So if you'll remember, by now the girls and I were in the crappiest hotel room in San Juan and I was trying to decide what to do about the next day.  Option 1 was let the girls sleep in and miss our only hope to get to Anguilla before 10pm the next day and put them through another full day like this.... while option 2 was to get up early and get to the airport, find our luggage and get on the waiting list on the mid-day fight to the island and have this travel bullshit over with by 2pm hopefully.

I opted for the second and woke up the World's crankiest toddlers at 7am.  We tried to go to the hotel's breakfast buffet but it's hard to eat when you're crying, and at this point that's all the girls were doing.
By the time we got back to the airport , walking with the girls was close to impossible, which cut my search for the luggage short and an agent saying "oh yes, I saw those 6 containers going to Anguilla, right?  I marked them and sent them on - no worries!" was good enough for me to not care about the luggage anymore.
Especially because we were still out of diapers and cash at this point and we had been waiting to speak with an agent for 50 minutes.

Merely getting TO the check-in line took 30 minutes and I was doing all I could to not loose it at this point.  We made it and walked up to the first available agent... which promptly started to yell at me in Spanish... apparently I cut in line and frankly, at that point, I didn't care.  While I am usually composed and calm, even in chaotic situations - this was my breaking point and I lost it.  The girls just looked at me like I was insane as "do you have any idea of what these little girls have been through.." came out in between sobs and rivers of tears. 
After what felt like an eternity some American Airlines person grabbed me and put me in front of a cooperative agent... apparently my melt-down about AA's lack of cooperation and assistance was embarrassing to them, I myself didn't give a shit at this point.  And then, for the first time during the trip from hell, I actually got help OFFERED and some nice gentleman got the girls a wheelchair, so I could at least push them around the airport as walking in overdue diapers is apparently uncomfortable.

Next stop ANY STORE THAT HAS DIAPERS... after 30 minutes of walking around from store to store (and still crying, I was too tired to make myself stop) we finally found a place that sold diapers - YEAH!
Two clean booties later we were on our way to the check-in gate to Anguilla. 
Enter Bob and his family (again), which were heaven-sent as at least our kids could play together and get somewhat of a distraction.  Two hours later we were all told that the flight to Anguilla was over-booked and none of us would make it. 

Wow, if you ever wanted to see 7 people cry simultaneously - that was your chance!
A few prayers and pleads and conversations with the gate agent on our journey later.... some seats opened up miraculously.  First just three.... then one, no two more.... and before you knew it, we were ALL on the bus out to the runway to the most glorious looking plane I've ever seen - the one taking us to Anguilla!

While the flight was full, Bob's family, the girls and I were on our home stretch and we were willing to do anything to distract the kids for just ONE MORE HOUR.  Snacks worked for 3 minutes, drinks for 2, "how many puppies can you find in the American Airlines SkyMall magazine" (great toy, by the way) was an old game at that point and didn't find any interested parties. 
So we started singing... about a whole in the ground... and about Maggelina-Haggelina... and about "Alli mini Entli"... all seven of us!  I'm sure the rest of the plane thought we were insane but nobody was crying and that was good enough for the grown-up's in the group.

And FINALLY...
.....Anguilla...
.....that familiar warm hug you get when the plane door opens and you walk down the runway...
...that instant calm that takes you over...
...that immediate grounding with the universe that envelopes...

Now I only had one outstanding problem - actually two.
See, Zon and Writa came down to the island 5 days before and I had no way to get in touch with them as they had no phone and mine was dead by now too.  They were supposed to pick us up, but they had no way to know that we were finally here.
Not only that, but Zon and Writa were the only one's that knew where our house actually was!
I've never been there, never seen it, nor is there such a thing as a street address on the island - CRAP!

Problem number two was our luggage - and I know this will shock you - which wasn't in Anguilla!
-Forget about the luggage, I just need to get these girls to the house we haven't met yet.
So we get into a taxi and when he asks "where to", I start laughing... "uh, well, I'm not sure".
After a while I did manage to remember the first name of the person we were renting from and the driver ran through all the people on the island with that first name.... (thank God this place is small)

I picked one that sounded right and he took us to a part of town called "Sandy Hill".
I had no clue if it would be right or wrong but when a tall blonde was on the front porch of a house down a gravel road, right past the East End round-about - we had finally found our new "home".

....and that, my friends is the story on how we (or at least half of "we") got to Anguilla, one year ago today.


In case you were wondering, no our luggage didn't get there anytime soon and even though I was assured that it would get there "the next day", it was TEN days later before we had a bathing suit or any underwear or clothes.  In addition, American Airlines managed to lose a container with approximately $1500 worth of my best kitchen stuff and by then I had spend no less than $450 on phone calls (at $2/min) with various AA agencies.

And yes, once we got a good night's worth of sleep in our home, it did feel like perhaps I had made a major mistake, not just because our horrible trip there, but as the house I found myself in had exactly 3 forks, 4 cups, no mop, no trashcans, 4 towels and one pan.... for 8 people. Apparently the house had never been rented before - a little detail I didn't know about.
Of course at that point we didn't even know of all those wonderful lessons to come, such as "no city water", cisterns, boiling water, cooking with gas out of containers, or the insane cost of electricity or cell phone calls for that matter.

Our first year on the island has certainly been full of those - lessons - both on how things work here as well as about yourself and exactly what all you can do without. 
The amount of work it takes to live here without any conveniences is insane, especially with four kids.  Yet the return is also insane and when I see the kids' amazing survival skills, how they adapt and learn and solve problems in such unique ways - I know it's worth it and I'm betting on this sense of community and simplified way of life being a guide to our kids in the future, so they may shape whatever part of the world they chose to live in, to be more like what they are living in now - Anguilla, British West Indies.