Has it really been six months since we updated the blog? Time passes so fast. We are coming up on our one year anniversary of living in St. Croix.

So, back to February where we left off. We had another round of guests. R's cousin made it down, along with a few of R's old friends, R's parents, and our neighbors from back in TX. We had a great time with everyone, and are always happy to have friends and family down to visit. Unfortunately with all of our guests and our travels to St. Thomas and San Juan, P90X has been put on the back burner. Maybe one of these days we will get that beach body that we have always hoped for!

In May, R's grandmother passed, so we took a trip to South Dakota to say our goodbyes. It is really great that they have such a close knit family, and it was great to see everyone again. We headed to Dallas for R to do some work and H to play before returning home.



Hurricane season began in June. Fortunately, we have not had any bad storms as of yet, although this was predicted to be a very bad year for hurricanes. We are only about halfway through, so our fingers are crossed that we won't get one this year. We have recently had about two weeks of rain and clouds. Enough to almost fully replenish our cistern. For those who don't know, most people on the island have a cistern that collects rain water, which is your water source. When it gets low, you buy a truck load of water which, unfortunately, we had to do right before the big rain! The truck load only raises it about two feet and our cistern is about six feet deep, so we are very happy to have gotten the rain. The rain has also helped keep the temperatures down. We are also happy about the fact that we still have not had to use our air conditioner! This is very surprising to us since we thought for sure we would have had to use it by now. Some days it is really hot, but we only have air in the bedrooms, so we have really enjoyed the pool for keeping us cool during the day. It's going to be hard to move back to a place that doesn't have one!

We had a pretty exciting concert last month. Jessica Andrews and Steve Azar, along with some local country artists did a free concert here right on the beach. It was pretty exciting for St. Croix. H was kept hoping that Kenny Chesney would show up since he has a place on St. John, but he didn't! We also have recently gone to the local theater. There was a production called Government Workers, and it was a comedy about government employees. We think it was pretty funny, but they were talking with such Cruzan dialect, that the local crowd would burst out laughing and we were looking at each other wondering what in the world they had just said! That part was funny in itself! We got the hang of it, and are looking forward to going back to see the next production.

Our boat is fixed....well, it was. We were told when we purchased the boat that the two best days of a boat owners life are the day he buys the boat and the day he sells it. I am starting to believe that! We were also told that BOAT stands for Bring Out Another Thousand, which is pretty much holding true as well. We have replace the gas tank, which fixed our problems that we had been having, and now we are having trouble with the starter. I think after this, we should have just about covered all of the big issues, and hope we will just be able to enjoy the boat. When it works it is so great to have! We did rename the boat to "Per Diem", those of you who know the term understand the meaning to government employees!



R's travel for work has been reduced significantly lately. That means fewer trips that H can tag along. We did take our boat over to St. John and the British Virgin Islands. It is absolutely beautiful over there. There are so many islands, and it was such fun to have our boat to cruise around. It took about 2 1/2 hours in pretty big seas to get from here to there. We set up camp on a really nice campground on St. John. Unfortunately, the camp sites were just off the beach in a very lush, treed area, so there wasn't much of a breeze. That, along with the millions of mosquitoes, made our camping not so great. We did, however, have a great trip otherwise. We visited Jost Van Dyke, BVI, and Virgin Gorda, BVI. There are so many other islands we would like to see, and hope to be able to get back over there at some point.





That just about sums up our last six months. Sophie is still doing pretty well, despite the fact that she is old, but she is still as cute as ever!

Happy New Year

It's hard to believe we are almost six months in to our two years! Not a lot has been going on here in paradise lately. Unfortunately, even though our boat had a brand new engine, we have been experiencing a few problems. Hopefully we will have it back up and running normally soon before our next strand of guests gets here. We have three sets of guests coming within about three weeks of each other starting at the end of February. We are excited to have friends and family back down to visit us!

R has still been traveling frequently to St. Thomas and Puerto Rico for work. Since everyone seems to have keys to our condo (part of island life we just can't get used to), H needed to feel a little more secure while R was gone, so we have installed some extra locks on the doors. R is back in Dallas in April, and H is looking forward to be coming along again.

We are loving our condo. Especially the fact that we can walk right down to the casino. We don't go that often, but have both been pretty lucky lately. They even have a free Bingo game on Sundays! We started the P90X workout program at the end of the year that is for 90 days and we work out right on the patio usually watching the sunrise over the water in the mornings. We just started week five and H is counting down the days until day 90!

