Pretty soon....

and did I mention that we're excited!!!

You know you live on a tropical island when....

your one-and-a-half-year-old carries around a bottle of Aloe Vera applying it to people's arms and legs.  

Surprise BFF party

The next week will be spent partying with Lexy.  Apparently Adrian and Lexy and Torry have been planning and scheming for about a month now.  Lexy showed up this afternoon on my doorstep, and I was in total shock.  It was a complete surprise.  I can't believe Adrian was able to keep the secret.  He usually can NEVER keep a surprise/secret from me! What an awesome surprise!

Brimstone Hill Fortress

Living the "life of luxury" has been busy lately and I have gotten behind on blogging about a few of our adventures.  A few weeks ago we visited one of the historical sites of the Caribbean, Brimstone Hill Fortress, here in St. Kitts.  We saw some beautiful views from atop the hill, learned some history that has changed lives and nations, and had a fun outing with our good friends.  And, the excitement didn't end there. A herd of goats ran down the hill and in front of our car as we drove home.  We missed all but one, but it ran off so I don't think we killed it. The goat left its legacy on our new mini-van with not only some fur stuck to the front of the car, but also with scratches and dents and a broken blinker and light.  

If you want to read some of the history behind the Fortress and St. Kitts, I'll include it at the bottom of the post.   

Brimstone Hill Fortress is a fort built by the English and French, who shared the island for many years.  It was built in the late 1600’s through most of the 1700’s as the largest and most complete military structure in the Caribbean.  

Before this time, in the early 1600’s, French and English settlers staged a surprise attack on the native Carib Indians and exterminated the entire population of Cannibalistic people that once inhabited the island.  

There was then a 300 year battle for supremacy between France, Britain, Holland and Spain, and Brimstone changed hands many times as these countries fought for control of the island.  During this time, African people were brought in as slaves, and this was when the plantation industry, based on sugar cane and slavery, flourished and great wealth was made by plantation owners.  Almost all of the local people in St. Kitts/Nevis are descendants of these African slaves.  

The sugar industry ended in St. Kitts about 5 years ago, when the government decided that they would soon be "forced" out of the market, because sugar is now cheaper to produce from beets, etc. than sugar cane.  A lot of local people who had worked in the sugar fields their entire life lost their jobs, and it was about that time that the Marriott Resort was built here, which changed the entire industry of the island to tourism. 

The pot calling the kettle black....

Adrian:  "Brennan, I don't want the T.V. on before dinner today."

Brennan:  "Why, Daddy?"

Adrian:  "Because sometimes when it's on you're completely zoned out and can't pay attention to anything else going on around you."

Brennan:  "Well you do that all the time when you're on your Blackberry."

"Wilbert, The Island Pig"

We had heard about him.  We had read the book about him.  We met the author last year on Damon's birthday when she came to a friend's home to read to the children and give them all a signed copy and a doll she had made.  But we had never met "Wilbert" until we recently made a trip out to the infamous beach.  He is as big as the rumors claim he is.  And not as cute as the book portrays him to be.  I guess getting older takes its toll on all of us!

Absence makes the heart grow fonder....

Or the taste buds, whatever the case may be.  Today I found strawberries at the grocery store that looked really good.  They hardly ever sell strawberries here, and the one other time I found them some were moldy and the rest were a little mushy.  And, they're expensive.  Right around $9.00 U.S. dollars for a pound.  But, I LOVE strawberries.  So we've just had to learn to go without.  But today, well, it was very exciting to find strawberries that looked good.  I threw caution to the wind and bought the expensive strawberries, and came home and had two for breakfast, and lo and behold, they WERE good.  Really really really good.  I'm not sure if it's because they were THAT good, or because I haven't had a strawberry in almost a year.  It may be true what they say, absence makes the heart grow fonder....