Sage Island

I'm a cat person...

2013-05-06T04:00:00.000-04:00

... it's true, I don't mind giving a cat update from time to time.
My kitties favorite kitty toy are these little catnip pillows that are stuffed full of catnip from The Pussums Cat Company. The Pussums Cat Company happens to have started in my hometown by a family friend, which makes it extra special that my kitties like it so much!

Have a great weekend!

2013-05-03T10:16:00.000-04:00

What are you all up to this weekend? I'm working a little (photographing a sunset wedding on the beach) and hope to do a little relaxing on the beach with friends. I've been trying to embrace where I live and make the most of what St Thomas has to offer. I also hope to find a moment to do a little of this on Sunday. Hope everyone has a great weekend and to see you back here on Monday!!!

PS photo credit to Katie Lee

Acupuncture at the Nirvana Healing Temple

2013-05-02T12:09:00.000-04:00

Have you ever had acupuncture? Recently I hurt my back and since I'm not a fan of going to the chiropractor, I thought I would try something new. So, I went to see Dr. May Trieu at the Nirvana Healing Temple who came highly recommended from many people living here in the Virgin Islands. I don't understand how it works but my back feels so much better.

PS More photos at the Temple HERE.

St Thomas Carnival 2013

2013-04-29T16:22:00.001-04:00

St Croix

2013-01-30T14:59:00.000-04:00

I recently went to St Croix on the seaplane to photograph a wedding. It was my first time taking a seaplane and my first time to St Croix - here are a few photographs from my trip.

The wedding that I photographed was at The Palms at Pelican Cove and I stayed at the Company House in Christiansted.

Vacation Photos: Christmas in Maine

2013-01-16T10:13:00.001-04:00

I hope it's not too late to post photos from Christmas.

This year Eric and I went to visit my family in Maine to celebrate Christmas. It was the first time I had a white Christmas since (this trip here) and it was a holiday celebration to remember!!!

We arrived really late in the evening (delays due to weather) and this was what it looked like the first day we woke up!

It snowed the first day we where in Maine, which made it a white Christmas! Eric and I made a snowman and played outside like kids... then sat next to the fireplace to warm up.

My grandfather came up from NJ to spend the holiday with us, which made it extra special.

My mom thought it would be nice if we all did a puzzle together. I became obsessed over it until it was complete and found that I really like doing puzzles (thanks mom).

We ate so much amazing food during the Christmas holiday! My mother is the best cook I know and my dad makes an amazing breakfast.

Of course when one visits home they must look at old family photos, it's the best!

We also where able to see some wonderful friends that I grew-up with (my friend Cody put this floor down in her home herself and her mom made the big kitty toy.)

Then it happened... it snowed so much we where stuck in Maine!!! Our flight always leaves really really early in the morning so we normally spend the night in Portland (one of my favorite small cities) and ended up having a small winter vacation in Portland Maine.

There was such a big snowstorm in Portland that we ended up being in the local newspaper... you can see a video of us here in the snow.

We made the most of our snowy adventure and actually found ourselves having fun in the cold (who would have thought!)

The photo above is what it looked like out the window of the airplane the morning we flew out of Maine... we almost didn't make it home.

St Thomas Happenings: Bordeaux Farmers Rastafari

2013-01-15T10:22:00.000-04:00

This weekend on St Thomas is the 16th Annual Bordeaux Farmers Rastafari Agricultural and Cultural Food Fair; Jan. 19 and 20th from 10:00 am till 12:00 am. I have gone almost every year and can't believe how much it grows each year. This year Midnite from St Croix will be performing on Sunday. It should be a lot of fun - hope to see you all out there showing support for the St Thomas farmers!

PS A few photos from last year here.

Green with Gratitude

2012-12-18T12:16:00.001-04:00

Don't you just love random acts of kindness? A friend wasn't able to pick up her box of produce from St Croix's Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) and asked if I would like it. I've been loving it!!! I'm still working on figuring out what some of the greens are and how to eat them.

The CSA also has a local coffee share from Puerto Rico - more information HERE.

Thank you Cici!

PS Here are some things that I've been picking in the backyard of our place on St Thomas.

If you hate Mosquitos this is what you need...

2012-11-30T09:00:00.000-04:00

In the last few weeks, I've heard there has been an outbreak of Dengue Fever in the US Virgin Islands. Dengue is a mosquito born disease that is extremely painful, you can read about the symptoms HERE.

The way that we control mosquitos around our house is with a Mosquito Larvae Trap (MLT). It's a really simple device that contains water where the mosquitos lay their eggs in the evenings and during the day the solar arm is activated and exposes the eggs to the sun where they dry out and die. The only thing you need to do is make sure it always has water and is placed in the sunshine. The other really important factor is to make sure that it is the only water source available around your home so that the mosquitos will be attracted to it. We have had it for a couple of years now and highly recommend that everyone gets one!

