A Valentine's Day with no Valentines

Me at Fort George

Today is Valentine's Day. Usually on Valentine's Day there would be stores all decorated up with red hearts and cupids and all kinds of pink and red stuff, teddy bears that say be my Valentine. And chocolate- lots and lots of chocolate.

We went downtown today and only one store was decorated for Valentines day. It was nice not having all the mushy stuff up. It was nice not having to buy Valentine's day cards, or make muffins.

A friend of my mom's sent milk chocolate candy bars to our family. So I am going to have some chocolate this afternoon.

We aren't going to do anything for Valentine's Day. But I hope you got chocolate!

Nana's Visit

The day Nana got here I was in bed and asleep.

On the second day she was here, we went to school and she went to the beach.

On the third day (Thursday) we went to drop mommy off at NEWLO and then we went to the nutmeg factory in Gouyave.

After the nutmeg factory we went around the island to Levera and then Rivers Rum Factory. This was my second trip, this time they were pressing the sugar cane. It was interesting and neat. See my later blogs about the Rum Factory visit.

Then we stopped in Grenville and got some baked goods for lunch at a bakery.

We came home by going over Grand Etang and we saw monkeys!! Three of them. I got to touch them! They were so cute.

Friday I went on a class trip to the airport. It was interesting, the weather station has someone working 24 hours a day. There are a bunch of different shifts so not one person is working 24 hours.

Saturday I stayed home while Nana went to the market. Nana and daddy went to Magazine beach.

Sunday we went to the workboat races. They were cool and "Wet" the boat fell over at the finish line.  In the afternoon we went to La Sagesse.

On Monday I went to school and daddy and Nana went snorkeling. After school we went for one last swim with Nana at Grand Anse.

Nana left early Tuesday morning before we went to school.

It was wonderful to see Nana.

My Christmas

About a week ago it was Christmas. Christmas in Grenada is very different than Christmas in Brighton.

First of all is the weather. There is no snow and no cold winds. Here the weather was about 30
degrees and very sunny. It was so nice we could eat on our back deck.

Next is decorations. At home we have a Christmas tree, lights, wreaths, bells, candles, dancing penguins singing decorations. There are presents under the tree, everything wrapped perfectly because my mom does it. In Grenada no tree, we had a few stick on the wall decorations and some window decorations. Presents were not wrapped at all.



Food. At home we would have pancakes with Smarties and bacon. For lunch we would have turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, carrots, broccoli, turnips, jellied salad and lots of desserts. Here we had pancakes and bacon so similar to back home. For lunch we had touritere and mashed potatoes, salad, green banana soup, curried rice, and veggies & crackers. We also had some yummy cupcakes and a yummy chocolate caramel dessert.

Steel band that played Feliz Navidad

Who. Usually Ama is at our house for Christmas and sometimes auntie Ceilidh and Uncle Ken come for lunch. This Ama was here. We had two Cuso volunteers (Linda and Nancy), our neighbours Meena and Janice, Mr. Campbell and Mrs. Douglas from NEWLO dropped by. I did not love having all the people over for Christmas.

But we had an awesome time at the beach Christmas afternoon!

My Christmas was fun.

Selfie!!!

My family at the beach

Sand angels

The old airport in Grenada

On Sunday we went to Grenville, which is on the Atlantic side of the island. To get to Grenville we have to drive over Grand Etang Mountain. Grand Etang is French for "Large pond", because this is where the largest lake in Grenada is.

Once we got to Grenville we took a dirt road that ran beside the ocean. The ocean was scary because the waves were really high. When we got to the airport we drove 90 km an hour up  the runway and it felt really fast.

The airport was abandoned in 1984 after the invasion of Grenada by the Americans. Beside the runway you can see 2 abandoned Cuba planes from the revolution. It had been Cuba who had built the runway.

Right now it is being used as a drag strip. Here are some pictures from our trip.

Learning to Love Reading

When I was in grade 3 at Brighton Public School I did not love to read. I did not like the selection of books, and it was noisy when it was time to read. So my mom and dad decided to put me in Goodwin Learning Centre for grade 4.

Mrs Goodwin was my language teacher, we had to do writing, reading and spelling. We had author of the week where all the kids in my grade read the same author like Mo Willems, Roger Hargreaves, Tomie dePaola, and Jan Brett to name a few. Half way through the school year we read Jan Brett and Tomie dePaola and we read all the books by those authors. We would have to write five facts about the story, a sentence and list the illustrator and author.

At Goodwin they had a whole room that was a library and every class had lots books too. The books were organized by author or subject. This made it easier to find the books I liked. We also had a book collection counting system. You have 22 lines on a sheet of paper but you only use 11 of them; you had to write the author, the name of the book and the date you read it. After 11 books you would have to pick one of the books you read, draw a picture, do a summary of the book, rate it and decide whether you would recommend it. I really liked that part. By the end of the school year I had read over 300 books!

Now in Grenada I am reading the Harry Potter series. I am on the Goblet of Fire that has 734 pages. It is nice to have the Mt. Zion Library because without it I would be bored.



Mt. Zion Library

The next series I want to read is Percy Jackson or the J.R.R Tolkien books. Mt Zion had the Percy Jackson books donated by Hands Across the Sea. My school had books donated by this charity too, I can't wait for them to open up a library and see the books! I want to help paint or do something to help create the new library space, so my teachers can mark our work. And so I can get reading sooner.

I am grateful to all the teachers at Goodwin for making me a way better reader.