SXM: Days 5-7

Day 5.  In the US, the election results were in (yay) and a snowstorm was blanketing the Northeast (boo).  In SXM, we were doing this:

Oh yeah we were.  Our plans for day 5 were to take the “ferry” to Pinel Island, a short, two-minute ride from SXM.  From one slice of Paradise to the other.  I say “ferry” because it was really an overlarge rowboat with a motor, but it was a whopping $7 so who really cares?  Plus, it brought us here:

There’s no electricity on Pinel, no roads or cars, but there’s plenty of  crystal clear, shallow water, soft sand, and snorkeling in the marine reserve on the other side of the island.  There are even two beach bars and an outdoor “boutique” area selling clothing and souvenirs.

For a little change of scenery, Luke and I took a little hike over the hill to see the marine reserve on the other side of the island.  Check out this view:

So crowded. Can’t stand it.

Many of the reviews I read about Pinel complained that it was overcrowded.  Not while we were there.  We did have an interesting “sighting” though.  There was a lady sunbathing near our umbrella with short cropped, bleach blond hair and tattoos all over.  I nudged Luke and said, “Look, it’s Pink.”  I’m sorry to admit that I know what Pink’s tattoos look like, so although this lady looked A LOT like her, it wasn’t.  Luke’s still convinced it was.

We all boarded the 3pm ferry and headed back to our place to change and take off again for Philipsburg to pick up the ring we bought for Luke.  I didn’t mention that in the last post about Philipsburg.  We’re on a never-ending quest to find a wedding band that Luke will wear and while we were in the jewelry store talking about the Molly ring that I had ordered from Etsy, the lure of the sparkly things won us over.  He found a simple white gold “comfort fit” band that he really liked and I said go for it!  He wanted to have a memento of Molly like I was going to have, so he asked to have “Molly” engraved inside the band.  The day we picked it up, I asked the jeweler to clean my rings (which have our names written around the outside).  He read, “Luke…and…LISA?”  He looked up and said, “Then who is Molly?”  We answered at the same time.  I said “Our dog.”  Luke said “My other wife.”  That’ll teach him to ask silly questions.

Next, a sunset dinner at Chesterfield’s overlooking the bay, then a walk on Dawn Beach, and we were ready to call it a night.

Day 6, our last full day in SXM.  Luke and I opted to stay close to “home” and hang out on Dawn Beach while the rest of the group went to finish their souvenir shopping with a trip back to Philipsburg.

It was nice to have a quiet morning to ourselves.  We bobbed in the water, read our books under the umbrella, and even saved a baby sea turtle.  We were looking around in the water for jellyfish (Luke kept thinking he felt them bumping his legs) when one of our fellow bobbers said “Look, a turtle!”

He was itty bitty and seemed to be caught where the waves were breaking.  Luke scooped him up and brought him out of the water for a quick photo, then waded back out past where the waves broke to set him free.  Good deed done.

The gang returned and met us at the beach for a quick dip before Luke’s suspicion came true and the jellyfish really did appear.  We packed it up and headed to the resort pool to try and absorb as much of the beauty as we could before it was time to leave.

That night, one last visit to The Red Piano, and our trip was officially over.  The next morning we had to pack up and head for colder climates.  I woke up feeling like I was having nicotine withdrawal.  There aren’t any no-smoking laws in bars in SXM and I inhaled a couple of lungfuls that night.  Despite the secondhand smoke, we had a blast and it was a fun way to end our trip. (This is what it look like inside. This was the piano player probably teaching us another dirty toast.)

Day 7: pack it all up.  Another great thing about staying in our palace was that it was a private residence, not a hotel, so there really was no set checkout time.  We were able to pack, clean up the place, hang out and enjoy the view a few hours longer, and then head right to the airport to check in for our 4 p.m. flight.

Goodbye awesome condo:

Goodbye many roundabouts with your random statues and monuments:

Goodbye vague, understated signs:

Goodbye palm trees:

Goodbye Saint Martin/Sint Maarten, thanks for another great week!

