The Pregnancy Chronicles: 20 weeks (Half Baked!)

Well, I’ve made it past the half-way point in my pregnancy.  Today I am 20 weeks and 5 days pregnant.  This past Monday we had our anatomy scan ultrasound, and Baby McVey looked PERFECT!  And in case you didn’t already know from reading my facebook page, Baby McVey is a BOY!!!  Steve and I had a bet going about the gender, and he ended up winning (since I was sure he was a girl).  So now he gets to pick out all of our son’s outfits from birth up until he is 2 months old, and I don’t get any say in it.  I’m not sure what I’ve gotten myself into, but hopefully my husband has good taste in clothes (which he does).

When we were in Babies R Us the other day, I held up an outfit that I thought was cute and asked him if it was something he would pick out for our son, and he said that he would.  So it looks like we have the same taste in clothes, which I hope is a good sign!

If I had won the bet, and he was a girl, I would have gotten to decorate the nursery however I wanted, and Steve wouldn’t have been able to say anything about it if he didn’t like it.

He measured at 12 oz in weight, which according to our doctor is exactly right for his age.  We were able to get a very good look at the heart and all four chambers are developing perfectly!  His heart rate was 157 bmp, and his heart was located on the left side of his chest, which the technician said is what they always want to see.  Apparently there’s a condition that some babies have where all their organs are reversed, and the ones that are supposed to be on the left are on the right, and vice versa.

Here’s a picture of his little foot.

He had his hand in his face the entire time, sucking on his thumb.  At one point he opened his mouth really wide and tried to stick his whole hand in there!  We could clearly see him doing the sucking motion with his mouth and it was so cute to watch.

He even did a big yawn at one point and it was SO adorable!

And here’s the money shot.  His little manhood is sticking up right underneath the word “Boy”.  I’m sure he’ll be so happy with me when he gets old enough to care that his little thing-a-ling was on display for the whole world to see.

I’m starting to really show now too!  Today was the first day that a stranger actually asked me when my due date is.  I feel like it’s official now and I finally look pregnant to other people and not just myself.

Amazing to think that just 4 weeks ago, my belly looked like this. (16 weeks)

And 6 weeks before that, I looked like this! (10 weeks)

Pretty soon I won’t be able to see my toes……wait a minute……ok good.  I was just checking to make sure I could still see my toes.  We’re good for now!  Phew!

Mom’s Deviled Eggs

At my parents’ church in California (the church where I grew up) my mom is famous for her Deviled Eggs recipe.  At many of the church events, parties, and potlucks, her Deviled Eggs are always requested.  And they are gobbled up within minutes of setting them out.  Her Deviled Eggs are honestly the best I’ve ever tasted, and this New Year’s Eve I whipped out the recipe she gave me and made them for myself for the first time.  Now I am happy to share them with you!

Here’s what you’ll need:

  • 6 large eggs (makes 12 Deviled Eggs)
  • 1/4 cup mayonnaise
  • 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
  • 1 tsp yellow mustard
  • 1/8 tsp salt
  • a few dashes of black pepper
  • a sprinkling of paprika

Start by hard boiling your eggs.  I messed up the first batch and had to redo this step.  What?  I had never hard boiled an egg before!

When your eggs are cooked and cooled, peel and cut in half lengthwise.

 

Scoop yolks out with a spoon and place in a small or medium bowl.  With a fork, mash your egg yolks until they are in little crumbly bits.

 

Add mayo, mustard, vinegar, salt and pepper.  Make sure you measure out the vinegar.  I eyeballed it and it ended up being a little strong in the vinegar department…..but still good!

 

I forgot to take a picture while I was mixing the egg yolks with the other ingredients, but you should mix it first with a spoon or fork, and then if you have one, mix the rest of the way with an immersion blender.  It really helps get all those lumps out to create a smooth yolk filling.

Add the mixture to a piping bag with a small star tip.  You can also cut the corner of a Ziploc bag and use that as your piping bag and tip.

 

Pipe the filling into the empty egg halves into a swirly shape.  It helps if you have an egg platter so your eggs don’t wobble around when you’re trying to fill or transport them.  (Thanks for my egg platter Aunt Diane!)

