Dan surprised me and booked a long weekend at The Westin St. John for our fifth anniversary. I can’t believe we’ve been married for FIVE years! That means we’ve been together nine. We can’t be that old already!

Wedding bells!

The Westin is a beautiful resort on the island of St. John, just a quick ferry ride from St. Thomas. We took the car barge so we would have our own transportation on STJ, and it’s cheaper than two rides on the people ferry plus taxis. The Westin is a pet-friendly resort, so Marley got to come with us. He’s such a ladies man, and got plenty of attention from the resort staff. He traveled in the kennel on the barge well, and enjoyed the air conditioned room as much as we did (if not more)!

Ferry dog.

Ahh…this is the (air-conditioned) life!

Friday was our actual anniversary, and we celebrated by heading to dinner at Zozo’s at the lovely Caneel Bay Resort. The restaurant is set in a round pavilion, and is nestled on the expansive property amongst the ruins of the sugar mills that once dominated the Caribbean.

Zozo’s at Caneel Bay

The island of St. John is about 65% national park, so we saw plenty of wildlife, especially during our twilight dinner.

Anniversary sunset

Wild donkeys freely roam St. John

Lots of deer, too!

The meal was delicious and we had a great time. I would highly recommend this spot for a romantic or special occasion dinner.

The Iowa Islanders

The full moon was out as we returned from the resort, and we slept soundly in a cool, 65-degree room. We had the jeep, so we could have explored St. John, but we decided to play tourist and stay on the resort. It was a good idea because it actually felt like a getaway. We spent our days by the pool, grabbed  food and awesome drinks at the bar, and sunned ourselves silly. Dan even took part in a resort pool game, called Bobbing for Beer. It’s what you’d expect from a game with that name, but is actually more like “grown-men-racing-through-waist-deep-water-for-beer”. Fun stuff!

Pool time

This is a bucket of deliciousness called Voodoo Juice. It says on the bucket it serves 4-6 people. It lies.

We met a lovely couple on from Dallas on their honeymoon, and had fun convincing them that moving to St. Thomas wasn’t crazy. HA! On Saturday night we tried another restaurant. I’m literally not going to say where it was because the meal was SO BAD. The appetizer was good, but it was all downhill after that. The view was lovely, though, so I’ll post a pic of that.

View from a terrible restaurant

We were going to let the restaurant try and redeem the meal with dessert, but decided not to risk it and went to St. John Scoops instead. Ice cream fixes anything. Sunday brought another surprise with a massage at the spa and another day at the pool, dinner at Virgin Fire in Mongoose Junction, and a night of air-conditioned TV vegging. It was a fantastic way to celebrate our anniversary, and we feel so lucky to have each other and the opportunity to share our island adventure together! Here’s to many more years of adventuring!