Keeping up with Cora

-I didn't realize that I took such a long break from posting about our trip! We have been so busy at work and home, (and I'm sucked in to the Olympics) I completely lost track of time!-

On day two of our vacation, we went to Magen's Bay and Peterborg Point.. Oh and we also signed our lives away to each other at the Court House!

Of course, coffee on the balcony.

My view after the sun rose... This is Peterborg Point that you are looking at.. The way the island is, we were on Tropaco Point and directly across from us was Peterborg (where we went that evening) and Magens Bay connects the two.

 

Dustin, Mackenzie and I would sit out on the balcony and have coffee (Mackenzie would have milk) and then we would head straight down to the pool each day. Duff was usually already out there before we even got up!

Headed to the Court House!

If you look to the left of this boat, you will see an American Flag and a house. You have to take a boat to get to it, but.......it's the Real World St. Thomas house!

We didn't realize that when we took these pictures, but the season premiered the last night we were there, so we found out exactly where it was after seeing all the local places we had been to on the premiere.

The Court House

Headed to sign away.. I told Dustin this was his last chance to run!

The Court House is in the Charlotte Amalie area of St. Thomas which is the most "touristy" place on the island. All the cruise ships dock pretty close, so all the stores and eating places are there. I loved that they had so much to see and do, but I wasn't a fan of going on a day when there were ships docked. It gets very crowded those days!

After we ate lunch, we headed to Magen's Bay. It is ranked one of the top beaches in the world. It was gorgeous... I do wish I had more pictures of the beach area, but we were too busy soaking up all the views! We are already dying to go back!

I made this swim suit for Mackenzie before we went on our trip... I love the way it turned out, I just don't have a better picture of her in it. I monogrammed her name in red on the bodice.

After we all loaded up at Magen's, Kaci, Dustin and I took Mackenzie to see Peterborg Point while the others headed back to the house to start cooking.

Everything is measured in Kilometers in St. Thomas.. We wore our map out by the end of our 10 days! The trip to Peterborg was pretty interesting.. Thankfully locals walk everywhere so we were able to stop and ask for help. Once you are one the road, it's a straight shot, we just missed the road! :)

When we were first in talks with our wedding coordinator, she had suggested that Peterborg was close to us, if we wanted to do the ceremony there. We decided not to, just because I wanted to be a little closer to the water than what Peterborg was... I am so glad we took the time to go see it. This was one of my favorite nights.

I bought this dress for Mackenzie of Zulily months before our trip.. As soon as I saw it, I ordered it with visions on gorgeous pictures on Peterborg since we had looked in to it so much when the wedding planning started. Kaci was making faces behind me and you can see Mackenzie was mimicking her!

Peterborg was gorgeous! It was quite a hike to get to where we were in this picture bc we had to climb quite a bit but it was so worth it! (My Memaw almost flipped when she saw we took Mackenzie here!)

Kaci climbed a lot around there. It was pretty cool with the water splashing up on the sides of the rocks!

"Birds!"

More of Kaci climbing..

A view of the house we stayed at from Peterborg... We stayed in the bright yellow house directly in the middle of this picture.. The house itself was two stories, and the pool was down more outside stairs away from the house (This was great since we had a toddler running around!)

Kaci got to FaceTime with Erik while we were gone..I really wished he could have come, but he had to work :( But I do love that we got a picture of Kaci and Erik in St. Thomas.

Ok, Last one of Peterborg (for today!)

Duff and Nick cooking dinner for all of us!

Dustin highly annoyed excited about me being wound up while he was doing school work!

The guys went down by the pool to smoke a cigar and talk.. They went on an amazing deep sea fishing trip the next day while the girls did our own thing!

And then we watched the Razorbacks play another game in the World Series!

And I did have some pictures of Hannah from this day, but they were in the afternoon when I was "wound up" as I mentioned and they are totally not appropriate for the blog. And by not appropriate, I mean she would kill me because she looked like a dork in all of them! :)

Hopefully I will get the rest of our vacation on here before football season starts! Only one month from tomorrow, and I CAN'T WAIT!!!

