St John, the beaches

 Now for the best part.
Kent and I have been a few places,
and so far, St John has the very best beaches we've ever seen.

White sand as soft as satin,
crystal clear warm water. The kind of water you could spend hour after hour in and never want to get out.

Just incredible. Every beach we went to I found myself thinking,
"Okay, actually this beach is my favorite." They were all that good.

 Seriously no better place to spend a Sunday afternoon. 

St John, the roads

One thing we were unprepared for was the roads on the islands. 

Narrow, winding, steep, 

and,

they drive on the left side of the road.

Driving there was pretty exciting!

When the owner of the house we rented met us outside the car barge ferry and we followed her to the house,

Kent and I couldn't believe the roads. Even our Jeep struggled to get around some of those corners and hills. At one point we watched the landlord swing around an unbelievably steep corner in front of us, and we stopped and just laughed,

thinking, 

wait, are we really supposed to follow her up there?

Yep.

This is the road to the house we rented.

A little past this, our first night there,

a massive crab, about as big as a dinner plate, 

scurried across the road in front of us. 

 I may have shrieked a little.

Kent may have also, actually.

I wish these pictures accurately showed how seriously steep these roads are.

Notice Mike's hands bracing himself as we come down the hill here.  

Crazy!

They don't have garbage collection services on the island (because how in the world would a garbage truck navigate these roads??)
so you have to take your own trash out, to big dumpsters alongside the road everywhere.
These dumpsters are surrounded by all sorts of broken furniture, tires, rubbish, 
and layers of broken glass.
Which, we found out, is a very dangerous thing to drive over,
even for a tough little jeep.

Cue, our attempt to fix a flat tire on a narrow, inclined road high on the mountains of St John.

We thought we could do it.

Turns out, there's a reason the jack has a little picture of a car on a hill, with a great big X drawn across it.

Fixing a flat on an incline is something best left to the professionals.

So we called a professional.
And one of us may or may not have been forced to relieve themselves in the jungle while we waited.
Let's just say we were working really hard to stay hydrated in the heat. 
We succeeded.

We got our tire fixed thanks to an incredibly friendly repairman named Jack (with a "Be Kind" window sticker on the back of his pickup---the people of the Virgin Islands truly are the kindest people we've ever met) and we were soon back on our way to the beach.

But not before we found some road construction, VI style,

(What you can't see is the gaping hole that falls off the cliff right behind that orange barrier)

and seeing some more of the island wildlife.

So, 
the roads are nuts.
But the views from these roads? 
Make it all worth it.

St John, the story

Last week Kent and I got to go on a trip that we've been planning for and saving for the last three years.
Kent's parents went to St John four years ago, and ever since we've been dreaming of this place.
With good reason, it turns out.
This is a place of dreams, people.

We drove up a couple of days before to get the kids settled in with my parents.

I had a harder time leaving them than I thought I would. 

They're all just so sweet and little! 

And I just want to stay with them and take care of them!

But we have to take care of our marriage, too. This is important to us.

After a few days just me and Kent? We seem to find ourselves again. Remember who we are. 

Then we come home, feeling refreshed and rejuvenated, and ready to start again to be the best parents we can be.

Our flight left at 1:15 am,
which isn't the most ideal time for departure,
but with just the two of us, and heading to the beach, I couldn't complain. We even got a couple of hours of sleep,
which for a mom,
is plenty!

(apparently it's not quite enough for a dad, though....)

And the view out my window as the sun rose over Atlanta? 

Incredible.

We picked up our rental car on St Thomas, bought a few groceries, and got in line for the car barge.

Pretty fun to be on a boat, in a car!

We got our first taste of the crazy roads on St John, dropped off our stuff at our beautiful rental house,
then drove back into Cruz Bay to wait for
our very favorite travel buddies, Mike and Allison.
We ate dinner at a beachside restaurant that nearly lost our credit card and truly lost electricity a few times (all part of the experience!)
and then Alli and I stepped down to the water to put our toes in for the first time.

April-friends and flowers

me

I'm not thirty yet.
But I spend too much time fretting about me.
How I think I look older than I am.
Wrinkles, sun-spotted skin, places that wiggle and jiggle in ways they didn't before... 
And I fret about more. Those hours in the middle of the day when I'm crabby and snap at the kids,
those times when I'm not enough, when there's not enough of me to go around. Between children, husband, and home, the things I cannot keep up with, the things that don't ever get done.

This picture, though, tells a different story.
I'm not thirty yet,
but I am so loved. Loved and needed and wanted. 
I have these people, 
who don't care about the things I care about.
All they care about,
is me.
Just the way I am.
They just want me. They just love me.
They love my soft arms, my kisses. They love that I care enough to know how to slice their toast just the way they like it. 
They love that I get up each day to care for them, whether or not I get a shower or put on makeup. They love my smile and the way my nose crinkles when I'm really having fun.
They just want me to read stories to them. Play castle with them. Feed them and bathe them and snuggle them into bed. Pray with them. Teach them the stories of Jesus.
And that's all they want from me.
To them, I'm enough. 

These people tell a more real truth than I tell myself.
And I'm learning to listen.