St. Croix Pt. 5

Dress: J.Crew
Sunglasses: Dalaga
Shoes: Swedish Hasbeens

Kate and Nick's St. Croix wedding celebration was at the St. Croix Yacht Club, which was super close to the house we were staying at. We had some food, got to know Nick's family, drank, danced and hung out on the dock for most of the evening. As you can see, everyone put on their most dapper version of a yacht club go-er outfit. Kate wore another Alexandra Grecco dress, (she wore a custom Alexandra Grecco dress for her wedding!) which I also have, and Nick wore his white linen suit.

There was another amazing sunset and it really was the best way to end our crazy week there.

St. Croix Pt. 4

Hat: Buffalo Exchange
Sunglasses: Ray Ban
Necklace: My Gammy's
Dress: Dalaga
Shoes: $9.99 Hasbeens

So let's recap, shall we? In this one day we went to the waterfalls, then to Domino Club, then to the giant dock in Frederiksted and our final stop of this action packed day was the Rainbow Club. They had delicious french fries, the most amazing mixed slushy rum drink ever and a beach for sunset swimming. By the way, this is what a sunset looks like without light and air pollution - not as crazy and "ideal" as one would imagine, but still incredibly beautiful none-the-less.

Next up is the St. Croix wedding party at the Yach Club!






Jodi had the cutest bathing suit!

St. Croix Pt. 3

All photos by me

After the waterfalls we headed to the Domino Club for lunch and some mid afternoon drinks. The Domino Club is kind of like a dive bar in that the people who work there are insanely friendly and chat you up as if you were old friends, not to mention some of the choice decor and laid back vibe the tin roof give off. They're famous mainly for one thing though - their beer drinking pigs! That's right. They have a pen full of giant hairy pigs that look more like wild boars who LOVE O'Doul's. You can buy a six pack for a couple bucks and head to the pens to feed these beasts some delicious non-alcoholic brews. All you have to do is mosey to to the pen and put your hand out. The pigs open their mouths and you can slide the beer right in there! They crush it in their mouths and spit the can out when the liquid is gone. Crazy huh?? It was kind of scary at first, but really fun and the smaller pink pigs were actually really cute.

After the Domino Club we headed to Frederiksted, which is on the western part of the island. There isn't much there and it's the smaller of the two main towns on St. Croix, but it's where the cruise ships pull in. There is a GIANT dock for these cruise ships (which you can see from satellite on Google!) so we naturally went to swim and jump off it! I wasn't very good at taking pictures of everyone jumping - as you can see I took the picture a couple seconds too early each time. It took me like, 30 minutes to get up the courage to jump myself, but eventually I did and I can tell you that the water really was that blue!

Next up is Rainbow Beach and sunset swimming.

P.S. Yes, that is my friend Emily drinking directly from a coconut with a straw!

St. Croix Pt. 2

All photos by me

Next St. Croix adventure: Secret waterfalls!

St. Croix has beaches and palm trees, yes, but it also has amazing rain forests closer the center of the island. Nick's uncle showed him this place when he was a little kid, so that gives you an idea of how long his family has been going to this spot. We parked the van on the side of the road in a little pull off ditch, crossed the street, jumped over the guardrail and slowly, but surely climbed down the muddy rain forest slope to get to this little waterfall. There is a clearing and the forest opens up all around the water, so it was really like discovering some kind of hidden treasure.

There are a bunch of tubes and makeshift items that have been put up to capitalize on the slow moving water. In fact, the tube was jammed with rocks and leaves at first so there was only a slow trickle. My friend Mike was able to dislodge everything though so we got to see the contraption in full force before we left for the Domino Club (more on that magic place next time!)

St. Croix Pt. 1

All photos by me

My St. Croix photos have finally arrived! OMG!

So there is a story behind this trip and why I went with 12 people to this tropical paradise. One of my best girlfriends, Kate, got married and her now husband, Nick, is from St. Croix! He was born and raised on the island and a lot of his family couldn't make it to the States for the wedding, so they decided to head down to the island after the ceremony to celebrate with Nick's family. Kate and Nick are two of the most generous people I know, so they naturally invited all their friends to come down with them and hang out in the Virgin Islands for 10 days.

It was truly amazing and even better because Nick knows all of the best things to do an see - the things that you wouldn't know about from guides and reviews, the type of things only a local would know.

One such thing is this amazing beach. These are from one of our first beach adventures and it was my favorite beach that we visited the entire trip. The sand was big and grainy and the water was incredibly warm and crystal clear. It was one of the hottest days so we were in the water almost the entire time. I could only read in the sun for 10 minutes at a time before I would start to sweat and burn. Eventually we had to just take shelter in the shade.

I'm really excited to share all of these with you! So much more to come :)

Beach Time

Photo by Emily (who is on the right!)

Hat: Buffalo Exchange
Shades: Ray Ban
Bathing Suit: J.Crew

Here's another little teaser from St. Croix. I thought it would be a nice contrast to what the weather in New York is about to be like.

I'm sure you've heard by now, but stupid Hurricane Irene is coming this weekend and apparently along with wind and rain, she is also bringing the apocalypse. All of NYC is bracing itself for Irene's fury and people who live by the water are already being evacuated. I'm just going to try and move into my new apartment as fast as possible on Saturday.

Back to the photo! These are two of my best lady friends, who both happen to be named Emily - "The Emilys" if you will. We took this one morning out on the dock that was connected to the house we were staying in. We woke up, made some breakfast and read for a while almost every morning. It was probably one of the most relaxing portions of the whole trip.

I will just have to try and think about that zen moment while moving. Breathe.

I'm back!

Photo by Emily M

Hat: Buffalo Exchange
Shades: Ray Ban
Dress: 1385 (RIP)
Shoes: K-Mart in St. Croix

Hello! I made it home alive!

My friends wedding and the trip to St. Croix were amazing. The wedding was perfect and so much fun and obviously I cried a lot. There was also a lot of dancing and karaoke involved, but more on that later.

I have eight rolls of film from the wedding and the trip to St. Croix that I need to get developed. Unfortunately I am broke from said trip, so getting the pictures up on here is going to take longer that I would like, but hey - all good things are worth the wait.

Until then, I leave you with this. It's me at the most eastern point of the United States. You can't tell, but we all climbed over a stone wall and hiked down a very, very steep grassy hill to get to these jagged rocks. It was just one of the insanely beautiful and cool things we saw while in the tropics.

More to come! Feels good to be back with you all!