November and Part of December

It has been so long since I have written I post that I had to go back and see what my last posting was!  Halloween!! Yikes! The last month and a half has absolutely flown by.  In fact the last 4 months that we have been on island have flown.  There are so many activities on this island that some days it is hard to keep up.  I guess it is good to stay involved but we are trying to figure out how to dial back everything and still enjoy ourselves.

Thanksgiving was lovely.  We spent the day with friends eating good food.  The kids (and some dads too!) enjoyed Kwaj sledding (playing on the slip n slide).  The weather here is always beautiful.  It is always the same although sometimes it rains (then it feels cold!).  Now that we are heading into the 'not so rainy' season, the majority of the days are sunny.  This is also the windy season.  So with a nice wind, it helps it feel a little cooler.  We still try to avoid going outside between noon and 3 pm to stay protected from the sun.

We are trying to get into the Christmas spirit but not having any seasonal cues is definitely throwing us off.  To kick off the holiday season however, we did have an island wide tree lighting ceremony but I will post more on that later as that will need its own post.   

For now I have some pictures to share!

Yes, it almost always looks like this outside! 

We finished our advanced diving class, meaning we can go as deep as 130 feet now! 

We have started doing more wreck dives.  Most of these are from the WWII era.  Some were sunk during the battle and some were sunk intentionally.  I still haven't figured out the history behind our ski boat area wreck site pictured here:

We are starting to find more and more cool creatures on our dives!

Spotted Eagle Ray:

Shark:

On one of our night dives we found 2 sleeping octopi, one is pictured here:

Carson finished swim team with a slew of personal bests.  

He even won some overall heats!  We were very proud of him!

The boys love being in the water.  Oliver blows bubbles and swims around with his puddle jumper but hasn't worked up the courage yet to put his head under the water. 

Carson on the other hand, wastes no time going under the water...he loves to snorkel and cannot wait to get his dive certification in February when he turns 10!

One of our fun gatherings, was Aaron's work party.  We had a wonderful time with friends who are becoming our adopted family out here and enjoyed some great food too! The highlight of the party was our gag gift of a blow up pickle.  He ended up in a lot of our photos.  We wonder if he might show up at future work parties!