I can still remember waking up every morning in St. Thomas. Dustin and I (and sometimes Mackenzie) slept with the curtains kept open every single night just to be able to wake up every morning to the sunrise.... which was usually about 6:00 am. I cannot sleep once the sun is up, and every morning I would meet Duff in the kitchen to make a cup of coffee that he already had brewing... I enjoyed every sunrise on the balcony of our awesome villa. Just breathtaking.

Standing on the balcony from mine and Dustins room, this was to the right... You can notice how there is hardly anyone near us at all! Below is a picture in the same direction, just not as zoomed in on the point of the island that comes out...

Just around this ledge leads straight to the famous Magen's Bay. (Which I do have pictures of, just for another day!) I could stare at the ocean all day long and never ever ever get tired of seeing/hearing it.

This was our view we took when driving anywhere... This corner is just right around the house that we stayed in (And since we are on a point on the island, there was only one way in/out) Again.. just breathtaking...

We went to Lindquist Beach (Smith Bay) on the morning of day one... I have possibly read almost everything on the internet about St. Thomas.. and what I have not read, Dustin has. He gave Mackenzie, Kaci and I all history lessons the whole week in St. Thomas!! If you are interested, you can read about Lindquist here... One thing St. Thomas is known for is not ever changing. They are content with everything as it is, and most everything has looked the same for ever and ever.

Here are some pictures of our drive to Lindquist..

This is Hull Bay (we also went there toward the end of our trip) To get to our villa, you actually had to drive through the parking lot of Hull Bay to get to our house! I have a ton of pictures, because I couldn't resist them!

The locals keep there boats here 24/7.

This guy was always hanging out at Drake's Seat --Another historical place we drove by several times a day to get to and from our house!

My handsome driver for the week -- P.S. I might not ever say this out loud, but Dustin did an amazing job driving down the roads in St. Thomas, which is hard to do! His analagy of the roads are "It looks like someone was going uphill around a curve in a concrete truck and just dumped the concrete as they drove without ever smoothing it out"

Here is the water trucks I talked about in yesterdays post..

After pulling over a few times and turning around once, we made it to Lindquist, and I am not hesitant at all when I say it is the most beautiful beach I have ever been to. I did love all the beaches at St. Thomas (Heck I like the beach area at a local lake!) But this one was my favorite one! I wish I could have spent more time there!

Dustin, Mackenzie and Kaci in the sand and Nick in the water..

Mom and Hannah in the water toward the boat, Nick closer to shore, Kaci and Dustin playing with the scared.of.the.ocean.toddler and Duffy laying out in the sand.

Iguanas.Everywhere.

Kaci and I laying out.. M giving the sun a break

Ahh.. I would give just about anything to be sitting right there right now!

Is there really anything prettier than the Carribbean?

After a few hours of laying out and swimming, we decided the Carribbean sun was starting to turn us a little pink, so we hopped in the car and headed to the Charlotte Amalie area for lunch.

Kaci and I probably changed in the car at least twice a day everyday we were on vacation... While we were headed to eat, Mackenzie said "Umm Daddy..... Kaci's Neeeekkkkiiiiiddd" We were all dying laughing!

I caught this picture on Dustin's iphone as we were pulling out of the parking lot. I cannot believe it turned out this well.. By the way.. Lindquist is crazy full on the weekends, so the weekdays are the most perfect time to go.

We found a little outlet mall area in Charlotte Amalie right next to where the Cruise Ships doc.... There were several Cruise ships in and out all week, so I am sure I have pictures of that area too.

We ate at Fat Turtle for lunch which was right on the beach. Mackenzie spent most of the time laying over the bar area looking at all the fish in the ocean..

St. Thomas is well known for their Pain Killer drinks.. I am pretty sure I had a variation of that drink every single place we ate {The Nilla Killa -vanilla and the Nana Killa - banana} were my favorites!

We headed back home after a late lunch to hang out at the pool and so Nick could cook us dinner! Oh and the Razorbacks were in the College World Series so we stayed up watching that as well! Alex (the house owner) had every single channel imaginable on his satellite!!

And of course.. I sat outside and enjoyed some more of the view!