 

Sprinkle each egg with a pinch of paprika and you are ready to serve…..and eat!!  Delish!!!

 

And I will leave you with Lazarus’s first picture of 2012.

P.S.  I took all these pictures with my new Canon 24-70mm F/2.8 camera lens that my wonderful husband gave me for Christmas!

Pumpkin Cream Pie

Holy Cow!  It’s been over a month since my last post!  I have no excuse except for the fact that I haven’t really been feeling that well due to this baby growing inside my tummy.  I’ve had these pictures ready to share with you since a week before Thanksgiving, but as usual, I have been procrastinating.  That, and my darling husband does not like it when I upload pictures while he is playing his precious Call of Duty.  He plays with his friends online, and when I upload pictures onto my blog it makes his game lag.  Heaven forbid!

Well luckily, he’s watching football right now with his parents (they’re here visiting for Thanksgiving), so I have some time to write a blog post without Steve complaining about how slow his game is moving.

I made this twist on a traditional pumpkin pie a week before Thanksgiving for our Bible Study’s Thanksgiving Dinner.  It was the first time I made it, and it turned out great, and it got several thumbs up at the dinner.  So if you don’t really like traditional pumpkin pie, maybe you’ll like this version a little better.

Here’s what you’ll need:

FOR THE CRUST:

  • 1-1/2 package Graham Crackers (about 15 Cookie Sheets)
  • 1/2 cup Powdered Sugar
  • 1 stick Butter, Melted

FOR THE FILLING:

  • 1 box (3 Oz. Box) Vanilla Pudding (Cook And Serve Variety)
  • 1 cup Half-and-half
  • 1/2 cup Heavy Cream
  • Pinch Of Cinnamon
  • Pinch Of Nutmeg
  • Pinch Of Ground Cloves
  • 1/2 cup (plus 3 Tablespoons) Pumpkin Puree
  • 1/2 cup (additional) Heavy Cream
  • 2 Tablespoons Brown Sugar

Preheat oven to 300°.

Start by adding graham crackers to a food processor and pulse until finely crumbled.  If you don’t have a food processor, you can put graham crackers in a Ziplock bag and pound them with a meat mallet or something else that’s good at pounding things into little bits.

 

When graham crackers are crumbled into tiny bits, add powdered sugar and mix until completely combined.

 

Add crumb mixture to a bowl and pour in melted butter.

 

Mix butter in with a fork until all the crumbs are coated.  Then pour into a pie pan.

 

Press crust down either with your fingers or with the bottom of a cup (I find using the bottom of a cup to be the easiest method) so that it is tight against the side and bottom of the pie pan.

Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until pie crust is golden and set.  Set aside and cool completely.

 

Next take your vanilla pudding…..and chipping nail polish….

 

And pour into a sauce pan.  Doesn’t it look pretty?  Almost like sparkly snow.

 

Add half and half and cream to the pudding powder and stir until combined.

 

Add spices and continuously stir until the mixture comes to a bubble.  Once you have it bubbling, turn off the heat…..but keep stirring.

 

Next comes the main ingredient.  Pumpkin puree!!!

 

Stir in the pumpkin until thoroughly combined.  This may take a lot of stirring because the pumpkin can make the pudding a little lumpy, and you don’t want any lumps.

Once pumpkin pudding mixture is cool enough, cover and place in the fridge to cool completely.

 

Add heavy cream to a medium sized bowl.

 

Add some brown sugar to the cream.

 

Then whisk together until stiff peaks form……be sure to stop when it looks like this.  Otherwise, you can whisk it too much to where it will curdle, and then you’re halfway to butter.  Learned that one the hard way!

 

Add chilled pumpkin pudding mixture to the whipped cream.

 

Gently fold the whipped cream into the pumpkin pudding.  Be sure not to stir too progressively.  You want to fold in gently to keep the fluffy airy quality of the whipped cream.

 

Pour filling into cooled pie crust.

 

Smooth filling so that it’s nice and even.  Then cover and chill in refrigerator for at least 3 hours.  If you have the time, it would be best to chill overnight.

