Growing up in a country so rich in climate and land diversity, I enjoyed a lot of fruits from cold climates to tropical ones. Never realizing how spoiled I was, my mom very religiously would cut up lots of different fruits and pack them in a container for school. When I say school is until high school, and even my freshman year of college before I transfer to the States. Therefore, my pleasure for fruit is much higher than ice cream, cookies or chocolate. Having said that, as a mom, I always try to have the big variety of fruit available for the kids, although we still have the cookies, and other goodies.. Interesting enough, Samuel likes most fruits, except cantaloupe. Benjamin however, doesn't like plums or watermelon. Go figure.. But during our short time in the island, what we had the most was mango, star fruit and guavas.. and that was a hit every morning for snack.. I got tired of cutting the mangoes, and discovered that both kids would eat until the seed was hairless!
Daddy, on the other hand is not as big fan. However, his soft spot was juices. Mainly, mango juice which is his favorite. So much I showed him how to make it and he enjoyed the process. Can you tell?
This is a short but funny story. I left Samuel finishing breakfast while I was changing Benjamin.. And when I got around to see the table: he had taken all the left over pieces of watermelon from the fridge and scarfed them down till literally no pink was left.. Ironically enough, I always have to watch out for Samuel when I am serving or leaving fruit around, or else, he would really eat it all in one meal...
Enough from the fruit group..
Let's talk meat. So in the island is much cheaper to buy in bulk. But the orders can be very large. Gratefully we had a deep freezer where it all fit. These were the left over boxes, of more than 30 lbs of chicken, ground beef, sausage, bacon and steak.
Of course it was to feed us all semester long.. without taking into count that daddy was gonna be left alone for half of that time. While there, pizza was one of the favorite dishes. And is the only way Benjamin will gladly eat ground beef.. weird.
Also, pizza is one of the easy meals that kids can easily be involved.. and Samuel just enjoyed it as much as eating it.
But cheese and meat wasn't the only thing.. Jay's favorite food is seafood; followed by Mexican or any spicy. Too bad Colombians don't eat spicy, therefore, I don't cook spicy; but hot sauce has always been the solution for his particular plate. So, one day he shows up with a big box of shrimp. I grew up in the mountain area.. hardly ever cooked or ate fish, except for canned tuna. So I am very inexperience with any seafood. But, he decided to take the time to "fix" all the shrimp (tedious work) and freeze it. We got quit a few great meals. Like a special batter of his, to fry not only shrimp but chicken too, which both kids liked. Samuel also LOVES shrimp.. I went for the chicken..
Both kids love Italian, and so do we. So the Shrimp Alfredo was a hit.
Enough seafood. Both, my kids and I absolutely enjoyed BREAD. I usually would do wheat (healthy and easier to do) but Jay only likes white. So I would do twice wheat and then white.. and really, with that much bread I baked (2 lbs) and i would only last 2 and a half days, 3 at the most.
I grew up with rice, beans and plantains. Jay likes them too, except for the fact that I like ripe fried plantains (sweet) and he likes the not ripe ones (salty). I tried making both every week, since Samuel like the "chip ones" (salty) and Benjamin the sweet ones of course. But here was the picture of my first Colombian beans! I was sooo excited. Although I grew up helping my mom on all the process of cooking everything, I never learned to actually cook. So, here were my first ones which are the most famous from above the coffee area. They are kidney beans, cooked with plantain, and a lot of other spices that make them sooo yummy.. The usual "bandeja paisa" looks kind of like that but with fine ground beef, sausage, sunny side up egg, arepa and a piece of avocado on the side.. that's why I named it 1/2 bandeja paisa, because is missing a ton of other little sides.
But I couldn't leave Jay's favorite breakfast (after 5 years of denial I finally got to make it for him), is biscuits and gravy, with sausage and scramble eggs on the side. I thought it was harder that what it really was. But I did tried to do it often while there. The kids like it too, without the gravy though. And Samuel also loves sausages but Benjamin doesn't, he rather chew (not quit eats it all) bacon instead. Yes, the last is a calsone-wanna-be because they ended up being huge and weird looking. The kids and I liked them though. They were full of rice, ground beef, veggies.. yum
Last but not least, "pinchos" in Spanish but I have no clue how to spell them in English.. They are made of chicken, onions, bell peppers and lots of BBQ sauce.. also some salty plantains.. of course, I marinated the chicken in the sauce before pinching it on the skewer.. Jay, Samuel and I enjoyed them. Benjamin not so much, but he rejoiced on his peanut butter and jelly sandwich, which Samuel hates since he cant see peanut butter.
