Thanksgiving 2012... Virgin Islands Style

This year Jim and I decided that we wanted to take a trip on our own for Thanksgiving. The past few years we haven't been with family but with our good friends Chris and Caressa for the holidays which has been a lot of fun but this was the year to just get away. Growing up, American Thanksgiving wasn't a huge holiday at my house since all of our family is Canadian and Canada has their own Thanksgiving in October... so the possibility of going without turkey and stuffing for a year was ok with me. :)

We knew we wanted to go somewhere tropical so we looked up where we could go using Jim's hotel points and settled on the Westin in St. John. We had our first uneventful trip down which was so great (if you know us, you know our terrible travel luck)... no delays or cancelled flights and after the ferry ride we settled in around 8:00 on Sunday night. :)

We loved the resort... the food wasn't too overly priced, I loved the lunches, the pool was HUGE,  taxis were easy to get, and the beach was private. I was also impressed with the amount of family activities they had... huge water trampolines, floats you could check out for free (my favorite thing), a movie & popcorn night at the pool, etc. I guess I was just surprised that a lot of families with kids would go to the Westin Resort but I guess there's no reason not to :)

We also had some great meals. We loved Sun Dog Cafe in Mongoose Junction and I would definitely recommend it! It is all outdoors with shoppers walking by but we got a cozy table for two in an little alcove.  We also ate at The Fish Trap which was great too.


It was such a relaxing vacation... we only left the Resort twice and I slept about 11 hours every night which was amazing. We are usually go go go on vacations doing lots of sightseeing but it was so nice to just sit around by the pool and on the beach and read and relax. We need to take more vacations like that!

Here are a few pictures from the trip!

The view while enjoying breakfast

On my float!! 

Trampolines

Eating at Sun Dog Cafe 

On the ferry back to St. Thomas 

Oh Canada!

Ok so we went out to Seattle to see Amy and Ryan for 4th of July and we were able to sneak in a trip to Vancouver, British Columbia while we were there. It was only a few hours away and I think the car ride was one of my favorite parts... even being stuck at the border for an hour was bearable thanks to some humor from Amy's ghost hunter app and the "Bed Intruder" song played on repeat. :)

Even though I am Canadian, I had never been to Vancouver or any place in Canada west of Toronto. I only lived in Canada until I was about 2 and a half but I did go back almost every summer as a kid to visit my family in both Quebec and Ontario and for some winter breaks. There's some feeling that I get inside when I'm in Canada that I can't quite explain . It sounds really cheesy but it does feel like I'm home and I get this warm fuzzy feeling inside. I think about happy times growing up as a child and I love to just soak everything in.

Vancouver was awesome. It was so clean and absolutely beautiful. I loved being able to be downtown... over looking water... and seeing mountains in the background. Everyone was so friendly and nice to us and it just reminded me how much I love being Canadian.

We stayed and the Westin on the Harbor and this was the view from our hotel room...

We had a lovely lunch at a place called Dockside Brewery where we overlooked the city and the water. 

After that we walked around the Granville Island area and visited some breweries. My favorite beer was the Raspbeery Beer at Granville Island Brewery... I wish they sold it in the US! 

One morning after eating some doughnuts at Tim Horton's... the Canadian version of Dunkin Doughnuts (but they do have those in Canada too) we decided to go up Grouse Mountain per my Dad's suggestion. We took the Gondola to the top (though they do have this challenge called "The Climb" where you can hike/race to the top and they time you) and got to enjoy some gorgeous views of the city and see/touch snow! My favorite! 

Here I am with Jim and Amy and my Pre-K class moose named Marty (He goes on adventures with me and with the kids over the weekends and holidays during the year and they take pictures and send it back in to talk about). 

Amy & Ryan 

Some gorgeous wood carvings. 

Me and Jim

The lumberjack show. There were also 2 real bears that lived in a pen that was a few acres large which was cool to see as well. 

Enjoying some raspberry Granville Island beer and some Poutine... topped with pulled pork!? So poutine is something that I grew up with on the ski slopes in Quebec. It is traditionally french fries with fresh cheese curds and gravy.... but this one had the pulled pork on top which I hadn't seen before. Relaxing on the top of the mountain was one of my favorite memories from this trip. It was hard to imagine it as a bustling ski slope in the winter! 

One of my other favorite things from this trip was the Harbor Dinner Cruise that we went on. We had our own 4 person table on the boat and we enjoyed about a 2 hour ride. We enjoyed lots of wine, food, and live music. Amy even got the guitar player to sing a Happy Birthday song for Jim. Too funny. 