Then slice up and enjoy!  You could add a little more crunch by adding some crushed graham crackers to the top of the pie once sliced.

The Pregnancy Chronicles: 10 Weeks

Well, I’ve made it to 10 weeks!

My morning sickness is pretty much gone, for the most part, thank goodness, but I’m still having lots of food aversions. My main staple lately is pizza.  I can’t get enough!  And it’s the only thing I can eat and feel completely fine afterwards.  All other food gives me kind of a gross feeling in my throat and stomach,  but not pizza!!!  Papa Johns has gotten a lot of our money in the past couple months.  My favorite is pepperoni and pineapple.  Yum!  Just thinking about it makes me want to order some right now. 

According to my baby books and the internet, Baby McVey is about the size of a prune this week, and next week will graduate to a lime!  I can’t believe she/he is that big already!  She/he is starting to form hair follicles and fingernails.  And although we won’t be able to tell for sure what the gender is for another 5 weeks or so (maybe longer), reproductive organs are already forming!

My belly is starting to stick out and I can’t really hold it in anymore, so I pretty much just look fat since I don’t look obviously pregnant yet.  But luckily I still fit into all my normal clothes, even jeans.  My amazing friend, Renee, gave me all her maternity clothes, which is going to be such a big help!  I’ll barely have to buy anything!  Just sweaters and maybe some long sleeved shirts.  She was mainly pregnant in the summer, and I’m going to go through most of my pregnancy in the winter, but I’ll make do, and the stuff she sent is so cute!  I’m excited for the day when I can start wearing them!

See, just looking like I have a poochy belly.  Not looking pregnant yet, but I’m sure the day will come soon where I wake up and I’m like, “Holy crap!  Where did that belly come from!?”  But for now, I’m just trying to enjoy every moment of my pregnancy, because I know it’s just going to fly by.  I can’t believe it’s already been a month and a half since we found out about our little peanut!  We have less than 7 months until our little one is here!  Which means I better get started making some baby stuff!  Lord knows this child is going to be overwhelmed with blankets, booties, and hats.

And Baby Makes Three

It’s true!  I’m pregnant with our first child!  Steve and I will be welcoming a new bundle of joy to our family on (or around) May 26, 2012.  We couldn’t be more excited!

When we bought the tests Steve insisted on reading the results before I did, so with much impatience I waited while he tried to decipher the results.  When he looked at the test he got this little smirk on his face, and he was like, “Hold on.” and picked up the instruction manual.  I was like, “Seriously?  Just tell me if there is one line or two!”  He said, “There’s definitely two!”  I literally screamed and jumped up and down in our bathroom.  I asked him why he had to look at the instructions if there were two lines and he said since one of the lines was kind of faint, he didn’t know if that was a positive or not.  Of course I then informed him that 2 lines is 2 lines, no matter if one is faint or not.

 

I took two pregnancy tests just to be sure.  The top test I took 5 days before my missed period (the day Steve and I found out together), and the bottom test I took about 3 days later.  As you can see, the bottom test is CLEARLY a positive pregnancy test.  There’s no mistake about it.  There are TWO pink lines on that test!

 

Then Steve realized that our whole world is going to be turned upside down in just 8 short months and he bolted for the door.

 

Just kidding.  He was excited and happy too.  I took the First Response test because it gives you the earliest results…6 days before a missed period!  That’s pretty amazing!

We were 30 minutes late to our Couple’s Bible Study that night, but I think it was worth it.

 

Here is my 4 week pregnant belly.  This photo was taken two days after we found out about our little bun in my oven.  No bump yet….just annoying bloating that comes along with most pregnancies.  If you’ve ever been pregnant, you know what I’m talking about.

I’m almost 10 weeks along now, and I feel like my belly has gotten a little bit bigger.  Who knows if it’s still from bloat or if it’s actually my uterus growing.

