This trip began about nine months ago, when Kathie won a week at any Divi Resort (www.diviresorts.com) in a charity auction for the Bichon Rescue Service.  We narrowed the list down to St. Maarten, Barbados, and Aruba before deciding on St. Maarten since Kathie had had such a wonderful time here two years ago while on a cruise with some of her girlfriends.  One of the additions we quickly made was to include Kelley, our babysitter.  She had been a wonderful addition to our trip to Alsace and Germany last August (see the travel journal for that trip), helping with Victoria and having such an adventurous "will-try-anything" attitude that it was an easy choice.  As the trip drew near, the sub-freezing weather we were having in the Wilmington, DE-area made us even more excited than usual for the beginning of our trip.

Following are some of the on-line resources I used in researching ideas for this trip: