Delayed update

So, it's been crazy... isn't that everyone's excuse during the holidays...

random updates
***Christmas was strange with no family and no snow.... but the area around us is SOOOO decorated with lights and the most random Christmas Ornaments you can imagine. We had a table of present set up that our family sent us and our sole decoration was and advent calendar my mom sent. Christmas Eve we went to the 7:00 Family Service with two of our friends form work (Brent & Joslyn) and 12 other people - LITERALLY! We were going to go back to 11:00 but fell asleep. Christmas morning we opened up presents (we got some cool stuff - including a K-mart Gift Card and Rosholt Raiders sweatshirts to wear to the movie theatre!). We went the the Christmas Day service with about 250 other people - it was two hours long because of the Christmas pagent... and did i mention HOT??? THat afternoon we went to Brent & Joslyn's, ate a bunch of great food, came home and slept!

***Two days ago our sideview mirror got smashed by someone driving too close to our car... we picked Alison up from the airport... Wednesday our cats got out... Alison got Chloe back right away, but Gus had a day out in St. Thomas... he's back home safe now... i'm just finishing up with work... Alison's at Megan's Bay and Lando's at Trunk Bay... man, why am i the only one not at the BEACH???!!!

until next time... (and i'll put more pictures up then...)

The followup....

So I took a nap…

I slept like a rock for over two hours… very uncharacteristic, but it’s been a rough week… lets recap…

Like Lando said, we went to St. John where I attempted to lead Lando and Marcus on the Eco Hike tour our company does (minus all the really cool info. cuz I’m really bad at retaining that stuff.) Well as is very characteristic of me, we got lost… made several wrong turns… but in the end, we made it to honeymoon beach. On the Eco Hike tour we took a safari bus back to town, but not us… we walked the whole thing back! Great day, awesome food and beautiful ferry ride back to St. Thomas, but an exhausting day.

Marcus decided to move back home to Buffalo, so lost were all the efforts to help him get settled (by the way, that phone number I left is by now probably null and void so ignore).

The night before he left, we wound up taking Chloe to the vet for an emergency visit… she was howling all night the night before, we didn’t sleep much but we just thought it was those cat visitors they love so much. But by the time I got home that day she was acting really strange. We took her to the vet and determined that she was having a reaction to the flea medicine we gave her… so she got a shot in the butt, a bath and we were on our way back home.

NOT SO FAST!!! She was up howling the whole night! Which meant we were up the whole night… it was awful… she seemed like she was in so much pain. The next morning, Lando took Marcus to the airport at 7am and then we were back on the way to the vet. I dropped her off and went to work… later that day they told us she had some intestinal situation, probably also as a result of the flea stuff.

So she had some kitty Kaopectate, and has some pink liquid antibiotics we shoot down her throat with an eye dropper… she’s still acting strange, but she’s doing better, so we’ll see what happens… I just would love to have a full night of sleep!

Alison Strockowski (LCLC summer staffer) is on her way to visit just after Christmas which we are pretty excited about…. Unfortunately we have to work a lot, but she’ll have plenty to do! Today at Cost-U-Less we found Raspberry Lemonade Gatorade! I was super excited… Cat got me hooked on it this summer and I drink a lot of water during the day, so it’s nice to have a refreshing Gatorade to spice things up a little! THANKS CAT (anther LCLC summer staffer)!!!

I just finished reading the Poisenwood Bible… really good book… HIGHLY recommend it (so does Oprah). Grey’s Anatomy is a re-run tonite, so we can get to bed a little earlier tonite (although I’m alive and kickin’ cuz of that great nap!) Ah, so it goes…

Tomorrow is a slow day… I’m working the Carnival Destiny, which is full of people from Puerto Rico that just come over to shop and don’t want to do tours… not to mention the shore ex doesn’t really care about his job, so some days he doesn’t sell a single tour! Bottom line I’ll have plenty of time to pretend I’m busy or get sent on errands. Lando only has on St. John tour, so we should get out early….

Until next time……

Greetings. My turn to share some bloggage once again.

I’m currently sitting on the couch flipping between football and a Charles Bronson shoot ‘em up movie while I wait for a load of laundry to dry and recover from the disinfectant inhalation that made me feel like I had emphysema while I cleaned the bathroom. Didn’t you get the memo that it’s National Run-On Sentence Day? Anyway, Jaca’s taking a nappy, so what better time to share my immense intellect via the World Wide Web (whatever that means). Do you ever fear that the rest of the world will not catch your sarcasm in print? Thought so, just me.