We had our first prenatal doctor’s appointment on Monday and got to see our little peanut for the first time.  It was amazing!  So with out further ado…

 

I present to you Baby McVey!!!  You can already see it’s cute arms and legs!  I have a feeling it’s a girl, but I guess we’ll find out in about 5 weeks or so.  We’re going to try to get an early 3D ultrasound to determine the gender early so we don’t have to wait until our 20 week appointment.  I’m ready to start making some non-gender neutral items!!!  You can only make so much yellow, green, and white things before you want to throw some pink or blue in there!

We did take one of those Gendermaker tests that is supposed to be able to tell by your urine what the sex of the baby is as early as about 8 weeks, and it said we were having a girl!  So I guess we’ll just have to see if it’s accurate.

We’re so excited for this new adventure!  I can’t believe it’s only 7 months away!  I have a feeling the time is going to go by really fast, so I’m going to try to enjoy every moment of this pregnancy.  Even the moments that I spend over the toilet.  Ok, I guess that was a little bit too much information, but man oh man!  This baby has had me sick in bed (or in the bathroom) from weeks 6 through 8, and I’m just now starting to feel better.  Hopefully that means we have a very healthy baby on our hands, and if that’s the case then I will gladly deal with the morning all day sickness.

Our Wedding Day: Part 2

In typical fashion, I did not plan my time very well on the day of our wedding.  We were planning on having our dog, Kaylee, as one of our “flower girls”, so we scheduled to have her groomed that morning.  Well, a couple days before the wedding, we decided that it would be way to much of a hassle to have Kaylee in the wedding, so we put it out of our minds until the night before, when I realized that I still had to take her to the groomers in the morning, and it was too late to cancel because she had the very first appointment at 8AM.

So I ended up taking her to the groomers in the morning, and then rushing back home to wrap the table assignment cookies that I had stayed up until 3AM finishing.  Luckily I had my bridesmaid, Tiffany, stay up with me, or else I don’t think I would have ever been able to go to bed at all that night (the night before my wedding).  My hair appointment wasn’t until 12:30, so I figured I had enough time to finish wrapping the cookies and get all the stuff together to take to the venue.  Well, I don’t know how this happened, but I ended up not leaving for the venue until 12PM.  I had to drop off the cookies, my dress, and a few other nick nacks we were going to have displayed, and since everyone else was from out of town and didn’t know the area, I was the one that had to go.

Well, I ended up getting to my hair appointment about 45 minutes late, which set everything else back.  My mom was running late because she had taken my niece to get her nails done, and couldn’t leave her stranded at the nail salon in a strange city, so she had to wait for her to finish and then take her back to the hotel.  So when she finally arrived at the hair salon, I sent her running over to get her makeup done (which luckily was in the same shopping center as the hair salon), because we were already an hour late for that appointment.

When Maegan finished my hair (and she did a beautiful job, by the way), I rushed over to get my makeup done, and of course the girl worked at her normal speed, even though I told her I was in a huge rush and was going to be late for my own wedding.  I was really happy with the finished product of both my hair and makeup, so I guess it’s good that she took her time.

After my makeup was finally done, I had to run over to the groomers to pick up Kaylee, then drive like a maniac to get her home in record time.  Then I rushed  back to the hair salon to pick up my mom, whose hair looked gorgeous, by the way!  We finally arrived at the wedding venue an hour late.  Luckily we were only late for the rehearsal and some of the pictures, so it ended up being ok, thank goodness.

The first thing they did was get me into my dress since I was already late for pictures.

 

My mom helped zip me up, because that’s what mothers of the bride are for.

 

Then I put on my garters.  Well, actually, Elizabeth put them on me since I couldn’t see or reach under my huge dress.

 

Time to put on my jewelry.  I think I bought 4 different pairs of earrings before I decided on the ones I liked.

 

I wrote my vows on this purple construction paper while getting my hair done at the salon only about two hours before.  I know.  I’m a procrastinator.

 

Love this picture Stacey got of me looking into my compact.  I hadn’t eaten anything all day up until this point (it was about 4PM), so when we were trying to get this picture my hand kept shaking and I couldn’t hold the compact still.  Luckily she was able to get at least one good shot.

 

We took a couple pictures in the bridal room.  Cassidy looks so sweet holding my bouquet.

 

 

We miss you, dear one.

 

Mom and I sharing a private moment.

