Our B.V.I. Adventure

We are slowly but surely decorating our new house, Gecko Manor II.  Last week, new draperies went up in the bedrooms and living room. I knew packing my sewing machine and shipping it to the BVI would be a good thing...eventually!  Despite collecting dust for a year, it worked just fine.  {I'm still trying to find the right time of day to photograph them; with the bright sunshine beaming into the room, it's difficult!}

We moved into the new house in November; the holidays soon followed which meant my decorating focus was the 9 foot fraser fir.  But I'm happy to report, we're back at it!  Just like this blog, the accents in the living room are a little bright! 

And when I am in need of a little design inspiration, I check out the blog of fellow Caribbean dweller, India Hicks. {That's about where our similarities end...I was not a model for Ralph Lauren, nor was I a flower girl in Princess Di's wedding...Ha!}
If you recognize the name, maybe it's because her father was David Hicks, who's described as the most influential interior designer of his generation.  What I wouldn't give to get my hands on some of his bright geometric pattern fabric!!!
India and her husband live in the Bahamas. They have four properties for rent there, each one as unique as the next. She's not only a model, a mom and Sugar Mill shop owner, she's the author of Island Life, a book about inspiration interiors of island homes.  I think that book would look pretty good on my coffee table.  Hmmm...

Soon, I'll have to take you inside the two home stores we have here on Tortola: House and Arawak Interiors.  Maybe they have a copy of Island Life.  Without these two stores, I'm not sure what I'd do!  They not only source furniture and fabrics, they have the best hostess gifts! 

OurBVIAdventure is honored to be on the list of Top Island Lifestyle Blogs of 2010.  What a way to end the year!  Thanks Ryan!


BVIMusic.com got a shout-out along with several other wonderful blogs, like No See Um's and Rum Therapy!  

365 days in the BVI.  Wow. 

It was exactly one year ago today - in the early morning hours of December 14th - that Michael and I left our home in Knoxville with suitcases in hand.  A crate of our belongings was already on a ship making its way through the Caribbean sea.  Our life was about to change drastically.  We were feeling a mix of emotions...excited, somewhat scared, and sad to leave family and friends.  I remember looking at Michael when our plane landed in sunny San Juan and saying something like "We're really doing this..."

Transplanted from a place where all things were familiar and comfortable, we landed on Tortola without much more than a sense of self and each other.  We rented a car and Michael drove us "home."  Grocery shopping on Day 1 seemed too overwhelming so we went to Pusser's in Road Town for dinner.  {Remember, this was before the new Rite Way!} 

This date on the calendar has completely snuck up on us!  To mark our anniversary, we are unveiling a new design for Our BVI Adventure!  You like?  Too much pink?  :) 

We'd like your help with Our Anniversary Survey!  Similar to the exit surveys we give our guests, we'd love to turn the tables a bit and answer your questions.  What do you want to know about life in the BVI?  What have I missed? 

And to incentivize our dear readers, we're giving away a BVI package full of treats from all over the island...
A bottle of Pusser's Rum, Da Tree Men t-shirt, local spices from Sunny Caribbee, just to name a few! 

All you have to do is submit a question either through the comment section, Facebook, or email (ameliadaniels @ gmail.com).  We will do a follow-up post that will include our answers to your questions and announce the winner of the random drawing!  Sound like a plan??? 

Lastly, a huge thank you to all of the family and friends who've supported us during this year away from home.  I received so many sweet messages from friends this past weekend, reminiscing about the bon voyage party, hosted by our dear friends Caty and Matt.  Here are a few photos from that night...

I think I win the award for "most changed." {My skin color is much darker and hair color is much lighter thanks to the sun!}  Ha!

Okay, submit those questions!  We'll  be accepting them all week, until midnight Friday!   Thanks for joining us on Our BVI Adventure!

So, not only have I been busy furnishing our new house (we're almost to the recap, I promise!) I've also been working on a blog redesign for Our BVI Adventure.  Here's a little preview of some of the graphic art I created...

