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Seems we had a lot of fun “celebratory” moments during Kari and Julie’s visit, including my birthday and Emily’s Mom’s Day! For mother’s day, I lucked out to have two live-in babysitters so that I could take Emily out on a date. We had a great time and its amazing to take just a few hours to relax and suddenly realize that that rarely happens when you’ve got a busy job and a 4 year old (parents can I get an “amen!”).
My gift to Emily was a short sermon at church. Normally, while I’m up preaching Emily has the task of keeping all the energy that Micah has contained in a 3ft by 3ft space for up to 3 hours! She is literally exhausted by the end of church, but a short sermon cuts down on the containment time. This Sunday’s message was on the Virtuous Woman from Proverbs 31, and we looked at her godly character as a mother. I was blessed with having a wonderful mom, and now both Micah and I are doubly blessed to have Emily!
Then, because it was Kari and Julie’s last full day here, we had my birthday party a day early, and Kari, Julie, and I all went out with our friend Julius in his boat for a little excision/tour to see the local sights. I was amazed at all we saw. For years I’ve lived here and have seen the sort of wonders that are just around every corner here.
Julius has a touring business called Fishbone Tours. We started out by visiting his conch garden (where he keeps about 100 fresh conchs), and then we had fresh conch salad for breakfast that he prepared right in front of us. I’ve seen conch salad made dozens of times, but this a little more immersive as we were watching it made right out on the water. Julie even got to break the shell open.
Then we toured around and found these enormous star fish. I’ve only ever seen these large starfish sold at little shops and never in the wild. It was amazing! You really can’t describe it, you just have to dive and find them yourself. However, the best part of the trip was to come. Which is where we dove off of his boat to catch a sea turtle with our bare hands. I tried a few times and ended up cutting my thumb on his shell, but Julie was the one who ultimately wrangled the turtle to the surface. It was an adrenaline rush and a memory we’ll never forget.
Then that night we had Julius and his family and Dale and his over for a huge meal of BBQ chicken and all the Bahamian trimmings. Between the 3 families we have 2 other birthdays consecutive to mine, both Robin’s and Javana’s, so we each got to blowout a candle and make a wish. Best of all Kari and Julie got to be part of all the fun, and that was about the best present of all.