watermelon

One of the best things about a HOT summer is COLD watermelon. Yum!

church walk

This is what our walk home from church has been looking like lately... rainy, gray, and littered with various farm animals... We love Dominica. :)

my birthday

These are some of the pictures from my birthday. We had a fun time. It was the first "birthday party" for me in a long time, and in true Dominican style, it rained. :) I didn't mind and neither did any of the kiddos that came.

Before (and after) it rained, the weather was perfect and clear. We swam in the pool, ate pizza, and enjoyed being done with the last mini exam of the semester. This is Matix's new favorite way to swim in the pool, with these little inner tubes. He does really well with them and is learning fast.

Matix and his friend Sam. Cute.

Hawken tried to go for a dip in the pool (he thinks he can swim) and got this rocker hair do.

My friend Kelly baked me a yummy cake. Thanks Kelly. :) Also, this is the only picture of me on my birthday. I think I look older. Definitely closer to 30 than to 20. :)

When we got home, this is how we found Matix. Passed out from all the fun.

stroller

Our life is so fun right now. Matix loves to push his little Grover doll (baby Go-Go) in his stroller, while I push Hawken in his stroller. We hang out, go on adventures, living life... I'm happy. :)

follow the leader

Big brother goes somewhere...

Little brother realizes he has been left...

Little brother tries his hardest to follow big brother...

So goes the life of the Berg boys.

rain

Playing in the rain. Buckets make it even better. Hawken and I felt like staying dry this day, so we just watched. :)

good job Daddy

We are SO excited for Paul to be finished with 3rd semester. He worked really hard all semester and it paid off.

When he came home we had put up a new sign on the door for him (after Hawken took a bite out of it) and we greeted him with homemade brownie bites! Yum! Matix was happy to taste test the brownie bites before Paul got back.

new trick

This is Matix's new trick, curling up his tongue. Very hard to capture in pictures, and very funny to see in person. :)

bikes

One of the grocery stores here is called James Store. Yes, James is the owner. :) He orders the weirdest and most random things... One day when we were there we found these little kid bikes. They were the cutest little bikes ever. They have bells, little baskets and trunk space. Matix was in love! And if he were a little bigger I would have bought him one.

Barney

I love these little diaper babies (ignore the mess, please). :) They have recently been VERY interested in PBS lately. Barney especially and then Sesame Street. Hawken dances when he hears music now too... Not as much as Matix does, but it's cute. Thank goodness there are songs every 2 minutes on those shows, it makes for very entertaining mornings for Paul and I.

bugs

Catching bugs. Of course. :) I'm just glad he is sticking to the small stuff. I don't know what to do if he ever brings me something bigger. Yuck.

puddles

It has been raining on and off almost every day for the past few months... or so it seems. Usually it rains at night and only sprinkles during the day. It makes for some great puddles to splash in though! :)

Hawken is learning SO much from his big brother.

poolside

Eating poolside. Another perk of this lazy island life. :) These boys are so lucky.

Hawken can walk!

Yes, our 8 month old is walking! It is an amazing thing to see this little guy strut around the living room. He is still a little unsteady as you can see from the video, but he CAN walk. Wow! :)

Our poll on the side of the blog is officially closed now. These were your guesses as to when he would start walking:

8 months - 4 votes

9 months - 5 votes

10 months - 2 votes

11 months - 0 votes

1 year - 1 vote

Most of you were very close or right on. Good job! :)

Although he has been taking a few steps here and there, I said it wouldn't count as truly walking until it was 10 or more steps in a row. As you can see by our video proof, he can now do that!

Good job Hawken! We are so proud of all you can do. You're such a big boy now. We love you!

PBH

The boys on the beach. This is PBH beach and we love it.

