airshow madness

some of you know that I am keeping two blogs these days.  this one and another 365 photo one.  I blogged about the airshow on my other blog and I have to go out so I will link to that blog to save time.

click here to read about the airshow

I know this is like cheating but uploading photos, editing, posting, and writing takes so long and I am hungry and want to go out for a drive with bob.


I hope you don't mind....

Sending saturday tropical love your way!

xo

a beach walk with emily

since we are on an island, it goes without saying that we have many different beaches here. 

i love exploring and finding them.

  they are all different, depending on where you live on the island.  

some are pristine white sand beaches, and well groomed.  (tourist resorts).

  some are littered with garbage and unkept completely, 

some have mangroves, 

but lawson rock is one of my favorites.

emily photographing a little palm that was growing amongst the rocks

lawson rock reminds me of being in nova scotia

when the tide is low you can walk out among the rocks 

there are live sea urchins with their long spines hiding along the rocks

you will see many snails there,

beautiful black and white stripped.

but what i love the most is that it is littered

with many many many

tiny little seashells.

i only know of 2 other beaches that have shells.

that is because most of the island is surrounded with the coral reef

but there must be big gaps in the reef that allow the shells to come

to shore.

so 

we walk

we talked

we searched for tiny sea urchins 

and found some.

 

 

a photo from a previous trip to lawson rock.. wanted you to see the urchins

as you can see by the clouds

they had rain in them

we had to take refuge under a big almond tree

once when the rain fell heavy.

it was a lovely afternoon walk.

you can see the dog demon off in the distance

some of you know i am a dog lover

they don't scare me.

usually.

as we were walking i saw this lady off in the distance

walking two dogs.

one dog came running towards me

so i called it over,

reached out my hand so it could smell it

then gently petted his head.

he was happy.

the owner came running over 

and said,

wow demon doesn't usually like people.

then i realized...

oh my goodness that is demon!!

one of the fiercest dogs on the island.

 he has bit many people and the police made them put up a fence around 

their property.

suddenly guess what happened??

i started to feel nervous.

isn't that crazy.

i wasn't afraid until i realized who he was.

fear is like that.

someone once said that fear is:

 

false

      evidence

        appearing 

                                                                              real

when i didn't know it was a mean dog i wasn't afraid

but once i knew I suddenly got very afraid and nervous.

the reality is most likely that

demon senses people's fear and reacts to that.

most of our fear is preconceived or imagined isn't it?

have a fear free day!

kids coming and going

It is hard to describe the excitement that mounts whenever we have company come to the island.   But make the company one of our kids and the anticipation is off the charts!   Yesterday we are all waiting and excited to have Emily here.   Bob went to the store and bought some red Valentine hearts to give to his 'little sweetie'.   We watched the clock, we waited.  Once at the airport I went outside to watch the plane come in.   It is nice to have a small enough airport to be able to do that.   Once I saw the plane land I kept thinking.. she is inside, she is inside!

I picked a lovely bouquet of bougainvillea to give Emily. Yes I got permission before I took them!!  :-)
We all stood there anxiously awaiting to see her again.   She had a very long journey to get here.   Victoria, to Seattle, to Miami where she spent the night (unfortunately the guy at the hotel wasn't answering the phone so she couldn't get a shuttle and ended up spending the night in the airport watching movies on her computer.   At 6:00 am she finally got ahold of them and managed to get a few hours sleep before leaving)

The sun was just about to set as we walked out of the airport.   I love watching the expression of people who step foot on the island.... there is a look that they get on their face that is beautiful.   The warmth of a long day is still in the air, the shadows are long, the colors are rich and I see them begin to soften.   Perhaps the best way to describe it is a visual 'sigh...'

We took Emily to Mamasita's for good island food.   It was wonderful to see the sunset over the hills of Flower's Bay, and listen to the chatter that families do when they haven't been together for a long time.   We laughed alot, talked alot, and enjoyed being together again. It was unanimous that we all miss Matt something awful though.

It has been bittersweet..  so sweet...anticipating Emily and greeting her yet bitter that today was David's last day on the island.   We made the most of it though.

   David and I had a nice early morning beach walk, then Emily, David and Bob went to Coxen Hole wandering around, then to went Turquoise Bay for lunch and then the dreaded trip to the airport.

 

David and I sat on the chairs at Turquoise Bay looking out at this

and said our goodbye and expressed our gratitude for the time together

 

me, emily and david at the View

Bittersweet.   I am sooo glad for the time we had with David and for the time ahead with Emily!

sometimes it seems like love is fleeting and moving away too fast

but i know it remains.

no matter where they go

love follows them.

always with you

Today David and I were driving along the road in Sandy Bay when I saw Melvin walking down the road.
He is a  wood carver who puts things in our shop and I had seen some wood on the beach so I stopped, pulled off the road slightly, and proceeded to tell him about it.

His face brightened up greatly when he said, Look what I found on the beach the other day!
He reached into his shirt and pulled out a silver angel that he had put on a little chain around his neck.  If you have seen Melvin's paintings you will know that he paints angels into alot of his work.  They are special to him.

So there he was grinning away, and then he turned it over and it on the back was inscribed,
"always with you"

He was so delighted with this unexpected gift from the sea that he collapsed in joy upon my arm as I leaned out the window to see it.   I smiled and said, "Yes Melvin He is always with you..."

"That's right.  He is!!"   Then he started to jump up and down for joy and as I looked in my rear view mirror I could see him walking happily along with his arms up in the air in gratitude to God.

The scene was so poignant and touching to me.  Such a simple thing.   Yet such a  profound thing.