We don't always eat at home, in fact, we love fast food. Mainly taco bell, but BK can taste good every now and then.. These pictures are from a Christian Fellowship dinner on campus.. they had lots of food. And what did they enjoyed most? The cupcakes of course.
We like sweets too. Here daddy got us some sugar cookies.. and junk food is welcome. The kids love Gatorade and Cheetos. And daddy couldn't resist the Byington's ice cream sandwich on his birthday.. the kids enjoyed it too.
Best of all, has been when the lovers go for date night to try a new place. Like the famous ribs in Portsmouth. Evidently, this little place there only cooks them on Friday nights. And the orders are basically just ribs with fries, nothing else. They were pretty good. Jay said they were more southern style not as sweet as the Texan ones. If you give me a choice, I go for the Texan ones. We still enjoyed the hour wait in such great company and the 10 minute eating time.
The interesting part in our cooking journey is that the harder the place to cook, the best we have eaten. Of all 11 moves we have had, and both times in Dominica were the best times we have had cooking at home.. even though the shortage in ingredients. I still think necessity is what makes true creativity. Either way, we still enjoyed food wherever we go.
This was with Mary the director of the daycare, and the next with his teacher Ms. Nella.
Benjamin always enjoyed picking him up from school since he would get few minutes of new books and toys..
The day was rainy so that helped us hurry more..
I never got around taking pictures of he whole way from the house to campus, but I attempted to get a little video from the transport.. really is was terrible but better than nothing.. I got pictures from outside of campus by shacks..
Then, this would be the street on the right of the shacks, and past the first two cars you see a white truck.. 
That is where the video starts.. 
Under it was GA Enterprices or "Tinas groceries". Everyday walking home from school with Samuel, he would always talk to Mrs Tina about his day and how "exhausted" he was from walking. She enjoyed his stories so much, she would give him cookies some times. So I told him that may be she would if he smiled on the picture.. get the huge smile?
As we were living she gave him a "go Henry" bar but he doesn't like chocolate that much so Benjamin and I sure enjoyed it!
We took our connecting flight from PR at 7:30pm and got to Tampa at 10:30pm.. I had made reservations in a "near" hotel which I booked on hotwire. So, double stroller, two kids, two carry-ons two backpacks, plus their blankets.. nice load to mobilize with.. (still havent learned to fly lighter) did I mentioned pregnant? Went outside to wait for shuttle, but after asking they told me to call from the free phone inside which had all the codes of the hotels.. EXCEPT for the one I was staying at! I left my hotel reservation paper so had no phone number either.. I tried calling my in-laws with my credit card and no answer with was strange since they have an answer machine (they just had a huge storm and had no power.. little did I know..) Then, phone book was handy but not the fact that the hotel number was wrong.. Thankfully the kiddoes fell asleep so no problem there. Finally, past 11pm one of the security guys helped me with his "internet phone", got the number and called for me... I got a young guy who said, "Sorry mam, the shuttle service runs 6am to 10:30pm." Did I mentioned I had to be at the airport by 5am? Great! why didn't I just stayed at the airport for just 6 hours? Did I mentioned the gate I came from and departed from were next to each other? Later, Jay asked me why didn't I just lost the reservation and stayed at the airport.. well, I wasn't thinking since I was soooo tired. So, I proceeded to take a van cab since we had too much crap for a regular cab, and made it to the hotel. The only poor fella working had to help me outside of the lobby since the stroller wouldn't fit thru the door.. then he took me to a first floor room but the key wouldn't work. Went back, changed me to a different room which was on the other side, and couldn't fit the stroller through the passage way because of the bushes, so he helped me carry everything to the room. Talking to him, I just started laughing so hard.. I couldn't help it. I told him, "I really am so tired, and so many things just not working well that I either cry or laugh.. how about laughing he?" He laughed too, and was very nice offering us food from the continental breakfast we were going to miss next morning. Samuel was excited about apples that he had two. 
Poor Benjamin was so tired he kept sleeping even after carrying to the bed..
Yes, he is the little spot on the right of the bed.. Samuel asked to watch TV and I kept laughing.. you serious? No sir, off to bed.
Benjamin didn't make it out of the parking lot awake. So tired little guy.
It was so cute to see him so into it, with serious face and all. Just like washing dishes, folding clothes is fun for him, not that I really ever asked but I am sure encouraging his desire to help on this kind of noble tasks.
Benjamin fell asleep on our way home, so we brought him with stroller and all and kept napping while my little Cinderella finished folding clothes.
