Living in St. Croix – Instagram Photos

I know it has been a long time since I have updated the blog. We are still here and happy in St. Croix. Both happy we moved here and happy we built the house. The cottage rental is going well and it is a pleasure to meet our guests from all over the world. If you have questions about building you may find some answers in the comments of the individual posts.

If you are looking to stay with us at the St. Croix Ocean Vista Honeymoon Cottage you can find all the details here: http://www.homeaway.com/vacation-rental/p3020733

Since this site will not be updated regularly you can see some new photos from my Instagram feed below:

 

St. Croix – the 2 year update!

Ok – we moved here almost 2 years ago, and I have yet to post a single thing! Seriously, just getting here and everything that led up to that was so stressful that once we made it, I just wanted to enjoy it.

I looked back at some of my old posts (yes, from 3 years ago) and it’s so funny how my perspective of this island has changed after living here. Chad and I are so much more integrated into the community than we ever were in Dallas. It’s like a small town, and believe me, after growing up in a town with 1500 people, I know small towns. Sure, we have 50,000 people living on St. Croix, but you almost cannot go anywhere on this island without seeing someone you know – which I guess has benefits and drawbacks. You may not want to run into your loan officer after you just crawled out of bed and ran to the store to pick up milk, but on the other hand, if you really need help with something, chances are, you will know someone who can help you. Like when Chad broke his nose in a soccer game on a Sunday afternoon, we were on the phone with not one, but two plastic surgeons within thirty minutes. I wouldn’t have even begun to know how to contact one in Dallas.

Being involved in a small community has its other benefits. Reading my post “Running in the Virgin Islands,” I lamented the fact that there would not be any running programs here. Instead, I found a close-knit group to run and train with for the Chicago marathon last year, and I did better in that marathon than I did running with a large group in Dallas.

We’ve also become more involved here by giving of our time. I posted on “St. Croix Animal Rescue” and now I am on the Board for the shelter and Chad helped build their awesome new website. We even adopted the newest member of our family there because we fell in love with Gooch (and let’s be honest, he fell in love with us) the very first time that we volunteered at the shelter.

What else have we done? I am teaching yoga two days a week at Beeston Hill Fitness Center. (thanks for my incredible training, DYC!) Chad is playing soccer with Skills. (Soccer down here is not all like Dallas, or maybe I should say going to watch soccer here is not at all like Dallas.) I wish we could say that we spend every waking moment at the beach, but sadly, that is not the case.

I guess my point is that we have really invested a lot of time and energy into making St. Croix our home and it feels more like home to me than living in Dallas for 12 years ever did. Now if we could just actually build that home. More on that later . . .

The Rise of Island Girl – St. Croix

After checking out the Green Cay beach area with the dogs we decided to stop at the Brew Pub on the way back through town. Shortly after arriving a salvage boat showed up in front of us to rescue one of the 40+ boats that had been sunk during Hurricane Omar.  Here are a few of the photos:

If that is going too fast for you you can also check out the photos here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/chad.p.walter/IslandGirl?authkey=0adOEra0-I0#

Hurricane Omar Update #5 Friday at 3:30pm

Just wanted to let everyone know our power just came back on a little bit ago. Much of the island is still without power however so the 6:00pm curfew remains in effect.
The real reason for this one last update is to let you know that I added additional photos to what I put out there yesterday. Emily and I went into downtown Christiansted for lunch today. The “protected” harbor was a bit of a mess to say the least. According to the newspaper there were more than 40 boats that had sunk. The paper also mentioned reports of power lines snapping in half and most trees being uprooted on the southeast side of the island.

http://picasaweb.google.com/chad.p.walter/Omar?authkey=RQGAbo15uNQ#

Omar Update #4 12:30 pm (day after)

The damage from the storm doesn’t seem to be to terribly bad from my vantage point. I drove around a little while ago and there are many trees down all over the place, blocking roads, knocking down fences, etc, but that seems to be the extent of it, at least on my little area of the island.

I still don’t have power, hopefully later today. I saw crews out fixing downed lines.

Here are the photos I took this morning: http://picasaweb.google.com/chad.p.walter/Omar?authkey=RQGAbo15uNQ#

Omar

Omar Update #3 3:30am

The storm has passed and we are all fine. It picked up speed and moved through the area quicker than I initially expected. Omar turned into a category 3 and things were extremely loud and noisy from about 10:30 – 1:00. I was questioning whether the windows were going to hold with so much pressure put upon them. We got a bunch of water through our water facing windows (because they are crap), but other than that no issues inside the house. It is no longer raining so I walked down to the water (the sea is extremely loud at the moment) but it was hard to tell anything. Lots of palms and coconuts on the ground.

I lost phone service around 11:15 or so. Surprisingly that just came back up a little after 3:00.

No power yet but likely tomorrow at some point. Curfew in effect until 11:00 am.

Thanks for all the concerned emails and calls.

Maybe some aftermath photos to come tomorrow.