I started to feel like more of a mom this week instead of just a nanny, coordinating meals, going out grocery shopping, taking kids to their activities, toting Piper everywhere, speaking baby language, it's nuts. I'm completely exhausted by like eight at night. I constantly think of my mom and her raising eleven kids and the thought of having to do that makes my brain hurt and I feel like I'm going to be sick. One thing I can say that I've made progress on is my cooking. Growing up I was completely spoiled because mom made all of the meals, packed lunches. I swear she could make an amazing breakfast in under three minutes. I'd wake up late for seminary (my church class before high school that started at 5:30 am, zzzz...) and I'd tell my mom I had absolutely no time to eat breakfast, and yet she had cooked something and it was in my hand as I was leaving. I swear my mom's a wizard. So my first week here I made pancakes, which seems easy enough, but even flipping them was hard ha. I put them on a plate and thought they looked good, gave myself a little pat on the back, Andi took her first bite into one and part of the butter wrapper came out of her pancake. Ha! It was hilarious, I took a definite shot to my ego right there, I decided I couldn't get too cocky about cooking until I ate least learned how to take the entire wrapper off of the butter first...
Now after being here a little bit longer I'm learning a little bit more, slowly and surely getting better. Cari helps me a lot which is nice since she totally knows how to improvise when we're missing an ingredient. I guess that comes with the territory of being a mom for thirteen years like she has been. She and I together made peanut pad thai noodles and it was SO good, plus it looked pretty so I decided to take a picture of it. Ha I felt so lame taking a picture of my dinner, I'll try and keep that to a minimum.
Tanner was playing on a baseball team in Phillipsburg, which is the capital of the island. When there's no traffic you can get there in about fifteen minutes, but most of the time there's a lot of traffic, and the bridge goes up in the harbor to let the boats through, and in that circumstance it takes about an hour. The drive there is pretty steep, but also really beautiful, you pass over the harbor where all of the cruise ships and from such high elevation from the hills we drive up it looks amazing. The scariest part of driving here are watching out for the "brave" motorcyclists who weave in and out of lanes. The other day when we were driving to baseball I said, "How scary would it be if we saw a motorcyclist totally wipe out?" Literally a minute later all of the traffic had stopped and we realized that not one, but two motorcyclists fell off of their bikes. I HAVE VOODOO POWERS, PEOPLE. They were both fine which was good, but the weirdest part was that they were just standing around with their bikes in both lanes, and they weren't moving their bikes to let the traffic flow again in either direction. It's not like the states when there's an automobile accident here. People don't get out and make sure you're alright, and they're not patient, they honk at you and yell for you to get your butt up off the ground and move your bike. After about ten minutes of waiting Casey decided he'd just take initiative himself and he got out and moved the bike out of the lane himself so we could all go. The motorcycle belonged to a police officer and he at first thought Casey was going to steal his bike or something, because he whipped out his handcuffs, but then realized Casey was just moving it and let him do it. The bikes are really heavy so we figured the guy just needed help, Casey having owned a motorcycle was familiar enough with moving them. But it was so funny and bizarre. Definitely an exciting drive to Phillipsburg.
While Tanner is at baseball practice we spend some time in the capital hanging out, that's where they have their Cost-U-Less grocery store which is essentially like a Sam's Club, all bulk foods, and I swear it's not costing any less (especially when you go shopping with a 2 year old and a sugar loving 13 year old who find huge bulk of their favorite cookies and cereal)
Andi was saying we should get this rug, its totally heinous, but I'd trade my first born for a bag of peanut m&ms, just kidding...
There's also a bunch of shopping in Phillipsburg which my friend Katie has dubbed to P-Burg. There's a whole bunch of street vendors, every single one of them "will offer you a good price, sweetie." It is fun to barter with them, though. Sometimes I just like to mess with 'em, they'll tell me something is 45 dollars, I offer them five, and they don't look too amused. Side note: Not a lot of people here understand sarcasm, so I'm struggling wthout it. Ha. Their department store here called "Penny's" had a bunch of cheapish clothes, and household stuff, plus I totally found a yoga mat there!! I asked for it for my birthday, doing sit ups on the tile floor at home is killing my back, and its starting to bruise...not the cutest. Andi and Piper got exhasuted from shopping, and trying to find church pants for Tanner wasn't their idea of a great time, so they camped out in these lounge chairs, this series of pictures are cute because of Piper's hand gestures, she's such a mini adult, and she talks with her hands so much, she got that from Grandpa Holm.
This is just a funny sign I wanted a picture of, I plan to open my own salon/car wash in Minnesota when I move back ;)
It wouldn't be a trip to P-Burg without stopping at this bakery called Carl & Son's which sells American donuts for really cheap, and they're delicious. We kill time in that bakery drinking grape soda labeled as "Busta Soda" and taking pictures.
Look at those blue eyes of hers!
