trooper on this trip. When the other 3 are whining about being hot or hungry, Lizzie is thrilled to pieces to be here and is loving every new experience. Who'd of thunk it? She loves to be doing her own thing though- I'm posting the picture below especially for Uncle Lisa and Aunt Rocky- she was trying to be enthusiastic about the braids, but they were too tight....should i do their hair like this year round?

Despite the obstacles, we had a fun afternoon hanging out here with some people from the states that we'd met last year- one lady is from baton rouge and is living here now with her daughter. We also got to visit with the Landrys and Chris Williams' sister Jen and their families who were in port from their cruise. It was like Bocage in Roatan! They only got to stay for a little while, but it was nice seeing some familiar faces.

So all is as good as expected- see, when you have this many kids you learn to have lowered expectations. In general. People wonder how we do stuff like this and it's just a matter of expecting everything to be absolutely horrible- then when it's just bad, or even not too bad, you are thrilled!

Mary has a fever- I don't know how high because we could only find a stick on your forehead thermometer that is measured in celsius- so I'm guessing tha 38c is around 101 f- either way I'm doping her up with tylenol in the hopes that she'll at least feel good enough to have fun.. I'm also hoping her cough doesn't turn into pneumonia like last year- but if it does I'm told by some of the american moms here that antibiotics are available at any pharmacy and are cheap and you don't need a prescrip. Kristen and Jennifer are both nurses and she gave me some idea of a dosage so I think we'll be ok. Sounds like we have it all under control, doesn't it? I think we'll make it home alive- we might be barefoot because we lost all of our shoes, but we'll be stronger for it!