Caribbean roads strike again! A few weeks ago we had to put the spare tire on the car because the front left tire (not the driver's side - we drive on the left here) started to peel apart when I was on the way to Sunshine Shoppers. Sunshine's is the equivalent to a mom and pop store. Anyway, the spare started to look a little low so Brian went out to fill it before we took off to Gingerland for the day. I've been wanting to go over to that side of the island to do a little more exploring before we had to leave the island. Well, the valve stem on the spare is busted. So off to Tire World for a new tire. Luckily our neighbor Pat was home, so Brian could take her car down to get the old tire replaced. Monday I will go down to have the valve stem on the spare fixed. What really stinks is that Brian's parents are shipping down two new tires on the container ship that comes every semester. So, today has turned into car tune-up day so I have a functioning car for the remaining two weeks we are here.

Everyone around here is still asleep. I don't know how they can sleep with the sun streaming in the windows so brightly, but they do. So, I am checking my email and surfing the net. Everday I check out the news from this website called Caribbean Net News. It lets me know what's going on in the world I now live. The missing teenager from Aruba has top headlines a lot - scary. Not only is she missing, but a British teen was shot and killed in Barbados by a guy demanding money and an Austrian couple in the Bahamas was shot and killed in their hotel room the day they were scheduled to leave. So, you may wonder - are we safe here? Relatively so, but you always have to wonder when you live in a country where men can walk around with machetes.

Yesterday a tropical wave passed through and two more are expected to come through in the next day or so. A tropical wave is NOT an actual ocean wave. Its more like a storm front, so it rains a lot. (Disclaimer - I am not a meterologist, this is just how I understand it.) But tropical waves can develop into cyclones. So, I keep an eye on them too because hurricane watching is kind of fun.

Brian is gearing up for exams. He is done dissecting and just reviewing now. Still top of the class in Anatomy! He dislikes Micro, but will still pass with flying colors. I think mostly he wants to go home. Me, not so much. Kids, maybe a little bit. For the kids and me it just means the start of school, but for Brian its a real bed, a real grocery store, and people who speak real English! He also misses his dogs - surprise, surprise. Anyway, for those of you wondering when we will be home - 2 weeks. But please don't call us at 9:00 a.m. on Sunday morning, we will be sleeping in.

Danielle and Julian left today, and we are sad. We won't see them until next year! They have become really good friends of ours, so the next two weeks here are going to be pretty lonely. Jamie (husband/dad) is staying to finish out the term, but Danielle and Julian had the opportunity to return to New Hampshire for two extra weeks, so they took it. Both of them are so excited to see their family, and we are glad for that! We were at the beach when their plane took off so I snapped a photo. And in true island style, the plane was on time, which means exactly 30 minutes late!

De Plane! De Plane!

These are just a few more picks from our big night out. I am "encouraging" Moi (sounds like boy), our favorite bartender at Oualie. We had a deal. If I sang, he would sing. Well, I sang. Moi refused.

Hey Mr. Tambourine Man! Last night Brian and I went out to the Oualie Beach Bar for a night of drinks, dance and song. They have music at Oualie every Tuesday and Friday. Needless to say, crowd participation is strongly encouraged. What's really embarassing is that I also sung! What's even more surprising, no one cared! They must have had WAAAAY too many drinks not to boo me off!

The local people are quite musically inclined. Whenever there is music they are moving, and it doesn't matter what kind of music it is. Even if they don't sing well, everyone gets in on the act, whether its bongos, tambourines, or maracas. If there is an extra guitar, someone is bound to pick it up and start playing along. And no one criticizes because everyone is there to have FUN! We had a blast!

Everyone keeps asking how dark we are. Michaila says the color of peanut butter. Brian says the color of oak. I thought a visual would help.

As if cows at the beach weren't enough. When we got home yesterday, we were just lounging around and heard this really loud MOOOOO. I looked at the kids and said something like, "You have got to be kidding me." This cow was on the road right outside our front door . Brian was out on the porch already studying for his exams. Nolan goes out and MOOOOS back, which the cow repsonded to in kind. It decided to take a jaunt through our yard when I snapped this pic.

Yesterday at the beach we were sitting there and these two cows come wandering up the shoreline. It is really a funny site to see beautiful palm trees, sand, and ocean with two cows wandering up to the shore. I couldn't get my camera out fast enough to capture them by the water, but here they are up on the resort property. One of the resort workers chased them off.

Michaila, Nolan and Julian built this amazing sand castle today at Nisbet. It was huge and had tunnels and towers and mountains.

Today we are meeting our friends Danielle and Julian at Nisbet Beach. Its a nice beach that usually has a good breeze and some nice waves.

Well, this is my first post on my new blog which was inspired by my friend Danielle's blog. For starters, it took me forever and a day to come up with a URL nobody else had. So the address was taken as a last ditch effort. skn does NOT stand for skin. Rather, it is an abbreviation for St. Kitts-Nevis, which is where we are living at the moment. We are actually on Nevis, a small island that is only 36 square miles. We have been here since June 18. Brian has actually been here since January and was on St. Kitts from August through December 2004. He is a student professor at the medical school so the kids and I will be spending the next few summers here. During the school year Brian is going to ship us home to Illinois. He refuses on even entertaining the idea that we just move.





Nevis is in the leeward islands and is so small it is sometimes not even on the map! St. Kitts, Nevis' sister island, is only a few miles across the "narrows" as the small strait is called. We have been adventuring out more and more as we become more comfortable with our surrounding, which are A LOT different than the good old USA. The kids and I spend a lot of our time on the beach, where the sea breeze is much cooler than just sitting around the apartment. Last weekend we actually went to the Atlantic side We walked down to the ocean near the Lime Kiln and New River Estate, which is one of the old plantations where sugar was refined. That's the kids on the old sugar press. It's too bad there hasn't been more of an effort to preserve these sites, but that's how things are here I guess - leave it rustic. We also took a small hike through the rain forest at Golden Rock Plantation, which is now a beautiful inn. There were a lot of mangoes down though, so the hike was a bit slippery and stinky!