Western French Indies trip to St. Barth's

WARNING... extremely long post ahead!!!!!!!

First of all... I packed way too much for this trip. The problem was, when you go to a foreign country, you have no clue what to expect. Our suitcases were way over the legal limit... oopsy!!!

We left our house Friday night at midnight to catch our flight...argh! We traveled all day Saturday, stopped in St. Marten for a 3 hour lay over and arrived in St. Barth's around 8:00pm. 
LONG DAY!!!!!

4 hour layover in Atlanta... torture!!!

Joe on top of the world... St. Marten

Our pad for the week

 Family room kitchen area

 Our pool at night

Our pool in the morning

 Our sweet rental car

 Our room

{Sunday}
Our first day on the Island was really relaxing. We drove around a bit trying to soak it all in, laid by the pool, got a few groceries and then went to the beach. We started at Flammands beach and hiked over to Colombier beach. It was great to get my heart rate pumping for a minute.


For dinner we went to a unique place called Le Tamarin. The food was incredible and different from anything I'd eaten in the states. Very rich, French cuisine. We ate Sushi, Mahi-Mahi with Passionfruit sauce, Wahoo, veggies & rice. And for dessert... Warm running cake with raspberry sauce and coconut ice-cream.


I kept thinking to myself, the food can't possibly get any better than this... Can it?

{Monday}
We slept in til 11:00... WOW! I think we were really tired and needed to catch up on sleep. Every morning we'd pull the map out and decide on a beach, pack our bags for the day and explore that part of the Island. On Monday we went to a beach called Lorient. It was a great snorkeling beach. Joe and the K's snorkeled while I walked up and down the beach collecting seashells for the kids. It was so relaxing.  I felt like I could lay right down in the sand and fall asleep... 


People watching was quite exciting in St. Barth's. I saw my first topless lady today. I was quite shocked, but European's don't view their bodies the way American's do... OBVIOUSLY! It was so natural for them.
I have to admit, by the end of the trip, I stopped noticing or caring about who was naked or dressed. It didn't even faze me one bit. Crazy huh?


For dinner we ate at a restaurant called Santa Fe. It was awesome! the drive to the restaurant was unbelievable with breathtaking views everywhere we turned. We ate Crab cakes, Mahi-mahi, scollops baked in phyllo pastry and smothered in a cream sauce. For dessert... another Fondant au chocolat (warm running chocolate cake). 


After dinner we ejoyed a relaxing evening by the pool. The stars were amazing! Orion was so clear and right over our heads. I love clear nights like that.

Isn't it interesting that I associate our meals with the day's events?  

{Tuesday}

Joe and the K's got up early and went Scuba Diving. Joe said it was the BEST diving he's ever encountered. He saw sharks, turtles, crazy looking fish and even a Barracuda! I'm so glad I wasn't there because I'm almost positive I would've died! Hee hee!

We decided to go shopping in St. Jean's for a few hours. The shopping was awesome but the prices were terrible. The Euro is valued so much higher than the dollar. Nothing was cheap. Not even a pack of gum! It's a good thing Seashells were free right? After shopping we went to a beach called Cul-de-sac. We had to track down the Scuba instructor to pay him.  His shop was smack dab on the beach. Not a bad gig if you ask me!


We ate dinner at a place called Le Bananiers. This place had ENORMOUS portions!!! We ate pumpkin puree soup and shrimp tempura with chile sauce. We basically stuffed ourselves on the appetizers... that's how big the portions were! Our dinner consisted of Sea Bass with citrus and beurre blanc, Lobster Risotto with parmesan shavings, veggies and rice. We were beyond stuffed but I had just enough room for yet another warm running cake with ice-cream. Sooooo yummy!

Well that is some serious white skin up against that bright blue water eh?

 Standing in front of our Villa

{Wednesday}

Joe and the K's ran to the tide pools in the morning while I slept. I could tell it was going to be another beautiful adventurous day. We hung out by the pool in the morning,  listened to music and read. 


We went to Anse du Grande Saline beach in the afternoon. CLOTHING OPTIONAL BEACH might I add! Absolutely breathtaking. One of my favorite beaches by far. We played in the water and took pictures of everything {except naked Europeans}. The guys body surfed with fish swimming all around them. THEY LOVED IT! I've never heard Men squeal like little school girls before... they were in HEAVEN!


We walked and shopped around Gustavio in the afternoon and ate at the Creperie for lunch. Joe and I shared a Buckwheat crepe filled with egg and roasted veggies and a Banana's Foster crepe for dessert. We took tons of cool pictures around town.


