The Nanny Estates

Our home in Montpelier is an old 3-bedroom rambling farmhouse.  It's hard to heat, the floors tilt, and the street out front is too busy for us to safely let our boys roam outside without parental eyeballs. But it is our home, with its cozy nooks, great big kitchen that I love to cook in, a spacious deck for playing ... We love our Montpelier home.

But what a contrast to the Nanny Estates, our home away from home, or "our vacation home" as the boys call it.  We are in a small development with about 20 units right on the beach.  There is a quiet central courtyard with a pool, and we just need to run down the short path to get to the waves.

Path to the beach

You can see pictures of our unit here, choose "standard" from the pull-down menu and click on B2, and pictures are more or less accurate.  Imagine our faces in the rooms and you'll have a mental picture of us in our vacation home.  There is a lovely spiral staircase up to the 2nd floor and roof, where there is an outdoor shower and, of course, exercise classes every morning

Rooftop Abs Class

Thank you to Mike Rossi of First in Fitness, and to Geoff Beyer for recording the 6:30 a.m. Abs Class and sending it our way, and thank goodness for the heavy rock Win found poolside to provide an  extra challenge of the crunch twists.  The roof also serves beautifully as a peaceful yoga refuge, if you can clear out the noisy boys.  Nothing but the sea and the sky.

The boys all share one room.  Fletcher has been sharing the double bed with Graham while Jasper sleeps in the single.  You know something?  They like it.  Being all together, and waking up together - they actually seem happy.  Who knew?  Here we were, searching for a solution to our growing Montpelier issues of -not enough bedrooms-  and  -having to share a bathroom-  (should we expand into the garage? move?) when really, we have enough.  Naturally, being in a country like the Dominican Republic, this truth is evident almost everywhere.  More on this later.

Our kitchen here is small, with a tiny stove and mini refrigerator, but it has served us very well because there are enough chairs at our table for all of us.

Breakfast

And how we love how little CLUTTER our house has here.  It's much easier to clean up the toys when there are only a few, and especially when most of them are boogie boards, fins, and other outdoor gear that lives on the patio.  No mail comes in here, no winter clothes, and all of our sandals can hide neatly in the corner by the door.  It is easier to stay clean, too, when Lucy comes every day to clean for us.  We are so grateful for that.

Okay, so I did see my first 2 cucarachas this morning, but they were outside on the patio.  They were, um, ENORMOUS, but shall I also emphasize were because despite my desire to love all creatures, well, I just don't love cockroaches so I chased them down and squished them with my flipflop.

Not to end on that murderous note.  We appreciate and enjoy our house here and our lovely neighbors too, including a lovely South African family, some permanent residents that live here part or most of the year, and a doctors' group from Michigan that is here to do service work for people who cannot afford medical care.  Every ex-pat we have met is down-to-earth, generous, and kind. More on them later, too.

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