pinel island

ezra's all ready with his life vest on to take the little boat to pinel island - a little island getaway from our island.  we spent the day with cat and bianca and had another magical day in the caribbean.  

it is almost considered high season here, officially starting in december, and the boat was full of tourists ready for their pinel experience.  in fact, we didn't fit on the first boat over and had to wait a half hour for the next one.  fortunately when we got there, we had the little strip of beach to ourselves away from all the restaurant bars and rented chairs and umbrellas where the tourists go.

this was our view to the left 

(i was standing in the water when i took these)

this was our little beach setup

this was our view to the right

(you can see the tourist umbrellas in the distance)

another view toward the beautiful mountains on st. martin

ezra enjoying the sun and sand

this was behind our little tent setup on the beach.

there is a sweeping nature reserve on pinel 

that we explored a bit at the end of our day.

more beautiful views of st. martin's pretty little mountains and puffy clouds

the day was so relaxing with ezra and bianca busy playing together 

i was able to bring my knitting and complete a few rows.

the colors in my yarn could've been inspired by my surroundings. 

toward the end of our day we dried and clothed ourselves ready to walk around the nature preserve.  we should've known to wait with the little ones until the moment we were ready to go.  they both got wet and ezra ended up taking our walk in his underwear - island style!

these two are such sweet little friends.  i love hearing their dialogue and watching their endless games they come up with that they both find immensely entertaining.  activities of the day included jumping in and out of the water, pulling each other up from sitting and falling back down, having a picnic in the tent together, chasing a beach ball, drawing in the sand and watching the ocean wash it away, and chasing each other along the nature reserve path.  

our little explorers leading the way

me, cat, and ezra (who must've fallen behind while trying to get the sand out of his sandals)

here are some of the pretty views we saw from our walking path

i love their shadows in this one

isn't st. martin beautiful?

ezra on board ready to return to our island.  

when the boat departed pinel he said, "it's time to go back to our island.  

it's time to go back to our earth."  

this moment

see other moments at soulemama

yarn along

i'm very excited to show you this little guy

 who reverses into this little guy

see?  isn't that the coolest thing?

there's the boy i knit it for who decided he did want it after all.  

he has put in an order for a giraffe he spotted on the cover of the book though...  

i also finished the hot water bottle cozy and had to add some embellishments of my own because the cross did not come out centered.  hmmm.  a pattern flaw perhaps?  

and here are my current knitting projects and read.  i got the book from the AUC student library where there is a rack of donated novels from previous and current students and spouses.  it's a nice way to get a quick read when you're out of money or books!  i am enjoying this book and it is making me want to go back and reread all the jane austen novels i so loved when i first read them.

on the needles are a pair of fingerless gloves (in the pretty peach colored yarn), a zebra hand puppet for ezra's sweet friend bianca who loves zebras, and a beanie out of the earth tone colored koigu.  i still have 3 or 4 projects in the queue for the holidays...  happy knitting yarn along friends!

saturday morning

i love saturday mornings...

this moment

inspired by soulemama

peace

i am joining elizabeth and lisa from threading light on their mission along with many others to bring more peace into the world.  at the beginning of each month i will set my intention to bring more peace into my world and reflect back on it at the end of each month.  my intention for the month of november is to do yoga everyday.  even if that just means holding tree pose while i brush my teeth or laying in savasana before bedtime or after a long run of errands, i will get myself into a pose each day.  i would like to say i will do a full routine, but that has become very difficult lately, and i don't want to defeat my peaceful intention with the frustration of not being able to fulfill my goal.

my usual morning routine of yoga has become interrupted by the more pressing needs of my son who wants me to play with him at the start of the day.  because i am "homeschooling" him (he's only 3 and we mostly just play all day) i feel it is important that i spend quality time with him at the start of each day. our days are mostly very peaceful, especially when we stay home and gaze out our window at the caribbean sea.

yarn along

this is what's been keeping me up late at night these past few days.  i get so tired in the night and don't enjoy the process as much that i'm trying to knit more during the day interspersed with bits of play.  as i write this on the bed ezra has built a lego playground around me.  he can play a lot by himself and certainly does, but lately he really enjoys playing together - the dialogue we share and fun new ideas...

the lion's mane is complete and the rest of him too.  now it's on to knitting the elephant that will be sewed along his edges so that he will reverse into an elephant.  ezra has watched me make this all the while so i think he is just going to receive it straight away when i'm finished instead of it being a christmas gift or from st. nikolaus.

i really like how his i-cord mane resembles a spunky head of dread locks.  they're very fun to manipulate.

the other item i'm knitting is from a free pattern for a hot water bottle cover that i got from www.cocoknits.com . what a wonderful resource this site is!  check it out if you haven't already.  this will be a gift for my dad (who i hope is not reading this because i disabled the automatic email for this post) who is coming for the holidays.  now i have to continue playing with ezra - who has patiently been asking me to stop and play with him...  this holiday making business can be challenging.  check out what other knitters have been making by going to small things.