Hit Me Baby One More Time

I mean I don't actually want to be hit, but I'll take a hard body slam to the sand if it'll buy me more time here.  After the anniversary trip we brought the fruits of our labor back for even more fun--just look at Nicholas's face! (aw, this place again?)

  

We found our version of the Tree of Life and spent a good portion of the afternoon discussing Lehi's Dream and the kids wouldn't leave until we'd had a proper testimony meeting.  Sometimes I'm funny.

Certainly the highlight of this tropical round was meeting up with the funnest family on the planet--The Parson's.  I am in love with this bunch.  They are hilarious, easy going, up for anything and if I could give them a collective mantra it would be, "party all the time, party all the time."  I challenge any 20 something or other to go head to head with Robert and MaryAnn's energy -- you will be put to shame! A few highlights were chocolate shakes in the hot tub, watching Lizzie get all three babies to Water Lemon by herself on a paddle board, searching for a ball in the pitch black (no worries there!), and Robert leaving the boat around 11:00 pm to figure out where he was and how he was going to get the family off the boat and back to the hotel like it ain't no thang!  I honestly could learn a ton from these guys--they just go and DO and don't sweat the details; it is fantastically inspiring to me.  They are remarkable people and friends.

I realize that building group forts is not long for this world.. but for here and now I just beam when they do this sort of thing.

Bubbly Pool for the win! I think Nick was close to pitching a tent and calling it forever good.  It was/is such a phenomenal day, trip... LIFE.

I'll Be Your Platinum

aka 20 years, Baby!

I remember about ten years ago, I was flipping through some magazine and I saw a full page advertisement for "The Windjammer," a gorgeous navy blue sailboat, with a description that went something like this... Experience the Caribbean like never before on our private 60 ft sailboat. Let our expert crew cruise you and your loved ones through paradise on a vacation you'll never forget ...   Anyway, I think I literally pouted about that ad for a solid few months, probably a year, actually. I daydreamed about that boat nonstop and knew a trip like that was so out of our league. I remember thinking it'd be a miracle if I even make it on a cruise!  And then I'd whine-think, "But I don't wanna go on a cruise, I wanna go on the Windjammer! Waaaaaaaahhh!!" I never in a trillion years thought we would actually be the ones on a boat, with my hunny at the helm.  I can literally say, this IS one of my dreams come true.  And it has been just as incredible as I had envisioned.  I'm so glad the men risked their lives to make it so..

Nick and I went down again for our 20 year anniversary and boy was it awesome!  We had four days alone, then Jon, Jayne, Johnny and Kelley joined us:  PERFECT.  We sailed all the way to Bitter End in the Virgin Gorda and then back to pick them up at the ferry in St. John.  I read Unbroken as we glided along, we watched "Homeland"at night and effortlessly basked in the sun all the day.  It was so Zen.

The whole first day we were there, I swear I couldn't wake up, I mean I literally slept for hours and hours straight.  I honestly think it's because it had been such a long time since I truly gave myself permission to totally and completely relax.  When the others arrived, Jayne and Kelley did the exact same thing!   They looked drugged--and I understood.

Sleepy Kelley

Slumbering sweet Jayne

Now this is just pushin' it!

It's hard to describe how nice this trip was.  One of our best finds was this beach named White Bay on Jost Van Dyke.  It was literally unreal gorgeous.  When we pulled in around dusk we could hardly stop with the superlatives,  "the whitest sand! the most aqua water! the most gorgeous trees!"  Unfortunately, Nick thought we would hit the ground, and figured we've have to find another place to stop for the night.  But after asking a few other boaters, we decided to chance it, and to our giddy joy, it was just fine.  We put our party pants on and ventured ashore that night for an island buffet at Foxy's and hung around to see some really strange bar dancing by the locals.  We woke to a fantastically beautiful view the next morning and declared it our best beach yet.

"We have bars." (inside joke)

We made plenty of stops and island hopped to our hearts content.  Jayne felt so free she busted out in some spontaneous yoga moves. Shortly after this blissful maneuver, Jayne, Kelley and Jon got totally stranded between the beach and the boat on the crappy, dead dinghy and had to get towed back by some nice folks who took pity on the strugglers. The water had gotten super rough and they were being tossed about in all sorts of awkward ways! This made for some real good laughs!

Tree of Life

Kids who?

Breath in, breath out. 

On our last day, when we really had to book it to get back to St. Thomas, we quickly stopped at a new place to snorkel, that was supposedly really good.  Since the water was sort of rough, or it was windy or something, only Kelley and Jon Layne opted to get out and explore.  The part I want to remember is, after they'd been out for about 15 minutes, four sharks swam right up to our boat.  We were dying over our luck and it was so exciting and crazy!  We screamed our guts out to Jon and Kelley yelling "sharks!" about a million times over, to make sure they could hear us.  You can't imagine how fast a wide-eyed, panicked and doggy paddling Kelley suctioned herself to Jon!  We laughed so hard watching them awkwardly swim back as one with their eyes darting to and fro.  Even now as I write this, I feel like I need to raise up my dangling legs. Yiiiiikes!

And then is was over.

John wins for most creative souvenir!

Gray Matter

I never thought I'd ever want to live in gray, but here I am living in it and loving it.  The second I got rid of the yellow and blue it was like the fog cleared and I started to see my house for the first time.  I didn't know how powerful the transformation would be for me.  Thanks to Mom for digging in and helping me paint the living room the very second we got the idea.  She's good like that.

another good gray...

and another.

One Day More

Our last day and 1/2 in the islands was pretty fun.  We went to sort of a tropical petting zoo in St. Thomas.  I really love approaching every place by water--so cool and different. Though our crappy dinghy was the cause of more than one cuss word on my part. Part of the adventure, Nick would say.
Mitchell about died over the birds--I swear it might have been the highlight of the whole week for him. Touching a shark was cool, too.  I had no clue they'd feel like sandpaper.  And the iguanas were like pigeons.. swarming all around you for a crumb of food.  It was unnerving and freaky, really.

Back at the boat it was time to pack up and get things in ship-shape (seaman lingo)!  Natalie and I walked into St. Thomas and ate lunch at an authentic Caribbean joint (not great) and shopped a bit.  Then while Ma and Pa cleaned and loaded gear, the kids paddled over to a little island next to the marina.  I couldn't believe all the gorgeous conch shells they came back with--they were amazing and flawless.  I'm still mad we didn't bring any of them back.

So long sailboat.. you've been good to us.