Stacey Visits Saint Kitts

I met my friend, Stacey, at Grand Valley State University in 2003. We lived next door to each other in the teeny tiny dorms on-campus, and became fast friends. Almost ten years later, we've maintained our college-initiated friendship, with quite a lovely history---if you ask me. We've been roommates, involved in each other's weddings as bridesmaids, and we've even worked together. However, these days we're forced to watch each other grow and experience life from afar...literally. 

After Stacey was married, she and her husband moved to Ohio, bought a house, and had a baby. A few years after Matthew and I were married, we up and moved to the Caribbean. While our lives have gone in completely different directions, it's always been easy for us to pick up wherever it was we last left off. So, when Stacey said she was planning on coming to visit me in St. Kitts, I was ecstatic! I hadn't seen her since New Year's Day 2011. I was really looking forward to reconnecting and catching up with her. And that we did!

She arrived on a Wednesday afternoon, and Matthew and I met her at the airport. Unfortunately, I had to go to work from 2:30-5:00 p.m., so I had to part ways shortly after our initial reunion. But don't worry—Matty kept her busy during the few hours I was away, showing her around, and giving her a brief tour. Once I arrived home, I made dinner, and we spent the evening catching up. We chatted about everything: work, school, family, friends, neighbors, sports, books, movies, current likes and dislikes—you name it. It was a great start to her vacation, at least for me. :) 

On Thursday, we spent some time at my friend's gorgeous infinity pool, and later that night we brought Stacey to Bombay Blues for her first Indian cuisine experience. Of course, we ordered her the butter chicken, bismati rice, and butter naan. NOM NOM NOM.

Friday was a busy day, but definitely fun. I brought her to Caribelle Batik at Romney Manor, Palm Court Gardens, Port Zante in Basseterre, and The Strip (for Friday night beach volleyball). We rounded out the night at Reggae Beach Bar for Lobsterfest, where we dined on lobsters the size of our arms!

Saturday was spent at Shipwreck Beach. We soaked up some vitamin D, went snorkeling, and enjoyed the beautiful island views. That night, even though semi-exhausted, we decided to head over to The Marriott. After the tour, we sat at the sports bar and enjoyed a few Caribbean beers, along with the live Calypso-esque music. We also took part in one of our all-time favorite activities: PEOPLE WATCHING. Free entertainment at its best, folks.

On Sunday, Stacey joined me and Matthew at our intramural flag football games. And she even participated! Afterwards, I drove her out to the peninsula to Spice Mill Restaurant. We had lunch, and then admired a lovely view of Nevis while out on our beach chairs. We had a late start to our 'beach day,' but it was still very enjoyable.

Monday was sad. It was sad because she flew off de island that day. But before I dropped her off at the airport and choked back my tears, we enjoyed one last lunch date at the The Marriott's Bohemia Beach Pool Bar & Grille. We even kicked off our shoes, and walked on the beach for a bit.

After lunch, we went back home, and I helped her pack. Then the inevitable arrived, and I had to bring her to the airport. It was a quick goodbye because I couldn't handle much more than a hug and a wave. I sobbed on my way home. Stacey coming all the way to St. Kitts to visit meant so much, and it was like having a small piece of 'home' with me for a few days. I loved being able to show her around, as well as introduce her to our island family and closest friends. We definitely squeezed in a ton of quality time, and I couldn't have been happier. What a blast!

@ Timothy Hill scenic turn-out.

We wear our sunglasses at night.

Stace posing by a Traveller's Palm.

Nice photo...except for Matthew's lovely addition.

Dressed and ready for dinner. 

@ Caribelle Batik

Jurassic Park.

@ Palm Court Gardens 

@ The Strip for Friday night beach volleyball. 

Go, Stace, go! 

{Conversations}

Matty and I recently had a visitor from the Mitten. Stacey, who I met in undergrad, came to visit us for five days, and we had a fabulous time. I promise to blog about her vacation soon. In the mean time, please enjoy this {Conversations} segment.


{Conversations} Part I:

Me: Okay, I picked up wings for appetizers. We can snack on these while I make pumpkin soup and grilled cheese sandwiches.

Matthew: That's...a lot of food. We should just have the soup and the wings.

Stacey: I don't care what you do. I'm good with whatever.

Me: Uhhh, we're having sandwiches too, Matthew. Deal with it.

A few minutes later...

Me: Uhhh, we're not going to have sandwiches after all. I'm okay with just soup and wings.

Matthew & Stacey: What made you change your mind?

Me: I just got scared that I wouldn't be able to eat a piece of chocolate cake if I made us the grilled cheese portion. Priorities, you know?



{Conversation} Part II:

Stacey skyped with her parents one evening to check in and tell them about her vacation adventures.

