As you can surmise from the title of this post, Dan and I decided to go to St. Thomas for our tenth wedding anniversary. It seems to work out that we kind of take turns choosing our couple vacation destinations. Two years ago, I chose Peru, so it was Dan's turn. He seems to pick more beachy/relaxing type of places. So off to St. Thomas we went. Warning: This is probably going to be a long post. It will also include pictures of us in various beach attire. Just so you are prepared.
Saturday afternoon we dropped the kids off with G&G Cheney. We flew out of Richmond early Sunday morning. When we got to our rented condo, we were ready for some R&R, but, unfortunately, the condo hadn't been cleaned since the last people left. Dirty dishes in the sink, damp towels hanging everywhere, unmade bed... Just not good. So we called the housekeeper who was unavailable so she sent her sweet daughter over to clean. (The housekeeper had her dates wrong and thought we were coming the next day.) Meanwhile, Dan went out to get a few necessities like milk, eggs, and bread. Two and a half hours later she left. Not the best way to start things off, but that's okay. That evening we just cooked at the condo and walked down to the beach (Sapphire Beach) to enjoy the view.
"Caribbean Lifestyle"
A blurry picture of St. John in the distance.
(Dan's trip to the grocery store was apparently a harrowing experience. Dan said his driver didn't speak English very well and thought he wanted to go to this really sketchy place. So they go down this beat street and stop in front of some random hotel in the middle of nowhere and Dan thought he was going to die or end up on Locked Up Abroad. Once Dan realized the cabbie spoke Spanish, it made communication must easier.)
The next morning we took a taxi to Magens Bay, the prettiest (in our opinion) beach on St. Thomas. We got there early to try and beat the crowds.
(Me and my sweet wristbands to help combat the nausea I always feel driving on those crazy curvy roads. I forgot to take them off.)
After lunch at the beach grill, we took a safari bus (an open-air truck thing that a lot of locals take) to town so that we could see Blackbeard's Castle and the 99 Steps, steps leading up the hill built in the mid-1700s.
A one-minute video showing you what it's like around St. Thomas.
Overlooking the cruise ship harbor and Charlotte Amalie.
Next it was on to Coki Beach, another supposedly nice beach, but we thought it was much sketchier than the first beach we went to. Dan snorkeled a bit. We both swam, I got a delicious smoothie.
Tuesday we decided to book a charter to Virgin Gorda to see the Baths. Here's a map of the Virgin Islands, both U.S. and British, so that what I explain next makes sense.
We caught our charter on the east end of St. Thomas and took it over to Cruz Bay, St. John, to pick up the rest of the people. We then sailed around the north shore of St. John and the north shore of Tortola. (All the while the first mate was telling us stories about the island. Really neat. It took a long time.) We had to stop in Spanish Town, Virgin Gorda, to show our visas and such and then it was south to the Baths.
They don't look like much in these pictures, but they were awesome!
We snorkeled in and then trekked through the giant rocks. Here are a few pics from the internet just to give you an idea. I didn't want to try and bring my camera and ruin it somehow.
So we explored in there a bit while the first mate told us all about it, and then we snorkeled back to the boat. Next stop was lunch at Cooper Island, which is a tiny island that only has a resort and a restaurant. It was yummy and gorgeous.
After lunch we headed to The Indians, a rock formation jutting out of the water north or Norman Island. They don't look like much, but it was a great snorkeling spot. I hadn't really snorkeled before this trip. It kind of gives me the heebie jeebies, but it was really neat here. Really deep, too. Good thing they offered goobers like me a floaty thing to wear around my waist. Otherwise I think I would have freaked out.
Snorkel faces.
A quick note on my swimshirt. I bought it the day before we left and I'm SO glad I did. It was so nice to not have to worry about sunscreen all the time on my arms and back. Lifesaver.
Anyhow, after that snorkeling adventure, we cruised around the south side of St. John (which is 2/3 national park thanks to Rockefeller) and dropped everyone else off at St. John. Then we got a private ride back to St. Thomas.
Wednesday, we noticed that there were going to be four cruise ships in port on St. Thomas, so we decided to hop a ferry over to St. John for the day. Once we got there, we called the kids from an internet cafe type place and then took a hike to Salomon Beach. Like before, we tried to get there early to avoid crowds.
This was our favorite beach because it was so beautiful and secluded. Since you have to either hike in or swim in off a boat, it's pretty quiet.
We hiked over to a resort (Caneel Bay) for lunch at their grill and then walked over to Honeymoon Beach, which was much busier and less honeymoon-like than the other one. Still beautiful, though!
("Much busier" probably conjures up pictures of a Southern California beach in July. It wasn't that busy. But beaches are smaller here, so although there weren't hundreds of people, it could feel a little cramped if you couldn't find a spot to put your stuff in the shade.)
On our hike back to town, we took a detour past a bunch of wild donkeys to Lind Point - overlooking Cruz Bay.
We walked around town forever trying to find a restaurant I'd hear about on Tripadvisor and ended up walking around pretty much the whole town before we found it. I thought it was a seafood restaurant, but it was more of a foodie kind of place, which intimidates me, but it was yummy. We caught a ferry back to St. Thomas and got to see a beautiful sunset.
Thursday we decided to head back to St. John since we liked it so much. (If we ever went back, we would just stay on St. John the whole time.) This time, we went to Trunk Bay and then Oppenheimer Beach.
