Lately, it became difficult for me to find a quiet time and write a post.  I posted a few comments here and there but nothing about our lives, although so many things happened lately.

The most impactful event was the unexpected death of my friend in January.   She had a cancer but she did not tell anyone; only her husband and two kids knew about that.  At the funeral, her husband said that she wanted people to remember her, as she always was – the young, strong, energetic, funny, loving, caring, great cook, wonderful friend, and the winner.  She did not want people to see her weak and ill, and be sorry for her.   Another friend also has cancer, but she is recovering. Thanks God!

As I wrote in the earliest posts, we saw so many deaths of our friends and relatives.  We don’t know how many more years we have, so why to dedicate the majority of active and healthy remaining years to work?

On that note, I have resigned from my job; now we are free and can move with our lives.  Speaking of jobs.  I always liked what I was doing, and I always was blessed with the great managers and peers, and I am so grateful to have those people and their support in my life!

Since the work is not on the plate, what is in the pipeline?  A lot!  To tell you the truth, I am overwhelmed.   I am busier than I was when I was working.  I guess, all postponed things are now in a queue. We are juggling them like a jangler in the circus.  To break the tension, we decided to take a short vacation. My husband’s sister in law visited us from Russia, and we all together spent a week at St. John, US Virgin Islands.

We rented a beautiful two-bedroom house through on the http://www.vrbo.com/, negotiated the cost, bought airline tickets using our miles, rented a jeep via local agency, etc.  The total cost of this trip, excluding food, was $1,070 per person.   And we had a great house, not a small hotel room!  Actually, this is the second time we are renting house instead of hotel.  The first time we rented in Belize and loved it.

Everything is VERY expensive at St. John.   We went to the local supermarket, bought fruits, veggies, went a few times out… Here are the pictures of our typical breakfast and lunch.

We took our guest out to the famous lobster place (The Lime Inn in Cruz Bay) and she enjoyed it (we are vegetarians, so we were busy taking pictures).

The beaches are amazing!

My husband could not resist from taking this cliché shot!

We glad that we took this unexpected and unplanned gateway, we enjoyed each other company and glad that our guest joined us for that trip.