End of June

We have reached the end of another month here, so that makes two down and 14 more to go (unless we do 5th semester here). The kids are done with school as of last Friday, but they are starting the "summer" program which includes swimming every day, arts and crafts, cooking and hiking trips. They should have a great time.


Karissa and Jillian usually went swimming after school most days, either at the pool or at the beach. Karissa is officially done with Kindergarten and will move on to the first grade in September. Jillian will remain in her class for the next year, since it is a combination of pre-K and Kindergarten. It was cute to see their report cards and what the teachers had to say about them. They even have a P.E. teacher that wrote about their physical activity levels. That is one good thing about this school...they actually get the kids outside, doing active things instead of sitting around eating cookies and chips! Things have intensified for MaryLou over the last couple weeks, with three tests down and a few more to go, studying is often a late night occurance. I'm sure that will not stop for a while.

Jillian, Karissa, Paige, Burke, Zack
(They are from Idaho too...who knew?!)


Karissa and Jillian out front of the pool.



Unfortunately, MaryLou has not been able to do many beach activities, but Wes and MaryLou got to snorkel one day while the kids were in class. (Yes, MaryLou played hookie.) The water was a little murky since we had just had a rain storm, but we were able to see a ton of fish and about 7 stingrays. We were actually in a big school of blue jacks, which are supposed to be edible. Wes did not have his spear gun, so they were really safe from our frying pan.



Jillian and one of the many Island dogs strolling down the beach. There are quite a few dogs that roam around looking for food.

Wes was able to go spear fishing another time with his friends, Mike and Nick. They got a couple fish and an octopus, none of which Wes brought back...it was Mike's turn to take the haul home for dinner. I hear the octopus was really good, so maybe the next time we will give it a try.

Nick and Mike

Wes stretching out the octopus.

Nick shows off the bounty.

This month has been challenging when it comes to our house. We don't really live in the most modern place, or the biggest place. We have a whopping 345 square feet for the four of us to live in, so space is an issue. The night after my first test we were awaken to the sound of water running. When we got up, we saw water running from our ceiling. It was coming in through the seams of our ceiling and the wood was starting to bow under the enormous amount of water trapped. Wes ran upstairs to see what our neighbors were up to and found a pipe had burst in their bathroom and they were underwater as well. We were cleaning up the water for a couple of hours. Not the kind of thing you want to be doing at 2:00 AM. (At least I was finished with my test.) Needless to say, we have had discussions with the landlord about the short comings of the place and are hoping that everything gets fixed soon. We are tentitively moving upstairs next semester since they have three bedrooms and two bathrooms and we would only be paying an extra $25.00 per month. (But they have to fix the bathrooms first).

Hope all is well with all of you, until next time.

The Newells