Wednesday was by far our favorite day because of our dinner extravaganza. We were given a housekeeper with our Villa named Astrid. She was this darling French girl from Normandy. She cleaned like a champ and told us she was also a private chef. She trained for 4 years in France and then apprenticed in New York. We decided to hire her for the evening to blow our minds! I think we ALL fell in love with Astrid that night. She made the most amazing meal, set our table beautifully, served us, cleaned up the mess and left us with lots of leftovers for the next day. It was pretty awesome.


Astrid prepared Tomato, mango & mozzarella tartare atop a bed of lettuce, perfectly cooked Sea bass with passionfruit sauce, stir fried veggies & rice, a plethora of cheeses served with a salad and fresh baguette, and for dessert... chocolate cake tarts with raspberry sauce and coconut sorbet.


The night was definitely considered an activity like diving or shopping. We agreed that this was the BEST day of our trip. T and I tried to figure out a way to get Astrid to come home with us, but we realized we couldn't afford her... sad!


We went to bed happy and very full!

 This is for you Berks

 and this...

My best buddy

Hangin' with my girl

 love this boy

Dinner with Astrid

{Thursday}

I started to miss my kids like crazy after Joe showed me a picture of Bryn on his phone. I'm better off not making any contact with my kids because I start breaking down when I see pictures or hear their cute voices. I couldn't talk about them or I would get a big lump in my throat. : (

Joe and I walked to the bakery in the morning and bought suckers for the kids and pastries for us. 

We went to St. Jean beach today and ate lunch at Niki Beach restaurant. The beach was beautiful but the service was poor at the restaurant. The staff was snobby and slow. We drank 3 bottles of water between the four of us and they charged a whopping 18 Euro per bottle. You do the math... yikes! It's a darn good thing we aren't alcohol drinkers. We'd be totally broke! Our food was awesome none the less. Joe and I shared a lobster and crab salad, Dim Sum (dumplings) and Lobster and Shrimp spring rolls. 

The Nude Cruise arrived and completely changed the atmosphere. Just imagine a bunch of old [American] fogies coming to shore, ripping off their tops and camping out for the day... ooh is an understatement! Crazy people!

The water at St. Jean's beach was crystal clear, blue water and perfectly calm. Boats would stop in the bay, anchor and paddle little boats to shore to enjoy lunch and hang out for the afternoon. 

The boys went grocery shopping and bought everything they needed to cook and serve the girls a home cooked poor boys dinner. It was awesome!!! We had Omelet's stuffed with cheese and tons of sauted vegetables. I thought our meal was just as good as any restaurant for sure. 

After dinner we decided to take a late night walk on Flammands beach. It was another beautiful, starry night with a full moon to light our way. It was so romantic and relaxing. We walked past a beautiful hotel and asked if we could check out one of their rooms. The room we saw was about $3,500 dollars a night. HOLY SMOKES!!!! That's more than we paid for our entire trip. 

Joe and Bri took their job very seriously. It was so cute

Bri took this cool picture of Joe diving

{Friday}

Enjoyed a relaxing morning by the pool. We ate Muesli granola and milk for breakfast. Why does everything taste better in St. Barth's?

We went to Cayes beach in the afternoon. This beach had beautiful rock formations. We collected more sea shells, watched the local surfers surfing, took lots of pictures and watched crabs scurry around, popping in and out of their holes. Again crystal clear water.

We decided to hit another beach that evening called Shell beach. This beach blew me away because the name Shell Beach was totally accurate. The beach's sand was actually seashells. I can't explain how cool this was.  I'd been collecting unique seashells the entire trip and all I had to do here was scoop up a handful. The shells were ALL beautiful and unique.

We walked around Gustavio until dinner time and then walked back to shell beach to eat at a restaurant called Do Brazil. Joe and I felt brave and ordered some interesting choices for dinner. Go big or go home right? We ate items we couldn't pronounce. One appetizer was some sort of Lobster Brulee. It was so icky, but I wanted to try everything the Island had to offer. The good stuff along with the bad. We also ate a trio of lobster bisque, lobster spring rolls and lobster pieces in some sort of orange sauce. Next we had lobster ravioli,  sea scallops and lobster medallions with vegetables. For dessert... Crepes with orange zest and goat cheese drizzled with a rum sauce that was set on fire to burn out the alcohol. It was AWESOME!!!! A cute little man walked around with his guitar and sang songs. He had such an unusual look. Blonde dread locked hair, blue eyes and dark Island skin. He sang a few Beatles songs and Joe and I settled right in as relaxed as we could be.

