2 tickets to paradise...day 1

Miss Wanda, who works with Michael, has a condo on St. John in the US Virgin Islands. She has been inviting us for a long time but we can never seem to go and buying tickets for 5 people is a little out of our league. So, when we met her at the pool a few weeks ago we actually worked out how we could go. Tedd and Emily took the kids on Friday night, when we left. They stayed with them until Monday night (which was Memorial Day). Then they sent Madelyn and Merrick to our friend, the Anderson's, house so they could still go to school. Miley stayed with her cousins. We came back the next Saturday morning. It was so wonderful of everyone to help us as we never get to go anywhere and even though we took little Michael it was still a nice get away for us.

Like I said we left at 11:30pm for Charlotte where we had a layover and then flew on to St. Thomas. It was a long twelve hours.

 Here we are at 5am in Charlotte waiting for our flight to the islands.

Here we are at 6am waiting to take off. He was so funny when we got up in the air I showed him out the window at the clouds when you could still see the ground below and he dove into Michael's lap. He was really uneasy at this point. The last flight it had been pitch black out.

We got in a little early at about 12noon. We had started traveling the night before at 9pm. Like I said, it was a long trip.

From there we got our rental car and ferried over to St. John. I haven't been on a ferry since we lived in Illinois. It gave us a beautiful view of the islands.

 doesn't he look so sleepy (that's about how I felt too)

Once we got to St. John we met Wanda at her Condo and then walked around the Westin grounds. They had a playground that the baby liked and some talking birds. We sat on the beach and drank Pina Coladas. That is also where I got over 80 bug bites in a matter of two or three hours.

 watch out, they bite!

 There's Miss Wanda (behind Michael's finger)

 enjoying sunset on the beautiful beach!