Importance

Our Fourth of July was simple and great. We went to a church barbecue at the beach, went to KMart, was late coming home for Brad's visiting cousin, had sandwiches for dinner, went and saw fireworks over the Fredriksted Pier, came home to watch more fireworks on PBS, and talked to Johnny and Chelsie. 

This week we went to the beach... 5 times. FIVE TIMES! Guess that is what you do when people visit and I am a-okay with that. Today we were able to go to Buck Island and do a bit of snorkeling. Right away we saw eagle rays and schools of fish. Brad and I both saw a barracuda, though it was at different times. Oh, and we saw TWO SEA TURTLES! What?!?! Mind you, it wasn't during snorkeling, but it was still amazing. Amazing! 

On Friday our pallet of household items was able to get here. Going without these things the past few weeks really put things in perspective about what we really find important. What did I miss/want the most? Kitchen things. My spices and cooking. It was so hard to only cook with salt and pepper. I splurged and bought a huge thing of cayenne pepper and nutmeg so I could at least make our homemade mac and cheese. I should have sent more things with Brad, but I was so rushed and my brain was not grasping things, I spaced what I would want when I got here. Next up was cleaning supplies. I love to use essential oils and certain products to clean and it was difficult to not have it on hand. Now it's here! What was important to the boys? One word- legos. 

We barely got a couch on Monday. It was crazy how perfect it worked out, but I'll just say we are so happy to be able to sit on something other than camp chairs. We all have beds and now the couch... and we're happy. Not like I want to keep it this simple, but it has been nice to go without and realize we really don't need as much stuff as we think we do. I hope to get more in the habit of this and keep this frame of my mind when we move back to the mainland.