As you may have guessed, we have today off. We went to church this morning and then wandered around downtown. We ate breakfast at a place called Gladys’ or Glady’s, depending upon where in the café you read the name. That’s cool, sometimes when I write letters to myself, I write about Landos’ toys as if I am really seventeen three year-old boys living inside a twenty-five year-old man’s body. (Don’t worry, nobody else understood that either.)

It’s fun walking around all the shops on days off, especially if there are only one or two ships in. The only downfall is that the jewelry store folk assume we are from the ships and that our only goal in life is to buy diamonds in St. Thomas. I’ve found that all the tourists think I’m a real-deal born in St. Thomas local and all the West Indian locals think I’m a fresh off the ship tourist. Most tourists associate South Dakota with never-ending winter and assume the only way I come by my blonde hair is being born in the Caribbean.

Since last Jaca wrote (does that phrase really make sense?), not much has happened. I very well could end this entry here, but of course I won’t.

We went to St. John on our last day off. As we’ve received requests to include more pics of us on the site, I’ll include a few from our St. John adventure. It was great. We checked out a trail that led to a secluded beach (that took us twice as long to walk as it should because we kept getting lost), stopped by the Caneel Bay Resort, had dinner at a place called J.J.’s Texas Coast, and took a moonlight ferry back home.

By the way, the weather’s not too shabby down here. Didn’t know if you picked up on that yet.

We went upstairs to a Christmas party for the church a few days ago. Of course, after forty seconds of greeting the adults, we gravitated towards the kids. I threw a game of Monopoly Junior and Jaca watched part of a movie with the little girls.

Last Friday night was cool. They had this thing called Miracle on Main Street (about a block from our house). There were a few steel drum bands, lots of Christmas lights, and kids doing some kind of strange line dance that looked like something out of Seven Brides For Seven Brothers.

Jaca’s awake now, so I think I’ll end this now. Hope you have a great week leading into Christmas!

Everybody loves a cat fight!

So the newest joy in our lives comes between 5 and 6 am each morning. It is then when Lando and I are awoken to the crashing, howling, and hissing of Gus and Chloe. They have found a friend who comes to visit them at various doors and windows… the only problem is Gus doesn’t take very kindly to these visits. Chloe then runs to find our what is going on and Gus gives her a piece of his mind… he’s very protective of Chloe.

So sleep has been something that I could really use more of… on the positive side of our two psycho cats is that they don’t let a single little critter, cockroach or lizard get very far. Yeah…. The other day we came home and found they caught their first lizard. Not only did they catch it, but they ate half of it… all we had to identify the body was the back two legs and the tail!

The other day we went to go see a play "It's a Wonderful Life" only we got there and it was all sold out, so we got tickets for Saturday night and went to see a movie instead... we went and saw "Walk the Line," which was REALLY good-and i don't even know that much about Johnny Cash (nor does anyone else on the island so we knew we had to see it quick, most movies don't last more than a week here.) The problem is that the Movie theater is literally like sitting in 30 degree weather... i was in long sleeves and jeans and i was still cold! i didn't bring warm enough clothes to enjoy a movie there, so i'm going to have to have my mom send us warm hoodies or something!

When we arrived at the movie theater to check the times, we had about an hour before the show, so we walked next door to the Kokopelli Cafe!!! I was super excited cuz i love Kokopelli's! They had a different explanation for what a Kokopelli is, which i thought was interesting... (Julie and Scott, when you guys come visit - we are SO going there!) It is a turly random place.. with an arcade, a pediatrician-like waiting room area for kids, a diner, bar and coffee house all in one.

Last night we got to see the play "It's a Wonderful Life," and it was really good - and i don't even know anything about the movie cuz i've never seen it! It was much better than this other play we went to see at the University of the Virgin Islands.... that theater was so warm and we were so unengaged in what was going on that Lando and i were both falling asleep.... so we left after the first half.... i felt really bad... i never do stuff like that.

Before "It's a Wonderful Life" we went to a place called "Jacks." Their slogan is, "If you haven't tried our wings, you don't know Jack." And they aren't kidding! Really good wings that totally rival Anchor Bar and Duffs - Steve or Jason Carrier will give the final verdict when they come visit.