I wish everyone with Dengue a speedy recovery!!!

You can order your own MLT on this site HERE.

Secluded Beach on St Thomas

2012-11-29T15:17:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite things about the USVI is that all beaches are open to the public. Last weekend was my first time visiting Botany Bay Beach and Sandy Beach located on the west side of St Thomas. There is a bit of a walk to get to these beaches if you're not apart of The Preserve Botany Bay community, but the walk is well worth it!

The above photos are of Sandy Beach. The waves where amazing the day we where there and perfect for buggy boarding.

This next group of photos are of Botany Beach. Botany Beach was lined in rocks and coral. It also had a little beach house with a swimming pool and old stone ruins. This is where the surfers came to enjoy the waves.

Caneel Bay Beach

2012-11-19T12:07:00.001-04:00

I made these photos the other day while I was waiting for a sailboat wedding at the Caneel Bay dock. Have you ever been to Caneel Bay Beach? It was just a lovely morning and I wasn't the only one enjoying the sunshine; the bird above was sunning himself! I've never seen a bird hold a pose like this for such an extended length of time, it was mesmerizing!

Vacation Photos: San Francisco

2012-11-16T13:07:00.001-04:00

After our road trip in California we stopped in San Francisco for a few days to spoil ourselves and get to know the city. I've heard all my life that I would love to live in San Francisco, so I just had to see why it was so wonderful. We stayed at the Serrano Hotel and the above photo was the view from our room. The hotel was really wonderful but the neighborhood left something to be desired.
Please click below to see what we did while on vacation:

We walked for an entire day (no joke! I miss being able to just walk anywhere and you can walk forever in San Francisco.) I think we saw almost every neighborhood in San Fran. While in the Haight area we ate the most amazing Puerto Rican cuisine at Parada 22.

When we got tired of walking we started jumping on the trolly, this was a blast! I'm not sure if it's always free but it was while we where there.

We went to Pier 39 to check out the view of the Golden Gate Bridge and the famous sea lions.

The Conservatory of Flowers is a must! I will post photos of the flowers another day.

We ate a lot! Some of the best places that we ate at: Sanraku Japanese Restaurant was just a couple blocks away from our hotel, Rouge/Nick's Crispy Tacos are some of the best tacos I've ever had and it's fun eating in a nightclub during the day, our hotel's restaurant was called Jasper's Corner and had a great bar menu, The Grand Cafe, Tradition was the best bar, and Kate's Kitchen had the best breakfast.

Another must if in San Francisco is The Hot Tubs! This place is perfect for a foggy day (when is it not foggy) in San Francisco to warm you up. Private rooms each with a hot tub, sauna, and shower.

We had a great vacation in San Francisco but it is way to cold for me to even consider calling it home - it did make me appreciate where I live on St Thomas!

California Road Trip: Camping in Big Sur

2012-11-15T12:09:00.001-04:00

The furthest south we made it on our California VW Bus Road Trip was to Big Sur. Have you ever been? It was my first time and I found it extremely beautiful and breathtaking. We where not as prepared as we should have been for camping in Big Sur - we had no plans on where we where going to stay and once we where there we realized that there isn't any cell service in Big Sur. A lot of the campgrounds are first come first serve unless you made reservations months ago - this means that you need to be at the campground at 8:00 am to claim your spot (this was a shocker to us all.)

The first night we spent was at a campground in the mountains (no ocean view) and woke up early to get the best spot at Kirk Creek Campground for the next night. The morning drive down the mountain to the ocean was out of control (this is where I made the photos above the fog.) Kirk Creek is really an beautiful location right on the ocean. I found it freezing cold in Big Sur from all the fog (guess I'm use to the Caribbean weather) and was happy that this was our last night of camping for our road trip.

Next stop San Francisco!!!

PS You might also like this post about the VW Bus we rented for our trip.

Caribbean Fruit

2012-11-12T09:53:00.001-04:00

One of my favorite things about our new apartment are the many fruit trees that surround it. My favorite Caribbean fruit is the Sugar Apple (first photo) it taste a lot like apple pie! We have so many avocados that we're giving them away, we also have soursop, limes, mangos, plums, papayas, and coffee all in season. I've also spotted banana trees and cashew trees that are not yet producing at this time. I can't wait for the seasons to change to find more trees!
When I first moved to the Caribbean I had envisioned lot's of fresh fruit growing everywhere and I've finally found it!

California Road Trip: Calistoga

2012-11-09T16:44:00.001-04:00

The furthest north we made it in CA on our road trip was Calistoga where we spent a night camping. We where in Calistoga for one reason - Indian Springs! We where in need of a little pampering on our vacation and thought that sitting in a volcanic ash mud baths and swimming in an Olympic-sized mineral pool was the way to do it in style!

