St. Lucia

If you have been reading our blog for a while, then you probably figured out that we always do our big family vacation the first half of July. We like to go after VBS, Sky Ranch & when it finally starts to get hot around here but before we have to be back for soccer. In keeping with this year's theme, we took the girls to St. Lucia since this is where we went on our honeymoon 20 years ago:

We have not been back since then & the girls have never been there so I thought it would be fun & sentimental to go back. Our day started early when our alarms went off at 1:45. We left the house at 2:30 & were at the airport by 3:00 in the morning:

I know we look excited but we were tired! It was so early, nothing was open - not even Dunkin Donuts, McDonald's or Starbucks. Bryan got upgraded +1 so Sadie sat up there with him so luckily they got breakfast on the flight:

3 hours later & we landed in Miami! We had a fairly quick layover & then we were back on the plane & this time Sophie got to sit up front with him:

Unfortunately, we sat on the plane for a long time, maybe an hour or two? I don't even remember but I do remember sitting on the tarmac on the pilot telling us that because of Hurrican Beryl, there was a ground stop for all Eastern Caribbean flights for 3 1/2 hours. So we sat there for a while & then the flight crew realized they wouldn't have enough hours to continue our flight so we had to go back to the terminal & de-plane. By this time we were starving so they gave us food vouchers & thank goodness we found a Chick Fil A because we can't always find something to eat at airports:

After we ate, we still had plenty of time to hang out, watch shows & read. Ugh. Thankfully we finally re-boarded several hours later. Sophie got to sit up front again & this time the pilot invited her to visit:

while Sadie & I slummed it in the back. Ha! I think I ended up watching 4 movies that day & read a lot. And all of us snoozed at some point, except for Sophie - that girl has never slept on a plane:

4 hours later & we finally landed in St. Lucia! I was worried about our luggage but thankfully it made it also. We had a 1 hour drive from the airport to our resort and then we finally made it about 9:00 that night. Whew - what a day after getting up at 1:45 the morning before! We had planned on getting in early that afternoon but since we got in so late, it was dark so we had a hard time seeing anything so I only took a few pictures of our villa before we unpacked & settled in for the week:

That just made me more excited to wake up early the next morning to walk the resort. I was excited to see everything & take pictures before everyone else woke up. This was our villa for the week - we were part of the Mango Blossom Group, room 404:

It was up high, very secluded & we had an ocean view with an infinity pool:

It was an easy walk down the mountain to get to the resort & beach. Isn't it beautiful overlooking one of the pitons?

I mean look at how crystal clear the water is!

For those who don't know, St. Lucia is a very mountainous island with twin pitons & our resort was on Sugar Beach, right in a cove in between them:

It also has a volcano on the island so the beaches here have darker sand & a lot of rocks. We spent most of our time at the beach but they did have a gorgeous pool also:

Behind the pool is a walkway to the main part of the resort where the gym, kids club, bars & restaurants are:

We ate breakfast on the terrace every morning with a stunning view:

There are only 130 rooms at the resort but they are all spread out on the mountain & the roads are very steep. I tried to walk up once & then gave up after that! Thankfully they had vans/shuttles that would pick you up & take you wherever you needed. We walked down most mornings to exercise, eat breakfast or go to the beach, but anytime we needed a ride home or to dinner at night, we called our butler:

Yep, that's right - every single room came with a butler! We had 2 - Winny & Pearl and they were amazing! They gave us a cell phone when we got there & anytime we needed anything, we just called them. 

Another fun fact - the owners of this hotel love art & have a massive art collection and it could be found all over the resort, inside & out:

The island was very green, lush & tropical but there weren't a lot of flowers - the few I saw I tried to snap a picture of:

If you keep up with the news, we were in Conroe when Hurricane Beryl formed & we were really nervous about our trip because it was expected to hit that area. Fortunately, it did hit St, Lucia, but it got the outer bands & some of it's neighboring islands were destroyed, especially Grenada. They got hit on Monday & we flew in on Saturday. It's hard to imagine that they got hit with a hurricane because it I hadn't have watched the news, I would not have known! They might have been doing some extra landscaping cleaning up the grounds but other than that, they really only had 1 area with damage. There was one section of the boardwalk & about 4 or 5 ocean front rooms that got damaged from the storm surge. It washed away the beach in that area, destroyed a pier & flooded those rooms, so a small section of the resort was closed when we were there & then they started re-building that part of the beach later in our trip:

Then it was kind of weird reading about the hurricane re-gaining strength & hitting Texas - millions lost power while here we were loving life on a tiny island that got hit & you couldn't even tell. We were there for 10 days which means I took a ton of pictures so I will try to blog for the rest of the week to share our adventures - hiking, ziplining, snorkeling, scuba diving, waterfalls, volcano & a mud bath! 

Good night from St. Lucia!