St. Thomas - July 3rd

We slept so good our whole vacation. I think we slept in everyday but one or two. Wednesday morning Colt studied on the balcony, and we ate breakfast on the balcony. A little later in the morning we went and got some chairs and rented snorkel equipment to keep for the week. We ended up snorkeling from the main beach out on the left side of the point.  It was nice to have snorkeling and good coral right off the beach rather than having to pay for excursions to go snorkeling.

Around lunch we decided to drive and have lunch at Iggie's at Bolongo Bay Resort. It was a fun little place with a great location right on the beach. We both had burgers and they were ok, nothing special though. 

There were a couple of other beaches on St. Thomas that I had read that we should go to so we drove a little further down the island to Coki Beach. It was crowded so we didn't stay. 

We also drove down to Magen's Bay, which is supposed to be on of the top 10 beaches. You have to pay to go though and it was already getting late so we decided to just head back to our beach, Sapphire. 

 Here's some pictures we took during our drive though. 

 

Back at our beach we laid out some more, and Colt got in the water again and did some more snorkeling. 

That night we ordered pizza from Senor Pizza and they delivered pizza and drinks right to our room. 

We had dinner on our balcony. Why go anywhere when you can eat with a view from your room?!

Every night we went to bed pretty early or at least we got in bed and started reading. We did a lot of reading on our trip. Besides Colt studying for his exam, he was reading a Game of Thrones book, and I read at least two books while we were on vacation as well.

St. Thomas - July 2nd

We left early on Tuesday, July 2nd, to head to St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands. We had an hour layover in Atlanta and arrived in St. Thomas a little after 3. Overall the travel time there was about 7 hours and due to the time change, we lost an hour that day. We, or I, had debated on whether or not we needed a rental car while we were there or if we could just take taxis. I had also debated on economy car vs. a jeep. Evidently most of the rental car companies do not let you take economy cars on the car ferry over to St. John. We had decided to rent a car like the day or two before we left. I had read online that we could rent a car easily at the airport or even from the car rental place where we were staying so I didn't book one in advance. Needless to say, that was the wrong choice! When we got off the plane and stood in line for a rental car, they were out of cars. Budget called their place at our resort and they said they were out of cars as well. They gave us the number to Discount that wasn't far from the airport. They didn't have any cars but they did have a jeep. It was more money than we planned on paying for a rental car for the week, but we didn't really have a choice at that point. Colt was pretty angry and frustrated with me because I hadn't booked it in advance. We ended up going with the jeep, and I think we were pretty lucky to get a car at all. I will say we were definitely glad we had the car, and I think it was a must have. I wouldn't have wanted to depend on taxis, and some of the places we went in St. John we wouldn't have been able to go without a car. By the end of the trip, Colt decided he wanted him a jeep too.  

After we FINALLY got the rental car, we headed towards where we were staying. When planning the trip, I decided to rent someones little condo unit from a vacation rental place rather than staying at an actual resort. We rented Unit E-206 at Sapphire Beach Resort. I definitely recommend it. We were right on the beach with an amazing view. It was so cute and comfortable. The owners also gave us a ton of tips and recommendations on food, beaches and snorkeling that came in handy.

 On the way to our place we picked up some groceries at the Food Mart. I think a small box of cereal was $7 and milk was $6-7 as well. We got some basics to get us through the week. Even though groceries were expensive, it was still cheaper than eating out every meal. 

By the time we got to where we were staying and unloaded everything, it was already getting late and we were hungry and pretty tired. Once we checked out our place, we ate cereal and sandwiches and then we walked around to check out the beach.  

This was the view from our balcony. We had an awesome view of the beach, water and St. John. 

The inside of where we stayed

Another pic I took on my phone from the balcony

And some from walking along the beach

A pic looking back at the building where we stayed

1 month later

So now 1 month later... I am finally getting around to blogging again and going through our vacation pictures. Time seems to go buy faster and faster, and life is definitely too busy lately! Work didn't seem to slow down all summer, and we got THE email this week that overtime is starting next week for fall busy season. In my opinion, it doesn't seem like we ever really got out of busy season though. 

Colt woke up early this morning and headed to take his Step 2 exam. It's about a 9 hour test. I feel for him, and I know it will be a big relief for him to get this test out of the way. I think technically it his last test of medical school! After this, the remainder of 4th year is just clinical and interviews for residency programs. After having July off to study for the exam, he started toxicology this Monday and then next month he will go to Temple for his away ER rotation. Before we know it, he will officially be an MD... Crazy! Since he is testing all day, one of my goals is to go through all our pics and get caught up on our "scrapbook."