In 10 days I will be packing up to go to St. Maarten! I am so stinking excited about this. This will be my first official "island hop" vacation, my first girls trip abroad, and my first real vacation since Christmas of 2009. I wish we were going tomorrow!
Here are some reasons why I'm stoked for this trip:
watching The Hunger Games {they have movie theaters there!}
shopping at a mall
attending Kristen's wedding
good food
swim-up bar
white sand
I'm really proud of myself for earning the money for this trip through my design business. I can't think of a better way to reward myself for the hard work. Because whats the point of working if you don't get to spend some of your earnings on something nice for yourself?
And don't worry, I have some awesome guest posts lined up for you while I'm gone. Until then, I'm dreaming of St. Maarten.
It's a Kate Spade inspired Christmas! I just finished up my Christmas card and had it printed at the local printing shack. And by printing shack, I literally mean a one room shack.
Chris took his final today, and we are getting ready to head back to California tomorrow. Today has been full of packing, cleaning my closet, cooking the kitty food, etc. I am really looking forward to spending the night in a hotel tomorrow, and getting my first Starbucks in 6 months, and eating mexican food on Friday!
Speaking of Kate Spade, Fais over at aboutfais.com is having an awesome giveaway this week! You can enter to win this 2012 Kate Spade planner. Isn't it beautiful?
Next time you hear from me, I'll be back on American soil!
The alarm sounded early this morning to wake up and help my husband get ready to fly from Dominica to America. My body was really confused between "is it really late or really early?" Don't you hate that feeling?
Flying back and forth to the states is not cheap, it averages us about $1000 round-trip per ticket. This break, we decided that it was worth it for Chris to go back to take care of some legal business for us and to visit his mom because she's had a hard time since his dad passed away earlier this year.
So, I've got the house to myself for the next 10 days. I made this tour of our apartment a few weeks ago to help an incoming spouse decide if she wanted to move in here (she did!).
I'm pretty sure that someday I will look back on our time in this little apartment fondly. There is something to be said for the simplicity of life in a 500 square foot home: or at least that is what I keep telling myself.
I'm back in good ole Dominica after just barely catching my flight from LAX as I sat at the gate listed on my ticket, not the actual gate the flight was leaving from. When I was a kid, flying was so exciting. As an adult, it's tolerable at best mostly due to red-eyes, screaming children, and overly crowded airports.
Homework is calling my name, but I thought I'd share this hilarious blog post from Brandi. Everything she says is right on the money.
Besides getting to see a friend that I've missed dearly, one of best things about having Kristen visit is that it makes me see Dominica with fresh eyes again. It's easy to forget how beautiful it is here.
Pagua Bay was super accomodating and opened early for us to have some coffee and breakfast before lending us some of their floaties and boogie boards and sending us down to their beautiful beach.
We love this beach because you can get in the ocean and play, and then go over to the freshwater river to clean off. It's a great combination of the warm ocean water and cold freshwater. And boy did Kristen need to clean off after her mud bath adventure!
Our favorite driver, Bruno, came with us down to the beach for once!
After tiring out from all the water play, we all went back to Pagua for lunch and then to the airport to see Chris off. He was on standby, so we hung out at a local bar until we were sure he was on the plane.
Like always, AA overbooked the flights. Every room at Pagua was filled the night before with students who were told there were no seats left on the plane (even though they had a confirmed ticket). Somehow, Chris made it on, and we headed back.
Today is Kristen's birthday, and we are heading to my favorite island spot for drinks and sunbathing.
So begins Semester 2. We are happy in our new apartment, and the weather has been fantastic. I can even walk to school without sweating! The kitties got a new a scratching tower, made by Bruno.
Portsmouth Harbor at Sunset
After all the traveling we did, it's really nice to be back here on the island. Especially because my wonderful Mom bought me a ticket home for the month of June. It makes the next year seem so much more manageable. Now, back to school work.
This weekend there was a party for the 4th semester spouses because they are in their last semester here and will move back to the states at Christmas. They are counting down the days.
5 of these wonderful girls are leaving :(
It was pointed out to me today that I have 400+ days left on the island. So I'm not exactly in countdown mode yet BUT it is only 41 days until I get to come back for a visit! I can't wait for a Red Cup, Chipotle, and In-n-out. Our tentative holiday plans look like this:
December 20: Overnight in Miami ((Starbucks at Airport))
December 21-24=3: Los Angeles
December 24-29: Atwater
December 30-January 2: San Diego
January 3-4: Upland
January 5: Los Angeles
January 6: Overnight in Puerto Rico ((One Last Starbucks))
I would love to see friendly faces if your Holiday plans mesh with ours!
Before we got here, we had to leave our house. That was the worst bit of this whole thing. Super hot, super sweaty, super tricky to get everything we own into one upstairs storage unit. The last two nights, I got about 2 hours of sleep because there was no time to stop. It had to get done and it did. Rodney Atkins says it all:
If your going through hell
Keep on going, don't slow down
If you're scared don't show it
You might get out
Before the devil even knows you're there
Yeah, If you're going through hell
Keep on moving, face that fire
Walk right through it
You might get out
Before the devil even knows you're there
Love that song. By the time we left, the house looked amazing. It is a night and day difference from when we moved in. Our tenant is one lucky guy, and we are one lucky set of landlords to have him. Here are some before and after pictures of our home.