SXM: Days 3 and 4

Day 3 in SXM started out slowly with Megan and Elke heading to the resort’s spa for fancy manicures and pedicures.  The rest of us hung out, took walks, and waited for the ladies to return so we could head into nearby Philipsburg for some shopping.  Philipsburg is one of the ports where cruise ships dock and hoards of tourists flock looking for cheap liquor, Cuban cigars, and deals on jewelry.  It is not my favorite place.  It’s like a city of pushy car salesmen, but it’s on the water and there are gorgeous views and the jewelry stores give away free beer, so hey, it’s worth a look.  The girls wanted to check it out and buy some souvenirs, so we spent the afternoon wandering and shopping.

My one favorite part of Philipsburg is a little French cafe on Old Street called Au Petit Cafe.  We ate there on our past trip and this time we had the same sassy waiter and a meal just as delicious as we remembered. After a long day of shopping and eating, we headed back to our condo for a light dinner on the roof and an early bedtime.  Do you remember the view from the roof?  Should I remind you?

Day 4 made up for any lack of excitement we may have experienced on day three. Our plan was to head to the Loterie Farm and finally go on the zip line course.  Or as they like to call it, the “treetop adventure obstacle course”.  We stopped there on our last trip to the island, but didn’t get the chance to go on the zip line.  This time we weren’t going to miss it again.  The six of us sucked up our courage and plunked down the €55 ($72) and got suited up for adventure.

In case you’re wondering, closed-toe shoes that cover your heel, a restrictive, mildly humiliating harness, and a single leather gardening glove are all the gear you need.  No one else seemed to notice that the hardware on our harnesses looked a little concerned, but these were the faces we were making, too, as we took off for what turned out to be two and a half hours of sweaty, exhilarating, shin-banging, finger-pinching, high-flying fun times.

We rode up Pic Paradis in the back of a rickety truck and were deposited near the top for the start of our awesome trip down.   There were probably about 15 of us in the group with one very laid-back guide named Adrian.  A quick lesson on what to do and more importantly, what not to do, and we were off.

The zip lines varied in height and length and were broken up by ladders, wooden slat bridges, and tightropes.  It was a blast.  Two of the last zip lines were 1,400 and 1,600 feet and the views were amazing.  I brought my Flip camera, hoping to shoot some video, but the battery died at the first platform, so I had only my iPhone, which I was terrified to pull out of my bag since it had not strap on it and we were, you know, UP IN THE TREES!

I did catch a couple of videos of Luke, and this one is my favorite.  Apparently Luke, who is good at everything, figured out how to play around on the zip line and had been barreling toward me upside down.  Unfortunately the trees were in the way and I only caught him as he turned back around to prepare for his smooth landing.  We made it to the bottom, bruises, sweaty bodies, wobbly legs and all, and high-fived ourselves for having such a great time.  By that point were were starved and exhausted, and decided to head toward Simpson Bay for a little lunch and looking around.

After a delicious bay side lunch of fish tacos and ribs at Skip Jacks, we took a trip across the street to show the girls the Royal Palm, where we had stayed on our previous trips to the island.  It was happy hour, so it was two-for-one rum punches for everyone!  Well, almost everyone.  Virgin Mudslides for others…

We soothed our exhausted legs in the ocean and headed back across the street to the Simpson Bay Yacht Club see if we could find Brian, who had been the bartender at The Lady C, our favorite floating bar which is now out of business.  We lucked out, not only finding Brian, but spotting a double rainbow, and catching the drawbridge in action as the sun was setting over the ocean.

We made our way back to the car, happy but exhausted, and wound up stuck in construction traffic heading into Cole Bay.  Luckily for us, we spotted a restaurant called The Carousel which specialized in gelato.  Perfect!  We took a little traffic break to wander around the beautiful restaurant, complete with full-size carousel in back, and had an early dinner of creme brulee gelato before heading back to the resort hot tub for a little relaxing before the night’s end.  Sigh… I could get used to this.

SXM: Days 0.5-2

So! How about some vacation photos? I promised this wouldn’t turn into the I’m sad because my dog died blog, and here’s where we bring back a little of the fun.

