chitter chitter: St. John 2011 Re-Cap

I know this post is really late but for posterity's sake I must document our wonderful vacation to St. John. We survived our day-long journey to paradise to be handsomely rewarded with sick accommodations at Casa de Sonadores. This villa was lovely, from its 6 burner stove to the multiple outdoor showers to the air hockey table in the game room. It was way too nice for us.

I can sum it up with an example of how our kids took to this kind of living. On night #2, Beatrice called me up to her room.
Bea: Mama, can you tun down Julian's TV. It's too loud. And turn down the air conditioning too. (She says this while laying atop her king size bed, watching Dora on her own TV. Her arms may or may not have crossed behind her head. I have a vague recollection of Theo fanning her and feeding her bon-bons.)
I walk next door to Julian's room to find him watching the same Dora episode, AC and volume full blast. He was in his glory. These damn kids with their upper middle class problems.

My childhood family vacations consisted of visits to my grandparents' 2 bedroom cottage in Marshfield. I shared a twin bed with my sister while my grandmother was in the bed next to us. My grandfather was in the room next door that always smelled of vinegar and BenGay(what, your grandparents didn't sleep in separate rooms?) Then my parents had the pullout in the living room with my brother(s) in between them. Now that's what I call a proper family vacation.
This trip had many highlights and many lowlights and in true lazy blogger fashion, I will now succumb to the bulleted list.

Highlights

The beaches were majestic and we had most shorelines to ourselves.

Even though we are those a-hole parents that took our daughter out of school in the first month, I made sure to bring her workbooks so that she could get her lessons in with Auntie. I don't think her Ashland preschool teacher drinks beers during lessons but hey this was island livin'.

I opened the fridge on Day 2 to find we were out of beer. Between 4 adults, we had consumed 96 beers in 36 hours. The beer just tastes better on an island.

Road sodas are allowed on this glorious island. Road sodas make life easier when you're dealing with 3 kids and high humidity. Knowing a frosty beer is awaiting you after you load all of the chairs and gear and kids into the car really makes it bearable. That and the fact that its' 10am and you're headed to the beach.

Uncle Joe's Barbecue remains as good as ever. It took us all of 4 hours being on the island before we hit up Uncle Joe's. His BBQ is the best. I wish I had some right now. We also tried some new food carts and more local places this time. All were delicious.

We hit up the Beach Bar for happy hour many afternoons. One night, while on the beach behind the Beach Bar I was snapping photos of the kids. This Rasta guy was playing with his dog. He kept egging me on to take a photos of him and the dog. I obliged at first and then he began posing the dog and engaging him in action shots, all the while yelling out directions at me about angles and aperture. I'd take the photo, then he would hustle over to review it. He never gave me his email or anything so I guess these photos were just for my benefit. And now your's. And oh ya, while we were at the same place a couple of nights later, another patron started chit chatting with me and warned me to keep the kids away from said dog as he's been known to be a biter. Thanks for the tip. Luckily he kept his jaws off me when we shared our Sports Illustrated/Dog Fancy moment.

Cory and I got to add a couple more photos to add to our collection of kissing shots. Everytime my sister takes a photo of us she jokingly instructs us to smooch after the last shot. Cory bristles at the thought and I go in for the passionate liplock. My sister and I live for making Cory uncomfortable. Is that wrong?

And last but not least Cory and I were not afflicted with any medical conditions. However Dave did get a touch of the dehydration and placed on on the DL. We have this exercise DVD to blame.

Lowlights

While 2009 was the trip riddled with medical emergencies, this one can be coined the trip of loss. As is customary with bad luck, our losses occured in a set of 3.

I decided to get some exercise and swim while at the beach. Let's just say that my swimming technique is unique. There is a lot of flailing. I would liken it to a butterfly but without the fluidity and sheer power. So I made it out as far as I could go without having a panic attack, then headed back to shore. Then I ran my hands through my hair and felt my naked earlobe. Nuts, I lost a diamond earring. Not just any diamond earring. The first diamond my wonderful husband had ever given me. He bought the pair with ice cream money. The scene that ensued was very similar to this one.

6 years ago (!) my siblings gave us an awesome Sony digital camera as a wedding gift. We used the shit out of that camera everywhere we went. It was the perfect size and until its untimely death it never gave us one problem. Day 3 of the trip, Cory dropped it somewhere along our travels. Luckily we had just wiped the memory card clean. Embarrassing Internet exploitation avoided!

While on the plane ride home, I reached into my bag for my bronzer and realized I left it in the bathroom at the villa, along with my favorite necklace.

Speaking of flights, Theo's air travel performance could be summed up as was severely sub-par. He is basically the worst age for airplanes. He doesn't want to sit still for shit. He wants to run, eat things off the ground, hide in small spaces, grunt, pull strangers' hair, and break stuff. He's not yet into TV. So ya, two 3 hour flights are not his thing. He did ok on the way there and the first leg of the way home but all shit hit the fan on the last 15 minutes of our flight into Boston. He had finally fallen asleep but woke up in our descent, bullshit. He wanted off that plane stat and wouldn't take no for an answer. The fasten seat belts sign was on so we couldn't even walk him up and down the aisles. Everyone hated us. We finally landed and then the lights came on. You know how its always awkward on a night flight when the lights come on and you're all standing around waiting to get off the plane. Well we had to do that uncomfortable waiting game with a screaming 15 month old. I did not know he was capable of screams and cries this guttural. It was bad. We finally got off of the plane and then had to go face all of these people again while waiting in baggage claim. Not the best way to end our trip. Theo may have a 5 year ban on American Airlines.

This time we really didn't do to much shopping. There was no way we were gonna top 2009's souvenir.