SA is Charming

afternoon tea @ Castle Leslie (N-IRL) after our spa treatments

My sister Cheryl, her daughter Jill and I like to take girls-only trips together. Las tres amigas.

Unburdened by the more masculine sensibilities and interests of husbands, sons, fathers and brothers, we get to fully indulge in the things that we consider essential and our menfolk consider a waste of time whilst traveling. Namely shopping, spas, shopping, lingering over afternoon tea, shopping, sitting on the beach or in front of a fire with a good book and a cocktail, and shopping.

St. Bernard blessing a St. Bernard!

All that shopping means that we frequently find some piece of jewelry that, when purchased by each of us as keepsakes, will forever remind us of our trips together. Sometimes we were lucky - like when we found St. Bernard medals on a tres amigas ski trip to Sun Valley, Idaho. St. Bernard is the patron saint of mountaineers and we all love dogs. Perfect! Or the shamrock and Giant's Causeway charms we found at a gift shop in Northern Ireland that we could just clip onto our birthday charm bracelets in situ. No waiting.

This will end up on my birthday charm bracelet someday!

Other times we chose not to leave it to luck and we would buy something before the trip to wear during the holiday. Like the Me & Ro beach charm necklaces we all bought in Soho before our Mexican birthday fiesta holiday. We had the silver shell charm engraved with "Cabo" once we got back home.

my birthday charm bracelet

Or the "Paris to Florence" Tiffany charm we had made to wear on a big birthday trip. It is engraved "50-45-15" on the flip side to commemorate my 50th, Cheryl's 45th and Jill's 15th birthdays.

HBD in SA, tres amigas!

My sister Cheryl came to visit me in South Africa from the U.S. right before her birthday in March and my niece Jill came to visit me before her birthday in July. In between, I spent my May birthday in South Africa.

Jill (@ the Apartheid Museum) shares a July 18 birthday with Nelson Mandela!

Technically it wasn't a true tres amigas trip since we weren't all in South Africa at the exact same time. It was more like two dos amigas trips back to back, but I decided I wasn't going to let a little technicality like that stand in the way of some jewelry. So I had three Africa charms made with animal cut-outs to commemorate their visits to SA. Jill's favorite African animal is the giraffe, Cheryl's is the elephant and I love the rhino.

Las tres amigas in Florence