Soft air, blue waters, and belly bugs

St. John. It holds so many happy memories and experiences for B and me - our engagement, a trip back last year with the kids, my parents, and brother, and this year, we managed to stash away a whole other set of things to look back on - both the good and the not-so-savory. As I said to my amazing father-in-law on a crazy excursion in Sonoma back in the day - if everything went smoothly, you might forget the true nature of the experience - this trip was no exception to that rule.

We arrived on the island on Saturday 2/25 after a reasonably seamless trip from Boston to St. John. The kids were excited (well, CR was ecstatic, and Baby C went along with everything we asked her to do, so we can pass that off as excitement shown through good behavior). Leading up to our trip, we tried to sequester the kids from contact with other germ mongers - basically from Wednesday of the week prior to departing, we quarantined our children to avoid any current virus that was invading little bodies in the area. After working so hard at quarantining, and getting them to the island without any sign of fever or a sniffle, Baby C (we refer to her affectionately as 'Ground Zero") came down with a dastardly stomach bug late Sunday night. From there, family members began to fall like dominoes - Pop-pops, Mimi, CR, and then B, all coming down with different variations of the island plague between Tuesday and Thursday of our first week. Somehow I was spared (I felt run down and nauseous the second Sunday we were there, but I can't seem to differentiate between feeling crappy overall from the pregnancy and actual virus-induced illness).

The only night that none of us were sick was the first Monday evening. Baby C was recovering from her battle from the night before, and Mimi and Pop-pops unknowingly had one more day of gastrointestinal freedom before they were struck. Aunt J and Uncle D generously gave us a unique, thoughtful, and amazing Christmas gift to enjoy while on our tropical get-away. They arranged for a personal chef (Ted Robinson of Ted's Supper Club) to come to our villa and prepare a 5-course meal for us, consisting of local seafood, organic greens and veggies, and herbs from his personal garden.

We enjoyed:

Tuna dumplings to start

Rock lobster dusted with pollen and seared sea scallops

Warm bacon and spinach salad with a mustard herb vinaigrette

Beef tenderloin and potato wrapped Mahi Mahi

Molten chocolate cake with vanalla and rum infused berries

The meal was fantastic, and the experience was so personal and detail oriented. B and I were actually lucky enough to enjoy the work of Ted's Supper Club one of our last nights on the island with some of his Midd friends who were also escaping reality for a bit. Oddly enough we had the exact same menu, but alas, one cannot complain when the food was to die for.

Ga, Gee, and Uncle J arrived the Tuesday after Baby C started the germy ball rolling, so sadly they had to keep their distance from the kids for most of their visit - thankfully none of them suffered what we were all lined up to inevitably get.

So the first week was great, but peppered with a level of anxiety over who would come down with the plague next, as well as trying to get in a number of activities with those who were still standing. With two cars, seven adults, and two kids, we often broke off into groups in order to maximize everyone's time spent in paradise.

There is a great playground at the Westin that we used on a daily basis with the kids - Baby C loved to slide down the "sides" and CR was all over everything.

Sadly Mimi, Pop-pops, Ga, Gee, and Uncle J departed on Saturday, and then there were four (and three-quarters). We moved out of the three-bedroom villa that we shared with Mimi and Pop-pops, and occupied a two-bedroom suite on the Westin compound closer to the water for two nights. A side note, these nights were free, as a result of setting a few fires the previous year when we visited the Villas.  We had a few issues with our condo, so B managed to get a few points toward a future stay, and now was the time to cash it in.

The new accommodations were great, other than the fact that the first floor was lacking any sort of sink or bathroom/running water. If we needed to wash out a bottle, we had to go upstairs to one of the bathrooms to do so...dump out a cup of stale coffee? Up the stairs we went. It gave us a taste of what it is like to stay in a hotel with kids without the luxury of a kitchen...something I do not recommend doing, nor is it something we will purposely arrange for future travels.

Monday marked the day where we suddenly changed our tune about the Westin when compared to our new digs for the next three nights. Don't get me wrong - the Westin is great for what it presents itself as - a family-friendly retreat where people, mostly from the east coast, can escape their chilly winter climate. It has caged birds to gawk at, and large floating trampolines for kids to jump on. Then along came Caneel...

Caneel Bay is sick. And when I say sick, I don't mean sick in the way we lived our life our first week on the island full of vomit and such...sick like it was so outrageously luxurious and enjoyable that we now saw our original accommodations as more of a cookie cutter Disneyland theme than the luxury resort we were about to experience.

This is B, looking out at the sunset from our own private beach

CR gazing out at the view, much like his father

We spent the next three days walking the grounds, relaxing on the beach (thank you, Tasha, for being such an amazing babysitter for the entire trip - and thank you Ivy, for recommending your fantastic service!), and dining at the exquisite Turtle Bay restaurant - one of our best meals on the island.

Happiness is a Father with his daughter...oh, and add in Caneel, and it makes things really happy

Even brothers and sisters experience a feeling of happiness at Caneel

After three days, we found ourselves reluctantly leaving our living-beyond-our-means accommodations.  We were not ready to leave our island...heck, we managed to lug our two children all the way down there, and the first week, though enjoyable to be with family and such, overall we felt as though we were cheated out of at least three days of our planned vacation.  So enter justification for spending another lump sum of money to extend our stay in paradise...three more days at the Weston carnival.

Back we went - B managed to get three more nights booked in two different three-bedroom villas, at a discounted rate.  We were able to mingle with the parrots, and relax in the sand, for three more glorious days.

I have to say, for the first time that I can remember in my life, I could have stayed there for a month.  Maybe it was because I knew once we returned, the baby in my belly would be that much closer to arriving, or that we were heading back to reality in general.  Whatever the case, thank you, B, for an amazing fifteen days on our favorite island.