Last week, as you may have heard, we were in St. Martin (or sometimes Sint Maarten, depending on which side of the island you’re on) or as I like to write it, because it’s just easier: SXM.  This was our third trip back with our friends (who marked their ninth trip to the island) and this year they brought their two daughters.  Due to our new, extra-large group, we had to find a different place to stay than the previous years.  A larger place with more bedrooms.  This is the quaint little place we settled for.  It was alright:

And by alright, I mean that it was flipping amazing.  Stunning.  Mind-blowing, and every other adjective you can imagine.  I found it here on VRBO and if you’re planning a trip to SXM, I highly recommend it.  For instance, this was the view from our private balcony off of our bedroom:

Yeah, like I said, it was OK.  (!!!)  Want to see more?  How about the private rooftop infinity pool?  You read that right.  The condo complex has its own private rooftop infinity pool for the 18 privately owned units and we were apparently the only people staying in the building last week so we had the place to ourselves.

We flew into SXM on a Friday afternoon (hence the “Day 0.5″) and made our traditional stop at the Sunset Beach Bar in Maho to toast our good fortune and watch the drunken dummies sand blast themselves on the beach as planes take off and land at the tiny airport.

Let me stop here and say that, like most of the people in this picture, I took many of the photos on this trip with my iPhone. I had my big Canon with me, but the iPhone was smaller and less conspicuous, and WATERPROOF with this rad totallyworththemoney case from LifeProof.  OK, back to the photos.

Here’s the gang (minus me) at the bar.  Megan (in the shades) is drinking ginger ale, in case you’re wondering, and Emily (on the right) is 19, and therefore legal to drink in SXM, so get used to seeing that. From Maho we headed to our palace—I mean condo—to gape at the amazing view, drop our bags, and head to the pool at the adjoining Oyster Bay Beach Resort.  Did I mention that there’s another infinity pool there, too.  Here’s a shot of the resort’s pool area from the top of our condo building.  It’s on the right, there, alongside THE FREAKING OCEAN.  I still can’t believe they let us stay there:

We had dinner that night at Daniel’s by the Sea, which is on the beach on the other side of the resort.  During the day it’s Mr. Busby’s Beach Bar, and at night it switches gears to become Daniel’s.  It was delicious.  We walked along the sand back to our SXM home happy and stuffed.

Day 1 began with a terribly exciting trip to the Grand Marché to buy groceries and nearly have a heart attack watching the total on the cash register go upwards of 345.00 until the cashier said to us “Dollars?” and switched the total from the Dutch guilders, to U.S. dollars. Phew! (The exchange is roughly 1.79 guilders to the dollar.) From the store we went back and quickly unloaded the groceries and then practically sprinted to the beach.  Dawn Beach is our favorite beach on SXM and is adjacent to the resort so we only had to walk across the parking area to get there.

Not a bad place to be.  After laying on the beach and floating in the water for a while (hey, look! I’m actually in this picture!):

…we headed back to the resort pool to laze and float and marvel at how lucky we were to be there.  I posted this shot on Instagram that night with the caption, “Today did not suck.” That was the truth.

On day 2 we had planned to take the girls to a new mall that was being constructed the last time we were on the island in 2010, followed by a trip to Mullet Beach.  But the we realized when we woke up that it was Sunday and the mall was closed.  A quick regroup and we instead headed for Happy Bay, a place I had been wanting to find.  I say “find” because you cannot drive to Happy Bay.  You have to hike through the woods, across a field, and along a cliff to get there.  It’s secluded and empty and sounded AMAZING.  I was psyched when everyone else was on board with the adventure.  We had to drive across the island, through the French side to get where we were going, and on the way we passed by Orient Beach and Boo Boo Jam, where we used to like to go.  Here’s what Boo Boo Jam looked like in 2009:

And here’s what it looked like last week, shortly after someone burned it to the ground:

Sad.  We paid our respects and headed back out to find adventure.  We spotted two interesting-looking locals on our way there.

