friends and trips

At the beginning of May, we had some friends in town. Alan and some of his Fellowship collegues from GA were at a conference in Savannah so the girls and the kids all came here for a few days. It was the most wonderful chaos! I laugh that it was easier to have 3 Moms and 7 kids than just me and Alan and the kids ... other Moms just know what to do around a house! If one kid was getting dinner made that Mom made it for all 7 or if one kid was taking a bath then we just threw the extras in ... it was great and fun and I MISS them! Oh, I guess I missed Alan a little, too ;)

This is Ashlyn ... SO SO SO adorable and I could not stop taking pictures of her all week! She is the daughter of Kathy and John who also have 3 year old Mckenna. They live in Pheonix, AZ.

Here are five of the seven. Mckenna between the twins, then Katelyn and Braden who are the kids of Abby and Rob who live in Des Moines, Iowa.
Mckenna and the twins having fun with bubbles.

We went on our first "no-kids" vacation to St. John, USVI in May. It was wonderful! My awesome Mom stayed with the kids and though it was a bit hard to leave them and I missed them when we were gone ... it was MUCH needed and we enjoyed every minute of it! It was hard to choose from all the photos but here are a few ...

This is a pretty shell we found on a hike called "Rams Head Hike." We carried up to the summit and left it there to welcome others. It was such a beautiful view though it would have been better with sunnier weather ... 360 views of the islands and ocean ... my photos do it no justice at all ...

On the way up ...

Part of the hike was along this rocky coast ... it was so pretty and the rocks along the shore were all so perfect and smooth it looked staged! You can barely see Alan way down there ...

This is the beginning of the hike and I just thought this little palm looked so pretty ...

This is part of a different hike. One day we rented a Jeep and drove (well, Alan drove ... on the "right" side of the car but "wrong" side of the road) around the island. We wanted to do these two hikes ... the Reef Bay Trail and the Ram's Head Hike. We met up with a group with the Reef Bay Hike and got to hear a lot of history about the island. This is the ruins of a Sugar Mill ... this hike was actually a lot longer than the other and had a lot of really cool history and several "ruined" structures and some ancient carvings ... I took tons of random pics but will spare you the details =)

We went deep-sea fishing one of the afternoons we were there. We both got pretty seasick but got some good fish anyway! The resort cooked some of the Mahi for us that night and it was, by far, the best fish I have ever had!

My tuna ...

There were tons of animals and little critters running all around the resort we were staying. The resort is nestled right into the National Park and was very natural and beautiful ... it was not uncommon at all to see deer, donkeys, mongoose (mongeese?) here and there while walking around ... this was on one of the little trails from one beach to another one ... peek-a-boo deer!

One day we took a trail from the resort to the downtown area called Cruz Bay. It was a bummy little town with funky stores and really good restaurants. This is Alan when were were at the overlook ...

Cruz Bay

Me!

Just a cool tree in a pretty spot =)

Feeling carefree but strange without my 3 little ducklings ...

We did enjoy a little bit of beach time, too. We spent two afternoons just chilling on the beach ... the one outside our room one day then we took a taxi to another beach ... Trunk Bay Beach ... to experience a little more of the local experience.

This is the view off our balcony ...