I love the picture of Piper sticking her tonuge out while she concentrates on putting the soda cap back on because that is SO my trademark move, and it makes me happy that she does it, too. Whenever I cut hair, or concentrating on something really hard, my tongue sticks out. It's a weird little habit.< 
I'm tickling the crap out of her in this picAnother thing we discovered in P-Burg is their library which was awesome. We went there for our baby play group and they had this amazing baby room, plus it was freezing in there! A/C costs so much here that whenever you find a place that's nice and cool you remember to come there in the summer when it starts getting even hotter.
These guys I saw outside when we were leaving the library so I asked if I could take their picture because they were so cute.
Valentines Day growing up my mom always had the tradition of waking up EXTREMELY early, like I said before we always had seminary at 530 in the morning, so my mom would wake up at like 3 and cook an amazing breakfast for us, heart shaped cinnamon rolls, pink yogurts, all that stuff. Plus she stayed up super late the night before writing a customary valentine for all of her kids which considering there's 8,000 of us kids, it probably took her about a year to write them all, she's such a talented writer. I love her Valentines. So this year I decided to pay back the favor and I stayed up super late writing an email valentine for she and my dad, made me homesick writing them. I miss those two. So the next morning I was really tired but Cari and Casey decided to keep the tradition going, and they got up early to make homemade cinnamon rolls and eggs and decorate the house and make us valentines. We also all got swimming noodles which was unbelievably exciting. We use them all the time already! Thanks, Cari and Casey!
After breakfast was finished Piper and I got ready for our weekly play group, I was in the midst of getting Pip dressed when Andi came in and insisted she wear her valentines day outfit which was SO cute, she looked like a doll. I took a million pictures with her, but of course she's not even looking at the camera for most of 'em. Stinker.
Play group ended up being cancelled because some babies were sick, so Piper and I walked down to the beach, and for some reason that day the waves were HUGE. It was an angry ocean but it was awesome. Our beach didn't exist, the waves came all the way up the shore, so we just stayed on the staircase, but I tried to get some good pictures of it.
We stopped at the abandoned pool on the way back to the apartment. Our pools have been closed for weeks because of some psycho courtcase battle with the owner of our apartment. Supposedly they're supposed to be reopened in a couple of weeks, mid March. Fingers crossed.
So last Saturday was a very fun day. We went with our friends Matt and Cecily to the market in the morning, it was like a farmers market, really cool. They had a bunch of nice produce and VERY fresh fish. They were gutting the fish right on the boardwalk, Casey took pics of them and one of the guys yelled and said you can't take a picture of me unless you ask. But of course whenever you ask them if you can take their picture they say no haha so it's a bummer, but he still got some good ones. After the market we went to Sarafina's which is a french restaurant with really yummy crepes, and sandwiches, and amazing pastry selections, it was so good, and the food looked like art. After Sarafina's we went to Guana Bay for some boogie boarding and we met up with our friend Katie and her mom who's visiting from North Dakota. It was awesome, the waves weren't as good as last time there my nephew said, but it was still a blast. I'm one of those people who scream every time they catch a wave like i'm on a roller coaster or something, trying to work on that... With the help of SPF 50 we didn't get too sunburned. Cari ended up the worst. That's what ya get for being a ginger with pale skin ;) She had aloe vera rubbed on her back what seemed like every five minutes, and now it's a lot better. Here's some pictures of the market, Sarafinas, and Guana. Picture credit on some of these to my brother in law, Casey.
Piper and I are becoming best buddies, she's figured out how to take pictures on my camera now, and she took this one while I was changing one her nasty diapers, and the picture is hilarious.
This is her after a shower, I like to comb all of her hair back and make her look like Draco Malfoy from Harry Potter.
Piper and I are liking it here a lot. It's also really cool living with my sister the med student, helping her study I get to learn so many interesting things, but then when she has to go sit in lecture, we can go to the beach, so its like a win win. Funny Piper story of the week: Last week Piper and I were taking a walk like we do probably 3-5 times a day, and she likes to push her baby stroller that usually has one of her dolls or stuffed animals in it, but if she can't find one of those then she'll settle for a pair of socks, or this time, a half eaten unpeeled banana. So we're walking around the block as she pushes this stroller carrying nothing but a banana when a dog walks up. Piper loves dogs, but she can only really admit to loving them when you're holding her and she's high enough up that she's not in the danger zone anymore, and that's when she says how nice the dog is, or that she loves them. So we see this dog and I pick Piper up so she can look at the dog and we say "oh, the dog is so nice." Piper does this thing when she goes into a dark room and knows its time for bed, or when you offer her a food she hates, she'll shake her head and wave her arms and say "no." So i'm holding Piper when all of a sudden she does the head shaking, arm waving thing and she's saying, "Oh no, oh no, oh no." I look down and see that the dog had just eaten her banana out of the stroller which now of course is like her baby, and Piper loses it. She screams hysterically and is traumatized that the dog ate her banana. I felt like such an awful aunt when I was laughing as hysterically as she was crying, but it was too funny, I couldn't handle it. Now when we see that dog while we're out walking she says, "dog ate my banana, that's kinda funny." So she's recovered, she may have some post traumatic stress disorder sometime down the road, but we won't worry about that too much right now.
Hope everyone has a good week! We'll update and post more pics soon!