Sitting on a bed of shells

Sorry about the poor picture quality. We took them from Joe's phone last minute.

{Saturday}

Another relaxing morning. Went to the bakery again and shared a sandwhich with Joe. It was made with freshly baked baquette, Goat cheese, tomato, arugula, toasted walnuts and drizzled with Olive oil. So so yummy!!!

We went to St. Jean's to shop around for gifts for the kids. We also went to the grocery store to get Muesli and candies to take home with us. We went back to our Villa to relax by the pool, listen to music and read for the rest of the afternoon. I spent a few minutes organizing and packing my suitcase... so sad!

I cleaned the shells I had found throughout the week so they'd be ready to hand over to my kids. I didn't want to take home any funky smelling shells.

Later that evening we went to Guveneur beach to dip our feet. While driving to our last beach of the trip, our car literal petered out half way up a hill. We had to get out of the car and push. It was pretty comical. When we finally reached the beach we were amazed yet again. I couldn't get over how different each beach appeared and the shells were also different and unique everywhere we went. 

We went to Le Ti for dinner and had another "out of this world" meal. We started with a simple salad to wet our palate. For the main course I had grilled shrimp served over a bed of chinese noodles and fresh vegetables wok fried. Joe had grilled Mahi-mahi in a peanut sauce served with a crunchy salad. For dessert we shared a tapas dessert platter consisting of 5 restaurant favorites. We ate every last bite and wished we had more. The restaurant was filled with a younger, rowdy group having a great time. Models walked around the restaurant trying to entice men to buy something lovely for their wives. Joe almost caved, but I told him no thanks. The clothes were a little too Island-y for my taste. But the gesture was certainly sweet.

The bakery

 The front left sandwich was our favorite... Mmmm....

I know this is cheesy, but I love a little cheese every now and again 

T has such a great eye for photography. She took this picture of Joe's flip-flops and I thought it was so simple yet cute 

 One of the clothing models from LeTi

{Sunday}

Time to go home... : (

We drove to the bakery one last time to grab our favorite sandwich and a few pastries for the long road ahead. We had to take a tiny airplane from St. Barth's to St. Martin and I thought I would surely DIE!!

I was so scared and couldn't stop thinking about my kids and how much I was going to miss them when our plane went down in the ocean and I was eaten by sharks. NO JOKE! That's what was running through my mind the entire 10 minute plane ride. Luckily, we survived and I was overcome with joy!

We had a few hours before our next flight to Atlanta so... we decide to walk to a beach called Maho in St. Marten and watch the planes take off and land. Boy was that an experience of a lifetime. Massive planes were landing right over our heads. It was a strange feeling to hear enormous bodies of mass descending directly above our heads.  We met a cute couple from Ohio who offered to take our picture as a plane came rushing over our heads. The cute lady said she had to go to the emergency room the first day because she was standing on the beach when a giant plane flew in and it blew sand so hard into her ears she couldn't hear.

Funny huh?

Love this relaxed, happy boy. I could definitely get used to this.

 Picture from the plane. Loved these clouds

The man I entrusted my life with... Thank-you pilot!

Just as I was starting to hyper ventilate... I looked out the window and saw a huge rainbow encircling our plane. Amazingly enough, it calmed me down.

Can you believe how blue this water is?

This video is kind of funny because I thought Joe was taking a picture out the window, but instead he was filming me while I was sooooooo nervous...

My jar O' shells...

The rest of the day was a nightmare because I wanted to see my kids so dang badly. We finally arrived home around 1am and I was so excited to see their little faces that I had to wake them up. What a sweet reunion.

All in all our trip was an adventure that I'll never forget. What could be better than spending the last 8 days relaxing beachside, eating amazing foreign food, enjoying the company of great friends and learning and exploring a new part of the world? The "K's" took care of everything for us from start to finish. We basically showed up and they took care of the rest. We all need friends that are spot on take charge planners don't we? It's the best! Thanks for everything guys!

But I  have to say... the best, best part of the trip for this Mama was walking through the front door to see my 4 babies. Such an indescribable feeling of pure joy!

I thought I'd share the book I read because it was a favorite. It's called Unbroken by Laura

If you like world war II books, this is the book for you. I was engrossed in this true story of a POW trapped in Japan. Beautifully written and a great message of struggle, endurance and triumph. Joe snagged it from me the minute I finished and is loving it as well.