Island Time

I wanted to be sure that everyone at work new just how excited I was about my upcoming vacation. Not wanting to rub it in their faces, I took the subtle route:

Husband and I and 3 of our close friends left town on Tuesday at 4:30 AM! Thankfully my Island Partner brought along breakfast for the trip!!! I feel this picture pretty much sums up the flight over.

When we landed we were greeted at the airport Island style...with a rum shot. Cheers! After locating our luggage we taxied over to our hotel. We had been upgraded to a suite and its connecting room so there was plenty of space to hang out once the rest of the wedding crew arrived. Our suite also had a whirlpool tub surrounded by mirrors--T later claimed this as his shaving station.

Once we were settled into our rooms and had grabbed a morsel, we decided it was time for an open air taxi tour of the island. Don't you wish our busses were this festive?

Our driver took us all over St. Thomas. The boys were delighted to know there was a golf course on the island.

We also stopped by Megan's Bay. It is one of the most beautiful bays in the world, so of course we had to stop and put our toes in the water.

Look how clear the water is!!

Our driver took us to the top so that we could fully check out the island. This is looking down on the shopping center downtown.

While we were up there we watched one of the cruise ships sailing away.

Then back to the hotel...

There should be a warning on the hotel website, Iguanas are everywhere!

This guy made himself comfortable on the tennis court! Husband thought he'd get a bit closer for a picture, but Iggy had other plans and started whipping his tail at him! I have never laughed so hard in my life!!

Day Two looked a lot like this:

Now we did have to dodge a few rain drop here and there, but we didn't let that ruin our spirits. A rainy day in the islands is better than a rainy day in Alabama any day!

And every shower was followed by a rainbow.

...and sometimes a cruise ship.

On Wednesday afternoon the bride and groom and their families arrived. We had a big dinner with them and then hung out with everyone on into the weeee hours of the night. I failed to bring my camera to that occasion and haven't gotten pictures from friends yet, so you'll have to take my word for it that we had a great time and looked good doing it. Thursday we lounged in the sun and then gathered our gear to ferry over to St. John for the wedding festivities. I'll cover that in a separate post with wedding pics. The Sunday after the wedding we hung out with everyone at the Westin pool for as long as possible before taking the last ferry back to St. Thomas. We knew better than to schedule a flight home for that day...coming back to reality that fast cannot be good for the human body. Instead we went back to our first hotel for 2 more days.

Baby steps, people.

Monday was absolutely beautiful! We got floats and spent the entire day in the sun. One friend even went parasailing. For dinner that night we went to my favorite Italian restaurant called Virgilio's. I could move to the islands for this restaurant alone. Husband and I discovered this hidden treasure while there on our honeymoon and have gone back each year. It is a hole in the wall down a one way (deserted) street. The interior is exposed brink with almost every square inch covered with paintings. There are never more than two tables of people there so we feel as if we own the place. PS, they have the best gnocchi ever. mmmmm....

 We had so much fun in the sun that, on Tuesday, we decided we probably needed a break from the rays. We headed over to the water taxi to pop into town for a quick bit of shopping before heading to the airport. Thousands of Iguanas waited at the ferry dock to great us. This was as close as Vic would get to her new friend.

This poor fellow had an unfortunate accident at some point in his life. Don't think that slowed him down...he scooted away from us with his little nub-tail thumping along the way.

Everything seemed to be going smoothly on the ferry over....

Everyone was all smiles....

and then....

WHEW! That was a close one! Just kidding. It was parked, but it made us feel very small to pass in front of this monster of a ship. We did some shopping for our friends/family back home and by 10:30 were STARVING. Our ferry driver recommended a local restaurant called Jen's for lunch, so went off to find it.

Sitting by this guy, in a tiny little cafe, I ordered the spiciest Jerk Chicken wrap in the Virgin Islands. There should seriously be a warning on that thing!!! Perhaps it should come with a gallon of water on the side! I'm still trying to recover from this one!!!

Then it was time to take the sad taxi trip to the airport. It was hard to say good bye to the Islands, but we all had a great time. After we landed we stopped in a town on the way home for a bite to eat. While there, we ran into some of our island buddies that had come home a day earlier. We sat and relived all the fun times over a Chic-fil-a sandwich while we slowly eased out of island time.