USVI-On-Line

I decided to pack last night....which is a first since I am always packing about 10 hours before I have to leave for the airport. I got my clothes and my daughters clothes all neatly packed and was all happy about how light the suitcase was. Then I peered to the rest of the bed and realized how much other crap I had to put somewhere.

Along with the normal necessities, I got roped into being the St. John Sherpa. I got a list form my parents of stuff to bring down to provision the house, I am helping a friend who is having a birthday party for their granddaughter at Maho this weekend and I am bringing assorted items for another family friend on island. As far as the house provisioning, I need to pack some cooler gel packs (apparently they get lost on island), ice tea mix, lots of tubes of travel toothpaste, 45 bath sponges, and 40 bottles of body wash and lotion.

For the party, I am brining alot of luau decorations including cutout fish and crabs, 50 paper plates, 50 napkins, a hula doll, assorted tropical toothpicks, some blow up palm trees, and 50 plastic leis.

Finally, the hit of the islands has supposedly been an item called Flarp. This silly putty type material comes in a small plastic container and when you insert a finger it makes various farting noises. Apparently, St. John and St. Thomas has run out of this novelty item, so I am carrying 10 containers of this noise putty with me to distribute to friends and family. ( I would recommend this item to anyone who has stress. Playing with this putty is great stress relief and great for a laugh or two, especially when you sneak it into meetings at work. It can be found at Kmart, Walmart or Walgreens.)

So I am leaving tomorrow and hopefully I won¡¦t make the nightly news because TSA has detained me. I am travelling alone with my 4 year old and leaving her daddy at home. He is so irked I am coming, he probably won¡¦t even come bail me out of jail. Will let you know how it goes!!! ƒº

Well your Flarp beats the 100 feet of fire hose in my bags that got me flagged at the Provo, T & C airport.

I want to come to that birthday party!

I can understand everything except the ice tea and travel toothpastes. Is ice tea mix that expensive? And why multiples of travel toothpaste? Do some villas provide toothpaste?

My travels down I've had a solar cover for a pool pump and heater for a hot tub, all kinds of tools. The only thing I've ever been questioned about was a dremel tool kit that was a birthday present for a island friend

PA Girl..

Mom and dad like to have every toiletry available for the renters. Mom always has travel toothbrushes and paste, suntan lotion, travel deoderant, body puffs, etc.

It is cheaper to buy it here at home and pay the $25 bag fee instead of shipping the heavy stuff.

When are you guys going down again?

When renting on other islands, houses had baskets in the bathroom with basics. It was a nice touch and something I have never seen on STJ.

We arrive on Feb 11, when are you going home?

We are only going to be down for 6 days. We come home next Tues. so Emma doesn't miss too much preschool. Mom and dad are down until Feb 19th or so. (Lucky!)

Your a good mom. We are the bad parents that pull their kid out of kindergarten for 8 days. I don't know how much longer we will be able/should do this. We may be switching back to summer trips.

Regarding pulling the kids from school... I did it a few times with my girls when they were young. Each time we asked the teachers for work in advance and they were very good about it. The teachers said that traveling is educational and usually gave assignments that related to the trip. The kids had to keep daily journals of what they did and turn it in or share it with the class. Those are still fun to read from the eyes of a child. My kindergartener had to bring back or write about 100 things. Seashells, palm tree leaves, how many dolphins they saw, etc. It just had to add up to 100. That was fun . Thanks for putting a smile on my face today. I hadn't thought about those trips from long ago for awhile.

My kids learned more going on trips with us then they did in school. Never felt I had to justify pulling them out had to set a couple of teacher straight.

PA Girl wrote:Your a good mom. We are the bad parents that pull their kid out of kindergarten for 8 days. I don't know how much longer we will be able/should do this. We may be switching back to summer trips.

Be really good parents, and leave the kinder kid at home, go to SJ, be "adult", and have fun!

PSU Weather - You-know-who really appreciates the "stuff" you're bringing down for birthday party Sunday! They could not find anything there. Spoke to your Mom and she is super excited, too. Just wish we could be down for Sunday...from Neighbors at PH, CB...Safe trip

waterguy wrote:My kids learned more going on trips with us then they did in school. Never felt I had to justify pulling them out had to set a couple of teacher straight.

Oh my husband was just waiting for the school to give us a hard time! I already did the paperwork and got it approved.

Growing up, my parents pulled me out of school all the time to go on trips. We had relatives in Europe and those trips to visit them were always a month at a time. And if the snow was good up in New England, my dad would get a wild hair and load up the car for last minute ski trips. I will probably be less concerned about it in the future.