This guy was chilling in a slightly inadequate tree on the side of the dirt road leading to Boo Boo Jam.  And this guy was ruling the world from atop a rock on the side of the road to Friar’s Bay:

To find Happy Bay, the directions I had were: park at Friar’s Bay and walk down the beach, past the last beach bar.  Start walking into the woods, the path may or may not be marked. ALRIGHTY! Let’s go!  The path was marked by a spray-painted rock with an arrow that pointed up into the jungle.  We hiked in the woods, along a ridge, through a field, and into Paradise.  Here’s a bit of what it looked like getting there:

Walking, walking, walking… a giant pig randomly tied up in the woods… walking, walking, walking… Megan blew out her flip-flop… walking, hopping, and BAM! Happy Bay:

Seriously. It hurts to look at, it’s so beautiful.

There were only a few other people there (and yes, a couple of nudies) and it was just Paradise.  I have a funny video to post later that shows me trying to get back into the water after being slammed on my tush on the rocks just a little earlier.  Happy Bay might be beautiful, but she is rough and I had the butt bruises and cuts to prove it.  It’s OK, I still love you, Happy Bay.

There aren’t any restaurants on Happy Bay, so we eventually hiked back to Friar’s Bay (not to shabby either) for some barbecue lunch before heading out:

Next, we made a stop at beautiful Baie Rouge.

I think it’s gorgeous there, but the waves are rough and after my bum rush at Happy Bay, I opted to hang out on the sand and watch the adorable little dogs up the beach from us.  They kept digging things up in the sand and bringing them to their sunbathing owners who couldn’t care less.

After Baie Rouge, we rounded out the evening at the resort pool, then a delicious Italian dinner at our favorite little place in Maho, followed by a quick stop for some singalongs at The Red Piano.

It was like a day special ordered just for me!  Wow, it’s only day 2 and I’ve already crossed most of the to-dos off my list!

Birthday to Birthday

Today is my sister’s birthday (Happy birthday, Andrea!), a week and a half ago it was Luke’s birthday, and eleven days before that was my birthday.  We’ve got a lot of birthdays happening around here.

So now that I’ve had about three weeks to think about it, how about we talk about my birthday?  It was awesome.  Luke’s birthday was on a Saturday, which should have been perfect, except that everyone we knew was either on vacation, or had other plans that night.  So sad.  My birthday was the opposite.  It started with my favorite monthly appointment which is breakfast with my favorite bunch of loud-talky girlfriends at Ruben’s in West Hartford.  The waitress heard that it was my birthday and brought me a cupcake on the house.  After breakfast I headed to Prossage on the 22nd floor of the Marriott in Downtown Hartford for an amazing birthday massage.   What a beautiful place, I highly recommend it.  Especially for the post-massage view.

After my appointment, I was welcomed and encouraged to bring my swimsuit and enjoy the pool and hot tub.  You don’t know how disappointed I was that I couldn’t spend the rest of my day here, but don’t feel bad for me.  I had to leave my rooftop paradise to head home to my honey who had presents waiting and then whisked me out for lunch and a margarita.  It was the perfect sunny day so after lunch we came home to lay on the hammock where I read the book I’m currently obsessed with and he took a little snooze.  After relaxing and doing a little mild gardening, we took off for a sushi dinner.  What more could a girl ask for?  It was a perfect day.

The following weekend we had another blissful day visiting our friends at their boat in Stonington.  The sun was out, the winds were calm, and I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect day.  This picture, above, is Molly on the dock just moments before she mistook the algae in the water for a patch of grass that she could step onto and went for her first saltwater plunge.  This, below, would be the after.  Whoops!

Our sunny Stonington day kicked off a week off from work for both Luke and me.  The weather took a turn for the worse so we spent much of the time in the basement organizing the shop and other boring things.  We did manage to mess up the yard a whole lot by digging trenches so the chicken coop could have water and power and I can finally have water out at the vegetable garden.

We spent a good part of the day watching the chickens fall in and figure out how to get out of the trench.  Good times.  Just a side note here, Luke dug these trenches BY HAND.  With a pick axe.  Like an olde timey prisoner.  He’s crazy and I love him for that.  So to reward him for his back-breaking hard work, I made him take me out in the boat.  We had a gorgeous day of warm, sunny weather so we headed to quiet little Gardner Lake in Salem.  Man alive, was it beautiful.