Oh Canada..... I love you. I wish I could go back more often and I'm so glad that I got to be with Jim, Amy, and Ryan for this trip back! It was so much fun. We are really lucky to have such awesome travel friends who are always up for an adventure! Maybe our next Canadian adventure can be to Quebec City or Montreal?! :)  I'm in! 

Our Trip Out West

So I was looking at my lack of blog posts and trying to figure out what to blog about... school aka work.... is back in full swing. I have a decently manageable class this year though with 8 special needs kids in the mix of 10 additional typical VPK kids I always feel like I'm never doing enough! My hope is that it will continue to go smoothly enough. I keep telling myself that nothing could be worse than the first half of last year and knock on wood that will keep being true! Anyways I think I may try and blog about school stuff more this year so I can remember some of the fun projects that we are doing so I can do them with my own kids one day.

Anyways... I digress... the title of this post is Our Trip Out West so let me get to that. While in Vegas with Amy and Ryan this past January I threw out the idea of taking a trip out to visit them in Seattle with a side trip for all of us to Vancouver. Luckily Amy was on board... as we both usually are when it comes to trip planning and we decided we'd go out to visit the week of July 4th. To say this was an awesome and relaxing trip is an understatement! We had the perfect mix of sightseeing and hanging out.

We went to the Mariners game against the Orioles on July 4th which was a fun way to celebrate Jim's birthday. I was really impressed with their stadium! We sat in the club level seats and had access to lots of yummy food and drink options.

That night we went out for dinner and I learned how to play a version of shuffleboard... but on an air hockey type table... I don't know if there's another name for it. It took Jim and I quite awhile to get the hang of it but it was fun :)  We took lots of fun pictures with their cool wooden beer/liquor sign. 

We also had some awesome seafood chowder (it was the first time I had ever had chowder and now I've been spoiled) and we spent one more walking around downtown. 

We took some pictures in Kerry Park before making the drive up to the border to go to Vancouver (More about Canada in my next post).  We really couldn't have asked for better weather throughout the trip. I can't imagine living somewhere where you can eat all your meals outside in July because it is so nice! I'm super jealous of their summers!

When we got back from Vancouver we had about a day and a half left in Seattle and we definitely made the most of it. We went and checked out the Chihuly Glass Exhibit and it was breathtaking. I love colored glass designs. It reminded be of being in Italy and the South of France where they had a lot of glass jewelry and I got to watch someone go through the glass blowing process. 

 

I loved the canoe because it just reminded me of Canada or being on a lake in upstate NY. I'd love to blow up on of the pictures I took of one of the glass filled canoes and put it up in our house one day. 

The exhibit is right next to the Space Needle as you can tell from this picture. :) 

They also had a lot of pieces outside in the gardens which was cool. 

On our last day we visited some wineries and did some wine tasting which was fun. I think Seattle is an awesome area and I love the fact that it is so close to British Columbia. If it wasn't so far from the East Coast & my parents I think I'd be able to move out there in a second! Thank you to Amy and Ryan for a great Seattle visit! More about our weekend in Vancouver to come! 

Spring Break: London

So we woke up Wednesday morning and made it to the big train station Gare de Nord, to take the train to London. It was an easy trip but you do have to check in and wait to board in a separate area than the regular trains so it was a good thing we figured that out and cleared customs in plenty of time. The train ride is 2 hours which seemed like nothing at all.

When we exited the Tube station (prices are ridiculous if you aren't getting a day pass to ride the tube (subway)) in London we wandered a little to get our bearings and find our hotel. We stayed at the Park Lane Sheraton and it was in a great location right near Buckingham Palace. The free breakfast we got there was awesome.... you could choose anything from fruit, cereal, eggs, bacon, etc. etc. It was much better than the bread and croissants you could get with Jim's hotel status at the Westin. Anyways below you will find some pictures from our few days of sightseeing.... the only super eventful things that happened was the fire alarm going off in the middle of the night at the hotel one night... and our flight back to the States getting cancelled and having to run through the airport to catch a flight to Miami so we didn't have to stay an extra day! We didn't get to sit together for the 10 our trip home but at least I was able to make it into work the next day!

After we left our bags with the concierge we were quite hungry and didn't feel like going to far so we wandered literally next door to the Hard Rock Cafe. Did you know that the one in London is the original?? Once our room was ready we unpacked then wandered around the city a little bit and caught a sunset ride on the London Eye (A giant Ferris Wheel that holds like 25 people per car). You get a great view of the city and I would definitely suggest it though it is somewhat expensive. Museums and attractions in London definitely have higher prices than the ones in Paris which is too bad... but you only live once and who knows when we'll be back!  I was also bummed that we couldn't take any pictures inside Westminster Abbey and Saint Paul's... good think we have the internet to look pictures up to remind us how gorgeous they are inside! :)  We spent each day exploring everywhere we could think of and the weather was absolutely gorgeous! It was not the typical dreary London weather!

