My Favorite Ornaments

Ever since I was little, one of the things I loved to do most while on vacation was to pick up an ornament from a place or two along our journey. This is a tradition I have continued and hope to continue.

Here are a few I've picked up the last couple years.

First from my trip up to see Jenny and our outing to Mount Vernon.

From our Caribbean trip in January, specifically our visits to St. Lucia and St. Maarten.

 

My family and friends are even getting in on giving ornaments as well!

This one is in a set of four my aunt gave me this year after admiring her set she bought last Christmas.  The set includes Love, Believe, Wish and Hope.

And this one came to me as a gift from Laura all the way from Italy!

Can't wait to see what additions I make to my collection over the next year!

Port 6 - St Maarten

All good trips must end and sadly St Maarten was the last day of our trip.  Such a great trip for my inaugural trip to the Caribbean! 

I've done a much better job than I normally do at journaling and think I documented well the memories that I will want to remember in the future.  I'll have to see if I can keep it up though.

And for the journaling:

Philipsburg, St Maarten

I learned an important lesson on St Maarten.  The island is actually two countries and not just one.  The Dutch half of the island is spelled Sint Maarten while the French side of the island is Saint Martin.  Darren thought I was dumb for not realizing it was really two countries but I'd never really had a reason to think about why it would be split.  This is the "boarder crossing."  No stopping, just a sign and some flags.

We once again enlisted the services of Carnivals excursions for this day but unlike in Dominica, I don't think it was worth the cost. We were picked up in a motor coach and taken the French capital of the island, Marigot.  On the way we stopped at a beautiful overlook of the coast.

Once in Marigot, we were let off the bus to explore on our own.  The problem was it was so early that very few of the vendors in the market were open and none of the stores were either.  This is a fort that overlooks the town.

From there we were taken to a beautiful beach but only give about and hour to hang out and swim.  This was also compounded by the fact that the weather was ehh in the morning and turned to bad in the afternoon.  A sad day to end our vacation for sure!

That afternoon we did a little souvenir shopping in Philipsburg before setting sail back to San Juan.