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St. Thomas

05 September 2016
St. Thomas vacation - 2016
Last month Christi and I were able to head down to St Thomas for a week (without the kids!). Mom and dad both turned 60 this year so Erica and I organized a trip and this is the spot where we all ended up. The entire USVI is probably amazing, but we were extremely happy with where we ended up.

Since Christi's mom was nice enough to come watch the kids, it enabled Christi and I to both leave the house for the first time since Natalie was born. Along with my parents, Erica and Tucker came out from CA and Gma came along as well.

The entire gang
Dad did some good research and found an amazing place to stay called Villa Amour. I almost didn't want to write this in here so it's more of a well kept secret, but the house where we stayed was absolutely amazing. Built on the side of a cliff on the NW side of the island, our views every morning/night were spectacular. Having an infinity pool that looks out to water that touches the horizon ensured that every day was a true vacation.

View out the back of Villa Amour
While the house was absolutely amazing, we ate cooked every single night at the house instead of going out, during the days we made sure to head out an explore. While hitting up most of the main tourist attractions, one of our favorite days was hopping on a boat and heading over to explore St. John and the BVI.

Relaxing on the boat ride
On our stops we snorkeled with turtles, manta rays and barracudas:

Snorkeling off of Maho Bay
Hanging out at Sandy Spit ... better known as Corona Island where they tape a lot of their commercials. It was extremely picturesque, except I had water on the outside of the GoPro so most of the pictures of the island itself were a little blurry.

Swimming outside of Sandy Spit
No matter where we went, you could just take a couple of steps and see amazing views everywhere. This was off of a lunch spot on Jost Van Dyke:

View outside of Foxy Taboo's
The absolute best part about our boat trip is that our captain was from St. John. While we were already planning to go there a day or two later he gave us some advice for good spots that aren't so touristy and one of them might be my new favorite spot in the world. Just casually, he told us to check out Oppenheimer Beach. Yep. Same Oppenheimer from the Manhattan Project. After we get off the ferry every taxi is trying to get people to go to the huge popular beaches and I finally flag a guy down to get us to go to Oppenheimer. He drops us off at an iron gate, with a big padlock on it mind you, and says, "Don't worry, just go around and head on down." Not sure what to think of that, we all bypass the gate via the trees next to it and head down a steep road. I'm really not sure what to think at this point until we hit some sand and there was a spot that opened up to the beach:

Opening to Oppenheimer Beach
This was one of the clearest and least populated beaches I've ever been on. Crystal clear turquoise water that couldn't have been a more perfect temperature made it extremely tough to leave while also tempting me to come back every day since we left. The other cool part of this beach is that they have a tire swing hanging off of a palm tree which easily lines up for some postcard types of pictures.

Tire swing at Oppenheimer Beach
Christi and I love our kids to death, but it was a great time away not having to worry about when to wake up or what people are going to eat for lunch. We had such a good time that we're trying to plan something for our 10 year anniversary next year. Hopefully will have some more cool pictures to post whenever we get that all figured out.

Two of us overlooking Magens Bay