Turks and Caicos

In August we will be married for 10 years!! To celebrate, we used SarahLynn's time off during spring break to enjoy a week in the Caribbean! Many thanks to MomR and DadR for watching the boys at our house while we were gone. We enjoyed the Providenciales Island of Turks and Caicos. We stayed in a condo that was inland, and used a rental car to explore every corner of the island. Here are some pictures of our adventures!

We went on a boat tour that included snorkeling, conch harvesting, iguana island, and eating the conch that was caught for us! Conch is the national dish here, and we ate it almost every day. Conch fritters, conch ceviche, conch salad, conch burgers! This shell is one that was caught that day, we ate the conch and then took the shell home with us. It's 10-15 years old, which we thought was fitting for our anniversary.

This is Jeremy cleaning out the conch shell. He used the claw from the conch as a tool to scrape off all the coral and moss.

Can you see all the iguanas?

We had fun at the island's weekly Fish Fry! We had the yummiest cooper fish ever!

Everyday, we enjoyed two or three different beaches. 

It was so much fun driving a stick shift again!!

And really fun driving on the left side of the road.

It was hard finding shade at the beaches, there aren't a whole lot of trees here. Jeremy used google earth to find beaches with shade, but even then we came up unlucky sometimes. So one day, SarahLynn built Jeremy a tent! 

She's willing to do a lot to keep Jeremy from getting sunburned. We used a think scarf to keep his arm protected while driving. We did really well keeping him from getting red! 

We went to the world's only Conch Farm, and we learned so much!

When the conchs are big enough, they are put in the ocean water, 60 acres of netted "farmland" in the ocean water, naturally shallow and protected from storms, just behind us here.

We found some shade at this beach, and explored a deserted home.

At every beach, we enjoyed reading, journal-ling and relaxing. We also had time to get lots of emails, lessons plans, and projects for work done in our condo and on the beach, which helped us be even more relaxed. It was nice to know that we were not getting behind with work while on our trip, in fact we stayed totally on top of things!! I think that's what allowed me to totally relax at our couples massage.

We tried to buy food from the grocery store. The prices were pretty outrageous! $30 for a Hormel party tray!!

But we found a cheaper grocery store and were able to make 3 dinners on our own. 

We took a four-wheeling path with our tiny rental car to this beach. We were excited to find a patio just for us!! At another beach we snorkel through beautiful coral reefs. We saw octopus, two turtles and a ton of fish that followed us because we fed them granola. We also spent a day scuba diving, where we saw lobster, eel, and a lion fish, among many other awesome things. According to some sources, Turks and Caicos has the 3rd largest reef system in the world! 

One of our favorite parts of the trips was all the delicious restaurants. We ate mostly local food, but also ate some other cuisines that we don't have in Austin. At this place, we ate Indian food, where SarahLynn fell in love with the idea of CURRY crab cakes, YUM!

We kept noticing macaroni pie on the menus, so we asked the server if that was a local dish or an American dish. He brought us the most delicious macaroni and cheese casserole that we've ever had. We decided to google all about it, and learned a lot of history with macaroni and cheese and how Caribbeans have made it their own by making it more pie-like consistency and adding peppers, onions, and amazing seasonings!

We enjoyed a tour of an old cotton plantation that was established after the American Revolution by colonists that were loyal to King of England. They came down to islands like this one to start their own plantations. This wall was built by slaves.

And this was the master's house, which was mostly standing until Hurricane Ike came along several years ago. We learned a lot at this place, really glad we took the time to see it.

This was our last beach that we enjoyed before heading home. It was such a fabulous week!! The only bad part of the trip was that we came home to the middle of a horrible blizzard.

More Would-be Facebook Posts

Sunday, March 13, 12:35pm.
He looks handsome, but just not quite big enough for this new suit!

Getting Ready for our fun trip!

Monday, March 14, 2016. 5:45pm
This is how we ride. #toocoldoutside

Weds, March 15, 2016, 11:45am.
Dallin is so cute. I love watching him eat.

I thought I smelled something burning. Apparently, it's a bad idea to leave your cellphone charger plugged in when you aren't using it. #meltingplastic #burnedpajamas

Weds, March 15, 2016 4:30 pm.
Our last few hours with the boys before we leave them for a week! They are really excited to see Grandpa Papa and Grandma Nana.

I took a picture of me and Jeremy, too, just in case it's the last time anyone here sees us (#alittleanxious). Turks and Caicos, here we come!

SPAMKids Fest

It all started about six months ago when I joined a team at the Hormel Historic Home to work on children's programming. Sheila had a great idea to do a Kids Fest centered around Spam because it is so closely connected with the Hormel family and our town. We got approval and sponsorship from the Hormel Company, and before we knew it, we were hosting the first ever SPAMKids Fest!! It was a phenomenal group effort on all accounts and turned out to be much more successful than any of us thought possible!

