It’s beginning to look a little like Christmas

Well Ryan and I have been busy busy working. In fact we have been so busy that Christmas snuck up on us. But I got the day off today and have made a little effort at some Christmas Cheer. It is hard to get into the Christmas Spirit when the weather is 84 and the palm trees are swaying in the wind.

But we have a tree and thanks to Mom we have our stockings stuffed with goodies.

Our work also gave us a Christmas gift:

MMMMmmmm Pumpkin Pie

That helps to make it feel Christmas’y!

And since the year is almost up I thought that I would use the oven so I could say I did it at least once this year…

Yes, I actually baked! Aren’t they festive! Cookies for Santa!

Sadly that is the extent of our holidays this year. Ryan is working today and tomorrow. And I am in standby mode. We both enjoy our jobs but we do have to say that we didn’t know getting part time jobs would keep us soo busy!

Did I tell you that Ryan actually has 3 jobs. He goes out most days on The Cat, he is the Co-Captain but  some days he is just crew, he enjoys it he also really likes getting tip$. You can check it out here: www.TheVICat.com  he is also a stand in Captain for the ferry boat from the Marriott but has not had to do that job yet, and then on Sundays he does maintenance on the ferry boats. Ryan works hard and has not had a day off since he decided to go back to working.

I work for the Adventure Center, they act as the conceirge service for the Marriot, we are sort of like a travel agency, setting up tours for people to take. I work upstairs in the hotel or some days I work downstairs at the dock and sell ferry tickets. I like my job and I’m learning a lot about the island. For those of you that wanna come visit check out www.adventurecenters.net

Well that is about all I have for now. I have to get back to the kitchen and clean up my mess.

Merry Christmas!

Ryan’s First Day of Work

Hmmm, I don’t think he’s back into the swing of things yet.

That is the boat parts storage container and paint shed on fire.

pictures and video from Arturo

Fortunately nobody was hurt and the fire was due to faulty wiring not anything Ryan did.

But jeeze what a

“welcome back to the real world”.

If this is how our days are going to be;

we’re ready to head back out to sea!

Only in the Islands

Only in the islands can you go for a serious job interview and then need your swimsuit! Yes it can happen.

Ryan had a very impromptu interview today for ??? well we wasn’t exactly sure what he was interviewing for but a friend of ours said he talked to his boss and his boss would like to see Ryan at 9:00am (in an hour). UHHH totally wasn’t expecting that! As Ryan looks down at himself covered in dirt and grime from his work in the engine room. No problem, he runs through a shower, shaves, and digs out a collared shirt, kaki shorts and …shoes….shoes Ummm Ryan doesn’t have real shoes, so he went in flip flops. Hey it’s the islands right?! On his way out he hollers down “Hey why don’t you go with me so that you can keep an eye on the dinghy, I’m not sure I can park it where I plan to park it so this way you can move it if necessary.” “Sure no problem just give me a sec to close up the boat.” And off we go.

So we get there and Ryan ties the dinghy up and heads in to his interview. I lounge in the dinghy, enjoying the sun and a book. About twenty or thirty minutes pass and Ryan comes back, along with two gentlemen he has just interviewed with. I’m thinking that they are concluding the interview and we are getting ready to leave when I hear “Well  I was really wanting to come down here and meet you because we have another job opening, would you be interested?”

“Uhh Sure! but I have to say that this is going to be my first interview barefooted and in a tie dye t-shirt.”  (To be honest, I am not even sure if I combed my hair this morning or not.) He doesn’t seem distracted or put off sooo on with the interview.

Well the interview turned into a tour of the facilities, and then a meeting of the employees, and then into a description and demonstration of the requirements for my potential job, then some job shadowing for Ryan (with me in tow), and then (the icing on the cake) a snorkel tour out to Buck island. A snorkel tour WITH all the true guests that had PLANNED on going snorkeling and swimming and Ryan in his nice clothes and me…well I wasn’t in nice clothes but I certainly didn’t have on a bathing suit. It was a good time but we did get a lot of odd looks. A few of the more outgoing customers come up and asked me if we were friends with the crew since it was obvious we weren’t there for the same reasons they were. I briefly explained that we were there just to observe. They politely accepted my vague response and we went back to discussing the turtles and other sea creatures they had observed. We spent about 3 hours out on the boat, it was kinda fun to have someone else doing all the sails and work, and then finally we found ourselves back home a little after 5:00pm. At that point we both just looked at each other and decided neither one of us wanted to cook. So we loaded Sissy up for a walk and headed into town for a celebratory Pizza!  We won’t know for sure if we have the jobs until Monday but we figured that we still had something to celebrate I mean how many people can pull off a day like we just did?! I LOVE LIVING IN THE ISLANDS!

It looks like if we do somehow land these jobs then Ryan will be a ferry captain from the Marriot resort to downtown St. Thomas and a fill in captain on the charter snorkeling boat and I will be selling tickets to the ferry and booking people for the local tours and snorkel cruises. We are both happy and hoping to be able to stay here in St. Thomas. So cross your fingers and we will update ya’ll soon!