Trunk:
Oppenheimer:
I know, they all kind of look alike. We ate lunch at Trunk before Oppenheimer, then took a safari back into town, where we tracked down another restaurant I'd read good things about. I decided to order a native dish. Not a good idea. It had lots of little pieces of chicken with the bones still in and I am not good at picking meat off of bone. But Dan's was good and then we got ice cream so it all worked out.
Friday we woke up to pack and then spent another few hours at the beach near our condo. Then it was home to Richmond and off to Earlysville to pick up the kids, who had a wonderful time with my parents being spoiled absolutely rotten.
Two Fridays ago was Sam's last day of kindergarten. Here's a side-by-side comparison of first day (in front of our apartment) and last day.
To celebrate, after school we went to Wendy's for a frosty. Nothing beats a 99 cent frosty. Except for faster service and a 99 cent frosty.
He's had a great year.
Later, Dan and I decided to take the kids on dates since we were going to be dropping them off at my parents' house the next night so we could go on our trip. We let the kids pick where they wanted to go. Afton went with Dan to chick-fil-a. She wanted to keep her Rapunzel dress on. Dan said she got compliments the entire time.
Sam, classy gent' that he is, wanted to take me to Costco to get pizza. So we got there and waited for two slices of pepperoni pizza for at least fifteen minutes. Sam held the table while I stood there at the food counter trying to make my presence known. It was nice to go out with Sam. He is such a sweetie. This was my view during dinner. We saw a rainbow when we got back to the car.
Saturday was spent getting everyone ready - the kids to go to Grandma and Grandpa Cheney's, Dan and me for our vacay. A post on that to come!
The other night we went to a Richmond Flying Squirrels baseball game, courtesy of our life insurance company. It was really fun. At one point I took this picture of me and the kids.
I know that Afton likes to take pictures of herself, so I left my phone on aiming at her and pretended like I didn't notice when she started going to town. This is some of what she took.
I finally finished the dining room curtains. The fabric was expensive and the windows are narrow, so to save money I cut the fabric in half lengthwise so the curtains aren't as full. It looks funny when they're closed, but when they're open, it doesn't look bad.
The walls are more blue than they look here.
Our garden is coming along nicely. Here's a picture from fairly shortly after we planted things.
Here it is as of yesterday.
The cantaloupe and cherry tomatoes are growing like crazy so Dan built some trellises to hopefully help them not suffocate the other plants. We've also got strawberries, bell peppers, jalapenos, cucumbers, garlic, onion, rosemary and oregano. We'll see what actually produces, though. Those are peach trees, but so far we've only seen two little peaches. Maybe they'll do better once they're more established.
And now for the piece de resistance - the play set. Dan always felt bad that we bought the kids a play set in Houston and then moved four months later. So for Sam's birthday, he decided to get one. But he thought he'd save some money and build one himself. So he did. It's taken the last three Saturdays but he's almost done! (Just staining and adding another swing.)
The only early picture I have is on my phone and I can't figure out how to get it on here. So here's what it looked like yesterday morning.
We ate lunch on the picnic table underneath.
And here it was later. Roof done, cleaned up the stuff everywhere, and mid-staining.
Pretty awesome, right? I think it was a bigger project than Dan first anticipated, but now that it's almost done, he's happy. And so are these guys.
The Chicago post was so epic that it's taken me a while to get back in the blogging groove. We'll start with the biggest news of late - Sam turned six! His birthday was on Sunday, but the party started much earlier. Thursday, a friend from church had a party at a new trampoline park place in town. I'm glad that he and Sam have birthdays close together so hopefully this kid does something cool every year and I won't have to.
Friday they celebrated at school by singing to him and giving him this hat. He also go to be the teacher's special helper for the day.
Friday night was the church Fathers and Sons campout. Sam was super excited to go. I asked Dan to send me pictures. Here are the two he sent.
From what I've been told, Friday night they set up and then played with footballs and soccer balls. They has roasted 'smores and looked at the stars. Sam didn't go to bed until 11! Saturday morning, Dan was in charge of the breakfast and then after that they played tug-of-war and had an egg toss. Sam and Dan came in fourth out of 25 teams. I was impressed. They had a lot of fun.
Sunday Mom and Dad came over from Charlottesville and went to church with us, which was nice. Mom helped me in my primary class. They sang to Sam in church and his teacher gave him a mug full of candy. After church we had lunch, then quiet time, then for dinner we made our own personal pizzas, opened presents, and had cake and ice cream. We were celebrating my dad's birthday, too, since it was just five days before. This year, Sam requested a simple double layer chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.
Birthday boys.
Sam received switch-n-go dinos, magic tree house books, a maze book and a dinosaur book from G&G Cheney; a check to pick out a toy from G&G Durst; Jenga, legos, a hat, and a water gun from us. Dan is also in the process of building Sam a playset completely from scratch. I think I'll do a separate post for that. I'm amazed at what Dan can just come up with.
We love Sam so much and are so grateful that he came to our family. I don't know how I got so lucky to be his mom. He knows wrong from right and tries so hard to be good. He is a good friend and great big brother. He has so much faith. He loves to play angry birds and fruit ninja on Dan's phone for a few minutes every morning. He likes to play with his switch-no-go dinos and he really likes Magic Tree House books. (Good thing there's 50 of them!) He likes to watch old school Transformers on netflix, as well as some random Godzilla cartoon and Wild Kratts. When he grows up, he says he wants to be a missionary.
