Christyn & Alyssa’s tropical disaster has a very happy ending.
As told by Alyssa
Christyn and her family travel to St. Martin every year. Because my family owns a restaurant we do not often get the chance to vacation together. On this particular trip, however, my family decided to join us. My parents, two of my three sisters, my cousin and a few family friends were all coming, but I wasn’t expecting anything out of the ordinary.
The first 48 hours of the trip were awful; our flight was delayed six hours, then our rental car got a flat tire. Then the spare got a flat. Nothing was going right. Tensions were high and everyone was bickering.
On our third day we took a ferry to the island of Pinnel. The day was so perfect that I almost forgot how bad the first two had been. That afternoon Christyn and others from our group left to get ready for dinner. I decided to hang back with the other half of the gang, not realizing that a plot was thickening. When I finally got back to the hotel I showered and threw on cut-off shorts and a tee shirt. My teenage sister—who is only nice when there’s something in it for her—offered to do my make-up. I said, “No, we’re just going down to the beach.”
Christyn suggested we grab a drink down at the bar. I hesitated because I wanted to wrangle our group of twenty people for dinner, but I agreed. When we got there the doors were closed and there were balloons everywhere. I was thinking, “Great, another problem on this trip.” Christyn took my hand and opened the door. “What is all this?” I asked her when I saw that the contents of our memory box from the past five years were all attached to balloons blowing in the breeze. There were ticket stubs, cards, notes and other mementos.
I took it all in, and as I turned to look at Christyn she was down on her knee. I didn’t want her to be alone, so I knelt down too—our own Monica and Chandler moment—but this was perfect. This was our moment. Our friends and family gathered and we celebrated all night with lots of champagne.
Alyssa and Christyn are officially engaged.
Their furry daughter is thrilled.