"We" are here!

Honestly I need this blog entry to be much longer than it will be, but a brief update will have to suffice until I get time to fill in more of the details - which will be soon, I promise!

Saturday, October 12 - departure/reunion day has finally arrived! All of the worry and stress over our stuff, our house is behind me (at least for now!) and Shane will get to deal with some of it. My ride to Orlando, my good friend Todd, showed up promptly at 5AM. As soon as Champ finished his walk in the yard I hugged him goodbye and told him I'd see him on island soon, woke up Shane to say the same, then put my bags in Todd's car.

Arrived at the airport around 6 for a 10:30 departure, so I had plenty of time to try and learn how to use my new phone (had to switch carriers since our old one doesn't have coverage on STJ)

Slept some on the flight from Orlando to San Juan and got out of the plane for a three hour layover in a freezing San Juan airport. Spent some time on the phone with Shane answering his questions about what to do with various "stuff" still in the house as well as some active craiglist and eBay listings we had going.

Oh yeah - there were also a number of texts from a *very* excited lady on St. John!!

Made the quick flight to STT sitting beside a nice young lady from Maine who was meeting friends on STJ. Amber had not been there for many years, but was looking forward to seeing it again and was intrigued with my "story".

Missed the Red Hook 5PM ferry by less than a minute! Amber arrived at the terminal literally seconds after I did (our friends Leslie and Hank had picked me up at the airport and whisked me away to Red Hook in their car), so we had a couple of wonderfully refreshing beers while we waited for the 6PM ferry.

Finally we were crossing Pillsbury sound, and the guard had to restrain Leslie from running past the gate to meet me at the end of the dock. Let's just say we had a long hug and kiss when I made it to her - onlookers be damned!

Couldn't go home yet because Les had raffle selling duty for Monday's Just Play event. So I had to "tough it out" at the Beach Bar listening to Inner Visions play, and seeing a lot of old faces and meeting a bunch of new ones. Grabbed late night burgers at Woody's because we were starving! Eventually made it home and slept like a rock!

Sunday, October 13. Woke to a glorious STJ morning! We had bagels and Leslie gave me the 5 cent tour of the place. But we knew we had to go to the beach. Ended up at Francis Bay for a long snorkel, saw some cool stuff (more details later). Went to town to run a couple of errands then back home to rinse and polish off the leftover burgers. Headed to Coral Bay for a couple of drinks at Aqua Bistro, met some more folks, then headed back to Cruz Bay where we had a nice quiet dinner at Ocean Grille. came home and went to bed at the incredibly early hour of 7PM!

Monday, October 14. Just Play day. We were at the school at 6AM to help set up, then stayed busy until after 4PM while the kids took part in the events, had lunch, had some free play time, and were given the awards and goody bags. Met up with some of our friends that run and help out at the event for happy hour at High Tide. Came back home and forced ourselves to stay up a little later so that we could try and sleep until a reasonable hour in the morning.

Tuesday, October 14. Leslie made me scrambled eggs for breakfast, and while she was out seeing a patient I touched base with Shane (poor kid is a little stressed but he's handling a lot of stuff very admirably) did some work, and now, giving you all a little update,

I see Leslie pulling the Jeep into the driveway, so I'm going to sign off for now - another busy day ahead of us.

We are so happy to finally be together on island, and want to share all of that with all of you. I feel that now we can do what we always wanted to with this blog - report on how it is for us to *live* on St. John!