Grow: Are You with "The Family?"

(I wish I were back there now!)

We got to the resort at about 3ish on Saturday afternoon -- or at least 20 of us did. The first thing we did upon arriving was start having cocktails. They gave us one when we got off the ferry -- some kind of ginger lemonade thing that was delicious -- and after that we headed down to the bar to see how fast we could go through our room credit!

We were very excited to be there, so we made a pretty good dent in said room credit the first evening -- and we introduced Peter Island to "The Family," as they came to know us. We took up half of the resort, so anywhere we would go, the staff or other guests would ask "Are you part of the family?" Some of the other guests like us, some tolerated us, and some (like the Germans I talked about in my last post) would rather we weren't there.

We don't get out much. ;-)

The rest of the family came in that Saturday evening. Or at least, the rest of the family was supposed to come in Saturday evening. My cousin and her husband missed their connecting flight in Atlanta due to some maintenance guy's error at their original airport, so they didn't get to come in until Sunday evening. They missed an entire day -- and once they finally did get to St. Thomas, their luggage was lost. For something like 3 days.

After the first full day, several of my cousins took out one of our two rental boats to this bar called Willy T's. When it became dark and they still weren't back, everyone started to worry -- especially my aunt and uncle whose 18-year-old daughter was on the boat. Willy T's, a bar on a boat, isn't known for being the classiest establishment -- and that is putting it mildly; there's lost of nakedness at Willy T's, especially by people who really shouldn't be naked in public! Add to that five or so people who have been drinking in a boat, in the dark, in unfamiliar waters. Gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling.

With part of our crowd being delayed in their travels and part of our crew missing, it didn't seem like our vacation was off to the most stellar start (although we were all at the resort where we were supposed to be and having a grand old time)!

The Willy T's crowd made it back safely, everyone on board got a good talking-to, and we got on with the business of vacay...

Dinners were always fun. The first night we were there we ate with just my parents, Hunter and Joe, and Graham and Elizabeth. There was live music right outside the restaurant, so we spent the entire meal singing at the top of our lungs to easy listening music -- lots of Mariah and Whitney. I was really surprised they didn't play more island-type music. We got a lot of stares when we were singing -- we got a lot of stares a lot of the time, in fact!

The rest of the nights they set up three long tables, and the entire family sat together. It was fun to all be together, but they couldn't really handle serving 35 people at once. So, some of us would be eating appetizers while others were eating entrees and others hadn't even ordered. Of course, we all didn't necessarily arrive at the same time, either. Some nights they had a buffet, and those were definitely the best for our big crowd.