Itchy and Scratchy

Hey there all,

I am having an amazing time here in St. Thomas of the US Virgin Islands. Some of you may have noticed the phantom post title "Away on Leave" that I posted and then withdrew. Well the story with that is that I wrote a long post while drunk off Cruzan Rum and when I read it the next day, I was like, "uummmm... veto"

So here's a nice, sober, and true account of my past week. In a word --- paradise :-)

It's fantastic, although, no vacation would be complete without the mishaps that I often associate myself with. First of all, we get off the plane and the car rental place only has Honda Civics. OH, didn't I tell you? There are 7 people in my family. So the whole week we have been cramming the 4 twenty-somethings in the back and my little sis (18), mom, and step-dad in the front. And on top of all that, my step-dad is having trouble getting used to driving on the left hand side (as custom in the USVI) so theres a near fatal crash everytime we go out. Fun stuff.

Today we went to St. John, the hilliest motha island known to man and as we were getting ready to leave we let the car air out a bit, doors open, ya see. Well, dumb ass move. We all cram in, close her up, roll up the windows to let the AC pump just to realize there are no less than 40,000 mosquitos in the car. Jim can't figure out how to drive on the left andddd unlock the windows for us, so us kids go on a clapping frenzy killing families of bugs. I was covered with bug carcas and my own blood but we finally got them. We got them all. Sorry if this sounds dramatic, but Craig and I are reading "1776" for our book club and I just finished the Boston Massacre chapter.

I have increased my chance of contracting West Nile by 400%.

Other than thatttt

I went snorkeling today! Micky gets to the beach, puts her gear on and says, "I'm going to snorkel my brains out" That set the mood for the day. We were out there for like 2 hours straight. I lovvveeedddd it! Except for the jellyfish mine field that I treaded through (again, "1776"). I saw turtles and they were soooo cute. I also saw a puffer fish, he was smaller than I would have thought. I swam through this school of fish that was unreal. They were very small, maybe 2 inches long each, but they were bright silver and fluorescent purple and there must have been 10,000, no exhaggeration. I swam with them, they were my friends. My family saw a huge sting ray but I bounced out by then.

Oh haha but get this. I'm trying to dry off, taking a walk in the little shady grove off the beach and I turn around to see my mom staring at me speechless, like she saw a ghost. I'm like, "Mom, what's up?" I turn to my left, and Jesus H. there's a freaking donkey standing next to me. A DONKEY!! What?! But yea, that's how St. John rolls.

There's sooo much more I want to say. Like how my family had a professional beach photo shoot or how I sang "Son of a Preacher Man" at beach karaoke and won a bottle of Coconut Rum. You'll have to wait till I get home to hear first hand :-)

10 points to the first person who can say what tomorrow is?!?