A Weekend in St. Thomas

Many, many words today.  But first, a photo.

 This kid is seriously wild. 

We are home safe and sound from St. Thomas and St. John.  We had a fabulous trip!  It was the perfect tropical getaway.  Poor weather the first day turned into a beautiful weekend, we stayed in one hotel all 3 nights, and we did everything Tatum wanted to do-- which makes for a great vacation!  

Pool, beach, and animals (iguanas) every day.

I am pretty happy we didn't cut her hair before this trip. Those curls... :)

We booked our hotel about 40 minutes before we left for the airport.  And we left for the airport at around 9:30pm for a midnight flight. There were some complications getting out of JFK (lightning) but we made it to San Juan in time for our 7am connection to St. Thomas. We had a prayer that our hotel would check us in at 8am instead of making us wait until the usual 3pm check in... Upon arrival, the taxi guys lied to us which always gets Scott really worked up.  They said there is no local bus, and that it will cost $15 pp for a taxi to our hotel- $45 for all three of us.  So we started the walk. And then it started raining.  Harder and harder.  We took cover and waited it out until it just started normal raining again.  Scott thinks the walk was 1/2 mile and I'm certain it was well over a mile, but anyway, we walked parallel to the runway out to the main road, and caught a safari bus.  They come every 5 minutes and you just pay $2pp to wherever you want to go.  

Thankfully, it passed right by our hotel, Sugar Bay and we had a great ride!  We showed up at our resort and felt again like "slumdog millionaires" which we called ourselves all through Asia when we would end up at nice places and be wet as a dog, or with things hanging out of our luggage after a local ride... 

(she slept so well on the second flight we just buckled the belt around her sleeping little body.  What a trooper.

They did check us in right away and we took a little rest (remember we had a red eye) and spent the rainy/overcast day at the hot tub and the beach.  That evening we took the safari bus into Red Hook and shared a delicious pizza overlooking the islands.  We then learned that the Safari busses only go one direction around the island, so basically we had to taxi back to our hotel.  Well some expats (which are really not expats since St. Thomas IS America...) overheard us talking this over with someone on the street and volunteered to give us a lift!  So nice!  So we hopped in the back with their seeing eye training dog and had a fun conversation on the 5 min ride back to our place.  

Saturday was predicted to rain 90% of the day, but it probably only sprinkled for about 20 minutes! It was so beautiful!  (Which the locals were kind of sad about because they were counting on the rain!!)  We spent the morning at the hotel iguana feeding time, the pool and the beach at our hotel:

 We went snorkeling every single day there.  What a treat! It was really worth packing our own set (read, our great friends set) so we never worried about the time or money, and it was good quality too!  My mask never leaked one single time and I never swallowed water.  Snorkel success!

They told us at the feeding time that iguanas have been known to bite on property, and they go for bright pink and red things low-ish to the ground.  We are listening as we see T, with freshly painted pink toenails and a hot pink diaper cover on...

Then we had a little cup o noodles and snacks in the room and jumped back on the safari bus headed for Sapphire Beach just down the road.  We debated between Sugar Bay Resort (nicer rooms and pool) and Crystal Cove Condos (nicer beach) which were the same price for our stay.  We are happy we chose Sugar Bay, BUT really glad we went over to the beach for the Crystal Cove Condos because it really was fantastic.  We headed in the back way and the beach attendant assumed we were staying there and gave us lounge chairs and the good treatment.  The beach was so perfect and it was such a beautiful day.  We grabbed some BBQ take out and taxied back to our place for dinner on the balcony.  What a goooood day.

 My fastest and cheapest sew to date:  $2.98 and 32 minutes.  Sun dress for the win!

Stay tuned for our day on St. John!!