St. Thomas vacation and eastern Idaho total eclipse

With my parents coming home, we were able to go on a big family vacation for the first time in over three years. It was a big deal, and so we certainly made it a big vacation. We were able to go to St. Thomas and it was so wonderful and relaxing. I didn't love the long travel time to get there, but it was so nice while we were there.

I mean... how could it not be when this was the view from the patio of our hotel suite?

And this was the view from the deck of a house that a family from the branch lives in. They used to live in Utah and went to the eye doctor's office where Aubrey works, so when they saw her at church, they were so sweet to invite us over for dinner and give us pointers about what we might like to do. They also invited us with them to go up to the top of Paradise Point on Wednesday night (when it's only $5/person instead of $21) and that was neat. It's also where I finally picked up some souvenirs.

Lots of just playing in the ocean and pool. (I got sunburned on the first day we were in the water, though. Whoops.) We ate out quite a bit, and I was able to finally go to a restaurant that starts with the letter X, so I was able to cross off "go to 26 different restaurants starting with each letter of the alphabet" from my 101 list. The deadline for my second 101 list is rapidly approaching! I also slept a lot, which was lovely. Those beds were so comfortable. And heavy curtains to totally block out any and all light is so wonderful... I sleep best in pitch blackness.

We also went to St. John one day and I got a couple National Park Passport stamps and we went snorkeling. When I think of snorkeling, I think of seeing lots of colorful fish. That wasn't quite the case there. But one of places we snorkeled, we saw literally millions and millions of tiny fish all swimming together in these schools. You'd swim right over them, but they'd all move if you got too close. It was a cool phenomenon to see. The other place we snorkeled wasn't as clear of water, but we saw a few sea turtles and stingrays. We also went to some sugar plantation ruins where we got attacked my mosquitos and bees. (That part wasn't so fun.)

One thing that wasn't super relaxing was on Thursday night, I got a job offer. I'm so glad I got that job offer at the end of the vacation and not the beginning, so it wasn't hanging over my head and keeping me from relaxing. I really didn't sleep well Thursday night. When we were in the NYC airport flying back, I called and accepted the job offer and started making my life a little crazy.

But before getting completely back to reality, I took one more vacation day and went with Karen and Stu and some of Stu's family to his grandpa's home in Pingree, Idaho. It was so nice to be away from civilization a bit and just relax some more after having made a big life decision. I enjoyed swinging in the hammock Karen and Stu brought and reading. I liked learning and playing the game Cover Your Assets and eating yummy food. On Monday, we drove up to Moore so we could be in the path of the total eclipse. That was so incredible to see. I'm so glad we were able to go.