Remembering…

It’s after ten and Doug was planning on going down to the barn to feed the horses and goats so I check on him in his office.  He’s on the computer looking up warm, beachy places to escape to.  Like North Captiva and Sanibel Island where he remembers the best shelling experience of his life at the age of 10.   The twins and I have heard the story about how the shells were piled 4 feet high along the coast countless times.  How there were only 5 buildings on the entire island and how the only way to get there was by 2-car ferry.

Instead of looking out upon a 4 foot tall wall of shells on a warm sandy beach, we’re looking out upon 4 feet of snow on a cold, cloudy day.  And so I remember…

I remember the first big family vacation we took in 2006.  How bold we were to leave Sky Ranch during an April snowstorm and fly all the way to Antigua (via Bozeman, Salt Lake City and Orlando) to include an overnight stop in San Juan, Puerto Rico with a pair of 5 year old twins!  I remember checking in at the San Juan Airport for our flight to the island the following morning and handing the ticket agent our twins’ birth certificates.  I remember him holding them up to the light and scrutinizing them as though we were criminals who’d just handed him fraudulent documents.  When he turned to us and told us these were not certified copies, I was horrified and all at once grateful that my husband, Doug, never once became angry with my packing, in my haste, copies and not actual certified documents.  Our flight and luggage left for Antigua without us.

Resolving not to give up the vacation we were only a 1 hour flight away from, we phoned the Office of Vital Statistics for the State of Montana in Helena and explained our desperate predicament and could they possibly send via FedEx overnight, a certified copy of Sam & Larissa’s birth certificates to Puerto Rico.  We charged the fees to our credit card and checked back in to the hotel to await our FedEx delivery the following morning.  We awoke that Saturday anxious to pick up our FedEx package at the front desk only to learn that although the package was in fact at the Puerto Rico FedEx terminal, that delivery was not made on Saturdays!  We would simply have to wait until Monday…

And so, we went shopping…for bathing suits, flip flops and underwear seeing as our luggage was sitting all the while at the Antigua airport.  We went swimming and sightseeing and rejoiced in the fact that we were together, safe and sound, happy and healthy in a fabulously warm place surrounded by fabulous and friendly people who served up some absolutely delicious fare.

After all, it was only months earlier than we had survived a horrific car accident, overturning on an icy mountain road which left me with 60 stitches and staples to my forehead after meeting up with the windshield.  Thankfully, the twins and Doug made it through with nary a scratch (even though all the windows blew out) and to this day I cannot stress enough the importance of wearing seat belts and ensuring your child rides in a car seat.  This,  followed by my breaking my ACL only 4 days before departure on our last day skiing at Bridger Bowl.  So I wore a knee brace to hold my floppy leg into place, packed my drugs against the funky nerve pain in my head and said, “Let’s GO!”.

And so it was, stranded as we were in Puerto Rico that we realized nothing is more important in life than our just being together, no matter where we were.  And we enjoyed each other and the moments immensely.  Come Monday, with the twins’ birth certificates finally in hand, we boarded our flight to Antigua and arrived at the Jolly Beach Resort where paradise unfolded before us…

When I snapped this photo of the twins running with joyous abandon along the Caribbean shore, pails and flip flops dangling in their tiny hands, I realized this was one of those moments I would never, ever forget and that it was everything that led up to this singular moment that made it so worthwhile…