Filling my passport with family, travel and bliss

We have a winner!

First, I want to send out a big THANK YOU to those of you who entered the contest.

It was fun reading about your dream cruises, and it gave me several ideas for future excursions (Alaska cruise…I’m looking at you!)

Now it’s time to get down to business…

So you must be wondering what treasure(s) I found.

I had no idea what I would find, but the one thing that the Caribbean had lots of was handmade jewelry and rum.

On our port of call in Barbados, the home of famous Mount Gay Rum, we came across a little shop that sold rum cake…and that was it!

A sweet lady had samples for us to try, and OH MY GOSH…they were so moist and delicious!  I have to admit, I almost cleaned out all of her samples, but I had to make sure that we made the right choice since they came in a variety of flavors: coffee, vanilla, lemon ginger and chocolate.  Well, that choice was too hard to make, so we decided that it would be in our best interest to buy all 4 flavors.  Seriously, they were all so amazing, and I couldn’t choose a favorite!

I’ll be honest, the thought of sharing these cakes hadn’t crossed my mind. The intention was to devour all four in one sitting upon my return!  (They’re 4oz in size, so that would’ve been easy to do!)  But then I thought, I need to share the love, and who better to share it with than my readers (oh…and my wonderful parents who enjoyed the vanilla rum cake!)  So my dear readers, one of the gifts the winner will be receiving is:

Calypso Coffee Rum Cake!
It’s supposed to contain the famous Mount Gay Rum infused inside!  Yum!

One of the things I enjoyed looking at was the handmade jewelry across the islands.  A popular material they used was coconut shells!  On our last port-of-call in St. Maarten, I found a delicate bracelet made out of beads and coconut shells. It wears lightly on your wrist and fits comfortably. I had the choice of brightly colored beads or those that were more earth tone, but not knowing the winner’s color preference, I thought earth tone with a hint of (faux) gold would be a better option.  So without further ado, here is prize #2:

Now it’s time for the second item of business – who won?!

Today I had my partner-in-crime, the hubby, do the honors of choosing a winner.

Can we have a drum roll please?

And the winner of the Caribbean Mystery Giveaway is…

ligail2001

(Round of applause echoing through cyberspace!)

Congratulations to ligail2001, whose dream cruise is going to the Mediterranean.  Great choice!

I hope this coffee rum cake & coconut shell bracelet give you a little piece of Caribbean bliss!

ligail2001, please email your mailing address to passporttobliss@gmail.com.

If I don’t hear from you by midnight on Sunday, February 22nd, another winner will be announced on Monday, February 23rd.

Thanks again to all who entered.

Stay tuned for a recap of our Caribbean adventures!