The Christmas lights are up.... which is really cool since that is the way i'm used to seeing St. Thomas! Our LCLC trips would always begin the day after Christmas and while it is strange to see all the Christmas lights and decorations when it was 80 degrees, it is really pretty! It's made me really homesick for our LCLC trips - even trip three!


Tidbits: Gas is $2.87/gallon, we've had quite a bit of rain recently, Marcus got a cell phone (340) 344-1936-we all have the same kind, mine is pink, lando's is navy blue and Marcus has silver, our copy machine sounds like it's grinding a 5lb. bar of chocolate and my parents are coming to visit on the 19th of January! (My dad is super excited about the submarine ride! - remember that trip 3 folks!!!)

Guess that's it for now... we are off tomorrow and are hoping to go to St. John's to do some exploring, but Marcus is still job and apartment hunting, so we'll see.... until next time....

They are lighting a fake Christmas tree!

Wow, it's been awhile since i've been able to add to this.... it's cool to know so many people are reading it! Let's see, what happened since the last post?

Okay, so after Lando's day off, i had a day off... it worked out pretty well... i went to St. John's with him and got to see him do his thing as a tour guide - he's so cool - i can't believe i'm married to him sometimes! Anyway i left him once we got to St. John to go on the Eco Hike tour with a guy named Thunderhawk... interesting character that one... but the tour was really great! He took us along one of the many trails you can hike through because St. John's is mostly a National Park... he knows SO much information about every tree, bush and piece of history that goes along with it! The hike ends at Honeymoon beach witch is SO georgeous... all the tourists go to Trunk Bay cuz they don't know any better, but Honeymoom is really where you want to go to snorkel... Thunderhawk says all the tourists sunscreen has killed the reef over there.

What else... well Marcus moved here so the LCLC clan is slowly beginning to grow in number in the attempt to take over the island... (kidding)... but it's cool to have him here. We went up the Tram to Paradise Point to have lunch... great views... then we went to a beach by the airport to watch the sunset... the water was COLD! (We are so becoming locals).

Anyhow, i'm done with work... Marcus i watching me type... and Lando is on his way back from St. John's as we speak... Right here in Havensight (the area where my office is and the Cruise Ship Dock) are the Holiday festivities... all kinds of local bands, shops stay open late, all kinds of free food and drinks... SANTA is coming... and they are lighting the CHRISTMAS TREE!!! The thing of it is... IT'S FAKE!!! Oh well, i guess this is the island version of Rockefeller Center... what can you do.... later folks!

Jaca

Imagine a funny and witty title here...

Hello, my name is Lando. So nice to make your acquaintance.

It seems that Jaca has already shared all of the “real” info concerning our life down here. However, I feel obligated to put some words down as well. I guess that leaves some leftover randomness for me to share.

Today I have a day off. It’s been quite eventful—I washed the car, ran some errands, hit the library, and went all Martha Stewart on a turkey breast.

As I was flipping through channels this morning (where I eventually found Magnum P.I. on Fox…as you surely know, any day that includes Thomas Magnum is special), I saw my name on the bottom of the screen of The Maury Povich Show. I did a double take and wasn’t quite sure my eyes were telling the truth. It turns out, there was a dude named Lando on Maury Povich! Yeah, and that’s not all…apparently the dude was born a girl named Beth! (Yeah, I agree—slightly creepy.) Anyway, Beth had an operation that altered her gender and chose Lando as her/his new name. It’s the first time I’ve ever been close to face to face with another person named Lando. It’s kind of weird, but I guess it’s cool that of all the names in the world, he/she chose the name we now share. By the way, I recommend that unless you see your name on the bottom of the screen, you refrain from watching Maury Povich at all costs.

On a similar topic, Jaca and I saw Harry Potter the other night. I don’t want to ruin the movie for you, but Harry dies of tuberculosis. Sad but true. Fortunately for the survivors, Dumbledore brought two extra wagon tongues, so it looks like there’s hope for a happy ending after all.

Oh no! Magnum just put a dent in the Ferrari! (FYI, it’s now the afternoon, and this is a different episode…I know what you’re thinking—what a lucky duck I am! Two episodes of Magnum in one day!) He’s now stuck with a rental that is roughly the size of a golf cart…and Tom Selleck’s not a short fella. I’m sure you are rolling on the floor at the hilarity that is sure to ensue with this one! I know I am...or would be if this computer weren’t on my lappy.

Well, I’ve gotta run; time to put the turkey in the oven.

Later.