St. Thomas, Part 1

When Bryan & I planned our trip, we knew we wanted to see most of the islands in the US & British territories while we were down there but we heard St. Thomas was the biggest & had more going on so we knew we would save that island for the girls. The tricky part was figuring out how to get them there. Obviously they are too young to fly by themselves, so we decided I would fly over to get them while Bryan stayed behind. I told Bryan it was his birthday so he could relax while we were gone so he took advantage & played 2 rounds of golf:

I made the quick trip from Houston to St. Thomas & just carried on a bag of dirty clothes so I could do a quick load of laundry at my parent's house since we had already be gone for 10 days:

We had been in St. John so I had to take the ferry from there to St. Thomas, then a taxi to the airport & then it was a 6 hour flight from there to Houston. The good news is that there is a direct flight in & out of Houston where as Dallas only has connecting flights through Miami, so I knew that would be easier for the girls. Unfortunately there are limited number of flights so I flew in on Thursday but we couldn't fly out until Friday but these girls were ready to go:

This is the longest flight the girls have ever taken & of course I was by myself with them, but they did great! Sadie has always been great on planes but it is definitely getting easier now that Sophie is getting older:

Bryan was waiting for us at the airport in St. Thomas when we landed & we went straight to our hotel for the week. The hotel property was beautiful & I really enjoyed walking around it all week:

It was really spread out so we had to walk a lot or take the golf cart back & forth, which the girls loved. It was also built on the side of a big hill/small mountain so there were a lot of stairs & the views everywhere were great. The pool was an infinity pool overlooking the ocean & it was a favorite for everyone! The landscaping was very lush & I loved all of the flowers around the property:

They didn't have the best beach but we spent most of our time at the pool overlooking the ocean so that was fine. The islands are so close that we had a great view of St. John across the way. When we walked in to our room they surprised Bryan with a birthday cake & bottle of champagne:

He has gotten spoiled since we always travel in the summer on his birthday! And I set up a few surprises for the girls with souvenirs we had already picked up for them:

We spent the next week in St. Thomas on our family vacation & even though it wasn't my favorite place we have ever stayed, we had a great time. Mostly because the girls are getting older so vacation has become a lot more fun! I kept telling everyone this was our first official vacation where the girls just had a suitcase with clothes - no sippy cups, no diapers, no swim diapers, it's kind of amazing!