OUR Babies

Frosty was jelous that Baloo was one the bed for one second longer than he was! :)

I have always been one for doggies and kitties; growing up I was always the kid asking mommy and daddy for a puppy!
So when 2 years ago Brian surprised me with our first doggie as my birthday present, i pretty much knew we were meant to be!
Our two little guys are the joys of our lives, we may love them too much; in fact as I am writing all my babies, (hubby included) are sleeping belly up on our bed :) and i couldn't love that more. Every night when this happens I am at my most thankful for my life.

Our bonus room upstairs is a very weird shape, it is very very large, and elongated, the couches and TV are all the way in the back of the room and the ceilings are kind of like slanted attic ceilings. So it is pretty much THE HARDEST room to decorate in teh world; you can't really have wall art or photos on the walls, there aren't corners to furnish etc!! Also, i could never think if a theme for it, as it is our FAMILY room, so we didnt want it too formal. Long story short, I think it would be a cute idea if we make it homey with some really nice images of our pups, in classy clean frames! and kind of spicy it up with comfy pillows and perhaps a few shelves!??! i don't know how long this project will take, but I can finally picture something in my head for it!

I would defintiey love to have photos like the one above to furnish it a bit ;-)

This is proabably the most boring post ever SORRY! but maybe 2 years from now it will be more interesting! :D

ST THOMAS TRIP (Dec.12th.2008)

On boring days like today, it seems hard that a couple of months ago we were in a beautiful place having oh so much fun, soaking up the sun and having VIRGIN Island Ice Teas! (YUM!)
It's cold outside and besides having brushed my teeth, posting this is pretty much all I've done today.

We arrived in St. Thomas Dec. 12th 08. We had planned on staying in two different condos, just to see different things and mix it up. When we arrived at the first condo it took more than 50 minutes to check us in. We were tired, hungry, and wanted to go enjoy the summer breeze we had not experienced in more than 5 months. The lady at the front desk was either incapable or new, or both for that matter. While she was trying to figure out how to check in another young couple before us, another hotel worker came in with a worried face and informed her (and us) that there had been a fire at one of the condos.

Brian and I did not exactly take this as the best sign. With an optimistic attitude we checked out our condo, and let's just say that the photographer for the brochure, must have been a good one. The condo was not bad, it just wasn't up to our standards and expectations, and for its price we would have certainly found a better deal. Anyhoo!!!!!!!!!!

We were not going to let that ruin anything, as we were excited to be there and planned on spending 99% of our time on the beach anyways. So then we went to the only restaurant in the resort, and it was crap. SO ENTIRELY OVERPRICED and with food (fish) i could have prepared in the same manner in my home in Huntsville, AL.
Again, we took this with high spirits, since we knew we were not going to stay there for the entire week.
In this first resort we did find our favorite little place to hang out at night, was this colorful hammock hung by two very very large palm trees! It was out little safe haven.

We did not hang out at the resort much those first 3 days, but went and explored the island and what it had to offer. We went to the shopping center and market "downtown" , from which you can see some images below. We also went to a bar (18 being the drinking age in the U.S.V.I ) and strolled on the main pier, where hundreds of white boats nostalgically rocked back and forth. The second resort where we stayed, was SO MUCH BETTER, and of this we were very very glad. With 2 restaurants, more amneties and fun atmosphere, we enjoyed staying here incomparably more! We went kayaking and also on a GORGEOUS SUNSET CRUISE. The sailboat cruise was BY FAR our favorite thing we did/saw on the trip! the images and captions below will probably do a better job at recounting it. We just loved that evening, it even brought up some hidden romance in Brian. I miss that care-free smile, that his work can so quickly take away from me :(

Since IIIIIIIIII complained about the first condo, we got the option of taking a trip at no charge, as long as it happens in the next 60 days... soooooo THERE MAY BE another post very soon about a place we have no idea IF we will visit and WHICH place it is...

STICK AROUND!




The second condo where we stayed.


One of the very 1st pics i took as we go tot the beach at our 1st resort.




















**The 1st cruise ship Brian had ever seen, he was quite impressed with them! :)


** They had some really cool pastas there, but we didnt buy any, because it had bugs in it! ugh.. :-/
We did however buy Balyes and other Liquers for much cheaper than if bought in continental.


At the top of paradise point, view from above!






**Our favorite thing we did while we were there, is this SUNSET CRUISE! We navigated for 4 hours on this big sailboat sipping on Champagnes as the sun melted into the sea and the wind softly blew our hair! it was beautiful!


**This is what Brian was doing while I was soaking up some serious sun... he didn’t want to get burned, so he read Atlas Shrugged under the shade of a palm tree leaf.


**View from the Ritz Carlton




** THE SUNSET ON THE SUNSET CRUISE!


** The captain of our boat informed us that this boat is about 4 and a half million dollars, and include garage with smaller boats! INSANE!




**This is the biggest privately owned yacht in the world, our captain also informed us. It is owned by the CEO of Oracle (a software company)
and it takes, (brace yourselves) 300 THOUSAND dollars to fill the tank. YUP you read it! This guy also owns a summer mansion in the British Virgin Islands.


** As Brian put it, we paid $70 bux each, and we were still on a boat sipping on unlimited drinks and nibbling on great food

VERY RANDOM PHOTOS

I WAS going to upload our photos from our Trip to St. Thomas, but I have no idea what hard drive those photos are on! I will try to find them tomorrow, and update!

So in the search for those, better fitting photos, I found these below! They are only from 1 to 2 years ago, but we've all changed so much, so it proves that blogs/journals are a good thing to keep up with, because everything is so fast-fleeting.
I figured you'd be seeing mine and Brian's faces a lot on this blog, so showing a few new faces (my family) would be a good variety.

I showed Brian that I created this blog and he loved it, he thanked me for making it, which made me really happy. We did not see each other much today, I was really in a super busy work mode tonight, he made fried fish we ate it together (YUMMY!), and then he pretty much went to bed at 9:30 (BORING!) :D.
Tomorrow is Friday, and thankfully there will be plenty of time to catch up with him and go out with friends! Anyhoo stick around, St. Thomas pics coming soon!

I call this photo "Like doggie, Like Mama" i think Baloo and I look alike in this pic heheh! :)

My dad and my (then fiance) now husband

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Mom with a silly/horrendous hat at TJMAXX

Giulia my friend (from Italy whom Ive known since I was 9) me and my mom

My mommy and I

My dad and my baby nephew

Brian, driving through Pensacola, almost looking COOL hehehe :) he's so cute!

FIRST POST!

This is wonderful, I am finally getting to create a blog about mine and Brian's travels! It's been so long that i have wanted to do this! TRIPS UNDER THE STARS will be a blog mainly about our trips, but from time to time, I may just wanna blog for the heck of it! We plan on travelling as much as we can through the years and visit as many places as Brian's vacation time allowes! :)
This way we will be able to go to this website years from now where all of our earliest, bestest, and latest trips will be documented!

Today, we went through our scrapbook and we read a list of 40 things I wanted to do with Brian in my life, and to our surprise, in just 2 years we had done MANY of them!
Just a little introduction, we have gone on little trips here and there, say to Pensacola or Nashville and such, but since that was a while ago I will not add those photos. I will, however begin with Brian's first plane experiece– our honeymoon to the wonderful island of HAWAII! :)


Ok this photos has a funny story, heheh.. Brian was first of all very gittery about his first flight ever.. and my dad the man in the green on the left was trying to cut the line and go through the first class medallion, which he is a member of but he wasn't the one travelling ahhaha that's so him, he cracks me up! this picture is funny, makes me happy!


waiting tensly at the gate before his 1st flight! :D