Sunday, February 20, 2011

St. Thomas 2011

This year marked our second annual trip to St. Thomas where we stay at a beautiful house up in the mountains. As you can see, we certainly enjoyed the view.


Of course, we couldn't just sit in the pool the whole time. We had to hit the beach. We started with the beach below the house, Lindquist, one of the least known and quietest beaches on St. Thomas. Don't let that fool you though, it is beautiful.

Jack had a good time last year but this year he really lived up to his blond curls and surfer attitude. If you tried to drag this kid off the beach you would literally have two tracks running from the beach to the jeep caused by his little feet.Although we spent most of our time at Lindquist we did have to check out some of the island's other beaches. Megan's Bay is consistently rated as on of the most beautiful beaches in the world so we took a trip there. Once again the kids loved it and spend a lot of time running back and forth along the sand holding hands. There they go...

And here they come...After a while the adults got tired of chasing them (even though there were six of us working in shifts) and wanted to sit down and enjoy a nice Bushwacker (the signature drink of Megan's Bay). We were able to do this thanks to a great invention by Uncle Danny...We call it "The Kid Catcher." Essentially you build the largest hole in the sand you can and make steps down into it and kids walking (or running since they never walk) fall right into the trap and start playing quietly together. It is amazing. Here are various shots of "The Kid Catcher."

Sometimes you can get them to help build there own trap:Apparently, it is a Grandpa catcher too:


After all that time on the beach we had to take a day to relax and explore the island. We jumped in the jeeps and started quite a journey to the top of the highest mountain on St. Thomas. Here are a couple of photos from the trip up.

On another day we took a ferry to one of the BVIs, Jost Van Dyke. We went to White Bay which is where the famous Soggy Dollar Bar is located. There we hung out on the beach and drank painkillers.We also took a walk down the beach. We had heard that Alton Brown from the food channel had profiled this small beach restaurant called One Love that had some great food. We all got a fish sandwich and it did not dissapoint. After all the eating and drinking and playing on the beach the boys were pretty tired so they passed out together in a hammock.

Amy was tired too, but she didn't make it to the hammock.

Speaking of restaurants, we ate at a few other places that were pretty good. Iggy's had the best wings on the island, and buckets of RUM.We also went to Jack's because of the name.
Another night we went to Duffy's love shack. As you can see the boys danced the night away.
Late nights of dancing lead to long mornings of being tired. Here they are passed out in the Jeep.The last day the Grandparents were nice enough to take the kids so that the adults could go on a charter boat excursion. The boat took us to the "Baths" of Virgin Gorda. The Baths (Batholiths) are a huge granite boulder field. There are very few of them in the world and this is the only one on the water. I only put one picture because the pictures really do not do it justice. It is one of those things you just have to see.After the Baths we went snorkeling and then had lunch at the famous Pussers Landing on Marina Cay. Marina Cay is a small 6 acre island off the coast of Tortola. One of the distinguishing landmarks is this photo booth out on the dock. This picture comes from a live webcam online that updates every 15 seconds. You can check it out at www.pussers.com
Of course once back on the boat we did a little drinking and partying. It was a great day.

The whole trip was great and we especially like to thank Pappa and Grammi and Uncle Danny and Aunt Claudia for being so great with the kids. The kids are resting up for next year...