Happy Father's Day!

Happy Fathers Day to my amazing HUBBY!!! (Dad, don't worry, a post is coming for you, too!)

Yes, Tom is an amazing dad! He is SO sweet with Ella and just loves her so much! He babysits her so I can go do other things sometimes and is just so cute with her! I know it is hard to go through medical school and be married and have a BABY, but he is doing it GREAT! He always seems to find time for the family! :D

So, to help celebrate this faaaaabulous Father's Day, we decided to be bad and not go to church....instead we went to the Westin in Dawn Bay. First off, it was a CRAZY drive to get there - very windy and narrow. The whole time we were like, "uh...I hope this is right??" It was :) We made it!

The Westin does these AMAZING Sunday brunches. WOW! They have EVERYTHING!!!!! I tried to take pictures of all the food, but I think I missed some stations! Ha!

We went with a big group of our friends and it was SUPER fun!! Originally we hadn't made reservations, because I didn't know you needed to, and when I called they said, "Nope. We are booked up." I was like, "Oh no!!!" So then I called back to try and beg them to let us come... adn it was a different lady who said, "Oh sure! There is room!" So the lesson learned here is: keep calling and asking until someone doesn't know better and lets you do it! Haha!

I was trying to take a picture of the chocolate fountain station and this scary looking guy totally walked in front of my picture!
Here is the breakfast buffet (I coudln't fit it all in one picture) and the sea food station....
Here is the cutest couple EVER! :D Haha!
This is the pasta station and the Greek station....
That was the Asian food station and the carving station...
DESSERT...*droooool*
More dessert.....
Chocolate Fountain and Ice Cream station....Mmmm

After we ate for three hours (Ha!) we decided to "Fat Dog" it by the pool. Mmmm. :) Soooo relaxing. We had our friend Lea babysit Ella, too, so we didn't even have to worry about her! YAY!!! :D
Here is the whole crew. We decided that we should start a Westin Brunch Group as part of the Spouses Organization. We'll have each member donate $100 to join the group and then we'll go to the different holiday brunches the Westin does! :) Haha! Sharill is President, I'll be Vice President, and we'll keep Danielle as the treasurer...since she is in charge of the Spouses Org money, too! She can make donations to our group, too :) Hahah!

Here is the Westin's pool. It overlooks the ocean adn you can walk straight onto the beach from the pool! It was SO relaxing and fun! Today was definitely a day that makes me grateful for living on an island! Good company....nice location....yummy food....perfect weather... :)

Tom also got a spa treatment for Fathers Day. A deep tissue massage to be scheduled later :) Yay for spoiling our husbands!!!! :D Love you honey!!!!

Concert in Anguilla...I'm pretty much a rockstar ;)

What a whirlwind of a weekend! So Tom's birthday party was on Friday night. Saturday morning we left bright and early to Anguilla. Anguilla is a neighboring island and it only takes 15-20 minutes by ferry to get there. The boat ride there was kind of yucky. It was inside this little ferry with small windows, and it was hot, and REALLY bumpy. Blah...I didn't feel too good by the end of it. Ella fell asleep though...so I guess it wasn't bugging her! After we got to Anguilla, the Women Have Heart foundation had set up EVERYTHING for us! They had Eustella, a woman with the foundation, pick us up from the airport and take us to the church so we could take a look around. Then she took us to the car rental place and then to our hotel. The church itself is really old and it seems like the piano was brought over when the island was first discovered! It was REALLY out of tune, three of the notes stuck, one was broken, and the string was broken on one of them - so Tom unwound it and pulled it out of the piano! Ha! Needless to say, it was an "island" piano! Haha!