After the carpets were cleaned and I handed my keys over to our Realtor, it was off to the airport for us. Chris dropped the Shelby off at his parents and then we went to the bank and took out a huge chunk of our savings in cash for the trip and to get our bank account started here. Then we headed to my sister Julie’s house, cats and all. Thankfully, the cats and carrier weighed exactly 20.0 pounds (see last post).
So with the kitties in tow, off we went to the airport still stuffing things into every last nook and cranny of our luggage. Chris even put on two shirts and was stuffing shorts into his sweatshirt pocket. Little did we know, the airline wasn’t even going to check if we had less than 70 pounds of luggage. After all that careful planning and weighing, we could have brought 30 more pounds each! *sigh* I’m sure that if we had packed 100 pounds of luggage each, we would have been held to the 70 pound rule, as life often does. Thankfully, Chris got to unload his pockets and extras into the luggage before it got sent off.
When we got to security, they told us we would have to take the cats out of their carriers and walk them through the metal detectors while they x-rayed the carrier and our luggage. Thank goodness we were prepared for this with harnesses! My mom is a genius for thinking of this ahead of time. The kitties made it through just fine, and back into their crate they went for another... 24 hours or so. If you can believe it, they were quieter than any of the children on board the planes. No one even knew they were there! And, no, neither of them had any “accidents.”
The flight from LAX to Miami was quick and easy. I slept pretty much the whole time until the captain came on the next morning saying that Miami was currently closed due to weather and we would be circling until it cleared. Great. A few minutes later the captain comes on again and says that our fuel light is on and we are being diverted to Alabama, or something like that. Fantastic. Then, on he comes again, but with good news! We are landing, but nearly an hour later than scheduled. Off we run to the next terminal to catch our next flight to Puerto Rico which leaves in 30 minutes. The last ones on the plane, they take Chris’s carry-on and without checking put down Puerto Rico as it’s final destination. So, once we landed Chris had to go out through the airport to baggage, find his luggage, and go back through security.
Finally, we made our last flight to Dominica on a teeny tiny plane. Customs was easy, it was even smaller than at Cabo. Of course, none of our checked baggage made it, but we were kind of prepared for that, and we eventually got it two days later on Saturday.
The first thing I have to say about the island is: It’s Hot! Not California dry hot, but out of control, dripping sweat, feels like you’re in a sauna hot. I’m sure I’ll adjust but it’s my biggest obstacle right now. Walking anywhere is just torture. There is no point in putting make up on, because it’s going to melt off. No point in doing your hair, because it’s going to be dripping with sweat in 10 minutes. God bless the people who have lived their whole lives here.
Our apartment here is actually pretty nice, now that we’ve moved. We spent the first 2 days in a middle floor apartment that was pretty small, but then our landlord suggested that we move to the top floor for $50 more a month to a much bigger place. Not only is it bigger, but it’s nicer with a full sized stove, working windows, a bigger bed, 2 closets, and a vanity. These seem like insignificant things until you don’t have them! Here's a video of our new place.
Pretty much, island life has been about survival for the last week. Getting the cat’s food (frozen ground beef), finding a litter box (literally a box of sand from the beach), learning to use a match to light the propane stove, figuring out what to do when your propane runs out halfway through cooking dinner, and more significantly getting Chris ready to start school with all the orientation stuff and check in’s, etc.
I’m going to be glad for things to settle down next week when his classes start. Maybe I can find a groove here. And after the groove, maybe a part time job or school. We’ll just have to see!
It took about 2 hours of talking to people to finally book our tickets to Dominica this morning. In my experience, people either want to help you, or they don't. You have to find the right person sometimes to get things to work out in your favor. This morning, the first girl I talked to was not interesting in working with me and helping. She was helpful in picking the flights, but when it came to adding the cats to the flight she stopped being helpful. The computer wouldn't let her add the cats and she basically said we could not bring our pets into the country. I know that to be false and I told her as much, but she didn't want to listen. I asked her to please ask her manager and after 5 minutes on hold she said that she still could not book us the ticket with the cats because the last leg of the flight, from Puerto Rico to Dominica doesn't allow pets in the cabin. But that didn't make sense because I had read several stories of people bringing their pets on the airplane to Dominica. So.. after a frustrating few minutes of arguing with the girl that yes, people do bring their pets I finally put the tickets on hold. Then I started looking into pet shipping services and those cost about 1500 for 2 cats. Which just made me even madder, and so I called the airline back hoping for a more kind agent. This time, I hit the jackpot. Not only did this agent want to help me, but her niece is actually going to Ross University right now for veterinary medicine! She got the computer to override the 'no cat' policy, and bang! we have 2 tickets to DOM with 2 pet reservations.
A harrowing morning on the phone, in 100 degree weather with my laptop burning on my legs and my phone plugged into the wall while i'm leaning over trying to get this all finished.
Hi, my name is Katie! I'm a lover of graphic and web design, educator, and live in the CaribbeanCalifornia Michigan with my med school husband & our kitty cat. Life isn't perfect, but it's wonderful!
