No, that is not my latest running stat, but in fact the number of miles I have flown in a plane in the past day! I have been MIA due to a family vacation to Anguilla in the Dutch West Indies and the trip was incredible to say the least.  My parents took me and my sister and our significant others to this remote island for 5 days of adventures under the sun and we certainly used our time well as you will see below 🙂 However, we were not as successful with our travels back home where we were met with every travel disaster you can imagine: canceled flight, delays, running through the airport, missing bags, inconvenient layovers… But we made it home and I have all of the following to share with you, enjoy!

The trip was in honor of my Dad’s 55th birthday and my beautiful lil sister’s 21st birthday! In my true family style we stayed off the grid in a small resort and drove around the island tasting culinary treasures and visiting hidden getaways.

For my my sister Avery’s birthday we went to a small sand bar right off the shore. After waving for a small boat to take us over we ate the most fantastic meal I have ever eaten! You can tell from our faces that we were more than pleasantly surprised with our fresh lobster, cray fish and chicken paired with the island’s famous rum punches.

We always have a great time as a family no matter what we are doing but it was even better to have our boyfriends along for the ride. They took advantage of the water sports and bonded together over wake-boarding – both of them were able to hang on with one hand to impress us ladies 😉

After hours on the beaches and in the water it was sad to see the trip come to an end but little did we know what we were in store for when we arrived at the St. Maarten airport…

Our flight was delayed for hours, then finally canceled due to “mechanical errors”. We were put up in a near by hotel and told to return the next day. After spending hours (yes, I mean more than one hour) at the ticketing booths we finally were put on a flight rerouting us through Charlotte, NC and then to Newark (the original destination). We had to RUN through the Charlotte airport to make the flight to Newark and managed to arrive at 11pm. But wait, 4 of our bags were lost and the rest of my family had to head back to our home in Princeton, NJ without their luggage. Dave and I spent a few hours in a hotel and then took a very early flight back to San Francisco and finally made it to our apartment two days later than planned.

Regardless of this extremely delayed and hectic return the vacation was well needed and simply fantastic. I am already looking forward to the next set of family adventures, but maybe next time we will hire a private jet? Time to start saving….

Feel free to share your horror story to make me feel better hehe