The weather has been so great lately. We heard a lot about the Christmas winds, which seem to have arrived a month late this year. It is a nice constant breeze with some really strong gusts. H thought we were going to blow away last night. It has been nice keeping things a little cooler than the hot summer months when we first arrived. We got our first electric bill which was $150. Not bad considering what we have heard about electricity, but if you look at the small amount of power we try to use, along with no air, it's pretty steep compared to the states. So we are still very thankful that we haven't had to run our a/c. We're not looking forward to those bills when we actually have to turn it on!!!

Sophie had a big birthday a week ago turning 12! We are both sad to see her getting older, although she is doing pretty well, and she loves living on the island. H celebrated her birthday a couple of days ago. We headed out to the crab races with a group of friends and then to the condo for cake and drinks. It was lots of fun, and we feel very lucky to have met such great friends. We went on our second search for chaney. Chaney is broken pieces of china that the slaves broke many years ago that you can find on old plantations and some beaches. It is really like searching for a needle in a haystack, but we have been lucky enough to find some pieces. Most of it is the blue and white china, but H has her heart set on finding some brown or pink which is much more rare. It can be made into jewelry, so when H finds the perfect piece, she wants to have a necklace or bracelet made.

All moved in!

We are finally moved in and almost settled in our condo. I think we are both glad that this will be the last move for a couple of years! No matter how much or little stuff you have to move, it is still a big pain. Our condo is small, so we will be pretty cozy for the next couple of years, but we have our own private pool and great view of the south shore. The casino is also walking distance just down the hill.








We are settling in well and still enjoying the island very much. We are meeting lots of new people and having a great time. The weather in December has been really nice. High's are low to mid 80's and there is a constant breeze (often called Christmas winds). We are happy to not have to run our A/C at night with the high cost of electricity on the island! Although it doesn't feel like Christmas, we have been busy this week with Christmas parties where we continue to meet lots of new people. Last week was the annual boat parade. Owners can decorate their boats with Christmas lights and enter the contest and they circle around the harbor for everyone to see.



R spent two weeks off island for training in South Carolina then work in Dallas, so H got to tag along to Dallas for a week. H also took a trip to Arkansas to see her family. It was nice to catch up with family and friends, but unfortunately there wasn't enough time to see everyone this trip. We were both ready to get back to St. Croix for warmer weather! We both caught colds while we were there!

Our biggest news is...we bought a boat!!! We went together with S & L and bought a Sea Ray powerboat. We took it out for it's maiden voyage last weekend! We are trying to decide if we are going to rename it (we have heard it's bad luck to rename a boat). The current name is Limin' Time. Limin' is the St. Croix slang for relaxing or hanging out. The new name may be Per Diem meaning "by the day" also known as the amount of money given to R & S for living expenses for the first few months. We are also going to be joining the St. Croix Yacht Club where we will be keeping the boat.

The End of the Good Life!!

We're famous!! Well, not really, but our picture from the Halloween party was in the St. Croix Avis newspaper! We went to one of the annual Halloween parties with our new friends L & B, and it was so much fun! Some really creative and interesting costumes. Definitely a must do for next year!



H finally made it to Puerto Rico for some retail therapy. She shopped 'til she dropped at the largest mall in the Caribbean. We had a blast and H is ready to make that their next move. Well, maybe if we knew a little more Spanish, but she did really like it! We also spent some time with R's boss and his family. It was fun getting to know them a little better. The boss's wife even took H on another shopping adventure. We tried visiting the old Fort in San Juan, but got caught in the rain, so we didn't get to see much of it. It is quite impressive and something we will have to do when we return.



Our time in temporary quarters is sadly coming to an end. We moved from our first villa into another villa (http://www.vacationstcroix.com/CasaDelMar/Casa_Del_Mar.html) for our last month. We are enjoying the new place for a few more weeks before we move into our condo on December 1.

Our belongings from our sea shipment were delivered Friday, and we spent the day unpacking and putting things away. We are thankful this is our last move for a couple of years. R leaves town on December 1 which is actually our move-in date, so we wanted to get things moved in early so H wouldn't have much to do by herself. We met the owner of the condo we are renting last week, who is from London. He came to pack up a few things before we move in. We had a nice lunch with him and found out that he is moving to Plano!! What are the odds? Such a small world. We will post pics of the condo when we get moved in.

R decided to go on a lobster hunt yesterday. Last week he snorkeled out the back door and saw a lobster, he has been determined to catch one ever since. Yesterday, one of his friends came over with a lobster snare, and the hunt was on. He was successful on his first try! Even though the lobster wasn't that large, we did cook it and H had it for dinner!

