Summer Travels and St. Thomas

I hate winter and being cold. So here's a little piece of summer to warm us up on these cold November days!

Over the summer we were in the transition time from Apex to Greenville, hygienist to dental student, insurance to real estate development, Summit Church to Integrity Church, lots of family and friends to no family and 2 friends, no kitty to one kitty. We had a lot going on! Our friends Jessica and Phil were getting married in southwest Florida so we decided with all the stress and changes coming up, we would extend the weekend wedding celebration into a nice tropical vacation. After tons of research and deliberation, we settled on a five-day trip to St. Thomas.

Hilary was in the wedding so my whole family headed down to Florida; it was a fun weekend with all of them and we loved exploring the Venice area—so beautiful! I was finally able to see the rock jetty I’ve heard so much about since meeting Jessica in college and boy was it pretty! Made for some incredible wedding pictures for sure.

Stephen and I made a quick trip up to Sarasota for a couple hours one day… this was back when I was starting to really get excited about getting a kitten and Sarasota has a “Cat Depot” where you can go play with cats of all ages and sizes, and they’re all up for adoption! He was a good sport to tag along with me since he wasn’t much for cats at that point. He was obviously a little concerned, perhaps it was because he was in a large caged room with multiple cats, or maybe it was because I really REALLY wanted to take this little guy home! But now I’m glad we waited for our little Flinty!

We all enjoyed celebrating Jessica and Phil’s marriage and were excited for them to finally get to end their long distance relationship and begin married life… although this first winter in Minnesota may be tough for the Florida girl!!

With the beautiful bride and bridesmaid... we're all sisters!

The morning after the wedding, we all were up early as my family started the long drive back to NC and Stephen and I headed back to the Tampa airport to catch our flight on to Miami and then St. Thomas. We watched the sun rise over the bay as we crossed the Sunshine Skyway bridge—it was incredible!

After a few hours of waiting and flying, we finally arrived in St. Thomas! We caught a taxi from the airport with a few other couples staying at our resort and began the rather scary driving-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-road-around-hairpin-turns trip to the hotel. As laid-back as the people are there, they definitely get impatient and angry when driving!

The resort has a beautiful, open-air, tropical feel. It’s situated basically on a cliff so the view is gorgeous on all sides! Our room had an amazing view of the ocean and the beach.

 
After soaking in the incredible view, we began to notice the native island creatures that we had been told about. These guys were EVERYWHERE! And they were HUGE! Even so, they fascinated me so I took lots of pictures and videos of them during the trip.

On our first full day, we took the little hotel ferry across the bay into town. We walked all around, checked out the shops and restaurants, and then decided to hike over to the local grocery store, Pueblo Mart. Taxis were expensive and so was food so we decided Pat and Charlie could take us on over to do some shopping for cheap breakfast foods, sandwich ingredients and snacks. I would guess the total trip from the ferry dock to the grocery store and back was around 3 miles. Not too bad since we stopped for lots of photo ops and snacks. {Perhaps the stop at the sketchy Wendy’s where the smoke detector continually beeped since its batteries were dead was where our credit card number was stolen…. And we didn’t realize that had happened until we got back home and were smack dab in the middle of moving. But that’s another story.}

Morning Star, the resort ferry

I always tell Stephen to pose by cannons... but I don't think he minds too much

The majority of the trip to the store was walking around the cruise port and harbor. As we took the ferry back to the hotel a cruise ship was taking off back to sea so we had to wait for it before we could head out. It was pretty cool to watch from the water!

We enjoyed seeing the ships come in and out each day; the world’s largest cruise ship came into port while we were there and we watched it sail out one evening. It was massive!

The next few days we enjoyed relaxing out on the beach and swimming. To be honest, it took a while for us to really get into full St. Thomas style relaxation. It was frustrating at some points that the people were so chill, but we eventually got used to it and really enjoyed the lack of phone service and Wi-Fi that only worked when standing by the hotel room closet door. It forced us to really take a break and enjoy the time we had together!

Stephen and I are somewhat mismatched when it comes to beach vacations. I can stay out in the sun for days on end and easily avoid sunburn. But he somehow gets burnt when he is fully clothed and sitting under an umbrella under a tree! Then there’s the swimming… he likes to get in the water no matter where we are; I, however, only go in so far as I can still see my toes. I really want to swim, float and snorkel in the gorgeous clear water, but I squeal and freak out at the least little bit of seaweed that floats by. Makes for some interesting but funny times on the beach. During our beach days on the island we took a kayak out into the ocean, snorkeled, and went paddle boating. Those were really fun ways to enjoy the water and do something active other than basking in the sun. (Although the hundreds of stairs to and from the beach made for a workout as well. We came back very toned and ready for our move!)

The sun went down very early for summertime so we spent the evenings enjoying nice dinners at the hotel and watching the sunset out by the pool and looking for ships heading out to sea. The sunsets were totally different each night!

Our last full day there we took the ferry back into town and hiked up to the Bluebeard’s Castle hotel for a delicious Italian dinner. The food was absolutely incredible, the view across town was beautiful, and our waiter was refreshingly helpful. It was a great way to end the trip!

We had a couple hours our last morning to enjoy the beach just a little more so we packed up most of our things then headed down to the beach. Stephen was pretty crispy at that point so we stayed in the shade and spent the time reading. We knew there was a whole lot ahead of us once we got back home so we soaked in that last morning of taking it easy.

I decided that I needed a picture of the iguanas up close to remember them since we had obviously formed a close bond. I took a couple pictures and then told Stephen I wanted him to take my picture with them since the Grandaddy Iguana had walked up. I scampered over to the fence and sat down, keeping my eye on my large friends. All of a sudden, a fast-as-lightning baby iguana ran past Stephen and straight towards me. I just knew he was either going to jump right in my lap or attack my face! Unfortunately, Stephen had been keeping his eye on the mac-daddy iguana and never saw the little one coming. He couldn’t figure out why in the world I had freaked out like that! I told him what had happened and he thought I was insane since he never saw the little one. But thankfully he had snapped this picture just in time to catch the evil little thing in the act. Needless to say, this is his favorite souvenir from the trip:

Thankfully I didn't wobble off the back of the fence and roll all the way down to the tennis courts! I think that splinter that got me when I jumped held me down just enough...

After I finally regained my composure, it was time to head back to the airport and say goodbye to our beautiful, island vacation. Until next time, Caribbean!