mario

after our friends left i found myself at home with a boy happy to play all day with his toys.  so i got straight to finishing up mario and sewed all of his body parts together, cut out his felt eyes and letter M for his hat and hot glued them on along with his little buttons.  whew!  this was a lot of hours of work but i am happy to see the smiles he's brought to ezra's face and that he brought him on our walk to the bakery and the store this morning and showed him off to everyone we came across.  

 "here he is upside down mom"

 smile ezra!  

 front

 back

and this is all that's left of our car.  we said goodbye to the land cruiser yesterday.  it has been a great car to us for the last 13 years.  we shipped it over here full of ezra's toys and had a very reliable and comfortable ride on the island.  the money is under the mattress and we are walking everywhere for the next 12 weeks.  wow - the countdown begins...

turtle pier restaurant

 this was the view from the balcony on clare and stella's departure day - a good day for flying i'd say.  on our last outing before taking them to the airport we found ourselves at turtle pier restaurant.  on a whim we stopped there for lunch after trying to go to the über-crowded sunset beach bar.  we had never been but i'd always been curious about it.

well i knew this place was going to be great for two children tired of going places when this big blue parrot greeted us on the walkway from the parking lot to the restaurant.
 

 he was friendly but ezra roared at him a little.

 i was even more delighted when i saw the following views and just kept snapping pictures on the way to our table.

the colorful bar

the dock

the pier

 there was a lobster cage

 ezra wasn't worried this time and took a closer look.

 after getting our table and placing our order we continued to walk around.  the parrot was on his perch.

 much to our surprise we found about a dozen more birds in cages all around the property.

 ezra found this old radio flyer.  he has the same one in mint condition waiting for him at his grandparent's house where we'll be living for a while.  it seems everyday we're talking about our upcoming move back to california and getting our minds ready.  we sent clare with a suitcase full of ezra's toys to go back - thank you again clare!!!

 this is the view of the restaurant from where we were checking out all the birds.

 on our way out we were surprised to see these monkeys.  we totally missed them on the way in because of the parrot.

 i love monkeys

and good friends!

 here was the last animal we saw - a land tortoise doing some sun bathing.  it was the perfect little hour lunch spot with its mini-zoo and good food on the breezy pier.

here is ezra saying goodbye to stella and clare as they make their way upstairs through security.  what a fun week it was to be on vacation with them.  see you in april clare and stella!  thank you for all the good times on st. maarten.

last night

 for our last night with clare and stella we decided to bring some food over to their place so they would have a nice quiet evening before their big day of traveling today.  i decided we would have pizza from our favorite local pizza guy - papa dan - otherwise known in our house as pizza dan the wise man.

 he has been serving pizzas to the AUC student community for the last decade out of this little hole in the wall connected to the coffee house and is full of advice on what to expect each semester, what to worry about and what not to worry about all based on the tales he's heard for the last 10 years from all of his customers.

 ezra enjoys seeing 'pizza dan' and has had a friday night ritual (some semesters) going to pick up a pizza (our own vegan special) with michael and rahul.

clare, stella and ezra enjoyed the classic cheese with tomatoes and basil.

 after dinner clare read 'curious george,'

 stella snuggled the couch,

 and then there was some time for jumping in the bed again.

it was a relaxing evening for clare and i with just the right amount of excitement for our young ones.

yarn along

here is a post of my latest knitting project and read in a yarn along hosted by ginny.  

 on the needles i have a few things going.  i have been bringing a cotton dish rag along to all the beaches we've been going to this last week with clare.  it's the mason dixon pattern you can find here.  i like bringing something cotton and washable like this to work on at the beach.  i am happy if i just knit a row or two.  it's a great take along project because it is easy to memorize the pattern.  at night i am working on ezra's giraffe.  that is the body being knit up in the yellow wool on the right.  inside the bag is what you see below - mario parts.  i have not had the time to sew his pieces together but think i will have plenty of time in the next week when we'll be newly without our visitors and our car.

 this is a picture of the awesome yarn score i received from clare through her wonderful friend erin.  i met erin at clare's baby shower and we talked about my then upcoming move to st. maarten.  she had lived some years in nassau and knew what island life was like.  last summer when she found herself in a yarn store in durango, colorado she thought of me and my situation (a knitter on an island without a knitting store is like a bee without flowers to pollenate) and generously purchased this yarn for clare to give to me.  it will be used to make some lovely pieces for stella which i am excited to get started on soon.  i think i will be set until we return to the states with knitting projects and for that i am very grateful.  thank you clare and erin!

clare also brought me some magazines and i have been leafing through my favorite yoga journal.  it was great to receive this because i have literally not read a magazine in a year and a half.  they are twice the price here!  but, thankfully for blogland, my lack of magazines has been replaced with the beautiful posts of all the inspiring mommyblogs out there.  for more knitting updates be sure to check out the other posts on small things.

plum bay

 today we spent the morning at plum bay.  we had beautiful skies and a turquoise sea to gaze at.

 the water was a little rough for the little ones but they enjoyed splashing in the white wash.

 we saw this gorgeous enormous sail boat in the distance.  i caught this picture just before it went around the bend of the bay.

our friends leave tomorrow and will soon be back in california where we'll see them once again in the spring.  it's so nice to know i still have friends back where i left them!