Our Daughter's Graduation Celebration Trip
June 12th-21st, 2006

The Players:

David-AKA "Honey" (42)
Chris-AKA "Bikini Girl" (3...er um, call it 29)
Shye-AKA "Graduate Girl" (18)
Nicholas-AKA "Lizard Boy" (8)

Ok, so it's lame that I listed our ages but I get so annoyed in the grocery store when some young buck addresses me as mam. Excuse me but I'm a miss. Mam is my mother and I look "pretty ok" for turning 29 9 times! What does this have to do with St. John you ask? Nothing. I was just feeling my age today and needed to say it; or you can just call it demographics.

Ok, on with the show...

I NEVER need an alarm clock to wake me on the eve of vacation. I'm pretty much crawling out of my skin waiting until liftoff. I was up at 4:00am and me and all my peeps were out the door by 5:00. Honey is already bit**ing about having to schlep the beach umbrella. Dropped the Jeep off at Park & Jet and wheels were up and out of Salt Lake City (yes I said Salt Lake City) right on time at 7:42 with a connection in Dallas Fort Worth. Graduate Girl gets airsick (a common occurance upon takeoff) and basically wills herself not to hurl until the captain turns off the seat belt sign and she flys out of her seat and past me saying "please excuse me while I barf!" Nickie just wants to know if we're almost there. Yeah, sure kid, only 14 hours to go! We make it to Texas and have lunch at the airport. Aren't we lucky that we get another connection in Miami? After a repeat of the previous flight and a subpar dinner at MIA, we fly into St Thomas and arrive at 9:45ish pm. The rumpunch was not flowing at that time (bummer) so we rushed to the budget counter (no line) to rent a car for a day. The counter lady was polite and efficient and we were out of there within minutes. We had to tote our luggage and kids to the dark upper deck with not a soul in sight and honey throws the luggage down and is standing around trying to admire our surroundings. HELLO, we're in a dark, unfamiliar place with kids and cash and he's trying to admire the view he can't see? I shove us all in the car (4 Door Ford Escort, $55+20 for insurance per day) and we take the short drive down the road to the Emerald Beach Resort where we have ressies for the night. Sorry, but it's time for me to motate home for the weekend so more to come as soon as I get home in Getting There Part II. Stay Tuned...