The Little Home Coles: THREE

V playing the piano with a dog (carrot in mouth) on her lap and a little brother trying to pester her.

2026 week three

On Tuesday Matt and I flew to St. Kitts and Nevis to celebrate 15 years of marriage.

First night dinner was out of a truck called Blue Smurf BBQ. We got jerk chicken, jerk pork, and ribs. All were excellent.

We also came to visit Matt's brother Sam and his family who are living on St. Kitts while his wife Larissa is in vet school.

Matt was so happy that he was able to see a monkey so quickly. The monkey handler traded my brother-in-law for his own monkey.

Then Matt was even more pleased to immediately hand the monkeys to me to see my terror. I am not a fan of monkeys.

We went snorkeling around a shipwreck and then we went to lunch were there were more monkeys! Hooray. This restaurant leaves out a dish of fruits and scraps for the monkeys, mongoose, and cats to fight over. We saw several mongoose as well.

Waiting for lunch at the beach.

On Thursday we went into the capital of Basseterre. We got a ferry and rode over to Nevis for the morning.

It's easy to take good photos when the subject matter is so cute.

Our first stop was the Nevis History Museum which is also housed in the childhood home of Alexander Hamilton.

Our plan was the walk "just outside town" to the ruins of the Hamilton sugar plantation after the museum. Just outside of town was a 3 mile hike up a mountain. At least the flora was incredible.

We made it to the ruins of the plantation very hot and thirsty. Luckily there is currently a vanilla farm on the site with a little cafe.

We got vanilla lemonade, vanilla iced coffee, and vanilla iced chocolate drink. We also got a small bit to eat to fuel us down the mountain.

The ferry ride back gave us Uno cards as our tickets onto the ferry. Matt was rather worried that we'd just been scammed, however they took the uno cards like it was normal. Maybe it is...

On Friday we went to the ruins of another sugar plantation that now sells local rum. This tree was absolutely coated in thorns. Zoom in, it's unreal.

This place had the most beautiful plants. I loved all the hanging vines and thick tropical foliage.

I guess this is what an actually happy pothos plant looks like. I'm so sorry to my puny little baby plants in my classroom.

We learned that these vines are colloquially called "Widow Makers." But we didn't learn this until after we all swung on them.

After the run distillery we went to an old plantation house called Romney Manor that was at one point inhabited by Thomas Jefferson's great great great grandfather. There is quite a strong connection with these islands and the American Revolution.

This tree is a cactus of some sort. At least it is a spiky succulent. It was over two stories tall and full of nests for these lovely little yellow birds.

The house is also a shop for locally made batik fabric. We got a chance to watch an artist starting a batik print.

On Friday afternoon we went to the school where my sister-in-law is getting her vet degree. The campus had so many monkeys. Too many.

We also walked down to a little area on the beach where students will sometimes study. We thought we found the tiniest hermit crab we'd ever see.

It would be hard to study in this spot.

The school also had a toxic plant garden for the toxicology classes.

On Saturday morning, Matt, Sam and I hiked to Shitten Bay. It was more of a scramble straight up over boulders than a hike, but the snorkeling on the other side was so fun. There were so many different types of fish and at one point it started raining which was a unique and beautiful experience underwater. A couple days earlier we got to snorkel with some sea turtles, but this snorkeling was my favorite.