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)!