Deck the hummer halls!

It seems mama hummer has decided to deck the halls! I noticed this evening she's placed some greenery on the front of her nest, I think it might be a Christmas wreath or perhaps it's her Christmas tree  ...  it's soooooooo cute!

In other events here in paradise, last night I noticed what looked like a big black butterfly fluttering around our back porch. It landed and I grabbed my camera and snapped some photos. I was really surprised to see the intricate designs and beautiful colors of this critter in the close up shots. Turns out it's some kind of moth, and one of the local gecko's decided to check it out. Apparently when the gecko was close enough to see clearly, he decided to high-tail it out of there, a little too big for his dinner plate I suppose. When the moth decided to take flight, it fluttered around the porch light, capturing the attention of a couple of our cats, they were ready to pounce. I quickly ran indoors, grabbed my butterfly net, yes, I really have a butterfly net, but that's for catching sick kittens ... another story for another time. I flung the net over the moth, and then stood there ... not sure what to do next. HONEYBUNCH to the rescue! Rudy carefully captured the moth inside the net and we took him out to the front porch and set him free. Awwwwwww ... I love happy endings!

The Adventures of Maully & Mr. Stinkers

Hummingbird video

And then there were 2!

I'm sooooo eggcited!

YIPPPPPPEEEEEEEEE! She did it, Mama Hummer laid her first egg, and it's a beaut! I noticed yesterday and today she was still adding more bits and pieces to the nest. When I checked this morning I was so surprised to see she'd laid an egg. Perhaps, if I give her some privacy, she'll lay another egg or 2.

5 years ago!

Holy Cow! 

It was 5 years ago today, I moved to paradise! Seems like only yesterday I was packin' up my dog, Shilo, my cat, Mr. Stinkers, and my worldy possessions and headin' for St. Croix. Time flies, I'm definitely havin' fun!

Catching up

    

HOLY COW ... I've been back for 2 weeks and the time is flyin' by!

It's another beautiful day here in paradise, warm already, with pretty blue skies and puffy white clouds ...

Observed at: St. Croix, Virgin Islands Elevation: 62 ft / 19 m

82 °F / 28 °C Partly Cloudy

Time to get showered and head to Cane Bay for breakfast. It's a great day for hittin' the beach, perhaps we'll take the pups for a short road trip later today.

BIG NEWS: The hummingbird has continued building the nest on the front porch, I'm SOOOOOOOOOOOO excited! I'll be checking for eggs and takin' pictures. I think the little hummer used some of the dryer lint I put out for it ... awwwwwwwww, so cute.

Enjoy the day, more later!

Sittin' in Miami airport

That means I'm almost home .... YIPPPPPEEEEEEE! One more plane ride and I'll be in beauuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful St. Croix .... hallelujah ... yabba-dabba-dooooooooo and woooooooohooooooooooo!

Sittin' in another airport

I'm sitting in the DFW airport, patiently awaiting my next flight to Miami. No place to plug in, I better keep this one brief.

It was a good flight from PDX to DFW, I caught some good Z's and I bet I'll be catching some more between Dallas and Miami. I've got time for breakfast, I guess I'll wander around and see what sounds appealing this morning. Caffeine would probably be a good thing right now, I don't want to fall asleep in a corner and miss my flight, KWIM?

Alrighty, tallyho!

Sittin' in the airport

I'm sittin' in the PDX airport, on the floor, plugged into an electrical outlet ... my laptop, not me. It's very quiet here, a good time of day/night to be flying. I'm looking forward to a nice long nap on the plane.

It was a really great visit here, it's always a little sad when I say goodbye to my Mom & Dad when they drop me off at the airport. They'll be coming to St. Croix for their annual visit in March, so it's all good.

I just called Rudy, to see what he's doing ... it's about 2:00 a.m. there, and he's sleeping! I hope he gets back to sleep easily, he did sound pretty sleepy. I can hardly wait to jump him in the STX airport and give him a big huge hug and a big ol' kiss. OH BOY!!!  Alrighty, time to put my stuff away and get ready to board the plane. Zzzzzzzzz ....Zzzzzzzz.