Indian Springs is a resort that has an amazing spa that I would highly recommend checking out if you're in the neighborhood. I regret that I didn't get any photographs of the mud baths; I was in relaxation mode.

The experience I had was wonderful: after being immersed in volcanic hot mud you will soak in a mineral tub where they serve ice water with cucumbers, than a moment in a eucalyptus and lavender filled steam room, and lastly they wrap you in a soft flannel blanket and you take a nap in a private room (it's amazing!!!) Eric and I then met up at the Olympic-sized mineral pool to eat lunch together and plan our drive to Napa.

PS Another CA spot that sounds amazing!

Settling into St Thomas

2012-11-08T11:31:00.000-04:00

The last couple of months have been a little overwhelming and consuming- let me bring you up-to-date: right before we went on our vacation to CA we lost our cat Ming to FIV (this was heartbreaking), the apartment we had lined-up fell through, and in a mad scramble we found another rental. We're still living on the North Side of St Thomas and our new spacious 3 bedroom apartment has an amazing porch, a yard surrounded in fruit trees, and the landlord is a wonderful couple that have made us feel very welcomed (did you notice the handmade broom above? They made that for us!)
Oh, we also adopted a kitten from the St Thomas Human Society, we're calling her Cleo and are completely in love.
With everything unpacked I should have more time to share here on this blog and if you're in the neighborhood please stop by to say hello!!!

Wine Tasting in Sonoma CA at Nicholson Ranch

2012-10-10T14:26:00.001-04:00

Have you ever started up a conversation with the person sitting next to you on the airplane? Last spring Eric started up a conversation with a couple (Dona &Dave) on a flight who live in Sonoma and they exchanged contact info. So, when we where in Sonoma we met up with them and they spoiled us! First stop in Sonoma is Nicholson Ranch for a wine tasting ......

(From left: Deepak Gulrajani, Dona & Dave Payne)

Our amazing new friends in Sonoma. Thank You so much guys for such a memorable day!!

A photo of us with Deepak, owner of Nicholson Ranch

We did the full tour of the Nicholson Ranch and learned how wine is made. Deepak even let us sample the wine right out of the barrel... it was out of this world amazing, not to mention some of the best wine I've ever tasted!!! Thank you so much to Deepak & Dona & Dave for an unforgettable day.

Tasting right out of the barrels, the way it should be!

Deepak is very serious about Pinot Noir and upon us questioning the differences in vintage: he decided to show us instead!

Wouldn't you just love to spend the rest of the day relaxing in the photo above sipping a glass of wine?!!

PS Another wonderful winery that we visited this day was Homewood check them out online HERE.

California Road Trip: Renting a RV VW

2012-10-09T12:27:00.000-04:00

When Eric and I first started planning our trip to California we realized that there was a lot that we wanted to see and thought the best way to do this would be a road trip. I had never been on a road trip; I think the longest drive I’ve ever been on was from Maine to New Jersey, which doesn’t really count. So, I thought the road trip itself would be exciting!

We found a company located 10 minutes from the San Francisco airport called California Campers. California Campers is own and operated by a husband and wife team that is wonderful to deal with and run a great business. The Westfalia Camper that we rented was fully equipped with bedding for us to sleep comfortably in the van, everything we needed to make coffee and cook, and ran well without any issues.

I found the VW Van a lot of fun to drive with its oversized steering wheel! I was surprised at how many highways CA has and how much time we spent driving on the highway! The highway was my least favorite part of our trip. The fastest the Westfalia could go on the highway was 55 to 60 mph but other drivers recognize this and just go around. I think if I was to do another road tip in a VW Van that I would plan the trip to avoid any highway driving (if this is possible), mostly because there aren’t many scenic options to pull over and make photos.

All in all the VW RV is an amazing way to experience a new place and see as much of it as possible.

There is a company called Happy Campers Hawaii that also rents VW Campers, I think this is next on my list!

California Road Trip

2012-10-08T16:38:00.000-04:00

Recently Eric and I went on a grand adventure to California. I'm a little overwhelmed with all that we did and all the photos that we made, so I'm going to try and start from the beginning (seems logical, right?) Here is the basic layout of our trip; I will expand on each part with more photos and the highlights in additional post.

Living on a little island like St Thomas a road trip is really not an option, so when we thought about our adventure to explore CA it seemed like a brilliant idea to rent a VW Westfalia Camper. Above is our VW, home for the week, and one of the funnest things we've ever done. More photos HERE of the VW.

We flew into San Francisco and headed north to see wine country. We spent a night in Sonoma (photos of our vineyard tour HERE), Calistoga (photos of the amazing spa we went to HERE), and Napa. The landscape was amazing, the people were so generous, the wine was out of control delicious, and we where in heaven to be on the road exploring!