 

Love this one of the  back of my dress.   And the fact that my waist looks so small in this picture. 🙂

 

Each of us looking out our own window, waiting for the day to start.

 

We chose grey Calvin Klein suits for the guys.

 

Steve wore his wonderful smelling Miracle cologne.  Which Lancome doesn’t even make anymore!  So he has to use it sparingly.  I think our wedding qualifies as a worthy event.

 

Figuring out his tuxedo pants.  It’s a very rare day when Steve isn’t in jeans or shorts, so it was fun to see him all dressed up.

 

Chillin’ on the couch with his new father-in-law, my Daddy.

 

Steve helping his brother and best man, Paul, with his tricky tux buttons.

 

Love this picture of Steve’s nephew, Ethan, who was one of our ring bearers, looking up at his dad and uncle as they get ready.

 

What a little cutie pie!  He actually looks a lot like Steve, especially when Ethan was a baby!

 

Our three handsome ring bearers.  They actually got along really well for just meeting for the first time the day before.  Ethan, in the middle is Steve’s nephew, and the two boys on the outside, Max and Charlie, are my nephews.

 

Joking around while waiting for me to finish getting ready so we could start the pictures.

The next pictures will be of Steve’s and my first look.  We opted to take most of our pictures before the ceremony so it wouldn’t cut into our reception time, and I’m so glad we did it that way.

Our Wedding Day: Part 1

The time has finally come!  I have gotten back the first batch of my wedding photos from my wonderful sister-in-law and photographer, Stacey Pentland.  She is one of the most amazing photographers I have ever seen, and she and my brother, Erik, were kind enough to shoot my wedding photos.

Here is the front of our beautiful wedding venue, Historic Cedarwood.  This antebellum home was built in 1835, and for the past several years has been used as an all-inclusive wedding venue.  The only thing that wasn’t included in our package was our photographer and minister.  Seriously.  Everything else was included at a very reasonable price.  If you’re looking for a wedding venue in Tennessee (specifically the Nashville area) I highly recommend this beautiful place!

 

We decided to do a less traditional guest book, so I made note cards with string tied around them that our guests would write a little message on and then hang the card on that twiggy looking flower arrangement.

 

We had refreshing cucumber water available for our guests as they arrived.  And boy was it nice to have!  Not only was that July day hot, but also VERY humid.

 

These pretty lanterns with candles inside lined the walkway toward the guest book table.

 

Here is the carriage house where Steve and his groomsmen got ready.

 

This was my beautiful bridal room inside the house where I got ready with my bridesmaids and flower girl.

 

Our cocktail hour was in this barn where Stacey took this gorgeous shot of my wedding dress.

 

I LOVED my bridal bouquet!  It was exactly what I wanted.  (Flowers are included with the venue).

 

My bridesmaids’ bouquets turned out beautiful, too.  Exactly as I pictured them!  They seriously did an amazing job on all the flowers as you’ll see in a later post.  Well, I don’t want to bog this one post down with all the pictures I have so far, so I’m going to separate these into different posts.  So come back tomorrow for our “Getting Ready” pictures!

Safe in the Arms of Jesus

Many of you who have been reading my blog, or those of you who know me, know that our friends’ little girl, Cassidy, has been battling leukemia for the past 5 years.  Today, her battle ended and she is now safe in the arms of Jesus and in the arms of her mother, who died of cancer only a couple of weeks before Cassidy was diagnosed.

I had the privilege of having Cassidy as my flower girl in my wedding this past July, and her sisters were my junior bridesmaids.  I will always be so thankful for those wonderful memories, and Steve and I will hold them in our hearts forever.

A few weeks ago the Clarks posted this note on facebook, and I just have to share it with you:

Chad and I overheard Cassidy praying on the baby monitor tonight. It was at midnight after she had woken up to go potty.  She prayed for many to be saved that she knows are not. She prayed for her friends and their families by name.  She prayed that we wouldn’t be too sad when she went to Heaven.  She told the Lord to tell her Mommy that she was coming soon and she’d be happy. She prayed for all the cats and dogs.  It is always so sweet to hear her talk to her closest Friend.

