Our adventure actually started on Friday, the night before we left - kid drop off time. Our flight was at 6:30am on Saturday the 9th so we dropped the girls (Delaney, 3 1/2 yrs and Mia 1 1/2 yrs) off at grandma's the night before. I knew I'd be fine if the girls were fine. That would be too easy... instead Delaney and I both cried our little eyes out. I then cried for about an hour after I got home and while I packed. I already missed the kids desperately. And sadly, this isn't the first time we've left them. Sigh... ok, we're packed so let's try to get a few hours of sleep in. Went to bed at 11:30pm. The alarm buzzed all too early at 2:30am on Saturday. I immediately got up though knowing it was trip time!! I went in the bathroom, turned on the light and squinted for a second until my eyes adjusted. Holy Moses... I look like crap. My eyes were still all puffy. I showered, got dressed and made a feeble attempt at putting some eye make-up on. That would have to do cuz it was time to leave. Off we go. Husband and wife. Alone. Empty car seats in the back seat. What kids? We're going to St. Thomas!!!

We arrive to my office building at 4am like I planned. I work on airport grounds so we park for free at my building. We gather our bags and head to the terminal. We arrive to check in early. Early? I don't think I've ever been early for anything in my entire life. This is a first. We do the security thing and then we wait to board the plane. While we're waiting, I notice that one of my fellow travellers is an inmate. I'm a people watcher so I noticed pretty quickly. She's not so big. I could take her. No, I'm kidding. She was in street clothes and had two "escorts". I think atleast one of the escorts was packin heat. They announce that they'll finally start boarding. Out of no where up walks a guy with a coffee in his hand, flashes a badge discreetly to his side and then boards the plane - must be an air marshall. No one else could board with a drink anyway... Then my inmate friend boards with her escorts. The rest of us get to board and Bryan (hubby) and I are seated immediately in front the inmate. I honestly don't care. I used to work at a correctional institution. Bryan, on the other hand, swears he's going to be strangled from behind. Nice, huh? Anyway, we take off. IAD to ATL. Switch planes in ATL. Board the next plane and we're on our way to STT. We take off from ATL and are flying over Florida when the pilot comes on and tells us to look out the left side of the plane and we'll see the smoke trail from the shuttle that had just taken off. We saw it! How cool! Ok, so it was just smoke but still...

We arrive STT - the island is beautiful! We get our bags and get our transfer to the Wyndham. We check in (3pm)and head to our room. Our bags were brought up for us. The room was nice - king size and a beautiful view looking right at St. John. We both flop on the bed and relax for a minute. So where do we begin? We agree to walk around the premises to see where everything is. Went down to the Iguana Grill for a snack and drinks by the pool. We were exhausted. Checked out the beach then went back to the room. Watched tv for a little while then cleaned up and went to dinner at the Manor House around 7pm. We ate ourselves silly then went back to the room and crashed for the night. (Dinner at the Manor is a 2 hour affair... slow service)

Sunday - had the breakfast buffet at the Manor House. Yum. Lots to choose from. We stuffed ourselves and then went back to the room to try and plan our day and the rest of the week. Called about renting a jeep and decided we'd get that on Monday. Got everything figured out and rewarded ourselves by going down to the pool to hang out and drink! We lounged at the pool til lunch time. Ate at the Iguana Grill and then went back to the room to take a nap. The nap was the greatest thing. I felt like a new person when I woke up. That could be because I slept for 4 hours! Yes, I realize I'm in St. Thomas and shouldn't be wasting the trip by sleeping but this is our time to relax!! Showered and got dressed for dinner. We ate at the Mangrove. Good food, slow service and hot... it's outside. I didn't realize there was no inside part to the Mangrove. Wasn't unbearably hot though so it was ok. We ate and then went over to the Turtle Rock Bar for drinks and watched football. Called it a day around midnight.

