dia 25 - playa

Orient Bay – St. Martin

While on vacation, we fell in to a predictable and comfortable routine.  Mornings we would wake up and oftentimes Emilia and I would take an early morning walk either around the property or out on the beach, letting poor Marcus get some much needed rest (he had been working 18 hours days the entire week prior to our leaving).  Upon returning we would make breakfast in our little apartment and sit outside eating on the deck.  Then it would be time to change in to our suits and hit the beach…by 9:30 at the latest every day we had claimed our spot.  The hotel had super comfy beach chairs and terrific umbrellas free for the residents so it was just a matter of finding a spot you liked and plunking your stuff down.  We tried to stick with spots that were a little more removed from the general public – mainly because we didn’t want Emilia and her wild sand-throwing to annoy any of the other patrons.  Despite the copious umbrellas and entire bottles full of sunscreen we used we’re all tan (and now peeling).  I’m so grateful Emilia didn’t get burned.  Most days she wore her hat happily (picture above, she’ll only wear ball caps ‘like Papa’) but inevitably at some point in the day it would be a struggle to keep it on her head (hot I guess?)

please note that she’s wearing her ‘aretes ‘fines (delfines)’ to go with our beach theme – beautiful gift from tia talu and tio esteban.

Obviously around noon we’d stop for lunch.  On this particular day (our first full day at the beach) we had a light lunch of some leftover pizza from the previous night, along with yogurts, sandwiches etc.  There was a little ‘plaza’ for lack of a better word accessible from both the beach and the hotel.  This plaza was home to a fabulous little supermarket (full of totally gourmet stuff), the pizzeria, an ice cream shop and 5 or 6 really delish restaurants.  After lunch we’d go back to our apartment for naps – post nap it was time for round two of the beach!

 love how the yellow of her swimsuit matches the yellow of the umbrellas/chairs – thanks grandpa!

 can you see the sand on her face?  she looked like she had been dipped in powdered sugar.

Papa and Emi done for the day at the beach.

More day 1 coming up…