When she finished praying, she was singing quietly.  I couldn’t quite tell what she was singing.  We love her so much.  It is so hard to believe that Heaven won’t be just a little sweeter with her there.  I’m so thankful for every sweet moment we have with her.

Jeni

Please pray for this special family that they will have comfort and peace that only our wonderful Saviour can give.  They have been through so much, and although we are so happy to know that Cassidy is no longer in any pain, it is still hard for those of us that are left behind to grieve.  We can only look forward to the day when we can one day join her in heaven.

Cassidy’s funeral will be on Wednesday at 1PM EST and will be live-streamed via the Clarks’ church’s website:  www.breezyhillbaptistchurch.org.  Breezy Hill Baptist Church has established a Cassidy Clark Fund for those who would like to send donations to assist the Clark family. Donations can be sent to P.O. Box 235 Graniteville, SC 29829. Checks must be made to Breezy Hill Baptist Church. All proceeds go directly to the Clarks.

Our Honeymoon: Grand Turk

Our last stop on our Honeymoon Cruise was the islands of Turks & Caicos.  Grand Turk to be exact.  We had scheduled an excursion of swimming with the stingrays here, but after talking to some of the other passengers who had experienced this before, we decided to cancel the excursion and just explore the island on our own.

Well, it turns out that Grand Turk is probably the last island in the Caribbean that you’d want to explore.  I’ll explain in a minute.

 

When we docked, we pulled up right along side the Carnival Pride, one of the ships in the Carnival fleet.  I think our ship looks much bigger and prettier than Carnival’s cruise ship, but maybe I’m just a little biased.

 

Here we are as we exited the ship on a beautiful sunny day in the Caribbean.  Little did we know that the beautiful sunny day wouldn’t last.

 

A little home away from home.  I’ve only ever seen Margaritaville in Nashville, but here it was!  On Grand Turk!  And this Margaritaville was awesome…..minus how crowded it was.  They had a full restaurant, plus a gigantic pool with a swim up bar!  Since both our ship and Carnival’s ship were docked at the same time, that meant that there was barely even swimming room.  Side note: notice the beautiful blue sky above.

So since we canceled our excursion, we decided to rent a car and explore the island.

 

Yep that’s a cow…..and yep….that’s rain on our window.  It was sunny and beautiful not ten minutes earlier.  This was one of many cows, horses, and donkeys that apparently roam the island freely.

 

Some wild horses.

 

We finally found a gorgeous, not-as-crowded beach to hang out at, but five minutes after we arrived, it started pouring again.  So rather than lay out in the rain, we decided to explore some more.

 

On our drive we saw this big fella.  This was seriously the biggest horse on the island, and the only painted one.  All the others were a brownish red color or dark brown.

 

Well hello there!  Aren’t you a handsome boy!  And very happy to see us apparently.  Gross.

 

Don’t mind us.  We’re just sitting in our car staring at you while you eat.

 

This was the only school we saw on the entire island and it was completely deserted and run down.  Looks like the doings of one of the many hurricanes or tropical storms they get probably every year….maybe several times a year.

 

This cute little donkey family was right outside the school.  Daddy (in the front) was not too happy with some other donkeys that kept getting to close to his wife and baby.  He would chase them off while kicking and making that ridiculous honking sound that donkeys make.

 

Oh hi!  It’s you again!

 

That’s right!  Being the horse lover that I am, I got out and pet him.  Luckily he was a very friendly horse, and not skittish like all the others.

 

Nice horsey!  And look how big he is!!

 

Isn’t this little fluffy baby donkey the cutest thing?!  He ran away when I took another step, unfortunately.

 

This beach was on the unpopulated part of the island.  Well, the whole island is not very populated, but this part had no houses nearby, so I would say it’s unpopulated…..for a 7 mile long island.

 

This next beach was along side a little row of shops on the islands “main street”….which could only fit one car at a time.

 

Steve bought this local beer and thought, “What a good opportunity to take a picture of my e-cig in a beautiful setting!”  He said the beer was excellent!  I wouldn’t know.  I don’t like beer.

