Elser Family Blog

More pictures from St Croix

Kathi walking on the beach.

Rockwell making Melinda eat sand. I am sure he will pay for this.

Another non picture of Melinda. Whats up with that? Good picture of Rockwell though.

R and R

That is, Rockwell, and a Race.
Here is a great picture of Rockwell and his best friend Croix.

And Here is a picture of Lexi Cruz, Me, Richard Rogers, and Sam Eaton at the “Heart and Sole 5k” race to benefit the local Hospital. I did better than last year, barely.. 27:30. Be we were also stopped for traffic once. (Only in Augusta, or at least the south would they stop a timed race that has upwards of 400 people in it so traffic can go through.)

Melinda makes the Honor Roll

Melinda Made the Honor Roll the first semester. She had a tough time in Spanish, as she had to catch up to kids that have been taking Spanish for years…. but she did it! Congratulations Melinda! You make us proud! Melinda works so hard at school. If she keeps her effort up, nothing is going to stop her.

Pictures at the St Croix Ag fair.

Some more pictures I took off of Kathi’s FB page. Rockwell, so tough and so sensitive at the same time.

Melinda getting her ear nibbled on.. funny. That reminds me.. I just got a horse magazine in the mail… what does THAT mean?

Melinda, Rockwell and friends. I am pretty sure that is Zavvy next to Melinda. I’m sure Kath will let us know who Rockwell’s friend is. OK, that’s Croix next to Rockwell. I guess I should have recognized him.

Melinda in a staring contest. I wonder who will win.

M and R sitting in front of the STXCDS winning school art entry at the Ag fair. Did they have a hand in it? I’m sure Kath will let us know that too. Not in the winning one, it was from a different school. But they did have a hand in the one from their school.

Melinda School Project

Melinda and a friend had to create a web page at school. They wrote about the tundra, it’s animals and features.

You can see it here: www.treelessplain.com

We registered this domain (99 cents at godaddy, what a deal) and forwarded it to the page the kids made in school. I gave the teacher this info so she could share it as part of the lesson plan if she wanted to.

(Future reference:  When this page is gone, the forwarded URL was http://tundrarussellmelinda.webs.com and the whole site has been archived in a file called melindawebtundraproject with today’s date)

We also found out that Melinda was chosen to be in a small group that is going to be doing a special activity at the hospital tomorrow. I’ll let you know more when I fond out myself! It sounds like it might be special though.

More St Croix

I swiped these from Kathi’s facebook.

It turns out horses like to roll in sand. Who knew??

Here is Melinda on xxx in the water. Evidently the horses like to swim too. The girls will hold on to their tails when they swim. how that works I’m not sure.

Does this mean that when Melinda comes back she is going to have a horse “habit”? I think I should be worried.

Pictures from the St Croix trip

Remember, you can click on pictures to make the bigger.

Melinda getting to ride XXX down the mountain. While the picture looks peaceful  the trip was rather exciting.

Melinda learned how to cinch the tack on the horse. She did a good job for only doing it a time or two before.

This was where the horses came down to to get fed and brushed. It’s as in the middle of the bush as it looks.

I like this picture at the mountaintop.

Hannah appears to be saying “I’m on a horse!” I’m glad to see the good posture.. On Hannah.. Rockwell just seems to be saying “don’t let me fall off!”

Here is the Tan Tan tour guys.. Rockwell got to go on a 4 wheel adventure up in the mountains. I wish I could have gone! It sounded like it was FUN.

The Tan Tan tour was part of one of Rockwell’s friends Birthday parties. Here are the friends from the party playing on the beach.

In this same park was the Mural that Hannah had a hand in last year! As you might know, Hannah was part of a small group of kids (15?) that had the opportunity to work with the Coral Conservation Corps program. They did all sorts of activities that where aimed at learning about the coral reefs and their preservation. At the end of the program, they made some relief sculptures, and the CCC had them mounted on a building in the park! Perhaps Hannah will be able to come back here with her kids and point to this and say, “Hey, I made on of those!”

Here is the whole display. (remember, you can click on the pictures to make them bigger.)

Here is the one that Hannah and another participant made. I think it s great!

The family on the beach.

Melinda and I messing with the panorama function on the camera… sorta funny, Melinda followed as I moved the camera.

Adios VI

We are leaving in an hour or two. It was a nice visit. Went to a dinner (sort of) party last night and met some interesting people. I wish there were more people like that where I lived. Hannah and I went Scuba diving yesterday while Melinda and Rockwell went on a “TAN TAN tour” Basically a offroad tour of the island… They were guests at a birthday party and that was the “party”.. pretty amazing too..  We all visited the horses Saturday. That’s a story I need to elaborate on. We saw the art installation that Hannah had a hand in making at a park on the east side of the island. Pictures of all of this to come. But lets see if this one really nice one of Melinda loads.

Live From the VI

Sort of live. Here is the living room/kitchen of the place Kath, Mel, and Rock are living. I would show you the rest but the Internet here is a potato. Maybe when I get home, I can upload the neat “view” picture from the balcony. Right now you would only see sky.

In the mean time, Here is a picture of the cabinets for he kitchen I have been working on.  Also uploaded while on the caribbean Internet.

Ill try again tomorrow. Maybe I can upload a picture of all of us!

Christmas (and school) in the VI.

Merry Christmas from the VI!

Rockwell’s Teacher shared this one with me. It’s good to see him.

Here is Rockwell’s class picture this year. Class of 2021!

And Melinda’s Class picture this year. Class of 2019!