Of course Matix found a puppy on the beach, which he tried to lure into the stroller so he could keep her. :)

How cute. :) Covered in sand.

cute

Everyone enjoys a back tickle every now and then, right? :)

daddy and his boys

The boys are loving all the time they are getting with Paul lately. He has been staying home during their most playful/wakeful times and doing so much fun stuff. We have been enjoying the beaches and the pool a lot and I think these pictures of Paul on the pier with his boys are precious.

chubby Hawken

Chubby baby Hawken... I love that his wrists are now resembling lego snap on hands, just like Matix's did when he was this age. :) So cute.

play date

This was one of our fun play dates at Sister's Beach. No Hawken in the pictures, because he was still teething and refused to be put down. He since has gotten his 2nd top tooth, for a total of 4 teeth. 2 on top and 2 on bottom. Cute.

4th Semester!

With the end of another semester and the beginning of a new one, there are a lot of changes around here. We had to say good-bye to some of our friends, the Lunts and the Fredericks... So sad. :( Here we are with the Lunt family (Bryce, Paige, Lucy and Logan) and the Dettinger family (Josh, Kelly and Shane).

Our last lunch with the Lunts before Paige and the kids go back to the States. There is a chance they will come back before December when we are done, but maybe not. So we had to have one last stop at Rituals before they took off. Matix loves Lucy and is always trying to go to her house to play with her. We will miss you guys!

Also, the Fredericks left. :( Liz and Emmy left for the States a while ago because Liz is pregnant (yay!) while Jason stayed here to finish out his last semester. We had Jason over a few times for dinner and just fell more in love with them! We miss you guys even more now! We do have Disney plans when we are all in Florida together though, and a reunion will be SO wonderful. And we can't talk about the Fredericks without a mention of the little love affair between Matix and Emmy. At first it was a little one sided, but by the time they left I think it was pretty reciprocal. :) This was their good bye. Come on! The gazing eyes, holding hands and a KISS! :)

Luckily, with the end of one semester comes another... and with it, comes new friends! Here is to happy start of our 4th semester in Dominica! :)

Red Rock Haven

We went to Red Rock Haven with a bunch of friends on Friday and it was SO much fun. :) This was all before we got sick too, so it was nice that we got at least 1 fun trip in before the 2 1/2 days of sick... Sadly, we didn't get a group shot, but these are the friends that went; the Hinton family, Taylor family, Beatty family, and our neighbor Phil. It is always more fun with friends to play with.

Matix went about his normal exploring and digging.

Hawken went about his normal eating sand and eating more sand.

This picture of the 2 of them shows part of their very different personalities... Matix off doing his own thing, caring less what everyone else is doing. Hawken going to where the action is, not caring about the waves he is crawling directly into. :)

Paul went snorkeling with Phil for a while and got knocked around by some waves... Don't worry, no one was hurt, but Phil lost a flipper. Oh well. I spent a lot of my time trying to get Hawken to go to sleep despite all the kids giggles, crashing waves, and other noises in every direction. Luckily after a good 30 minutes, he fell asleep. Hooray for naps on the beach!

While I was working on Hawken, Paul and Matix swam to the rock. The rock is surrounded by water and is covered in tiny sea shells that Matix LOVES.

How cute is this picture? :)

Paul got a bunch of really great pictures of Matix that I didn't get to see until we downloaded them onto the computer. Here are some of my favorites...

But then... I saw some other pictures that made me say... "HUH?!" :)

Right around noon (when the restaurant opens) it started raining, so we all hung out beneath the little grass umbrellas at the tables.

Matix mostly played in the rain, but also thought it was fun to sit by Matt, a big kid. :)

Hawken was more startled by his rude rainy awakening, and wanted mostly to be held.

We had a delicious lunch of Caribbean pizza and sweet potato fries... YUM! No pictures of that, because we ate it all so fast. :) It was a wonderful day.

In other news, Hawken has walked 6 steps a couple of times now... WOW! Also, Paul passed 3rd semester with flying colors... YAY! and we are all feeling MUCH better. We are still keeping it low key for tomorrow, but will be back to adventures soon. :) Thanks for all the support and prayers while we were sick.