Kids enjoyed SPAM crafts, SPAM storytelling, SPAM science presentations, and kid-friendly tours of the Hormel Home. Every aspect of the fest got great reviews. It was especially neat to see children trying SPAM for the first time, and liking it! We estimate that about 300 children came. And the local newspaper and news channel came to do stories on the event. 

The kid-friendly tours of the historic home went very well- we had more people on the tours than we could handle! I recently told a friend how the tours were created. I want to write about it here so that I don't forget how God answers our prayers. 

I had volunteered to write a simple script for the tour-guides so that it would be kid-appropriate. As I sat in front of the computer to start working on it, I was struggling for ideas. I knew it would be cool if a historical character gave the tour, and I thought it would be fun to have something like cans of Spam hidden in the house. But Spam wasn't invented until after the setting of this home. Ugh. Nothing was coming together, I had complete writer's block. So, I said a simple prayer asking Heavenly Father for some ideas and guidance, and for the ability to do it quickly because I had limited time to do this! 

After praying, an impression came to my mind: hide toys in each room that little Jay Hormel would have played with when he lived in the home. So I started googling toys from 1900's and immediately discovered that teddy bears became popular during the same time that Jay and his parents moved into this house (Teddy Roosevelt refused to shoot a black bear on a hunting trip with friends. Shortly after that, the teddy bear became a top-ten toy of the decade). 

Suddenly, a slew of ideas flooded my mind, and I knew exactly what to type. Within an hour, I had most of the script written out. With some edits from teammates Holly and Sheila, the script seemed perfect. The only challenge was to find some actors. 

Luckily, I had a whole circle of friends from Riverland Community College that I made while doing the show Into the Woods. But weeks went by without anyone committing to help. I said more prayers, asking that we could find enough actors and that the tours would be a hallmark of the fest. Soon, I got the best actors possible willing to help out: Vic, Emily and Charlie! 

With eight teddy bears hidden throughout the house and the expertise of our actors dressed as maids and butlers, a piece of history came to life during the tours! One mom was shocked to hear that her 11 year old son's favorite part of the fest was the historical tour, now known as the Teddy Bear Tour. WOW!! It's experiences like this that confirm to me that God is aware of us and waiting to help us in all aspects of our lives. 

For the Science presentation, Jeremy was the puppeteer for Cookie Monster. He hid behind the counter and did an awesome job sounding just like Cookie. The food scientist for SPAM stood in front of the counter and showed Cookie and the kids how SPAM is made. Everyone loved it and they loved the surprise at the end: SPAM cookies!!

I have to give accolades to my very devoted husband. During this same weekend was an important food business conference in LA. It was important to Jeremy to be at that conference, but I really hoped that he would somehow find a way to be at the fest. (I'm telling you guys, his cookie monster voice is really good). I didn't push him much, although I did pray a ton for him to be there. About a month prior, Jeremy decided to only attend half of the conference. He took a red-eye flight on Friday night and arrived at home Saturday morning, just a couple hours before the SPAMKids Fest started. He did all this to make me happy and to make Tanner and Dallin and the other kids laugh at corny cookie monster jokes. I hope he knows how much I appreciate the sacrifices he made. We are one lucky family to have Jeremy as Daddy and husband!

Miss Austin showed up!

The event ended with a concert by the band Spare Parts. They make their instruments out of cans, including Hormel products.

We were really hungry after a long day! The boys did really well sticking it out the entire time, including set-up and clean-up. What great sports! (I love how you can see Tanner's SPAM tattoos on his arm!)

During all the preparation for the fest, Jeremy kept asking me why I was so excited about it, why I felt a need to help with this event. I didn't really know why until I was interviewed by the news and when I had the opportunity to talk with Doug, who acted as Uncle SPAM for our storytelling portion of the fest (which was another highly enjoyed and successful part of the fest).

The Hormel Historic Home has come to mean a lot to me. I teach family music classes in the home every week--the same home of music teacher Lilian Hormel. While I'm in the home, I feel like the walls talk to me, there is so much history in each room! I feel inspired to cherish and respect the stories that took place there. I feel like I am part of the stories in those rooms, carrying on an amazing legacy in this community.

I would never have this opportunity if it weren't for Jeremy's job bringing us here to Austin. I feel privileged to be connected to George A Hormel. He and his son did amazing things that changed American history through their products, and I live in the town where it all started! I work in their house! It's so awesome!!

The best part is that this home is available for everyone to enjoy. It's so important for the kids in this town to be in the home and to learn about the Hormel family. This historic home can help children gain more appreciation for their community and for the great business that their parents work in. And the SPAMKids Fest is just one great way to get kids inside the home to learn about that history.

I'm so proud to be a citizen of SPAMTown USA, and I can't wait for the next SPAMKids Fest!