It is one of the things I love about island people:  they aren't shy to share what is going on with them.
Big things.  Little things.  They share.  If it important to them then they believe it will be important to us and you know what, it is!   I wonder what would happen if we were more open to share more openly and more freely about the things that bring us pleasure.   I think the world would be a better place, don't you?

 

here is a picture of melvin with bob and his grandson

I thank God for Melvin.
May he know His presence ... always with him...
and so may you know that too.
Always with you...
Blessings!

david in roatan

the butterfly gardens

david hold a macaw

really proud of him for doing that.

they are big scary-ish birds

baleada's are so delicious

soft tortilla, eggs, refried beans, honduran cheese, avocado

this was taken on cruise ship day at a little shop in coxen hole

west end beach

not really a beach guy 

but we didn't stay long

seadancer sunset

david soaking up all the beauty

we went to the market to buy

souveniers

here is david giving me the look...

come on mom...

no more pictures!!

alright ...

that is enough for now!

we are having a wonderful time together!!

Getting ready for school!

While we were in Florida we heard that one of Bev's friends was going on a cruise to Roatan so I called her to see if she had a tour booked.  She didn't.  So Bob called Marco (Zenola's husband) and arranged for him to take her and 15 others out on a tour.   When Grace got back to Florida she thanked us for setting her up with Marco and said that had a wonderful time.  She enjoyed touring the island, seeing the beauty but one thing that affected her was the poverty.  It is hard to take for sure.   She gave us a card of thanks and I was surprised to see a generous gift inside saying 'get something for the children on the island'

So.. yesterday that is what we did!   We decided to bless the children!
Bob and I went over to Zenola's to find out what the kid's need for school since it starts up again on Monday.  One thing I noticed here is that connections mean everything on the island!   We have established a connection with the guy who has a little food store across from the Made in Roatan shop.   I often send tourists  there to buy coffee or vanilla and he appreciates that.  So when Zenola told us he had books, pencils and pens we decided to go there first.   The books were 6 limpera each and when he heard what we were doing he gave them to us for 3 limpera.  Needless to say though, we almost bought every book in his store!!  So it was a good day for him!  :-) 

lots of shoes and school supplies

 Next, we set out to the mercado to see what we could find.  I am so grateful to Bob that he is really good at establishing 'deals'.   Instead of just buying one pair of shoes at a place we bought 10 pairs and they gave us a deal.  The kids need black shoes for school to go with their uniform.   I was a bit surprised at how expensive they were:  12.00 per pair.   I kept thinking about the kids whose parents can't afford that!!  What do they do?   They go to school anyways but they 'stand out' without the proper attire.  It isn't easy.

Later while Bob was bartering over shoes I sat outside this shop (due to a strong mold smell in the shop) and made friends with a little girl called Catherine.  We sat in the shade and talked for a good long time.  She had many questions and fortunately I was able to answer her in spanish.  My spanish is probably at about a grade 1 level.. very simple but I can get by that is for sure.   It was a wonderful little visit.  It was incredibly BUSY in the market yesterday.. everyone was out getting last minute supplies.

look at that little boy carrying his sister on his back in the middle of all that traffic!  crazy!

Later as we were leaving the mercado I saw Catherine again and she told me it was her mother's shop so we went in and met the mother.  After shaking hands, exchanging greetings, names we decided to buy the backpacks in her shop.  She also gave us a good deal.   Her daughter had told her we were 'missionarios' and her mother was really touched by what we were doing and also wanted to help out. People are sooo relational here.. it all that really matters.  It was wonderful.   God's blessing was all over that day!!   The interesting thing is that she didn`t know where Hottest Sparrow is.   Many people haven`t ever been out there.

We went back to Zenola's and she came out with us to Hottest Sparrow.   We decided that instead of us handing out everything and being the 'great white handout' that we would give the things to Serena, Zenola's cousin.  She is a fine Christian woman that we have enjoyed getting to know and trust.

 some images from Hottest Sparrow.  Notice that most of them were barefoot!

you can click on the photo and it will be larger

I probably should have got the boys to take some of the things out of the page for you to see
We got shoes, back packs, pens, pencils, crayons, books and sharpeners!!!

I know those kids will be delighted!

on the way home we saw this pig

 bacon anyone??!

When we got home we were tired but happy to have been able to help.   I had one last little surprise!
Yes it is real!!   How beautiful is that!   And fragrant!

 check this out

Home again

I remember when Bob first talked about moving to Roatan

I almost flipped out!

I didn't want to go.

I didn't want to leave the kids.

I didn't want to make another transition

But God changed my heart.

He did.

He is so good about that.

One day walking through the house  in Vernon tidying up this thought popped into my head

"Roatan...what an exciting opportunity!"

That was it.. my heart changed and I became excited about it.

Flying back to Roatan this time I thought my heart would burst!

When we landed in San Pedro Sula I almost clapped and cheered.

When we flew over Roatan I was overjoyed.

I am so glad that the Lord changes our hearts.

I am so thankful to be married to a man who isn't afraid of change or adventure.

I am grateful that we have integrated so well to the people and the culture here.

 Once we got home, and said hi to our neighbors,

unpacked

I went outside on the deck and laid in the hammock

and sighed.

I'm home.

I laid there and just watched the sunset

I watched the hummingbirds get their last feed.

Then I came in and laid on the couch. 

No TV

No music 

Just laid quiet and rested.

Roatan does that to me.

Something about this place just slows me down.

I am grateful for that.

Since being home we have been out and about

Took Melissa to Turquoise Bay for her birthday lunch

did alot of planting of seeds in the garden

visited with friends

taught Carlos spanish

walked on the beach 

and 

thanked

God

sending L.O.V.E.

your way