Here is Ella after taking a bath! It's just a really cute picture of her :)

She was POOPED after the concert! The concert was supposed to start at 7:30, but didn't end up starting until about 8:00 so we didn't get home until 10:00! Poor Ella was SO sleepy! She hadn't had a nap, either. I mean, she fell asleep for about an hour in the car while we were driving around exploring the island, but that isn't nearly enough! Poor thing...Tom watched her during the concert and I guess she wasn't too bad! which is always a plus :) It was SO cute! When I first walked out in front of the audience, Ella jumped up and screamed/laughed when she saw me! I was like, "Ah! That's my baby!! She loves me!!" It was SO cute! Tom and Ella were sitting in the back, too, so everyone heard it. It was really cute :) Everyone just thought Ella was so stinkin' cute! :)
Oh...random picture....hehehehhee....we saw this one the back of one of the rental cars....get it???
This is a picture of where we ate lunch after we got there. It was at CuisinArt Hotel/Spa. Yes, CuisinArt, like the kitchen appliances. Apparently the owner of CuisinArt wanted to build a HUGE luxury villa for himself on Anguilla, but you can't do that...only tourist places can be built on the water front. So he said, "Fine" and built a HUGE villa for himself....with a hotel on the side! Ha! We ate lunch at the Meditterano grill. It was YUMMY. Mmmm....Eustella told me that they do cooking demonstrations and classes there, too, in their COMPLETE CuisinArt kitchen! Yes, Mom...you need to come down and we'll sign up for some! :D
Here is a picture of the restaurant where we ate :) Very bright and colorful. mmm...They had a REALLY good kids menu, too, which was nice!
This is the pool area outside the hotel where we ate lunch. Ella, of course, wanted to jump in and it was quite the feat to keep her DRY!
Here is the pool in OUR hotel. We stayed at the Maliouhanna Hotel/Spa. Talk about FANCY! It has won the award for "Leading Hotel in the World" and is listed in the big, fancy book of big, fancy hotels! :D The rooms themselves were okay, I wished they had better insulation because it didn't ever really get cold inside...which is too bad! The bathroom was FANCY! There were robes and slippers, and really nice shampoo/conditioners, woo wee! It was fancy :) It was a good thing Tom brought his laptop, though, because there wasn't a t.v. So Ella watched Ratatoille and Wheels on the Bus on the computer :) I guess the hotel has a BIG childrens water park area with a pirate ship and a big slide. We didn't have a chance to go see it, but I heard it was really cool! Maybe next time...I don't think we can afford to stay there, though! Haha! The Women Have Heart paid for everything! YAY! :D
This is the view from the balcony. Very beautiful...
Here is Tom and Ella eating breakfast. We were POOPED! We didn't go to bed until after 11 and then Ella decided it would be a good idea to wake up at 6:50! *sigh*....so early...
Another view from our window...
Ella thought the balcony was really neat :)
Here is a picture of the cemetary outside the church. It was really cool looking. Very old...with the ocean in the background.
Here is the inside of the church. It wasn't that big, but I guess they sold about 130-150 tickets! Not too shabby!
Outside of the church...
Ta Da! We are rock stars! Look at that HUGE banner with our faces! Haha! :) I guess we were in the newspaper for quite some time before the concert, too. I need to go buy some copies of those...
Another church picture...
Inside of the church during the concert...
Another inside picture...
Here we are! The superstars! We pretty much played the same program as before. La Vaune and Jesse added some a capella pieces to the first half, which was nice, so it made it a smidge longer. Very fun :)
This is all the women who are a part of the Women Have Heart foundation. Most of them are breast cancer survivors. The whole concert was a charity event and I guess they made lots of money! YAY! :)

Anguilla was a fun little island. It is about 35 square miles but REALLY long and skinny. The island itself is really ugly - very desertish and dry - but the beaches are BEAUTIFUL and the hotels are AMAZING. I guess Harrison Ford and Callista Flockhart were staying at our hotel! Jesse saw them at the pool....and didn't tell Jenni until it was too late! That was not a nice conversation that followed.... :) hehehehe

They drive on the left side of the road, but a lot of the cars have the steering wheels on the left side too? Weird.... :)

The concert was a success! And the trip was VERY fun! If we hadn't have had Tom's birthday party the night before, I would have liked to stay an extra day before or something! It was a very low key island - no traffic AND nice roads! I recommend taking a little trip to Anguilla if you get the chance! :D

Happy Birthday! Oh wait...?