We were practically alone on the lake.  I drove the boat around for bit while Luke fished, then he switched over to the trolling motor and I made myself a comfy spot to lay and continue reading my book.  It was heaven.  But that fishing was only practice for the next day when Luke went fluke fishing with our Stonington boat friends.  Now here is where I would include a photo of the beautiful day or the 68 pounds of fluke they caught and sold, but since that trip was boys-only and for some unknown reason no one thought to take any photos—FOR PROOF THAT THEY ACTUALLY CAUGHT ANYTHING—I present you with fishing boats at dusk, which I took that evening when I came to pick him up.

The four of us took the boat to the dockside restaurant around the corner—that was a fun, new experience of pretending to be a fancy boat-going person—and then we went back to our friends’ camp for a bonfire, some birthday cake…

…and some Sky Lanterns because the next day was Luke’s birthday!  (I’m still not sure how I feel about the Sky Lanterns.  They’re unquestionably beautiful and allegedly safe, but my painfully practical side keeps wondering about sending a paper bag with a lit candle loose in the wide open.)

We sent off two birthday lanterns and headed home after a wonderful day and a relaxing week of time off.  Luke’s birthday was mostly low-key because, as I mentioned, everyone and their grandma was out of town or busy, so there aren’t any photos, but a relaxing day was had by all.  So that’s it!  Birthday to birthday: it was a great couple of weeks!

ATTACK!

Last Monday I got home after dark and closed up the ladies, as usual.  I counted them, made sure they were all there, and locked them in for the night.  The next morning when I let them out, they greeted me and hopped out of the coop like they do every morning, but I noticed that one black and white hen was missing some feathers by her tail.  No biggie.  That happens; they molt, they peck them out, it’s nothing to worry about.  Then as I turned to walk back to the house, I saw Molly sniffing a giant pile of black and white feathers.  Uh-oh.

I went over to the hen with the bald spot and pulled back her other feathers to reveal the nastiest giant slash across her back. Crap. As Luke described it, the gash looks like someone carved a slice across a roast chicken.  It was serious but she didn’t seem to care.  She was the first hen out of the house that morning (and every morning). She’s still chatty and busy, scratching and foraging around.  The other hens don’t bother her; nothing seems to have changed.  I decided to wait it out.  The local vet does treat chickens, but I wanted to see if nature would take care of itself.

A week later, the injured hen is still acting normal, laying eggs, taking dust baths, and squawking at me each morning when I let her out.  Her gash has started to heal and her feathers are growing back in frizzy little tufts.  I started to wonder what attacked her in the first place.  My thought is that it had to be a bird of some sort because if it was a fox, or something on foot, it would have just followed her back into the coop after the attack.  We do have an abundance of hawks and even saw an eagle here a few years back, so I figured it had to be an overconfident little hawk.

Well, I was half right.

Sunday evening I was in the kitchen when I heard a whole bunch of flapping and scrambling and squawking from the yard.   I looked out to see a gigantic hawk gliding through the yard about six feet off the ground.  It landed in a tree in the back yard (no chicken in its claws, thank goodness) and all of the hens frantically scattered.  I spent the next half hour trying to round everyone up.  A few ran to the coop, others ran to nearby bushes and trees, or under the deck.  I managed to coax the injured hen out from under the deck and lure a couple of others out of the bushes, but most everyone had to be carried back to the coop, they were so scared.  All ten were accounted for and no one was injured. Phew! Close call.

We’re starting to get back to normal again, except now the ladies prefer to take dust baths under the back deck, and they follow me around even closer than before. I must be their new sign of safety. They stick so close to me now, it’s hard to walk across the yard without tripping.  I’m also afraid that this hawk has now learned that our yard is the place for easy chicken pickings, but I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Surprise!

My mom sent me a text message the other morning which read: “Could you please update your blog so I’ll know what you’re up to?”

This text came in the day after my friend Paula told me she had a very vivid dream that I had published a book of all of the craft projects I’d been working on in secret, which was the reason I hadn’t been blogging in so long.