Stacey: Mom! I snorkeled today and it was so cool. I saw a lot of sea creatures. At first I wasn't sure how I would do with snorkeling because of the mouth breathing, but I did just fine. Remember the last time I went snorkeling? What a disaster!!

Laura (Stacey's mom): No.

Stacey: Uhhh hello! It was when we went on that cruise, and I had an asthma attack and you had to pull me out of the water. That's when we found out I was asthmatic!

Laura: Stacey...that wasn't snorkeling. You were in ten inches of water.



Hope you enjoyed. I'm still laughing as I read these... ;)

The Rest of April Break

Once we arrived back in St. Kitts from Puerto Rico, our friends, Tiff & Matt, picked us up from the airport. And Milo and Trooper were with them! We had such a lovely time exploring another island in the Caribbean, but it felt good to be home. I definitely missed my furry duo.

We spent the next week reading, relaxing, beaching, eating, and spending time with Tiffany, Matthew, and her parents, Richard & Carolyn. Fun times were had by all, and it was a lovely two week break.

Matty @ Shipwreck.

Another day @ Shipwreck.

I believe he's reading, "The Hunger Games," in this photo.

I was reading, "The Shadow of the Wind."

Rain headed our way...

One afternoon, Matty and I went on a hilly walk/hike. 

It's not a semester break without karaoke @ Bobsy's. 

Thanksgiving Weekend and Special Visitor

For Thanksgiving this year, Rhiannon and Lindsay, invited us to their house to celebrate. Everyone brought a dish to pass and we feasted like fatty fatties! I failed to get a group photo, but there were about twenty of us for dinner. It was a super relaxing evening. Although we missed our traditional Michigan Thanksgiving, as well as the company of our close family and friends, we still managed to enjoy ourselves. Not to mention that Sami surprised Rhiannon and flew in from Florida for the Thanksgiving weekend! Wahoo!

The rest of the weekend involved a trip to Fat Tuesday, the usual Friday night volleyball matches down at The Strip, dinner with Rhiannon, Sami, Tiffany, and Matthew at Pub on the Side, and shots at Bobsy's!

Heading to Fat Tuesday for an after-school cocktail. Holla!

Sami, me, and Matty

Rhiannon, Matty, and Sami

Tiffany and the bear/monkey from Pub on the Side. LOL!

Shots at Bobsy's! Matthew looks excited...Rhiannon looks nervous. Hahahaa!

Visitors from the Mitten: Rochelle & Matthew

My friend, Rochelle, and her husband, Matthew, paid us a visit in early June. They arrived on-island June 5th, and departed June 11th. Daytime activities included trips to different beaches on the island, as well as to the Calypso Bay pool, (thanks to Tiffany), and to the Marriott pool. One day we went to Port Zante so they could do some touristy shopping, and while there, I took the initiative to show them around Basseterre. Another afternoon was spent at Ross University so I could show them Matthew's school and bring them down to the beach so they could look for conch shells and coral.

Nighttime fun involved trips to Bamboo Lounge, SoBe, Bobsy's, The Blue Martini, and the Marriott Casino. My Matthew brought her Matthew nighttime fishing on Tuesday and Thursday, leaving Rochelle and I to fend for ourselves. We spent one of the evenings at the local theatre. There, we laughed our heads off watching, The Hangover 2. While the boys were out fishing for the second time, I brought Rochelle to Shiggidy Shack and to Ziggy's for a couple of beers. While at Ziggy's on The Strip, we were asked by a local if we had ever seen 'snow' in the Caribbean. We told Slicky Ricky that we weren't interested. Oy vey.

On their last night, (Friday), the four of us went to Timothy Beach to hang out. We spent some of our time at Ziggy's enjoying a few beers before dinner at Sunset Cafe where we met up with Tiffany, and her boyfriend, Matthew. Yeah, that's right—three different Matthews.

The weather was fairly cooperative while our guests were here. We only had one rainy day and one super gray day. The rest of the week started out kind of overcast, but became bright and sunny by mid-morning. We also ran into some island adventures with our piece-of-crap-rental-car, but we survived. I was happy to see familiar faces from the Mitten, and it was enjoyable for me to share with them our interesting lifestyle. We exposed them to some of the ridiculous challenges that are involved with living on an island: inflated grocery store prices, insanely high electricity bills, crappy cars, the slums of St. Kitts, the culture, not having a variety of anything, etc. On the other hand, we also managed to share with them our love for our new home, and some really beautiful scenic areas. Overall, I think they had a nice, relaxing vacation.

Enjoying Tiffany's infinity pool. :) 

Rochelle, the Bronzed Goddess. 

Matthew and Rochelle with their beach findings.