So we had a big birthday party on Friday for Tom. No, his birthday wasn't on Friday...isn't not even in June, actually. His birthday is December 19th, but Tom has a history of crappy birthday parties: snow storms, friends out of town, Christmas right around the corner, etc. So I decided that I would throw him a surprise birthday party on his HALF birthday so all his school friends could come! :) It was quite the hit!

I stole these pictures from my friends Facebook pages since I ALWAYS forget to take pictures! Ha! Here we are getting ready. We had the party at Ric's Place in Simpson Bay and Tamara, the owner, let me decorate everything. She brought out game tables and everything, too! Of course I had to decorate everything blue and white ;)

Here we are setting up all the table decorations...

YAY! Tom was thoroughly surprised :)

Ha! So surprised! Of course, who would really suspect a birthday party....when it is not even CLOSE to your birthday! Ha! :)

Yeah...I'm pretty awesome...I just love my hubby a lot :)
Here we all are...mingling...very fun :) We had such a good turn out, too! So many people came, even if it was just for a couples minutes! So fun!!
Here are Eleanor and Kareem hiding in the corner! Or are they canoodling??? Just kidding ;) They were hiding! It was so cute! Everyone was hiding when we pulled up. And then jumped out and shouted "SURPRISE!" Tom was like, "What the....??" Haha! Awesome :)

Tom thought I was stuck in traffic on my way home from piano lessons. I totally wasn't! Ha! I got out of piano lessons EARLY 'cause one of my students didn't show up, AND there wasn't even ten minutes worth of traffic! So I had lots of time to set up the decorations :) Hehe Thank you Hetal for coming and helping me set up! Then I called Tom on my way to pick him up and said, "Hey! Sharill and Joe invited us to dinner, wanna go?" Hehehe :) Soooo sneaky....

Here is everyone getting ready for the surprise...they were hiding around the corner :)
Of course...we had to throw in a little personality! Thank you, Melissa, for making the cake!!!! That was the one part of the plan I couldn't quite figure out how I was going to do it?? What excuse could I possibly have for having a BYU cake in my fridge and then taking it to dinner with Joe and Sharill??? Haha! So yes, thank you melissa for making it and thank you Sharill for bringing it! :D
Here is Ella partying out! Poor little thing was up really late...and had to wake up really early for Anguilla! Posts to come about that...

Tom got a baseball Wii game and a blue wii controller cover :) It is pretty fun! So yes, here is a shout out to Tom and his half birthday! :D Thanks everyone for making it a success!!

Student Concert!

I had my first student concert a couple of weekends ago. It was quite the concert! Haha! I have nine piano students and each of them played a little solo piece. All my students are VERY VERY beginner, except the kid playing in the picture below. He has had two years of lessons. My students are also VERY young. They range from five years to eleven years. It is interesting to watch each of them progress at different speeds and to see what each of them struggles to learn. They are SO cute, except when they don't want to come to lessons. I have one boy that doesn't watn to play, and I think he has some form of ADD, and then I have another girl who is five, who doesn't like to come and cries about every other week. It is kind of funny because I totally remember being like that! Haha! :)

This is me and all my students in line to play. The concert was over two hours long, though, which was WAAAAAAY long with a bunch of beginner players! Wow...so long. The Andante School of Music, where I teach my lessons, has a bunch of different teachers. This concert was to showcase ALL the students. So we had guitar, more piano, and Orff instruments (pictures below). All my students only played one piece, because that is all I have ever heard of being played at a student recital. The other students were playing two and three pieces, all of which were LONG (don't play repeats, people!) and kiiiind of train-wreckish. Needless to say, I really wanted to leave at intermission. Ella also got to be somewhat of a pain about 2/3's the way through. That is always tricky. At least it started at 5:00 and not 8:00 or something! Then she REALLY would have been a pain!
This is my "piano lady" Bernadine Van Veen. She is from Holland ("Isn't that weird?" - Gold Member :)) and is very sweet! She owns the music school and coordinated the whole concert.

