Our St. Thomas Vacation: Part I

As I mentioned before, things have been nutso around here! I was working on two projects at work which was eating up morning, noon and night. They are finally "over" but somehow the work hasn't slowed down. Keith's business has been very busy, Alex finished school and is now swimming 6 days a week and Andrew is just going about his daily routine.

All of that being said, we were so very, very ready to go on vacation. Some time to sleep, spend time together, and have a change of scenery. All of those things were accomplished! We left for St. Thomas on a Saturday with everyone in tow. The "everyone" consisted of the four of us, Alex's friend Alan, my sister (Mandy) and her boyfriend, Brian. We arrived in St. Thomas and then the fun began.

While waiting at the airport for our rental car (a hip hop stylin' minivan to drive around the islands!) Keith and Andrew were playing. Or shall I say Andrew was swinging on Keith. A few minutes later there are tears and a little boy holding his elbow and crying. To keep a long story short, we dropped everyone at the condos and then headed to St. Thomas' ER.

We were on "island time" and for a New Yorker that is wayyyy difficult to deal with. Yes, it's vacation, but I need to ease into island time and unfortunately you don't have a chance to do that! We arrived at the hospital and waited for the triage nurse to finish her lunch before we checked in. Andrew was so snuggly and loveable. It was awesome to see him seek our comfort when he was hurting.

We finally made it back to a room and Andrew took over. The first doctor came in and he quickly told her that she needed to use her stethoscope so she could check his breathing and, oh yeah, turn that light on too, Doctor! She was cracking up the entire time. A few minutes later another doctor came in, felt Andrew's elbow and gave it a quick twist. Andrew yelled out "Doctor! You hurt me!" and then started climbing walls. Well, almost.

He had something called Nurse Maid's elbow. It's a slight dislocation of the elbow that children used to get in the old days when their nurses dragged them along. About 5 minutes later I was longing for the clingy little boy. Granted, I didn't want him to hurt but not climbing walls for a few hours was nice too. :-)

Back at the ranch (also known as the condo), Alex, Alan, Mandy and Brian headed down to the restaurant on the water to get something to eat. I think it was about 4:00 pm at this point and none of us had eaten since breakfast. Alex and Alan took a swim at Pineapple Beach and we finally made it to the there to eat as well. Andrew insisted on swimming although it was getting dark (the sun sets at about 6:50 there, about 2 hours earlier then home - same eastern standard time zone) so Alex and Alan took him for a swim. Much to my shock, I look over and they are tossing him back and forth. Please, please no more ER trips!

I drank an evil green drink that was really yummy at first. A girl at the table next to me told me the drink was evil and I didn't believe her. Trust me, they were. We had hamburgers and slowly adjusted to island time. It was awesome to listen to the water, the boats and the island music. No phone, no blackberry, no animals, no work, no laundry... and so the list goes on.

We headed back to the condo (Alex and Alan had their own so the little guy didn't wake them up) and we were upstairs from them. Mandy and Brian were down the road a bit. We got Andrew all settled on the big love seat and he fell asleep in record time. Of course, the next morning, he was wide awake at 6:45. Go figure!

He woke us up and we noticed he had red bumps all over his forehead and back.... apparently the no-see-ums (little mosquito type things) had a feast on him. The poor boy - first the elbow and now a bazillion bug bites! It didn't phase him and he began asking to go swimming from the get go.....

So... it had been 24 hours since we left home and we already had a dislocated elbow and a boatload of bug bites.... what else??

Stay tuned!

And now some pictures... (I have pics from the hospital but they are on another camera so I'll post those later! I took over 400 pictures so it's taking me a while to sort through everything)

Waiting for the luggage (Brian, Alan and Alex)

One of the many views from our condo

Pineapple Beach

Brian, Becky and the evil green drink

Keith and a tuckered out little boy

Alan and Alex at Fungis - the waterfront restaurant