Of course, we had to sing karaoke at Bobsy's!

Blue Martini dance floor.

Shots!

At Gong Beach

Me, Tiff, and Chelle at Timothy Beach.

Matthew...CUBED!

Hellllllooooo, June

Umm...it's June. CRAZY! I have been living in Saint Kitts for almost six months. That's half of a year. I guess it's true when they say your time on this island flies by very quickly.

A few changes that are worth noting...

POOL TIME: Tiffany moved to Calypso Bay, so we girls find ourselves at her infinity pool often. Can you blame us? It's gorgeous!

Here's Em enjoying the pool. 

Em, Me, Tiff, and Di

I STARTED TUTORING: Yes, that's right. Me, a teacher...sort of. I help this woman and her son with their English skills once a week. It's been going really well so far, and it gets me out of the house. 

VOLUNTEERING: Along with tutoring, I started volunteering at Ross' prep school. And I have even "substituted," once. I basically just help out in the daycare and with the preschoolers. What's happening to me, you ask? I'm not sure...but I do like the kiddies. There's a little girl named Lyla that makes my heart melt and another little girl named Ava that I just adore. Both of them are about three years old, and they're such nice little girls. My friend Jessie has her son, Beau, enrolled in preschool, and he's the cutest little boy. He's blonde with long hair and bangs. Too adorable. Another little one that I tend to help with, is little baby Alyssa. She is about three months old, and although adorable---she's a little fussy---so I spend a lot of my time making sure she's not screaming. I know, I know---what a change of pace for me, right? OHHHHH, that reminds me. I changed a diaper for the first time the other day. What the...hahhaaa. :)

I GOT THE FEEVAH: Well, what I really mean is that Matthew diagnosed me with Dengue Fever. Click here for the official Wiki description. I started feeling not-so-amazing last Friday, and am now almost back to normal (it is now Wednesday). I experienced chills, a fever, night sweats, fatigue, chest pain, serious loss of appetite, difficulty with breathing deeply, headaches, sore eyeballs (weird, I know), stiff and sore joints, etc. 

ISLAND DEPARTURES: Janae and Erin both left Saint Kitts this week. Erin and her husband, Dan, departed on Sunday. Janae, Andrew, and their two boys, Raymond and Henry, flew out on Tuesday. I'm going to miss both of these ladies oh so much. I am wishing them much luck and love with their new chapters in life.

One of the first nights of our shenanigans. :)

Janae and me at my birthday lime. :)

THE HEAT: Oh boy has it been hot. Summer is here, and although I feel like I've acclimated to the heat pretty well, I can definitely tell that we've had an increase in temperature. 

RUNNING: Last week, Tiffany and I started running about two miles every evening...until I got sick on Friday. I have yet to get back into the swing of things, but we're hoping to start again as soon as I feel 100% back-to-normal. 

CAR: The transmission in our car died in late February...and we still do not have our car back from our mechanic. Talk about island time because it is now June. OISK!

VISITORS: My girlfriend, Rochelle, and her husband, Matthew, are flying into Saint Kitts on Sunday. I am so excited to see familiar faces from home.

A photo of me and Rochelle from Nov 2009.

YOGA: On Monday, I went to Jessie's yoga class. She holds it Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 11:30 a.m. for about half an hour. Yoga has been something I've always avoided because I'm not flexible and those stretching positions hurt. BUT---as I've gotten older, I'm a little bit stiffer when I wake up in the mornings, and my muscles just seem so tight and uncomfortable. I'm hoping that yoga will help with my inevitable aging. 

CANINE: I met the biggest dog ever.

The photo does little justice to this canine's true size.

OCEAN MOVES: I started working on my underwater tricks.

See me in the middle? With the kinked leg? Yeah...I've got a lot of work to do.

PAINTING: Painting my fingernails and toenails, that is. In the US, that was one glamorous task I avoided. Mainly because I never had the time or patience to do it. Well...now I have all the time in the world. I'd like to state that my painting abilities have seriously improved. Yay!

Thong Spotting at Shipwreck Beach

St. Kitts is a tourist hot spot, and people from all over the world visit this tropical island. Who can blame them? The beaches and scenery are beautiful, the history of the island is very interesting, and the weather is fabulous. However, my poor eyes are sometimes traumatized due to daring tourists...

Male beach goers spotted at Shipwreck Beach.

The In-Laws Pay a Visit to the Rock

Matthew's mom, dad, and sister flew into St. Kitts on February 25th, and they left on March 4th. I think that, ideally, they wanted a relaxing and low maintenance vacation. I'd say they received the opposite...

