Just like the states!

This weekend was so busy. On Friday, I had my hair and makeup trial for the wedding and then we went to do our engagement pictures at the beach where we got engaged. I had a ton of make up and I don't think my fiance recognized me, but I felt like a Disney princess and the pictures that we took turned out great. We'll have to see what the actual professional pictures look like when they come, but hopefully they look even better than ours.  For the first time, I looked older than a teenager and I really liked it.

After pictures, we went to dinner, which was a new experience for us on St. Croix because we got to cook our own dinner at a restaurant (more on that in the restaurant review below). And then we went to our brand new 8-screen movie theater! You probably take your movie theater for granted because you have a few others within driving distance and some are bigger and nicer than some others. On St. Croix, we had only one movie theater. It was very small and did not have stadium seating. Now, we have a gigantic movie theater with huge screens and stadium seating, and it still has that new car smell. We went on opening night and we were the first ones to sit in our seats. We got fancy popcorn and it was a really great experience. The best part about this theater is that while we have to pay outrageous prices for almost everything here, our movie tickets are only $8.50. This is about a $1 more than we used to pay for our not so great theater but it's definitely worth it.

On Saturday, I had my first island facial and I also met some very nice people from Wisconsin at the grocery store who were here on vacation (shout out to them, sorry I didn't get your names). Getting back to the facial, when you first move to an island, every time you go to the beach feels like getting a facial.  After two years, the beach facial wears off and dry skin comes back in full swing. I got the facial at the Buccaneer Hotel Spa and it felt amazing. All in all, this weekend reminded me of being in the states. When I lived there, I went to huge movie theaters, got facials and went to all kinds of do it yourself restaurants. Living on an island is very different on a daily basis but doing things that remind you of the states is good sometimes. I'll take these fun parts of living there minus the traffic, sub-zero temperatures and massive crowds any day. That's what makes living in our island bubble so magical sometimes. We get the best of both worlds.

Restaurant Review:

Starlite Grille at Divi Carina Bay Resort

On Friday, after our engagement pictures, my fiance and I were really hungry. Divi Carina Bay Resort is a stone-throw from our house so we decided to go there for dinner. We figured this is an all inclusive resort so they would probably have some good dinner options. We went into the hotel, saw the Starlite Grille and decided we'd try it out. We saw some people having meals brought to them on a hot lava rock and we just figured that was some sizzling skillet dinner choice. We sat down and ordered (btw, we had the option of dining inside which is somewhat rare here) and then it hit us; We realized that all the food served in this restaurant was served on a hot lava rock where the guests get the privilege of cooking the food themselves! We had a laugh about sending the food back as it was way underdone, but when our raw food did come out, we cooked it, seasoned it and proceeded to eat it.

Now a little bit of back story before I proceed with the review. My fiance is a chef so he cooks while at work and also when we eat at home. I am not a chef and I think that hot pockets are perfectly suitable meals when out of time or ingredients with which to cook (apparently my chef fiance does not agree with my adoration of hot pockets but we agree to disagree on such important issues which is what makes our relationship amazing), so cooking my own food at a restaurant comes as a unique experience while out to dinner. To my fiance, this is just another opportunity for him to cook which apparently he doesn't necessarily enjoy if he's going out to eat.

Once we finished cooking our food and it took probably not more than 10-15 minutes, our food was pretty tasty. The ingredients were really fresh and plentiful (he had the lamb, I had the veggie dinner) and the mashed potatoes, corn on the cob and steamed vegetables did come out already done. I looked at Divi's web site after we came home and it says "this is stone age cooking with a modern flair." I think it's a unique experience and the food tastes good. I'm not sure if I would order the chicken and try to cook it myself on a lava rock but I would definitely come back here again, and I may invite visiting guests for a "different" island experience as all island experience are sometimes.