Monday - September 11 - I wore my American flag pin. I brought it with me to wear on this day. It was this day that I noticed that I hadn't seen an American Flag in STT yet. I think I eventually saw 2 flags during our week there but that was it. Anyway, we called Dependable Car Rental back about the jeep and they came and got us around 11am. We went back to their office, filled out the paper work and off we went on the left side of the street! Drove up to Mountain Top to get a banana daiquiri and check out the view. Drove to Magens Bay and did some snorkeling. Wasn't overly impressive. We went along the right side by the rocks and went way out but didn't see too much. Headed back in just as it started pouring rain. It rained for about 20 minutes. Got back to the Wyndham, parked and went to the Iguana Grill for lunch. Hung out at the pool til about 6pm then went back to the room to get ready for dinner. Went to dinner at the Manor House about 7:30pm - again a 2 hour ordeal. Then went back to the room. Bryan watched the Redskins game and I read til I fell asleep.

Tuesday - Breakfast at the buffet and then headed for Coral World. Pretty cool little place. Then headed just next door to Coki beach when I realized that... I only had half of my bathing suit with me. How dumb could I really be? I put my bathing suit top on and then had shorts and a tank top on over top but never even packed the bottoms to my suit! Luckily the Wyndham is just up the street from Coki so we hopped back in the jeep, got my suit and were back at Coki in no time. The beach was crowded. We walked to the left and found our spot - right by a bunch of guys smoking joints. Put our bags down and lathered up in sunblock. (wish i had brought my spf 8 - spf 15 didn't get me as much sun as I wanted). We headed out along the left side of the rocks and snorkeled for what seemed like forever. We saw tons and tons of fish but no sea turtle like I was hoping for. Saw a huge jelly fish and that was my que that we were done. Swam back in to shore, sat down for a minute to dry off some and then put our clothes back on whilst inhaling yet more smoke. Those guys should have been laid out as much as they were smoking!! We headed back to the Wyndham about 2:30pm and had lunch at the Iguana Grill again. After lunch Bryan went snorkeling off the beach and I hung out at the pool and read til 6pm. Got cleaned up and went to dinner at the Tuscany @ 8pm. Yum. Good service. Bryan came down with a killer headache during dinner so he left without dessert (dummy!) and went back to the room. He was asleep by the time I got back there. I read til I fell asleep.

Ok, this is lengthy... I'll make the rest short.

Wednesday - Breakfast and then hopped in the jeep and headed for St. John. Got to the barge and there was one space left. It was ours. Off we went. 25 minutes to STJ. Arrived in Cruz Bay and headed straight for Trunk Bay. Had to stop a few times on the way to take in the beautiful views. Got to Trunk Bay and as soon as we stepped foot on the beach I stopped... uh, we can't snorkel here!! The waves were enormous! People were getting knocked down by the waves left and right. One over sized man had his shorts fall down. I didn't really need to see his butt crack but that's exactly what I got. I asked the life guard what was going on. Apparently there was some crazy current coming down from the north. The weather was perfect and so was the water temperature - just big waves. We got in the water but no snorkeling for us. Then headed for Waterlemon Bay. Drove all around STJ - saw random goats, chickens, cows and donkeys. Got back into town and went to a few shops then caught the 4:30pm barge back to STT. Got back to the Wyndham and swam in the pool for a bit. Went back to the room and got ready for dinner. Ate at the Mangrove then went and played video slots and drank to our hearts content.

Thursday - Planned on returning the jeep today so we'd do our last running around. Went to breakfast and then agreed we'd go to the sky lift thing first and then go shopping in Charlotte Amalie. Found the sky lift, parked and got out of the jeep and someone yelled to us from the business next door that the sky lift doesn't operate on days when no cruise ships are in port. Nice... we went this day specifically so we wouldn't run into all the crowds. Ok, scratch that. We'll just shop. Got lots of goodies including 2 gigantic packed cases of liquor! (No problem having it arrive home safely and that included a plane change!!) Then returned the jeep. We had a great experience with Dependable. Ask for Kathleen. She's great - very helpful. They took us back to the Wyndham around 2pm. I drank daiquiri's at the pool while reading and Bryan went snorkeling til about 5:30pm. Showered and had an early dinner so we could get back to the room by 8pm to watch Survivor!! Yes, we're losers like that.

Friday - Nothing planned for today. Just relaxing at the pool/beach all day and that's exactly what we did!!

Saturday - Time to go home. We had an amazing time but we were ready to see our girls. So off we went. Good-bye St. Thomas. Hello Virginia!!

Erinn