St Maarten~ we'll take it one day at a time

St. Maarten July 2010

with so many pictures~ i figured we'd go a day at a time.

What an amazing vacation! we had been pretty anxious to get to the Caribbean and it definitely did NOT let us down. we just love it down there. we arrived in St Maarten on saturday at about 6pm. we were suppose to get there at 2 but missed the flight so we hung out in JFK for a few extra hours. we were lucky enough to have nate's sister Kate agree to come with us {amazing!}. so we met her in JFK. The flight down was PERFECT! there was an open seat right next to nate and i so ej sat in her carseat and enjoyed a movie for about a half hour and then fell asleep for 3 of the 4 hours of the flight~ AMAZING! she did so well on the flights, i am still in awe. nate and i got the seats with extra leg room, watched 'Bounty Hunter' and 'Date Night' (two shows we've wanted to see), and drank YuMmY diet coke - it was a perfect flight down! we got there, got our car, hit up the grocery store and headed to our villa. it gets dark early down there- about 7:30 pm so we swam at our resort and hung out that night. had our first nutella and banana sandwich of the trip :) nutella is EVERYWHERE there and we LOVED it!

Sunday we went to sacrament at a little chapel down there. the branch was so tiny but it was fun. after we stopped by Phillipsburg (the Dutch capitol) . however, the port was closed. i guess it is only open on sundays if there is a ship in port and there wasn't. so we dipped our feet in the ocean for the first time of the trip. ej was pulling nate into the water. she instantly LOVED the waves and water. we finally just took her dress off and let her play in the waves.

Philipsburg.... and beach there...

unfortunately i didn't have time to figure out how to use my new camera before we left. a lot of the pictures are washed out a little- the sand was just too white {is there such a thing?}

she absolutely LOVED the water. the waves would knock her over and spin her around and she would just giggle the entire time!

church building in Philipsburg.

this is what her scalp looked like the majority of the week~ she loved those waves!

after playing there for a little we headed back to the resort and put ej down for a nap. we swam and read and relaxed while she snoozed. then we headed to Nettle Beach- by accident- and walked around there. it was pretty sad, it was COVERED in trash! it was terrible. we thought that was where a hike was we wanted to do but never found it.

on our way back we saw a sign for Mullet Bay and realized THAT was where we were suppose to be! so we tried it again with success this time! it takes you to a natural bridge. it was pretty cool. this hike was along the coast through the remains of a huge resort that was destroyed during a hurricane and was too far gone to fix. we swam at the beach for awhile after the hike. the sand was like velvet, the water temperature PERFECT, and the topless ladies were, well, topless! not quite use to that 'european influence'.

cool blow-hole along the hike.

Finally we found it :)

then we stopped at the beach to swim before we left~ a very popular beach!

grocery shopping

swimming at resort

our resort:

and this was our view: