Well, I procrastinated long enough and now I've forgotten half of what we did. Oh well,

Just a bit of a personal note, hubby asked me what I wanted to do for my 50th birthday and I jokingly said I wanted to have a party on St. Maarten. On the sly he sent out invitations to a few family and close friends asking them to join us in St. Maarten. Surprisingly two of my cousins and their husbands decided to join us for their very first trip to the Caribbean. They had recently lost their Mom who was one of the most positive influences of my life and they were my two closest friends growing up but we had grown apart primarily due to geography so this was a very, special trip.

Flights from Manchester thru Charlotte were uneventful. Bill and I both had aisle seats and Bill was seated next a very nice couple on their first trip to SXM. We get SXM and go to retrieve our bags. The couple Bill sat next to decided they wanted to rent a car and asked our recommendation. We were renting from Unity so I took them out to the curb and introduced them. I went back to the carousel and realized I lost my purse. I had both passports, airline tickets, all the travellers cheques, atm card and quite a bit of cash in the purse. I retraced my steps and there it was right smack in the middle of the airport floor. Opened it up and everything was intact. Whew, not the way to start a vacation.

We went out to meet up with Unity who had the sign with our names on it. There was another couple waiting there and when I told the Unity chap we were Sandy & Bill, the other couple asked if we were the TTOL Sandy and Bill. I laughed my butt off, it was 'Sleepless' aka Rita and Hugh who were joining us at the party.

We checked into the Royal Islander La Plage for the first time. What a great place. We were in Room 5210 which is a two bedroom; one of which has two queen size beds. The only negative about RI, the music from Bliss was horrendous. It was extremely loud and didn't stop until the early morning hours.

We spent much of the first day running around getting stuff for the TTOL party we were having at the Bucaneer the next night. We then met up with my cousins and their husbands for dinner at the Wharf. Mixed reviews on the meals but the entertainment was very good.

Monday - the day of the big party at the Bucaneer Beach Bar which was to start at 5:00. We got their a couple hours early. Neil wasn't there yet and I asked Wanda (BBB bartender) if she was aware of the party. She said yes, it was to start at 8:00 pm. I said no, no, no 5:00, she said no 8:00. Well, sure enough the gang started arriving about 4:30, always can trust Pepcats and JD Kempo, Annie, Paul, 'Bill' , Lovey & Thurston were the first to join us. During the course of the afternoon and evening, we figured there were about 120 people. Neil was kind enough to provide live music (which was very good btw) as well as some tasty appetizers free toilet bowl shots. Thanks again to Neil, Dar, Wanda and I apologize I don't remember the name of the other bartender. We raffled off some gift certificates and some TTOL stuff for the Animal Welfare Foundation (www.animal-welfare-sxm.com). Met lots of old great friends and a bunch of new ones. Sorry we didn't get to chat much. It was a tad hectic. It was kind of funny, my cousin was speaking with someone who lived next door and decided to see what all the hoopla was. She never heard of TTOL. After the party, we hit the casino for a bit and went back to the room. I headed to bed with glass of water and slipped on the area rug smack down on my tail bone on the marble floor. Well, this put me in agony all week.

Tuesday, we had breakfast at Spinnakers and to try and track down Neil to pay him for the drinks. Eggs benedict and mimosas, ah, now I feel like I'm on vacation. Headed over to Phillipsburg to the Animal Shelter and met a very surprised representative. She said the donation was perfect timing because they had blown the air conditioner in the van that's used to pick up strays. We then swung by DK Gems to say hello and thank Deepti and Jeff who made a very generous donation to the shelter. When Deepti found out about my impending birthday, she gave me a botle of champagne. Thank you again.

We swung by Peg Leg's and made reservations for the six of us. We all loved the filets and the service was excellent. There was a group of women enjoying themselves next to us. We all had carnival beads on and decided when we left the restaurant to perform a 'passing of the beads' ceremony donating them to the women. They all got a kick out of it. Sean was his charming self but if he asked me one more time where the 19 year old was, I was gonna smack him. I'm 50 and enjoyed earning every wrinkle <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/Grin.gif" alt="" />

Since I was in so much pain, we did very little during the day and pretty much went to dinner and gambling at night.

Other restaurants:

Dinner - Pizza Pasta - Everybody loved their meal and we went back a second time alone. It's a bit noisy due to it's size but worth it.

Mario's Bistro - good food, nice ambiance

Our last night we met up with JamieB and Danny at Halsey's for the first time. This was definitely the best meal we had. I had some kind of chicken stuffed with cheese and prosciuto.

Breakfasts:

We swung by Hot Tomatoes not realizing they do not serve breakfast during the week. This happened last year too and I could have sworn someone posted that they were going to start weekday breakfasts. Oh well, once again, the owner who was standing in the doorway offered to make us some omelettes which were delicious and huge served with very fresh pineapple. Bill mentioned to the waitress, I think her name was Yolanda, how good the pineapple was and she brought out a big plate of it for him.

Lavista - very spicy Spanish omelette which was good

Turtle Pier - really good food and interesting environment with all the critters

I forget the name of the restaurant next to the RI but it was probably the only disappointment. The food wasn't bad but it was the smallest portion of eggs I've ever seen and one piece of bacon. I'm not a big eater but c'mon.

Gambling, Our first night out, I won close to $400 at the Royale. Didn't fare much better the rest of the week. Hit a couple places in P'Burg, the Princess and Atlantis.

Well this was certainly one of our more memorable trips and I want to thank everyone, especially Neil Rooney and my cousins, June, Donna and their husbands Ernie and Dave who helped out on the party and made the trip.

Dave and June are already contemplating a ten day visit next year so we have at least one more couple hooked and since they won the Unity gift certificate at the NYC TTOL, they've already got a piece of their trip paid <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/Groovin.gif" alt="" />

The following is a link to some of the pictures. I ran out of room so I couldn't post all of them:

http://groups.msn.com/sxmphotos2/photoalbum