Buckingham Palace 

Big Ben 

View of Big Ben from the London Eye

The London Eye 

Me in front of Buckingham Palace 

Westminster Abbey  (though St. Paul's was my favorite church, the dome inside was AMAZING)

Olympics Countdown in Trafalgar Square 

Jim's fish and chips & mushy peas 

The Rosetta Stone in the British Museum 

The National Portrait Gallery in London... we just randomly decided to go in here since it was free... best decision ever... I was happily surprised when we wandered into the rooms with the impressionist paintings :) 

Piccadilly Circus  

The Tower of London... they were refurbishing a lot of it (and the city in general for the Olympics) and I was disappointed that more of the Crown Jewels weren't on display like the last time I was there

Tower Bridge

We took the tube up to see Jim's favorite team's stadium :)  

We had our last lunch at Harrod's.... I love this place... you could get lost shopping in here for hours and the food was awesome. I had an amazing truffle Mac and Cheese. 

We ended our trip by seeing a show in the West End... Rock of Ages. Now there is a movie coming out this summer. It was a great show and Jim loved all of the 80s music. 

All in all we had an awesome 1st Anniversary/Spring Break trip. I'm not sure we'll ever be able to top it. I got to go to my 2 favorite European cities and being in England brought back so many memories from when I lived there over 20 years ago!! It is so crazy how quickly time flies! I hope that Jim and I can take many more trips like this in the future.

Spring Break (Paris part 2)

So I'm not too good at keeping up with this whole blogging thing but here are a few more pictures and stories from the first leg of our Spring Break trip in Paris....

We woke up well rested and ready to start the next 3.5 days in Paris... We woke up early each day to start our sightseeing and went to bed pretty early (lame I know but it was exhausting walking around all day). I think it is easy to hit up the night life when you are traveling with friends :)

Outside the Louvre with our class moose Marty... he has been on some seriously awesome trips these last 2 years :)

 We hit all the museums and big attractions (with the exception of Versailles) as early as possible in the morning to avoid the crowds and lines. This was especially beneficial for the Eiffel Tower because they only had 1 elevator going that day!

Winged Victory 

Mona Lisa... obviously 

Ecole Militaire/Les Invalides where Napoleon is buried 

Arc de Triomphe 

 I would definitely recommend walking up the stairs to the top of the Arc. It gives a unique view of the city and the Eiffel Tower. One my first visit to Paris in high school I didn't even know that was possible! 

View from the top of the Arc

Opera House lit up at night. 

 Side note on that night... we ate at this place called Patata Cafe if I remember correctly and all of their dishes were served on baked potatoes.... it was awesome and not very expensive at all... I'm thinking it may have been a chain?? It was definitely a great place for a quick little meal.

Notre Dame 

 We did not climb to the bell tower level since there were more stairs than the Arc de Triomphe and I wasn't feeling too well that morning.... I do wish we would have done it though because I love seeing Paris from different perspectives.

Sacre Coeur 

The only picture we have of ourselves taken by someone else

Musee D'Orsay... 

 The museum above is my favorite in Paris... probably in the world because of all of the Impressionist Art... when I was there 7 years ago with KC you could take pictures of the art but not anymore... luckily a few pictures were saved after my hard drive crashed senior year.

View of the Arc way zoomed in from the top of the Eiffel Tower

View of part of the city, along the Seine from the Eiffel Tower

The Palace of Versailles 

Hall of Mirrors 

Behind the Palace 

Some of the gardens 

Statue of Louis XIV

Other than the cold weather that I totally didn't pack well for... Paris was awesome. I could remember my way around really well, everyone was friendly, and the only random thing that I can remember happening is that random people kept asking my if I was Spanish... regardless of whether I was speaking English or French. I did pretty well responding/understanding when people spoke slowly but was at a loss when people assumed I was French after I initially greeted them. The trickiest thing for us on this trip was dining... deciding on places to eat (we don't like it when people are standing outside trying to wave you into their restaurants) and figuring out what to do when we went inside... do we seat ourselves, is a waiter going to come over, do we go order our food at the bar (that happened in London), etc. But all in all it was a stress free first leg of the journey and I'm glad that I got to show Jim around my favorite city! I hope to go back again someday or at the very least send our children. :)

Next up: London