They arrived on Friday, and after hunting them down at the Marriott, we found them at the Pizza Shack. We were really excited to see them, and it was so comforting to see familiar faces. Since their plane came in at about 4:00 p.m., we didn't plan to do anything that night because they were pretty exhausted. They had driven to Chicago on Thursday and boarded their flight at 5:00 a.m. Friday morning. However, Matthew and I were able to persuade his sister, Nicole, to go out with us. As you might know from previous posts, Fridays tend to be the night to go out; we just couldn't let Nicole miss out on a typical Friday night on the island. So after we dined on a couple of pizzas in their hotel room, we headed to The Strip.

When we arrived, we skipped Ziggy's because it was completely dead, and we walked down to Elvis'. There, we found a small grouping that hadn't left the beach since volleyball earlier that afternoon. Usually people will hang out for a while after the volleyball matches, but eventually, they head home, change, and return to The Strip. This grouping, however, never left, and didn't seem to have plans to leave any time soon. Thus, we found our entertainment for the early evening hours. We ended up staying at Elvis' until the wee hours of the morning; we had a blast!

Nicole and Matthew

Our friends: Taylor, Emily, Ryan, and Brittany.

Eventually, we became the entertainment...it happens.

On Saturday, we took Matthew's family to a beach called Shipwreck. We spent most of the afternoon there. We snorkeled a little bit and soaked up some sun. Unfortunately, we were given terrible service at the restaurant, and the food wasn't that great. Also---they only accept cash. For being a tourist hot spot, you'd think they'd accept credit/debit cards too.

Sunday was a funday! We went charter fishing on the Caribbean side of the island. Nicole reeled in a King Fish and I reeled in a Black Finn Tuna. We also saw dolphins, which made the trip for me. They were racing our boat and showing off. It was amazing! When the trip was over, we took our fish home. Mathew prepared us a delicious fish dinner and we all sat around talking about the day, while eating our fill of yumminess.

Fish on!

View of St. Kitts from our boat.

Our fish. :)

Monday was a day full of sightseeing. We took the clan on a tour to see Ross University's campus, Caribelle Batik, Brimstone Fortress, and we drove them around the entire island.

What I really liked about the Ross tour was that Matthew brought us down to an area on campus that had a path which lead to the coast. It was called, Stairway to the Sea. I had never been down there, so it was a treat for me too.

Beautiful rocky beach sprinkled with conch shells. 

At the bottom of the stairway was this gazebo-like structure. Great little hideaway.

Our next stop was at the Caribelle Batik, which is located at the historic Romney Manor. I had never been to this place before, and was ecstatic that we'd be visiting. The little store creates their own wall hangings, clothing, and accessories using an interesting process involving dying and waxing. The grounds of Romney Manor are also very beautiful. For more information check out this link: http://www.caribellebatikstkitts.com/

Some of the products inside of the Batik.

A 400 + year old tree on the grounds of Romney Manor.

After we finished strolling through the botanical gardens of Romney Manor and doing a little shopping, we hopped back into our car, and began the drive to Brimstone Fortress. According to http://www.brimstonehillfortress.org/, the Fortress was constructed intermittently between the 1690s and 1790s, is of singular importance as being the remains of a large, complete military community of the 18th century. As such, it is a veritable time capsule of international significance.

Matty's fam seemed to really enjoy the fortress—who wouldn't? It's an amazing place to visit and it holds a lot of history for St. Kitts. We concluded the day with a drive all the way around the rest of the island, which didn't take too long. Haha. Remember, St. Kitts is twenty-eight miles long and five miles wide (at its longest and widest points).

Tuesday was a lazy day. Matt went back to school, and it was up to me to entertain the fam. I met them at the Marriott around 1 p.m. and we headed to Port Zante to do a little tourist shopping. While there, Nicole was able to take a photo with a few of the Green Vervet monkeys.

On Wednesday, I brought them to Whitehouse Bay, off of Christophe Harbour to do a little snorkeling. Although I was able to show them a shipwreck, it wasn't very sunny and the water was atypically chilly for an afternoon in the Caribbean. We cut the trip short due to eerie feelings of being in dark water. HAHA. On the way home, we made a pit stop at Timothy's Beach to look for shells and to relax. By that time, the sun decided to come out.

Thursday involved a trip to the IGA, our local grocery store. One thing I really liked about his family visiting us, was that they were able to do "touristy" sightseeing, as well as get a small taste of what it's like to actually live in St. Kitts. We didn't shield them from the shacks, questionable scents from downtown, insanely high prices for groceries, crazy/risky/dangerous drivers, etc.

On Friday, they flew back to the US. Of course the transmission went out on my car on the way to the airport. Oh, and our battery was stolen while the car was on the side of the road before our mechanic could tow it to his place. However, they didn't miss their flight and they arrived home all in one piece.