This stems from an art project that I did for the new guest bedroom.  The vision in my head was a twist on the traditional nautical flag to accent the crisp white headboard.  Instead of using red, I went with pink and in lieu of yellow, I chose orange. 

My canvas?  A white duck cloth, cut in 8'' squares.  My medium? Craft paint.  Not acrylic or oil. Craft paint.  That's all I could find on the island!  Oh, I also used masking tape to help keep my lines straight.


Here's how the art project turned out on the wall:
(Sorry for the grainy image; I took this shot with my iPhone.)

And if you're not up your nautical flags, each one represents a letter and this collage spells DREAM.

Once you see the new blog design, you may think I've gone "overboard"!  {Pun intended!}  That's coming soon...

By way of Sugar Apple, I discovered an online community of bloggers, who also happen to be expatriates!  It's called expat-blog.com.  What a brilliant idea!
I sure wish Michael and I had known about this resource BEFORE we moved here!  That is one of the reasons for website, to connect people who are moving to another place to those expats who live there already.

One blog in particular, David in the BVI, is quite relevant, even though he moved away two years ago!  He captured his five months on Tortola with interesting posts about the culture, the best dive spots, etc...

OurBVIAdventure should appear on the site soon...

I am guest blogging over at Knoxify today - Knoxify is a news and opinion blog coined as "an insider's uncencorsed, unscripted take on what makes Knoxville great." 

Thanks to Casey Peters for the opportunity!

We're enhancing the blog to make it easier for our adventurers to follow us on our journey...

You'll notice on the left side the ability to share the blog on Twitter or on your Facebook page.  This is a great way for our guests to share photos from their trip with their online communities. 

I've also received some requests from friends to have new blog posts sent to their email in-boxes...well, the wait is over!  You can subscribe by entering your email address in the box on the left side, below the welcome message. 


Lastly, I need to take a moment to thank our wonderful readers! I've been receiving a lot of messages on Facebook and email from people who are reading the blog - thank you all so much!  Your words of encouragement are much appreciated!

I love this process of documenting our adventure through photos and sharing it with you this way.  Feel free to comment!  Let me know what you think! 

Cheers!

There is a great blogging community here in the BVI and thanks to some friends who've been so kind to share their links with me, I'm sharing them with you!

Miss Mermaid has been blogging her BVI adventure for 10+ years!  The Shands introduced us to her blog, titled Dear Miss Mermaid.  She gives some of the most accurate weather reports and helps make sense of these crazy trade winds.  She is also a published author; her book is Hurricanes and Hangovers.  {Need to get my hands on a copy!}  Miss Mermaid actually has another blog, appropriately named Dear Miss Mermaid...the OTHER blog.

I haven't met Miss Mermaid in person, but we've been at many of the same places at the same time.  Take for instance the most recent Full Moon Party at Trellis.  According to her blog, she was there and so were we!

Our friend, Adam found this lovely blog:  Sugar Apple, Posts from the Caribbean by Abigail Blake. She met her husband while on vacation here at none other than nickel beer night at Pusser's Pub in Road Town!  That was 16 years ago!  Sugar Apple is a beautiful blog about Caribbean life and cooking.  The way she explores the island through food is inspiring and she's selfless, sharing her recipes with her readers!  I will most definitely be trying some of them soon.  Abigail can be a bit snarky too, which I love.  Check out this post titled What Not To Wear...I completely agree with her assessment of the tacky tourist varieties.  In fact, Michael and I have been snapping some photos of the most egregious "cruising" outfits that we've seen come off of the ships.  A post about these unforunate clothing choices is coming soon...

Oh, and there's a blog with a name that's pretty close to the name of our blog here.  It's MyBVIAdventure.blogspot.com!  It chronicles the 30-day stay of a young lady who participated in an internship with Sail Caribbean Divers.  She was here last March, so there haven't been any news posts since, but she has some beautiful underwater photos.   

In other blogging notes, I should have Travis's exit survey up shortly...