Finally, we want to remind everyone that we are TWO hours ahead of Central Time as the Caribbean does not do daylight savings! The worst part of the time zone is that television shows come on REALLY late!

Peace and Quiet!!

All of our visitors have come and gone. It was lots of fun having everyone down, and H is now known at all of the tourist attractions on the island! We are counting down our last days at this nice villa. We got an extension to our temporary quarter living, so we will be moving into another nice waterfront home for a month before we move into our condo.

R's big highlight was his encounter with the iguana. We were in the pool, and what do you know, here comes the iguana right up to the side of the pool. R decides to give him a couple of splashes and next thing we knew, he had jumped right in. Not knowing if iguanas could swim or not, and not wanting him to drown (well, H anyway), we scoop him out with the pool net. R decides to play around with him a bit before he chases him off. Needless to say, they have not been back since then, but it has only been a few days.

We have finally worked a dive into our schedules and made use of the equipment and dive package we bought when we moved here. It was a great dive and we are looking forward to more diving soon. Our dive was in Salt River Bay which is where Columbus landed. Another fun thing we have done in Salt River was a kayak tour. We left at dusk and kayaked around the bay. When it finally got dark, we went over to a smaller bay surrounded by mangroves where there are a lot of plankton in the water. Plankton are microscopic organisms and when disturbed, light up in the water. So as we were paddling, it was like we had a flashlight on the end of our oar. It was so cool how the water lit up when we were paddling!

R is staying very busy at work. He has already traveled to Puerto Rico about four times and St. Thomas once. H is very excited about his next trip to Puerto Rico since she gets to tag along and go shopping! R also has a couple of trips back to Dallas for trial prep and trials in the coming months. H is very jealous, but hoping to go back in January for a couple of weeks. H is working about two days a week and her schedule is usually very busy. On her days off, she is hard at work on her new tan!

R's newest co-worker and his wife arrived on the island a couple of weeks ago. We are looking forward to getting to know them better and hoping to go together on buying a sailboat! We'll keep you posted on that one!

Our Exciting Day

So we had a very lucky and exciting day today. H's mom and her friend were out by the beach when they noticed our neighbors heading out to their sailboat. They were determined to get a ride, and floated out on a inflatable floaty and chatted it up with the couple. Fortunately, we have great neighbors (who knew) who were more than happy to have us with them. So we spent the day sailing around the island on this great sailboat.
R got right to work learning how to sail and man the jib!!! (We have no idea if that is the right terminology but we're learning)!!!
We headed out to Buck Island, which has one of the greatest beaches in the world.
On our way back in we passed another small boat...well ok, basically a cruise ship!! Our neighbors have been on this boat and said it has a hot tub in the front, a revolving dance floor on the 3rd deck, and is normally trailing a small dinghy boat which itself has 2 decks!!

After we stopped at a little marina for lunch we headed home and sailed past the house that we are thinking of renting...we put a red arrow on the picture so you can see it...sort of!

Once again, we've been lazy and waited weeks to publish a new post...at this point, you all have likely given up and stopped checking for anything new! Oh well, we'll keep giving you updates!

We are adjusting to island life and getting into the flow of things. We have also had our first few visitors! First was one of H's friends and her boyfriend, and we currently have H's mother and her friend here. Our biggest relief is that Sophie is adjusting to the heat, and life without air conditioning rather well. While we are away during the day she just lays around the house on the tile floors...but she's also found plenty of pool time in her new suit!!!
A couple of visitors we could do without are a couple of pesky iguanas. They stop by the pool each day and do their "business" on the pool deck! We do our best to chase them off but there's not much we can do while we are at work...Sophie is not much of a guard dog anymore...ok ever!
H and her mother went for a horseback ride the other day...yes R was hard at work!! They really enjoyed it and recommend it for anyone making a trip south! The rides are on the west end of the island, and as you can see it is a very short distance from beach to rainforest.
We also got in our first SCUBA dive a couple of weekends ago. We purchased our dive equipment so now we are all set to go out anytime we want. The dive was really good as we saw several sting rays, one of which was over five feet wide!

We are also still searching for a long term home. We thought we had it all worked out, however, as we learn more about the island we think we may be able to find something better for the same price. We'll keep you posted on our plans!

R was in Puerto Rico for a couple of days this week and will be again next. He actually gets to fly back with his parents on board next week! They will be staying for ten days and then after a couple days' break, R's brother and his family arrive. We are very much looking forward to both visits!