These are all the Orff instrument students and the recorder students. It was really cute....the first song.....less cute the second song....not cute by the third song. At least these pieces were really short! Haha! They were kind of "crash and burn"ish, though! haha! Some of the little kids were so funny, they were SO serious...and then they would do a really goofy bow! Haha! So cute :)

Our lessons end at the end of this month (Woohoo!) so that will be good. It is kind of a pain driving so far to my lessons. They are in Suckergarden, which is PAST Philipsburg! It takes me over an hour to get there....but only 30 minutes to get home! Stupid traffic....they are also doing LOTS of construction: rerouting the airport road, fixing the Simpson Bay Bridge, and adding a roundabout going up the hill to Philipsburg. I think they need to do the round about, but the other construction projects are kind of unnecessary! FIX THE ROAD THROUGH THE GOLF COURSE!!! HELLO!!!

Anyway, earlier that week, I had Jen and Dan come over so Jen could help me with Sushi! :) It turned out REALLY yummy! The rice was kind of tricky, but it turned out! Even Tom made a roll and thought it was yummy :) I made California rolls: crab meat, avacado, cucumber, AND mango. Mmm...so yummy :)

This week coming up is really busy. I'll try to take pictures of things. We are having a pool day today, I have ICM tomorrow, Friday I have this BIZARRE organ performance/catholic mass thingie (hopefully I can video tape it and put it up on here! ha!), then Saturday we leave for Anguilla! CRAZY! I hope I can find some time to practice!! :)

Beginning of our 4/5th Semester!

Tom started his fourth semester classes in the beginning of May, even though it is our fifth semester on the island. You probably remember that Tom's dad passed last year and so Tom kind of struggled on the big block exam that was the week after his dad died. Sooo yeah, we're here an extra semester :) But that's okay!

Here are all the lovely ladies in the Spouses Organization! Yes, I'm hiding in the back this time! Woo yeah! It was fun just going and talking with the girls and not having to do anything :) Even though I'm a bit of a control freak, it was nice just letting go of the reins!

Here is Jill, Sharill, and Me at the breakfast. We were the former presidency and I don't think we had a picture of just the three of us, so here we are! We're pretty fabulous looking, I know. :)

Later that day, Tom and I decided to go to the beach and I'm SO glad we did! After living here for so long, you kind of get tired of the beach. It is a lot of work with a baby and you can never stay very long because of nap time. But we hadn't gone in quite a while, so we went!

Here is me and Ella playing in the sand :) She was so funny! I would make little mounds of sand and she would smash them with her hands! She thought it was very funny.


I'm kind of making a stupid face in this picture 'cause we were trying to get Ella to look at the camera and I think I am saying to Tom, "Is she looking??" *click* So yeah :) Oh well. The beach day was absolutely PERFECT! It was a balmy 80 degrees-ish, scattered clouds, totally smoother water (nooooo waves! It was like we were at a lake!) and crystal clear blue waters. *siiiigh* We even splurged and got an umbrella with beach chairs, not that I really had a chance to sit in them because I was chasing Ella! I wish she was a little more afraid of the water. She would definitely just get swept away with a smile on her face if I didn't grab her! I can't wait till she can swim!

After the beach, and after naptime, I walked into our bedroom to see Ella doing some office work at the computer. It was so funny looking!
She's like, "Yes? Do you have an appointment?" Haha!

This is Ella's favorite hiding place. Can you see her little shoe sticking out of the bottom?? Whenever she is playing with something she knows she shouldnt' be, I can always find her behind the curtains! Silly girl...
Peek a boo! :) She hid her white sandals the other day...and I can't find them anywhere...I checked behind the curtains, too....no luck. Any suggestions??? Who knows where babies put things! We still can't find Tom's contacts case that Ella grabbed and ran out of the bathroom with. We kind of think they got flushed down the toilet...oops.