 

On our way back to the dock we saw this big fella.  You don’t want to hit this guy going 50 mph.  Pretty sure he would just stand still and our rental car would be totaled.

 

I mean look at the size of this guy!  His balls are practically hitting his knees as he walks.  That can’t be comfortable.  Oh, and notice the lovely blue sky that appeared as we were about to leave.  Wonderful timing.

 

We posed for one last picture on the island of Grand Turk before heading back to the ship.  I don’t think we needed to be back for another couple hours but we had pretty much seen all the island had to offer, and Steve wanted to get back to the casino.  Geez.

 

Here’s the view of Grand Turk from the dock.  Of course they have the beautiful touristy beach all beautiful with planted palm trees perfectly manicured and a wonderful shopping center just off the dock.  But don’t let that fool you, folks!  We know the real Grand Turk, and it is not all that pretty.  Yes the water is….but the island itself….not so bueno.

 

I do have to say that the water at Turks & Caicos was the prettiest water we saw on our cruise.  We were still docked in this picture, standing out on our balcony.  Steve bought that sweet necklace at one of the shops, and I got a dress.  We also bought a hand-carved, wooden sculpture of two dolphins dancing.  It was a great experience, but I think once in a lifetime is enough of a visit for this island.

Our Honeymoon: St. Thomas

I’m sorry it has taken so long to write another honeymoon post.  I guess I’ve just been focused on updating the website, among other things, that my little blog has taken a back seat…..again.  But don’t worry!  I’m back, and blessing you with more images from the lovely Caribbean!

As you probably remember from my previous honeymoon post, Steve and I went on a 9-day Caribbean cruise for our honeymoon, which stopped in 3 ports.  Our first port was Bermuda, and the second was St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands.  This was by far our favorite port of call on the cruise.  Many of the passengers were saying how St. Thomas was the best place for shopping, but we weren’t really looking to buy a lot of jewelry and diamonds, which is mainly what you can get deals on in St. Thomas.  So we went on a snorkeling and sailing excursion where we were able to swim with lots of turtles and beautiful fish.

This was the view as we were pulling into the dock.

 

Here’s the tug boat that helped guide us in.  You can see how much sand our ship kicked up in those usually clear aqua water.

 

These big fellas were sitting on rocks all along the pier welcoming us to St. Thomas.

 

This was the beautiful catamaran we sailed on.  It was practically brand new and had only been taken out a couple times before we went on it.  There were about 40 people on our excursion.

 

First we stopped at Honeymoon Beach for lunch.  How fitting, since we were on our honeymoon!  We got to swim a little in the clear water, and then we had a delicious BBQ lunch.  This part of the trip had a bit of a damper to it though, because Steve sprayed sunscreen on my face and I couldn’t open one of my eyes for about an hour or so.  But luckily, after several times flushing it with water (and tears) it finally cleared up and I was able to see again!

 

Here we are on our way out to Turtle Bay, an island that’s protected by the government as a natural habitat.  We weren’t allowed to set foot on the island, but we had a lot of fun snorkeling in the water around the island.  We saw several turtles, and lots of colorful fish.  Steve had hurt his leg snorkeling in Bermuda, so after about 20 minutes he went back to the boat and I got to explore the rest of the water on my own (well, still in a big group, but without Steve).

 

Gotta love that sensitive Scandinavian skin!  An hour of snorkeling and I had this lovely face mask imprint for the next couple hours.

 

The catamaran had two cargo nets on either side that we were allowed to put our feet on while we sailed back to the dock.  It was fun to be able to see the water right under our legs.

 

The ride back was very relaxing and fun.  Instead of using the motor on the boat, they put up the sails and we leisurely sailed back to the dock while listening to music and drinking unlimited rum punch.

 

We saw this old school pirate ship on our way back.  Straight out of Pirates of the Caribbean!  How fitting.

It was our favorite excursion on the cruise, and I’m sure if we ever go back, we’d love to do it again!  Oh, and the best part?  A dolphin swam right up along side of the boat!  Unfortunately it dove down before I could take a picture, but that was the only dolphin we saw on the entire trip.  So it was pretty special.