Today, Maddie summed up how I feel about this vacation. We were walking along on this fantastic hike with incredible views and foliage, and she turned to me and said, “You know, it’s a miracle that we are here (on St. John). The Kincer’s are a miracle. They are so nice and so generous – I mean, they let us use their house, and we didn’t even ASK them!” It really IS a miracle that we are here… God has truly blessed us with incredible people in our lives, and He has gone above and beyond by blessing us with this trip… it’s the trip of a lifetime for us. We didn’t do anything to deserve it, but we are so incredibly thankful for it.
I keep thinking each day that THAT day is best one yet, and today is no exception. We started out the day like every other one: waking up at the crack of dawn with the kiddos, eating breakfast on the patio, Maddie’s morning swim. Then we set out on the day’s adventure. Today we decided to hike to the petroglyphs. We’d heard it was a good hike, and it’s on our side of the island, so we headed out.
The hike got off to a miserable – and I do mean miserable – start. Our sweet daughter managed to get some new patches of mosquito bites, despite our best efforts at prevention. I knew all along that if she ever got too many, she would be miserable, which in turn meant WE would be miserable. Sure enough, she started dancing and moaning and scratching and doing a voodoo-looking dance in the process. I learned early on in this trip to keep the anti-itch stuff close at hand, so I immediately put some on (the kind with the topical anesthetic – the only way to go). She was determined to be miserable, though, so her stubbornness was winning out over the cream. She did NOT want to hike (and of course Matthew already had his sights set on the finish line), so for the first 20 minutes or so, she pouted and moaned and stomped along… despite my best efforts to distract and/or threaten. I finally said outloud, “LORD, Jesus, PLEASE give me patience” and when I turned around she had stopped in her tracks and was also praying. She told me that she asked God to help her enjoy this hike. In the end, he definitely answered both of our prayers. We had an incredible hike – all four of us. She enjoys hiking, so I knew that wasn’t the problem. It was a 4 mile hike round trip with a lot of up and down… we all got a work out in. We saw 22 hermit crabs, 5 deer, and we even made it all the way to the petroglyphs. It was so cool, and so worth it. Maddie was thrilled with herself.
After the hike, during which sweat POURED out of every pore on our bodies, we came back freshened up and had lunch (and went for swim in the pool). Then we headed out for an afternoon at Trunk Bay. Trunk Bay is the most popular beach on the island. It is said by some to be the #1 beach on the world. It can get really crowded if there are cruise ships in, but we were told they don’t come on the weekends, so that’s why we chose today to go. It was UNBELIEVABLE. The whitest sand and the clearest water yet (although the water has been clear at every beach we’ve been to… I guess this just had the largest sandy swimming area so far). We found a shady spot in the trees to set up our chairs, and then we hit the beach. Jeff and I played paddle ball, we all enjoyed the water together, and then Maddie and I decided to swim with our snorkeling masks across the beach. I didn’t expect to see much, because it was just sand, but I was wrong! We immediately saw a school of 6 or so silvery fish as big as my hand, then a really long skinny fish, and then another fish (all of these were very light colored, but still so cool! Then we got the biggest surprise – a ray! Right there where we were swimming! I looked up and saw Jeff, so I tossed him the mask, and he got to see it. Matthew was on the way to shore to wipe his eyes (a common occurrence), so he missed up. But a few minutes later, we noticed people gathering, and sure enough, they were looking at the ray, so I ran with Matthew down to the surf, and he stepped in and got a good look. It was so exciting!
After that, we decided to get our gear on and go on the snorkeling path. Many of the beaches here are part of the National Park, so they have really strict rules. We reminded Matthew of the NO TOUCHING and NO STANDING rules that the park ranger had just told us, and we headed off! We learned from our other snorkeling adventures that Matthew lasts MUCH longer if he just wears regular goggles and flippers. When he wears the mask, his inevitably gets water in the nose, which he then sucks in, which hurts and then he’s DONE. Today, he did GREAT! We all snorkeled the entire path together, and it’s the most amazing snorkeling experience I’ve ever had. First of all, it’s still humbling to me to think that the four of us are doing this together. We’ve got Matthew, who last year wouldn’t even venture into the deep end of a big pool, and Maddie, who can get very intimidated by the ocean and tends to be somewhat cautious. Yet here we all were, snorkeling in 12-15 feet of ocean. At one point early on, Maddie looked at me and said she wanted to go back, but I told her we were fine, and she and I ended up doing the whole path together TWICE (that’s how much she loved it). We saw so many different fish – it was CRAZY! Coral, urchins, bright blue fish, turquoise/greenish pretty large fish… but the highlight was the parrotfish. It was unlike anything I’ve ever seen! Bright green, with yellow circles in his “cheeks” and some red mark on his gills – and he was big, too! Another highlight was swimming first above and then THROUGH a school of thousands (and I’m not exaggerating) of tiny fish. They were probably only an inch long at the most… it was soooooooo neat. We’ve been taking lots of underwater pictures with a disposable underwater camera. I sure hope at least SOME of them come out!
Well, all that snorkeling tuckered us out, so we dried off and rode into Cruz Bay. We needed desperately to buy some more bug spray AND some more anti-itching cream. And of course we needed to eat! We ate at another place recommended to us, called Woody’s. It was delicious! We had some shark as an appetizer, and Matthew shared it with us. He really enjoyed it. It’s easy to forget how small this island is, but each time we’ve eaten dinner in the last three days, we’ve seen someone from a previous place. Two different waitresses we’ve had from different places were BOTH working at Skinny Legs yesterday; then today, we saw a family at Woody’s that was at Skinny Leg’s yesterday while we were there; and yesterday at Skinny Legs, we saw a group that had been at the Mexican place we’d eaten at the day before that! Even today – a family we’d talked to on the beach at Trunk Bay (all because one of them had a coozie that said, “To Hell with Georgia” – which is part of the Tech fightsong), and they ended up at Woody’s while we were there. It cracks me up!
Our dinner was delicious but not overly filling, so came home and cooked up some cookie dough we bought earlier in the week. We’ve been taking turns choosing movies in the evenings, so tonight it was mine and Jeff’s turn. We told them we were passing on the movie and having game night instead, and Matthew and Maddie were both excited! We played UNO, which is probably Matthew’s favorite game right now. He really gets into it. In fact, Jeff had “uno” once, and Matthew drew on his turn and got a Draw 4. He said “yes!” and laid in on Jeff. Sorry Jeff, but I loved it for Matthew!
Then we ended out day like every other… we read in the Bible and then read Little House. It’s so funny, because as HOT as we are, we’re reading “The Long Winter” in the Little House series.
