November 2008- Thanksgiving at the Horns!!!!

It was holiday season again and we were going to be spending our first Thanksgiving sans family, so we decided to have all of the island orphans over to la casa de los Horns. It was a lot of work. I cooked two 15 pound turkeys, a ham, for my boy of course, his grandmother's chicken dressing (disclaimer: I am not sure it turned out right but I just did as I was told..it was interesting to say the least) and lots of other goodies. Other people brought their own Thanksgiving faves as well. In the end we could have probably fed double the amount that came, but it was a lot of fun and taught me that I never want to cook for 20 again, haha!

the ham and me without makeup... YIKES!
just some of the spread

more including Beth's homemade stuffing and Caitlin's mashed potatoes

A few desserts

the gang

Caitlin and me... and my earrings that were lost the next month in Vegas

Mary and me

Coenen enjoying a turkey leg

Kyle and the McNauskases

October 15, 2008 hurricane Omar Strikes St. Croix

Hurricane Omar came in the middle of October. Before it hit land it was projected at possibly being a hurricane, and maybe even just staying a tropical storm. By the time it hit it was a Category 3, bordering a Category 4. The East end of the island, aka where we live, is what was hit worst as the storm passed on the Eastern side of the island. here are a few pictures, absolutely none do the damage justice.

Before the storm, this is Daniel and I outside taunting it because we weren't believing any of the hype, I mean come on it was barely drizzling.

In the middle of the storm, I called our security guard Tom to see how he was. He was just about to walk out in it and shut off the generator. Daniel and I both agreed that he should go help, Tom is in his late 60's early 70's at best guess and had just had a hip replacement. this is Daniel suiting up to go out in the 135 mph winds. The towels were tacked over the windows because they were bowing in and we are afraid they were going to blow out.two buildings down from us. Their side wall was obviously blown awayThe pool...anyone for a dip?Uprooted tree, a very common sight after the storm.

Omar destroyed our dockSunken boat downtownAnother sunken ship and a lot of debris, there were so many boats lost to this horrible stormPeace out dock and boats!

This is one of my favorites....Richard one of the local homeless guys was collecting debris. I don't know what he was going to build but man oh man you'd have thought he had won the lottery.

October- Auburn Trip

At the UT vs. AU football game...and get this, we actually won!

Our freshman dorm!

Ms. Shelia and her babies, plus a couple more we picked up!

Austin, Mandy and Daniel

My PKT boys and me!

September 08- Kayaking in San Diego

While in San Diego for Daniel's Criterion training we were able to do a lot of touristy things like the zoo, Hotel del Coronado, Coronado Island and kayaking. These are some of the pictures from kayaking

Kelp

In a cave!

The whole group

*Sorry that I skipped August and May but I can't find those pictures right now!

July 2008- Aruba

Over the July 4th holiday we island hopped over to Aruba. This island has been one of our favorites thus far. The people were so friendly, the island was beautiful, just like St. Croix, except it was much more developed in terms of conveniences, yet didn't have the overcrowded feeling of St. Thomas. Other than a day of shopping we basically stayed around the hotel and hung out at the pool. We had a very nice time.

These little guys were everywhere!look what washed ashoreenjoying a movie by the pool one nightdowntown shopping!

June 2008- Puerto Rico

We went to Puerto Rico for our one year anniversary. While at times it wasn't the greatest (our video camera was stolen from our room) we still had a great time. We went kayaking in a bioluminescent bay, hiked in the El Yunque Rainforest, went shopping at Plaza Las Americas and explored Old San Juan.

Our lovely Chevy Aveo rental car... can you say Steve Erkel car?

One of the many waterfalls in the El Yunque

Dinner in Old San Juan @ Dragonfly... it was one of the best meals ever!

April 08- Drehers visit and Easter

I am having a hard time formatting all of this, so here is a rundown on these photos. The first is Mrs. Dreher with a pig at the Domino Club. The next is Daniel and me at the condo in Shoys where his family stayed. The next is before our dinner on Easter night at Zebo's. The next is us before we went to the Bell's for dinner and the final is Daniel and I with the Easter baskets we got for each other!

March 08- Austin and Katie Visit

Out and About on the Island 3/13/08

St. Patricks Day Parade 3/15/08

Katie and I got soaked by one of the floats filled with people with water guns...lovely.










Daniel and me






Austin and me with some pirate chicks!

My bad....

I kind of let the ball drop on this whole blogging ordeal. I will try and be better. A lot has happened since my last post, which was over a year ago, haha. So let's just make a quick rundown of '08 until now!

January 08- Daniel and I took a cruise around the Caribbean. This is a picture from our stop in Dominica, where we went on a canopy adventure tour-- totally awesome if you ever get the chance to do it.

February - Nothing too exciting that I can remember

March- Visitors!!!! Katie Connolly and Austin Walker visited and we truly had such an incredible time

April- Daniel's mom and step dad, Aunt Wanda and grandmother

visited

May- Unfortunately I was called home in May, as my Grandma Ehrhart fell ill and passed away. This was a very hard time for our family but I was very blessed to get to spend a few days with her before she passed.

June- I returned right before our one year anniversary and we went on a short but fun trip to Puerto Rico

July- In the beginning of the month we went to Aruba for a trip and at the end headed to the States for David Clark's wedding.

August- Daniel returned to the isles and I stayed in the States for eye surgery. I had a new surgery called Implantable Contact lenses, can you say awesome? i am seeing better than 20/20 now!!! Mom and I also took a girls trip to Asheville, NC and Chattanooga, TN and wrapped it up with a night in Nashville so I got to see Kate. It was so much fun.

September- After my stay in Memphis for surgery, I flew out to San Diego to meet Daniel for a week of training. What a great city. Obviously September brings one thing to the mind of most southerners.. football! We headed to Auburn for a recruiting trip/ the Auburn vs UT football game. We also got to spend some time with Daniel's dad which was nice as always.

October- I am drawing a blank it must have been pretty low key

November- Daniel went to Baltimore for another training and when he returned we hosted our first Thanksgiving dinner.... it was hard work but so worth it.

December- We headed to the States for our nearly 5 week journey. Our first stop was in Los Angeles for my cousin Matt's wedding. after that we met Austin Vegas before heading to Memphis. While home we also got down to Birmingham to see Daniel's dad and family. I was able to meet family members I never had before and we really enjoyed ourselves.

January '09- We rung in the new year with the best of old friends at Amy and Brandon's house. We headed back to the island on the 5th and had a hard time readjusting to the lack of conveniences, but were relieved to be back "home"

February- We headed to Antigua for a short Valentine's trip and loved it

I'll write separate posts for March and April.

I am also having problems uploading pictures to this so I'll do another posts of 2008 pics!