goings on

long weekend

Happy Easter from the dinosaur egg. Open it up and out pops....candy of course!

M's version of the paddle board

Frangipani on a still, warm morning

Dyed eggs, but the colors didn't work as well as we had hoped they would

***
It was a long four days and I think the kids got their fill of indoor play. Much like a snowbound family in the north in the dead of winter, we are often sunbound when the temperatures begin to rise, preferring to remain inside where it is cooler and comfortable. We did make it out each day to swim, paddleboard, and explore, but who can do that all day in the sun - or the snow? We adults are getting a bit of senioritis; trying not to count the days until we travel home for the summer. Our thoughts have been on dungeness crab, walks in the woods, tidepools, family and friends, when we should be focusing on the days between now and then. A watched pot never boils....

Writing tools

 

It has been fun watching C develop his writing skills. In recent weeks he has taken on full blown story writing and the making of little books. He is very busy in this and has organized his tools in a folder so he can find them quickly. I had purchased a great book called The Write Start, by Jennifer Hallissy in hopes of getting ideas to push him along this summer. However he seems to be pushing himself along just fine. He came up with the books and the story and illustration ideas (all in the book). Yesterday I made a few little books out of used computer and construction paper. I just cut and stapled the pages, placed a cover on the outside and binded it with library tape and now C has more little notebooks to write in.

signs of changing weather

This was the beginning of a water spout that was seen from our balcony a few days ago. We are told the water spouts mean that rain is coming and sure enough we've been having some rain after a long dry winter. Usually the spouts come in groups but on this day there was only this one and it never reached the ocean surface.

Oh those lovely St. Thomas clouds

Then as we were getting ready for our sailing lesson we noticed thousands of small brown (no-stinging) jellyfish in the water. Again we were told that they are a sign that summer is near. Later with my camera I tried to get a shot of them, but there were none (or just this one dying one) to be found. The tides or wind moved them along to another location. The changing of the seasons in the tropics is not quite so dramatic as it is in the temperate zones. No rush of blooms or melting of snow, changing of leaves or the first snow. It is so very incremental. The winds pick up or die down, the water temperature increases or decreases, humidity rises and falls, the leaves on the trees slowly blossom, or brown, the jellyfish come and go, fruits come in and out of season. For me the most fun is the moon rise; the location changes as each month passes by. Further south in summers, further north in the winters. Anyway, it is quite easy to think of every new day nearly the same as the last however with a little more attention, the subtle tropic season can be noticed.