Also, among the adventures of Ella can now be included the "Egg-scapade". Yes, she opened the fridge....took out the eggs...and smashed them on the floor. All while I was putting on my mascara and running to catch her. *sigh*

Ella and I also went to cooking club yesterday and learned how to make chocolate/banana smoothies, home made granola, and banana cream pies! Yummy!!!! Tonight I am making sushi, too, that I learned in one of our other cooking club sessions. I seriously love cooking club! And book club! They are my favorite events of the month!! It is so fun to sit around with a bunch of girls that all share the same interest and just chit chat and laugh about whatever! I especially liked the banana quiz we had yesterday (which Ang and I tied for ;)) I had no idea that bananas technically don't grow on trees! They are herbs because the "tree" doesn't have branches OR bark! Ha! I totally got that question wrong :)

Sometimes living on the island is like living in the 7th Dimension of Hell...or maybe even Hotel Hell, where the sheets are made of fire....but other times, it is so fun being with so many different girls and we're all just going through the same traumatic events together! It helps all of us get along when we otherwise might not even be friends. I am learning to many interesting things from everyone. I won't be sad to leave the island when we are done...but I will be sad to miss such a close group of good girlfriends. Thank you ladies for always being so AWESOME! :)

Happy Birthday, ME! :)

That's right! My birthday was a couple weeks ago! I can't believe I'm 24....I feel so old...

We did lots of fun things for my birthday, though! It kind of turned into a three day event...which of course, is fine with me! Ha! :)

The first celebration was while my mom and sister were here.

One of the missionaries birthdays is the day after mine, so we helped him celebrate too! His name is Elder Larsen and he is REALLY nice! He is writing letters to my sister now ;) Hopefully that works out! Heheh....

Anyway, we had Texas chocolate sheet cake and key lime pie! Sooooo yummmmyyy.....

Then we opened presents....


Hot damn! A WII!!!!! Wahoo!!!! So far the Wii experience has been lovely :) We have Guitar Hero, World Tour, and Tom got me a Wii Fit for my birthday! So yes....I have been excersizing! Weird, I know...

So that was the week before my birthday.

On my birthday, Tom helped me celebrate it in a very nice way! He made me breakfast: omelets and crepes! Yes, he made me crepes! Tom is a really good cook. He just says he doesn't like to cook because he doesn't like to "work for his food" Ha! I would rather cook than clean....so that's usually how it works out. I cook...Tom does the dishes. It's a good balance :)

Later that night we dropped Ella off at the potluck with Laura O. (Laura O. volunteered to babysit her! AAWWEESSOOMMEEE!!!!) and we went out to dinner! We ate at Bajatzu this SUPER yummy restaurant in Maho. Sooooo good!! I had to take a picture of how pretty the crab cakes were! And yes, I'm wearing a super cute dress ;)


So that was ON my birthday. THEN the next Tuesday (so two days ago) I had a double birthday party with Sharill, since her birthday was on the 13th and this month has been super busy! We decided to have a double party! We had a BIG dinner at Sopranos with everyone. It was really fun! It was so fun to be around so many adults! Haha! :) Even Ella behaved! They had us kind of in our own separate area and Ella only ran out of the area a couple times, which is pretty good for her :)


This is me with my birthday Tiramisu, which actually wasn't as good as most tiramisu. Too bad....oh well! :) It was still really fun to just hang out with people and have adult conversations that aren't all about diapers, teething, and babies in general! Ha! :)

It is weird turning 24. Next year I'll be a quarter of a century years old! Wow...It's funny to think that five years ago, I would have NEVER pictured myself 1. Married 2. with a kid 3. living in the middle of the Caribbean! It is so funny all the things life deals you. It is quite the experience though, let me tell you. Sometimes I wonder what I would be doing if I wasn't down here, especially when so many of my friends aren't married or anything, it kind of seems like a lot of them just never grow up. They are still so into the whole "college" life of partying, drinking, etc. I feel like when you get married and start having kids, you feel like you need to finally take charge and start living a life...instead of living a party.

Anyway....another year is done and gone! :) Happy Birthday to me!