Tourists, BBQing, and Earthquakes - Oh my!

Apologies for neglecting the blog this month! We've been quite busy now that tourist season has kicked in. Our first guest of the year was Dave's friend Brent in from California during the first week of the month. Just a quick run-down of fun things he got to do while he was here:

• Hiked the St John Reef Bay trail with Dave. The National Park Service has a tour where they drive you to the top of the trail and provide a guide for the 2-3 hour hike down to the beach, then they pick you up in a boat and drive you back to the dock where you started. It's listed in the 1,000 Places to See Before You Die book, so highly recommended for all our visitors. I haven't gone yet as the tour is only on weekdays, but hopefully sometime soon I'll get to go.
• Went on a private Ecotours trip with our favorite guide Dave. All three of us went kayaking to Cas Cay, and then hiked to Red Point and then snorkeled. The guys saw a shark, but I missed it.
• Enjoyed sunset at Paradise Point after riding the Tramway up to the top. Every Wednesday is happy hour there. No, drinks aren't cheaper, but they stay open until 9pm, instead of just 5pm, and it's $5 per person for the tram instead of tourists getting charged $16, and they have a band there. It was quite cool the day we went because Bree Sharp, a singer I'd seen in California once on Lilith Fair, was playing. We went there with Derek and Suzanne too, and plan on taking all of our guests there. Yummy conch fritters and Bushwackers too!

Another thing Brent got to do of course was enjoy tasty food Dave cooked for us. One of Dave's new things is to barbecue a plantain on the grill whole with its skin on still. It is mighty good and super easy! And no added oil from frying! Dave is becoming the BBQ master again, after not having a grill for the two years we spent in Berkeley. In fact, we just had a yummy snack of grilled tofu!

Also on the topic of food, like many other people this time of year, I'm aiming for healthier food intake. I've been on a pumpkin kick lately - lots of fiber, vitamins and something else... You can substitute it for butter when making cookies or breads. This may be sacralige for the Nielsens, but I made Pumpkin Stickum's. No butter, just pumpkin instead, and a few other modifications. They need work, but I'll send the recipe to anyone who's interested.. Yesterday I made pumpkin oatmeal bread. It was mighty tasty, though a little gooey. We discovered the Health Food store on the island last weekend. It was very exciting and I will certainly make some more trips there in the future.

So what you've all been wondering about based on the title of this post. Yes, we have earthquakes! Not too suprising given we are pretty close to where the Caribbean plate, North American plate, and South American plate all meet up. One night last week an earthquake woke us up around midnight. There was also apparently one the week before but we slept through that one which was a 4.0.

Other than that exciting news... not a whole lot else is new. I'm trying to get in 6 hours of exercise each week, in addition to the healthier eating. (It's bathing suit season year round here, after all!) Yesterday I had 30 minutes to go in the afternoon so I decided just to walk up and down our driveway. It is mighty steep (sometimes the car struggles) and was a real workout, I'm pretty sore today. But I'm going to try to do it a few times a week as the 8 Tuff Miles is coming up at the end of February. It's the largest footace (entries wise) in the USVI and BVI. It's a walk/run across St John and it's basically all hills. Anyone care to join us?

We have lots of new photos to post, I'll try to just do a photos-only post soon so I can get them up. Today is a chilly 75-degree wintery day so I best go get a warm cup of tea and curl up with a good book!