Heaven is a Place on Earth

Seeing that summer vacation starts next week, I thought I should probably update the blog with some of the things we've done since LAST summer. I know, I know, I am such an overachiever...

In October, Greg and I visited Heaven On Earth, otherwise known as St. John USVI. The trip celebrated our 10th anniversary, so in honor of 10 years of wedded bliss we took a 10 day vacation. (The kids stayed home with the game-for-anything Grandma Kathie.) Getting to St. John is no easy task--flight to Dallas, flight to Miami, flight to St. Thomas, crazy jam-packed van ride across the island to the ferry terminal, ferry to St. John, walk with luggage up the hill, find rental Jeep with key under mat (and a sticky note on the dash reading, "Do not worry about the engine light." We didn't.), and finally drive to condo. When we finally arrived it was the dead of night, pitch black and mysterious. It makes you wonder what you spent the whole day traveling for. Ah, but then you wake up to this:

HEAVEN!!! St. John is my ultimate paradise. 2/3 of the island is a national park, so it is pristine and sparsely populated. There is not a McDonald's to be seen. The weather was gorgeous, the water was perfect... paradise, I tell you.

Here we are at the highest point on St. John. I believe that's one of the British Virgin Islands in the distance. It only takes about half an hour to drive from the bottom of the island to the top, and you pass this point every time. That's our jeep in the bottom left corner--we felt sooo cool tooling around in it. The engine never did give us problems, but we did wake up one morning to find a colony of ants living in the driver's door. Very curious.

One of the best things about St. John (for me) was the abundance and variety of seashells to be found. I am admittedly obsessed with beach combing and tend to haul home half the beach (which I then arrange artistically in glass jars--I'll show them to you any time. They remind me of our trips to paradise and make me happy.) Greg had a way of finding more unique items:

One day we rented a kayak and paddled out to an island, which we then snorkeled around. Look at me--I felt SO TOUGH! Like I'd just walked out of the REI catalog or something.


All in all, a perfect vacation. The most fabulous part was that we snorkeled every day, nearly all day. But to read about that, you'll have to skip on over to the next post.