Then we drove back through San Francisco to pick up our friends, The Bobs, that flew in from Washington State to join our road trip. We all headed south to camp in the Big Sur and see the Pacific Ocean (Big Sur photos HERE).

Above is Big Sur, isn't it breathtaking?! Big Sur was amazing, foggy, chilly, and a little too much driving... more on this later.

We ended our trip in San Francisco in a fancy hotel for a few nights so we could check out the city. We drove around 800 miles in the VW Bus, experienced a bunch of firsts, laughed, shivered, ate amazing food, drank incredible wine, met wonderful people, caught up with lifelong friends, and had a vacation that was completely different from our island lifestyle! We feel refreshed and happy to be back on St Thomas.

PS Next up more on our VW Bus that made our California Road Trip possible.

Vacation Photos: New York City

2012-09-10T07:00:00.002-04:00

I might have mentioned that Eric and I where planning a couple of nights in NYC after visiting my family in New Jersey - we had an amazing time! I'd like to share a few fun photos I made around the city...

Wow, did I feel like an island girl in the city, I forgot how amazing all the buildings are, and how the city has it's own pulse!

We even made it over the bridge to Brooklyn one night to meet up with friends at Brooklyn Bowl for dinner, bowling, and live music. Underground System Afrobeat was playing the night we where there, have you heard them? It was an amazing experience that I would highly recommend going!

The High Line was the first thing we did when we got into the city, have you been? It's really neat - read more about it here.

So, where I live in the Caribbean there aren't any sidewalks and people drive everywhere... but in NYC you walk everywhere. I missed walking so much and realized I need better walking shoes the next time I visit.

After looking at art in the MET we went to Central Park (one of my favorite places in the city) and sailed a little boat in the Model Boat Pond.

Another favorite spot in NYC was 230 Fifth an outdoor rooftop bar where the view is SO New York and the drinks are delicious. This place even had a photo booth for bonus points!

It definitely wasn't enough time to do and see everything on my list. I'm grateful for all my amazing friends that took the time to catch-up and share some laughs (I hope to be back soon for some more.)

PS I made a lot more photos and will do another post on some amazing restaurants that we ate at.

Weekend Wishes!!

2012-09-07T10:21:00.000-04:00

How are you weekend plans looking? We have a dinner date with our island family, a photo session on St John, appointments to look at apartments, and the rest free to do as we feel (that's always the best.) Hope everyone out there has a fantastic weekend!

PS My friends in NYC where crazy about Instagram; do you post here too? As you can see I've started posting - if you want to connect look me up at sagecrown. Next week I will post a lot more photos from our NYC vacation.

Street Art in New Jersey

2012-09-05T10:35:00.000-04:00

Ok, I know this is really random for me to post, but I just can't help it! What do you think? When I was in NJ the family took us all out to lunch in a little town (I can't remember what it was called) I was so taken by the little sweaters that where made for the trees and signs along the sidewalk.

Old Photographs

2012-09-04T14:01:00.001-04:00

Part of visiting my family always involves looking at old photographs. My grandparents have a shelf full of albums and their walls are covered in photographs, it always makes me feel right at home. Here are a couple that I just adore!

Vacation Photos: Family in New Jersey

2012-09-04T09:36:00.000-04:00

Eric and I went on a little vacation to New Jersey to see the family, it was his first time meeting my grandfather (Pop) and a few other members of the family. I hadn't been to NJ in over four years, so it was much needed. We had a blast!

My Pop and Uncle Georgie run a honey business out of the family home called Jean's Honey Inc., so it always smells like honey and there are lots of bees around. I wish I had gotten more photos of everyone gathered like the photo above of my mom, pop, and I (this photo puts a big smile on my face.)

My mother is an amazing cook, she cooked every dinner, we ate so much wonderful food! My grandmother's side of the family is Italian, so of course we had to visit the Italian bakery, yummy!!

We went to a bunch of little sweet towns for a walk and lunch, as well as a vineyard, and the family cemetary.

There just happen to be a 4H Fair in the town that we all went to the last evening. We went on the ferris-wheel, ate cotton candy, patted some lama's, and had a good time. Really it all went to fast and I miss everyone all ready!!!

Have a Relaxing Weekend

2012-08-31T13:10:00.000-04:00

Eric and I are just getting back from our vacation where we visited family in New Jersey and friends in New York City (wow do we know some amazing people!) It's always surreal coming back to St Thomas from vacation but I have to say that I like my 'vacation lifestyle!' What are your plans for this long labor day weekend? I can't wait to jump in the ocean and get a couple of projects started from all the inspiration I've gathered during my vacation. Next week I will have lot's of fun photographs to share, so get excited!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!!