Time to head back to STX

It's almost time to jump on the plane and head back to St. Croix, the time has passed so quickly here. I've REALLY enjoyed spending quality time with my Mom & Dad ... we do have fun together; we spend a lot of time laughing .... at anything and everything ... GOOD TIMES!

Time to head for the airport ... more later

Beautiful weather at the Oregon coast

8th Annual Mother/Daughter beach trip was lots of fun. More details to follow ... later

Brrrrrrr ...

Nuff said!  

Dateline: Paradise in Portland, Oregon

Yahooooooooo ... I'm in Oregon, enjoying the gorgeous fall colors, and cool autumn temperatures ... Note to self: buy some big warm socks today.

 

I arrived yesterday, after an overnight stay in Dallas, TX. It was nice to break up the flying into 2 parts. It was sooooo nice seeing all the beautiful fall colors as the plane descended in PDX ... very pretty. I noticed, as the plane taxied up to the terminal, all the airport staff on the runway area were bundled up in big, heavy, warm clothes ... not accustomed to seeing that! Glad I found my supply of winter clothes; I like wearing warm, fuzzy sweaters and jeans. I'll adjust to wearing shoes vs. sandals ... that's something my feet don't care for, they really prefer to be bare or not suffocating in closed shoes for long periods of time.

 

Today my Mom and I will go by my house and take a little peek; ensure the current tenant isn't tearing the place apart ... not worried about that. Then perhaps we'll do a little shopping. Yesterday we ventured out and I drove and never once did I find myself driving in the left lane ... not even once. My mantra: stay to the right, stay to the right, stay to the right.

 

So the weather here is cool and crisp ... but feels downright   cold to me, I'm enjoying the change. Back in my other paradise, my Honeybunch said there was a HUGE thunder and lightning storm last night .... louder than ever! And rain aplenty, with more to follow. I just hope they don't have a hurricane without me.

 

Time to hit the shower and get the day started. I'll take some pictures of the pretty colors and other stuff here in PDX and post them later, it's really green and pretty here.

 

I miss my HoneyBunch!

Happy Friday the 13th!

It's a great Friday in paradise! We started off the day by turning off the alarm and snoozin' for an extra hour and a half or so ... WOOOOOOHOOOOOO and HUBBA HUBBA ! Normally we're up between 4:30 and 5ish and exercising at 5:30. This was a much better way to start the day.

 

This weekend HoneyBunch and I will probably continue our mission to make a habit of going to Full Moon Beach Bar for eggs benedict. YUM!  I'm hoping we'll get to the beach and soak up some rays, but there's a little tropical wave/blob thingie on the radar coming our way ... looks like rain, and that's ok, too. Probably not a good weekend for diving .... DARN!!! I know we'll think of something fun to do.

 

I'm gonna start throwin' stuff in a suitcase tomorrow, gotta find my warm winter clothes for the trip back to Oregon. BRRRRRRRRR!!! I can hardly wait! I'll get to spend some quality time with my Mom & Dad and family ... I'll be taking PLENTY of pictures, so be prepared and stay tuned.

Happy Columbus Day!

 

It's a Federal holiday, which means a day off work for me ... YIPPEEEE! Speaking of Columbus, here's a bit of island history:

Christopher Columbus visited St. Croix on November 14th, 1493 on his second voyage to the New World. Columbus named the island Santa Cruz (Holy Cross). The explorers anchored off a natural bay west of Christiansted, known today as Salt River. Some two-dozen armed men from Columbus' fleet went ashore to explore. These men were met by defensive arrows to which they retreated. The Salt River site is the first and only positively documented site associated with Columbus' exploration of the New World on what is today a U.S. territory.

Perhaps today I'll celebrate the holiday by lounging in the pool. I did a little pool lounging yesterday after our dive, very relaxing. As I was drifting in and out of a restful slumber, I noticed the clouds drifting by ... and of course I thought "Hey, I should take a picture of those" ... but I didn't. I think today I'll snap some photos of the view from the pool, from my air mattress, maybe a video.

Perhaps I'll go downtown and do a little shopping, wander around Christiansted and see if I can find anything I absolutely can't live without. There's always something! It's a cute little town, maybe I'll take some pictures.

 

Perhaps I'll go have a pedicure, it seems like a good day for a little pampering.