Sadly, no, I’m not working on a book, although that would be awesome, it’s just that I haven’t been up to much at all.  You’ve heard this excuse before, but Luke’s ridiculous work schedule is affecting everything and I spend my days scrambling to get things done at work so I can rush home and see him for a half hour before he leaves for work at 5pm.  After he leaves I usually make dinner, talk to the chickens, play with the dog, watch Hulu, clean the house, maybe I’ll sew something, probably I’ll be playing Draw Something, and lately I’ve been working on spiffing up the boat.  Wow, aren’t you glad I updated you on all that exciting stuff?

For those of you just catching up, this is our boat:

Yes, that’s right. It’s in our basement garage along with eight motorcycles. Don’t tell the insurance company. We just bought it in the fall and we’ve spent the winter cleaning it up, putting a new floor in it, and painting the inside.  I made new seat cushions and polished more fiberglass than I care to think about.  The boat left the garage this past weekend, which is good because we now have two other new projects to think about.

Paula was kind enough to give us some relics of her youth, an awesome 1980(ish) Jawa moped:

And a 1968(ish) Suzuki motorcycle:

Which led me to write on Twitter on Sunday:

We will soon be on a special episode of Horders about compulsive motorcycle collecting.

Seriously. These two bikes came home after a non-working quad joined the gang a few weeks earlier.  This brings our count up to eight bikes and two quads.

So what have I been up to? I’ve been up to my eyeballs in garage projects, that’s what I’ve been up to!  I’ve also been sewing a little, I bought a Clarisonic Mia, I’m working toward ditching my cable service, I’m thinking of going back to St. Martin for New Year’s, and I’m failing horribly at meeting my two goals for 2012.  All things I’ll hopefully talk to you about in future blog posts. Stay tuned…

Thanks for stopping by!

Cheers

Today is February first and the weather was glorious; it reached into the 60s. After last year’s miserable winter, I’d say that a day like today deserves a toast. How about we toast with my new favorite drink, the BLT?

Word on the street (or on the internet, to be more exact) was that Bulleit Bourbon was delicious. The problem was that no one told the package stores in Connecticut and I’ve been searching for it since the end of summer. I finally spotted it on the shelf of my local shop and grabbed a bottle this past weekend.

So then… what do I do with bourbon?  Gin drinks, rum drinks, even tequila drinks—I’ve got you covered, but for bourbon drinks, I needed some help.  I went straight to the source: bulleitbourbon.com and that’s where I found my new favorite.

It’s simple, it’s tart, and it’s surprisingly refreshing.  It’s a BLT (bourbon, lemon, tonic).

BLT
(recipe from bulleitbourbon.com)

1 1/2 ounce Bulleit bourbon
1 lemon slice
tonic

Fill a rocks glass halfway with ice, add bourbon, squeeze lemon and toss in, then top with tonic and stir.

Now raise your glass and make a toast to beautiful weather and 60-degree winter days. Welcome February!

On Christmas Eve, before we left for dinner at my mother-in-laws, I thought it would be nice to have a family portrait in front of the tree.

I set up the tripod, tested the remote, then hopped in next to Luke for a picture.

Only Luke couldn’t get the remote to work for him, so our pictures came out like this.

OK, that’s better, but then the fluffy one was getting antsy.

Oh well… We hope you had a very Merry Christmas and a Christmas Eve as picturesque and ridiculous as this one.

That Time of Year

I was doing so well there for a while, wasn’t I?  Let’s just hope that four days away from Christmas, everyone is too busy to even notice that I haven’t updated.

So far in December we’ve seen three birthday parties, one family Christmas party, last night’s Christmas drinks with awesome friends, and one nasty (but thankfully brief) Christmas cold. Up next we have the nonstop eating and present-exchanging fest that is this weekend.  So yes, it’s that time of year.  The time when we’re so incredibly busy that we’re neglecting our blogs, but we’re doing it for good reasons.  Friend-visiting and birthday-celebrating reasons.

I hope you all have a wonderful rest of this busy week and a very Merry Christmas.  I might check in next week, but if not, have a Happy New Year, too.

Hey, would someone remind me next week to get started on my 2011 in pictures slideshow?

Let’s Talk About Christmas Cards

I have a question for you.  Are you a person who sends out photo Christmas cards of your family? Do you sign them? I’m just curious…