Virgin Islands (Part 2)

Part 2 includes my "single mom" experience in the Virgin Islands. Scott left, and I stayed in the condo with the kids! These may have been my favorite days. Simplicity at its finest! We took morning walks on the beach, read, wrote in our journals, and did math workbooks in the afternoons. Ate lunch on our porch, swam for hours, and talked until our heart content!

We would walk to the smoothie shop for our morning smoothie. The kids LOVED this! Such a treat! They snorkeled in the morning before anyone else even got to the beach. It was magical to sit alone on the beach watching my kids snorkel in the ocean...free range, all alone in the clear turquoise ocean. We watched sunsets from our patio. Threw lots of rocks in the ocean, and took even more strolls along the beach. My dream!

The dollar taxi was our main source of transportation. We had to walk up this huge hill to get to the dollar taxi stop. It was a huge workout, and they will forever remember this hill! haha! We rode into RedHook to eat dinner a couple nights. It was so great to have this alone time with the kids. We would call our favorite taxi driver, Roy, if we ever wanted to go somewhere off the dollar taxi route. Just the entire experience was amazing. Lots of learning, freedom and growth for all of us!

After about 5 days of single mom life...the next round of visitors came. My brother, Chad, and his family. My kids are obsessed with them! They stayed at another condo place down the street, which was cool that we got to experience both! They would later come crash in our condo...but, we had a few days of bouncing between the two condos and getting the best of both worlds.

We went to lots of beaches and snorkeled for hours a day. The kids got so brave and became SUCH good swimmers. Chad and Veronica were taking in the entire experience. We had an amazing time, and spent such quality time together.

Fast forward a couple days, and my other brother came down too!!! Truly, so awesome to have everyone there!!! Beau, Kate, Jake and Ally joined the fun. Cousin Sam had to stay home for summer school...dang college! ha! They stayed 2 doors down from me, which was literally perfection! Chad and Veronica wanted to join the closeness...so they crashed in my condo! Lots of bodies in one condo...and lots of memories, priceless memories.

Trent woke us all up early every morning. Annoying! And he definitely doesn't know how to whisper, so that was our ongoing joke of the trip! We went to St. John and hiked to Honeymoon beach, so gorgeous. We just sat and let the kids be kids. Run, laugh, play in the sand, paddleboard.

We ate dinners at the condo, and went out to dinner a few nights! We went on a catamaran trip to swim with sea turtles. We celebrated Chad's birthday with dinner and ice cream! Then, we also celebrated Trent's birthday on July 16th. His best birthday party ever....on the Jungle Float in St. Thomas with all his cousins. Every child's dream! Aunt Macy made the cookie cake which was so thoughtful! The kids played, climbed ropes, went down slides, jumped off ocean trampolines, and laughed for hours. Their joy was immeasurable.

This will definitely be a birthday he will always remember! He was on cloud nine. His smile was bigger than I've seen. I packed a birthday banner and Macy brought the paper plates, along with the cake she made. Simple, but oh so perfect! Not to mention our breakfast alone, just me and Trent on his birthday! I left the other kids behind, and just me and Trent walked the beach and ate a Nutella bagel together. It was also me and Scott's 14th anniversary on July 16th! I may not have gone on a date with Scott, but I sure did go on a date with a child that I deeply adore!

I really enjoyed this time with my brothers. We officially felt like "grown ups!" Ha! I never thought we would be old enough to take our families on vacation together, without our parents...just us! It was bittersweet, but truly the most memorable time of my life.

This was a vacation of a lifetime. This made my heart explode, and I'm only going to appreciate this time more and more as time passes. May I always look back at this vacation and remember what a precious time that was for us! The kids love their cousins beyond words. The best moments were the simple moments, and I think these pictures capture just how amazing this time was!