Nicole and Trent's Birthday Bash

For Nicole and Trent's birthday, they decided to celebrate with a catamaran trip to the sister island, Nevis. Great idea, I say. (Thanks for the photos Nicole!)

Here come a few of the guests. See Matthew on the far left?

Headed to the Irie Lime. :)

Trent & Nicole

Hike to Mt. Liamuiga

Ooooooookay. Well, I never did document the week I spent in St. Kitts for Matthew's orientation. Procrastination kills motivation.

I am, however, going to work on documenting Matthew's exciting island activities whenever I can.

These photos are from Matthew's hike to Mt. Liamuiga. Credit goes to our friend, Tony, for the photos. He was nice enough to let me borrow them for this post.

Update—just a few days to go!

We head to St. Kitts in 2 days, 22 hours, 16 minutes, and counting...

I am happy to report that everything is falling together quite nicely. All that's left, is to pack and weigh our bags to make sure they don't go over the weight limit of 50 lbs per bag.

We started the packing process on Sunday, which may seem a bit premature, but when you're moving out of the country, it's probably a good idea not to wait until the last minute...right? Anyway, we picked out everything we thought we should or would want to bring. I was doing a good job of keeping what I wanted to pack to a minimum, but that soon ended once I found a tub of clothes in the back of our closet that I had not seen earlier. Oops! Matthew's clothes and school items are much more important than my vacay outfits (sigh), so we will pack his things first, and then I'll just fit in what I can. I suppose that's fair since he's moving there before me.

I did get a chance to set up the web cam and microphone for Matty's laptop, so he'll now be able to skype with me (and anyone else who wants to partake). I had never tried skype before, but my friends Holli and Andrea helped me out with it. It's going to be such a luxury to see each other even though we'll be in different countries. Thank you modern and innovative technology.

The next time I'll get to blog will probably be when we're on one of our flights...it's amazing to think that moment will be in just a few days!

Matthew's Future Island Apartment

We're this close to securing an apartment for Matthew. Yay! We're hoping to have all of the little, but very important, details taken care of by the end of this week. Once the apartment is officially his, I will allow myself to get a bit more excited about our trip.

The apartment is located in Frigate Bay, which happens to be our choice location. We're told that it's the safest part of the island, but we hear different things from different students all the time. However, the area is conveniently located by all of the shops, grocery stores, hotels, night life, restaurants, nicest beaches, etc. The only drawback is that Ross University is about seven miles away...so there's a little bit of a commute. The driving part might be a little tricky though because in St. Kitts you drive on the left side of the road, and the driver's seat is on the right side of the car. Yikes—I suggest lessons.

Here are some photos of Matt's future apartment. From the photos, it seems really small, and that's because it is. It's a one bedroom, one bathroom, pet-friendly rental with a washer AND dryer (yay!).*** Matt and I will see how small it really is when we visit in May, but we're not too worried about it. It will be a perfect spot for him, and once the dogs and I get to the island, we can look for something bigger and less expensive.



Front door to his apartment

Street view.

Backyard and view of the Atlantic Ocean in the distance.

Driveway.

Shared porch area with our neighbors.

Inside the apt...kind of small, but clean!

Another view of the inside.

***You may have read in a previous post that Matt was going to have a roommate to begin with, but that hasn't worked out as well as we had hoped. Shane, his would-be-roommate, may not be able to start school until September, so he told us to go ahead and find a place without him. If everything works out for him, and he does attend in May, he might end up being our future roommate again, but in September instead.

Surprise: NO ON-CAMPUS HOUSING

Okay...so it's Monday, and we've got 53 days left until we fly out to St. Kitts (according to my dashboard countdown widget).

Completing Matthew's to-do list for moving and beginning school in May has been going smoothly. He's gotten all of his vaccinations done, except for his Rabies titer—which he'll get done when he arrives on the island. We filed our taxes, completed the FAFSA, figured out our budget, and were about to give ourselves a pat on the back, when last Monday, we received an interesting little email from Ross University.

Due to some renovating, on-campus housing will no longer be available to the incoming Ross students for the May semester. Although we are getting our way, (because we had wanted to live off-campus from the start), this really just puts another few items on our checklist. Now we have to find a place to live as opposed to already having a place. We also now have to pay first month's rent and a deposit, whereas we didn't need to worry about that before. Fortunately, RUSVM has an off-campus housing department with plenty of housing experience. (Before the on-campus residences were built, all of the students were housed off-campus.) Having a department willing and able to find us housing makes me feel a bit better about the situation.

The dogs and I will still follow plan B, and not move down until September.  But don't worry about Matt.  I had screened a few of the incoming students and have found him a suitable roommate. (No, I am not a complete control freak...ha.) The roommate's name is Shane, he's 34, and actually a Naturopathic Doctor...so he's been through grad school once already. He seems to be laid back and serious about studying, which is perfect for Matthew. I had eavesdropped on their conversation (over the phone) last night, and it seems like they'll get along just fine. Having a roommate will help keep the rent and the utilities down, but it'll also provide a study buddy for Matthew. In addition to that, I will feel better knowing my husband isn't all alone in a foreign country.

Preparations

Only 72 days left until we leave for St. Kitts. As the time dwindles, we're realizing how much more we have to do...

One of the main things to complete is a long list of immunizations for things such as rabies and TB. They are no longer requiring an HIV test, which I thought was rather odd...but what do I know?  Not getting him tested is going to save us $20, so I'm okay with that. :)

Another to-do, is to apply for a bank account which seems simple, and should be, but we have to fill out the application now, or apparently we'll be bank-less with little to no money when we arrive. Yikes! I've also heard that people don't value or recognize urgency down there, so we should really get as much done before we get to the island...otherwise we'll be impatiently waiting for others to help us, and that could take a while.

We've also received miscellaneous emails regarding our pets and what we need to do to make sure they don't get deported upon arrival. We have to get them microchipped (mandatory!), apply for doggie licenses once we get to the island, gather their health records, etc. Thankfully we don't really need to complete this checklist until this summer since the dogs and I won't be moving until September. I've also heard a rumor stating that our dogs will have to be quarantined for a month before they can roam the island...not sure Milo or Trooper are going to like that.

I also wanted to share a few more photos.  The pictures below are of the various buildings for student on-campus living; one of them is a great view of the sea-side location.