Janie & Van Buchanan
40 years of marriage
St. Thomas
Congratulations! What a wonderful reason to celebrate! We were absolutely blown away that their idea of celebrating this special occasion was to take the entire family down to St. Thomas. It was so incredibly generous and I can't begin to explain how much fun we had!
They decided to rent a house, instead of doing hotel/resort style. This was perfect because we all had a shared living space, our own kitchen, pool, etc. It made for lots of fun hang out time!
Here are some pics:
We had lunch here most days. I love dining outside!
We actually took a ferry to Tortola one day and passed our house on our way out. So this is a fun, different view.
And now I follow with several of my favorite pics from the trip! It was absolutely wonderful!
Brett, Janie and Dave
Dave and Janie
This is so funny to me! Grayson, Jerry and Dave
We LOVED that Aunt Laura (Janie's sister) was able to join us for the vacation! Just being around the two of them cracks me up. They have such a good time and laugh a lot!
Janie made this sweet book for Van. She gave it to him at dinner one night. It went through the many, many reasons why she loves him. I particularly enjoyed this gift as it discussed a lot of their memories from the early years of their marriage ~ many I hadn't heard before. It was so fun to hear about living out on the farm, the pet goat and R&R in Hawaii.
On Wednesday, we took a ferry to Tortola to do a 'swim with the dolphins' excursion. It was really cool - I was shocked at how much they let everyone do. Jerry and I stayed in the bleachers to document the afternoon, but everyone else got to take a ride on the dolphin, dance with the dolphin and as you can see below - kiss the dolphins!
They did lots of cool tricks!
We had lots of good down time just visiting with each other. Because we basically live all over the country, it was great to just catch up on each other's day to day lives.
Brett, Van and Dave down by the pier
I love this of them just talking...
I think I have more pictures of Grayson doing stuff like this from the trip than anything else. It was so fun to try and capture him mid air! He is such a little fish! We had all sorts of games worked out with swimming, jumping, splashing, etc. It was so funny!
This is just cute to me...do we know whose aqua socks those are? Please tell me Jerry's!
Julie, Janie and Aunt Laura coming up from the pier
We visited St. John on Friday via ferry. It was gorgeous!! I so hope to go back one day! We spent a lot of the day at Trunk Bay - which is a beautiful beach. Dave found/stepped on a starfish!
Going back in time, on Thursday - the kids and Aunt Laura took Van and Janie to a fun anniversary dinner at a place called Oceana. The food was delicious and we had a great time! Prior to the vacation, Julie had asked Van and Janie several different questions about each other. So it was hilarious to hear each of them give the 'real' answers over dinner, like what was the address of your first house? Favorite food? What are they scared of? Really funny!
The whole group!
Dave and I
Julie and Grayson
Van and Janie
It was such a special time together with family! We can't thank you two enough for including us in your anniversary celebration! I know we will all look back fondly on this trip with big smiles!
We love you two and once again, Happy Anniversary!
3 comments:
Great pics, Kristen! I love the one w/ G and the aqua socks. Thankfully, Jerry doesn't own any. =) But, maybe G found them at the house?? Who knows! Also loved the pic of the three boys on each others' shoulders in the ocean...
How fun! What a beautiful place!
I am almost 100% positive that when we were leaving St. Thomas that we saw ya'lls house! I had seen pics from Julie and now, seeing your's, I'm almost positive we saw it. Such a fun family vacation!
Post a Comment