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!

A New Job and Private Plane Ride!

So the big news on the island is that H has a job!!! It is not full time as yet, but we are hopeful that she will continue to get more days as time goes on. One of the perks of the job is the Dr. has a private plane and he took us out for a ride! It was very nice of him and we really enjoyed it...although it was a bit of a tummy tickler at times! H took some pics while in flight and they turned out great. The first pick is of us standing by the plane:
Next is a good picture of the island, taken from the east side, you can actually see Point Udall, which is a park area situated on the Easternmost point of the United States:
Here is a picture of the town of Christiansted. This is where R works. It is a very old town, with most of the buildings around the harbor being built in the 1700s:
Finally, here is a picture of our temp quarters home as seen from the air. It is the home sort of in the middle of the picture with a somewhat pink roof:
We'll add another post to fill you in on other items of interest!

Temp Quarters Living

Hi all, sorry it has been so long since we've last blogged. Things are going really well here, we are enjoying many aspects of island living and are dealing well with those things which are strange!

Our house is great, and we are adjusting to life without air conditioning (although we do turn it on in our bedroom at night). We try to get in the pool or sit by the beach at some point during the day. We have an iguana who comes to the edge of the pool each day and takes a poo! We've been unsuccessfull on finding a way to keep it away! Since we are living in "temp quarters" we get extra money for meals...so we have been frequenting all the fine dining establishments on the island. Well, there are not that many, but H has been making a list of those worth returning to!

Our biggest news is that H has a job interview tomorrow! The Dr called today and asked if she could make it in tomorrow. We are both hopefull that something will come of it.

The other bit of news is that we received some of our personal belongings today. We had about 450 pounds of goods air shipped to us, mostly clothes...but also our MARGARITA MACHINE!!!

R has been getting settled at work. There is plenty of cases to be found, seems that most of the residents here are up to something, especially the local politicians! He had his first trip to Puerto Rico last week and has two more planned next month.

We are having a bunch of Rs coworkers from different agencies over tomorrow for dinner. We are hoping to meet some more friends. More on how the party goes on Sunday...

Getting Settled (Part 1 - Island Living)

On Sunday, we picked up a few groceries and realized just how expensive this place can be. Although we did buy many things that you need when your pantry is completely empty, we
didn't have nearly as many items as we should have....for a $380 bill!! It's funny because somethings are priced very comparable to the states, but then other items are way more. For instance, a regular box of mac-n-cheese, normally like $.75 at most, was over $2!!!

We also joined two of Rs coworkers and ventured out to the rain forest. Up in the middle of nowhere there is a really unique watering hole! Although there were only a dozen or so people there when we showed up, we've heard that they can have a couple hundred when they have a band on a weekend night. Their biggest attraction is the beer drinking pigs!! No really!! For a few dollars they will give you a non-alcoholic beer which you can take to a pen and give to a HUGE pig...and not a farm raised pig...a really wild pig with tusks!! Check these pics out...







We had a busy Monday, the first work day since arriving. We started by having Tropical Depression Ana visit in the middle of the night. Everyone on the island said it was not much of a storm, but R was up closing shutters and making sure our shack was still standing.

Then we ventured out. We opened a PO Box, then swapped our Texas drivers licenses for VIs. After these two surprisingly easy, and fast, stops (we had heard nightmare stories about how long it can take), we had lunch with R's coworker. We then picked up our library cards and opened a bank account!

As you can see, Sophie loves having our own pool!! We are trying to get her in the water once a day so she gets used to it (our permanent housing has a pool which she will have access to and we don't want her to fall in without knowing about the stairs)!

Getting Settled (Part 2 - Our Home)

It took us a day or two longer than we said, but here are some pics of our temporary quarters. We will be staying here for two months, and LOVE IT!!! Just when we thought the place was perfect we turned on the pool lights and discovered the lights change colors and really add to the atmosphere of the patio. Have we said, WE LOVE THIS PLACE!!! Check it out...

Main house

Living Room from Entry

Kitchen

Looking from Beach to House

View from Balcony

Private Beach

Guest House (as if we didn't have enough)!!

1st Wake-up in Paradise!!

After a long day, we turned in early last night, and we're glad we did. The sun starts shining well before 6am and by 7am you'd think it was noon!! I guess that is a good way to keep from being a bum and sleeping all day!

We organized our closet. R has the top row, with H on the bottom, but R is not sure H packed properly...can you tell what she thinks she'll be doing for two years...

We had a great evening with R's new coworker and his wife, we are both really looking forward to getting to know them better over the coming months, although they don't arrive permanently until October.

We'll get some pics of our house uploaded today - you've got to see this place!

Sounds like everyone is meeting up for lunch in the rain forest at a place where you can feed pigs beer!! What an island!!

We made it!!!

It has been a busy last few days. Movers spent three days at the house packing things up and moving us out. The movers definitely had their work cut out for them, but things went pretty smoothly over all. We are having just under 500 pounds air shipped to us, which should be here in about two weeks. We have more items being sent over on a boat that will arrive in a couple of months. Most of our things will be stored in Dallas in a storage unit until we return. We are shipping one vehicle that should arrive in two to three weeks. Until then, we have a rental car to get us around the island.

We have had about one showing a day on our house since it went on the market Monday afternoon, and now need to decide between two offers. We are very thankful for that considering it has not even been on the market for a week.

We said goodbye to our car on Wednesday. The husband of the couple who bought it had a sweet Ferrari. He took R for a joyride and let us both sit in it and take a picture. It isn't every day that you will get the chance to sit in or ride in a Ferrari! It was pretty cool!

Talk about waiting until the last minute, about a half hour before the movers finished, and we went to the airport hotel for our flight out, R finally sold his motorcycle!! He was sad to see it go, but relieved that he got the deal wrapped up before we left.

We got a couple of memorable going away gifts. H's BFF's four year old wrote a sweet note to all of us. A few things he mentioned was that he hoped Sophie didn't poop in the sand, and that he hoped R didn't kick Sophie out =) So cute coming from a little guy. I think he is really concerned about Sophie! We also got one last going away meal from our neighbors...one of his famous steaks! They have been so helpful and we are so thankful to have them as neighbors. They also gave us a "contract" that said we had to return to our house in two years, so I guess we will be back in Allen in two years =)

So get this...last night as we are getting ready for bed at the airport hotel (turning in early as we had to be up at 5am to catch the flight) and had the news on the TV. The last bit of the show was the weatherman giving a hurricane update. Seems there is a tropical storm just east of, but heading westbound towards, St. Croix!!! The guy actually mentioned the Virgin Islands are in the storms' path!! What are the chances!! It is supposed to come through on Monday but at this point doesn't appear to be a major storm for us.

So today was the big day. As much as H has been worried about getting Sophie on the plane, it was no problem at all. They didn't as much look at her or ask a single question. She got to sleep in H's lap on both flights and she did so awesome! I'm not sure we want to try our luck again anytime soon, but we were so impressed at how smoothly things went.

We finally arrived at our tropical paradise. We had dinner with our new best friends for the next two years (the other new agent and his wife), and we have already found two hermit crabs crawling around near the house. They are fun because as you approach them they curl into their shell and fall over! Sophie wasn't sure what to think about those guys! Sophie has already taken a stroll along the shore at the house and gone for a dip in the pool! Now we are sitting here with the doors open and the ocean breeze blowing through the house listening to the waves crash on our private beach! We think we can handle this for two years...