Almost done, folks. Documenting things here makes me feel better about other parental deficiencies…Like the fact that Lilly has no baby book. So bear with me while I finish posting our vacation photos. 🙂

While we loved hanging out at the resort, we felt it would be a shame to spend an entire week in St. Thomas and not actually see the rest of the island. We avoided shopping districts like the plague as they were swamped with Cruise Shipees. (Yes. I made up that word.) We also just hate shopping when we could be seeing or doing something cool. Thankfully we met a delightful family at the pool who gave us the tip to google the Cruise Ship schedule. Brilliant! ONE day each week there are NO Cruise Ships in port. THAT is the time to go do other things around the island. So we rented a cute little hatchback (Andrew Shaffer…what have you done to me?! I just referred to a hatchback as cute!). . .and set off exploring.

We had a hankering for more snorkeling so our first stop was Secret Harbor. The beach was not the prettiest on the Island but the snorkeling was good. While Andy and I took turns fish-gazing (with Trin joining in here and there), a mighty fortress was built and decorated on shore:When it started raining pretty steadily we decided to move on. Next Stop: Coki Beach. Highlights included an eel in the tide-pools, collecting sea glass along the shoreline, and a very persistent fellow beach-goer who insisted we take one of his dog biscuits to feed to the fish. Before we knew it swarms of vibrant parrot fish (and other species I couldn’t identify) were eating out of our hands. “You won’t forget this for the rest of your life!” he had promised, and he was right. As with the sea-turtles, we were too caught up in the moment to bother with pictures. Sometimes you just have to take it in.

When people heard we were going to St. Thomas we heard the same thing several times: Go to Magen’s Bay! It’s ranked the #4 beach in the world. So we dutifully made our way there. We enjoyed our stay, even though it was more crowded than Coki Beach. The view was so nice, Trin made herself a sand-throne to take it in:We also managed our best family shot of the trip that day:When we’d had enough beach time, our drive back gave us some pretty spectacular views of the island:

But I’m also kinda partial to the view we had in our room that night:It was pretty much the perfect day. 🙂