 

Perhaps I'll change the ring in my navel. I had it pierced probably 6 or 7 years ago and I've never changed the ring. Possibly because it makes me queasy to even think about it! I have a really cute dolphin ring, and another with pretty purple stones .... feeling queasy ... I think I'll skip this one.

 

Perhaps I'll finish taking pictures of the rest or our cat family, there are many left to be snapped in a Kodak moment; some are pretty camera-shy.

 

Perhaps I'll take some pictures of our puppies, they LOVE having their picture taken. Zoe prefers no flash, it's too much like lightning and makes her head for the closet.

 

Perhaps I'll go jump in the pool now and get my day started; it's gonna be a GREAT day!   ENJOY!!    

Ants in my pants?

Nope, but I did have an ant farm in my BCD (Buoyancy Control Device) .... EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.... HOLY COW .... YUCK ... WTF? ... GROSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!! 

WE FINALLY WENT DIVNG TODAY .... "WOOOOOOHOOOOO", as my HoneyBunch would say! It was a great day of diving, the water was 86 degrees, so many fish it was mesmorizing, and pretty good visibility. We spent about 50 minutes under water at Cane Bay, doing a shallow dive today ... I prefer staying shallow when I haven't dived in a while, plus there were so many fish and critters at that depth, it was phenomenal. I'm hoping this will be the beginning of our new habit of diving ... 1 down, 10 to go and it will be a habit! 

After the dive we had brunch at Cane Bay ... YUM ... Juevos Rancheros ... really, REALLY good. I'm ALWAYS starving after we go diving and this is such a nice way to follow a dive; so relaxing to sit and watch the ocean and the blue sky and the clouds and the people .... I can hardly wait for next time.

Sooooooooooooo ... to follow up on the ant farm incident, we haven't been diving since February ... lots of excuses. This morning we packed up our gear and were putting it on and I noticed some ants on my BCD. Rudy mentioned he had some ants on his and I thought I'd just brush off the ants on mine and we'd be off into the wild blue yonder. I opened the pocket of my BCD and pulled out my gloves and there were a bunch of ants. OK, I've been stung NUMEROUS times all at once by fire ants, but these were just the small ones that don't sting or bite or whatever they do, so we brushed them off, sort of ... but I was somewhat concerned. I pulled out my weights from my BCD and HOLY SHIT ..... there were thousands of ants and ants with eggs and ants-a-plenty! Not one to FREAK OUT ... but I'm not wearing a BCD that's also an ANT FARM ! I rented a BCD and we went out for a really nice dive. I guess to prevent this from happening again, we need to go diving more often .... lesson learned!

I'll add a couple of pictures from when we were getting geared up and ready to dive ... didn't get pictures of the ant farm. Also, some pictures of the really cute goats on the way to-and-fro the dive site. AND our pineapple farm .. it looks just like a regular little pineapple now, but it's sproutin' some weird growths out at the bottom.

Today is it!

This is it ... October 7th .... Happy Birthday Dad and Brian! I hope you both had a most excellent day! My brother, Brian, was born on my Dad's birthday! 

Tonight we took Brian, the birthday boy, out to dinner at TuTu Bene .... YUM!!! The food was fantastic as usual.  

Tomorrow, we're going diving! YIPPPPEEEEEE!

 

  

Happy Catmas!

Happy Catmas everybody!

These are all pictures from my cell phone, so the quality is not so great.

And these are only a few of the bunch, there's more where these came from .... stay tuned!

HAPPY FRIDAY ... AND IT'S A 3 DAY WEEKEND!

I'm really ready for a nice long weekend, it's been one hellacious week. Plenty of insomnia, thunder & lightning, wind and rain, dogs hiding in the closet ... I'm ready for winter! It's been too freakin' hot here. Not one to complain, but HOLY COW, it was really hot and humid this morning ... just another day in paradise.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD & BRIAN

I might not make it back here tomorrow, on your birthday, so here's your wishes a day early! We'll be going out to dinner tomorrow night to celebrate Brian's birthday. Dad, I'll be seeing you and give you a big belated birthday hug on the 17th, I CAN HARDLY WAIT!!!! Oregon, here I come ... YIPPEY-YI-YO-KAI-YAY (sp?) .... get along little doggie!!!

Gotta get ... more later!