We're Back!

Ahhh, to be home. Home has many meanings but I have found that, for me, it is wherever Bob, Siena and I are living. Right now, that is Cayman and it's wonderful 80 degree weather. Actually, right now it is around 85 and a little too hot :).

Bad news on returning, our car has broken down. Again. Boo.

Siena's doing well. A little needy, but not nearly as bad as last time. I think she slept for almost 10 hours last night. Good to be home :)

Some how I never took any pictures on our trip. Weird. We had a great time in KS - playing guitar hero, eating mexican, going to movies, eating bbq, watching the Jayhawks win, eating cheddar ale soup, going for drinks with friends, eating more mexican, going to grandma's house, and eating . . . we did a lot of eating. Will have to hit the gym this weekend to combat the extra softness we added to our bellies :)

Our trip was lots of fun and we loved seeing all of our friends and family. We want to thank everyone for all of the great gifts we were given, especially the gift of your time. It was so much fun!

*UPDATE* Apparently I lied. I did take pictures when we visited with Travis, Lindsay and their new dog Emma. I will post again soon with proof.

Almost Christmas Time

Tomorrow Bob and I fly to Kansas for the Christmas holiday. We are very excited to see our friends and family but will miss the 85 degree weather and our puppy Siena. She will be boarded until the 29th, poor girl.

Anyhoo, Saturday was Bob's work holiday/end of the year party at Rum Point. We had to take a 45 minute water taxi across the bay, which was nice but we couldn't leave early, which was not nice. Especially because it rained off and on all night.

Here is the "before" picture:

And "after":

I like the after picture because it almost looks like snow. Yeah right, just rain. We had to wait inside the little bar hut for the rain to stop a few times.

Here is a picture of some of the "food". I didn't eat any of the pig, I stuck to turkey.

So, tomorrow our busy vacation begins. We have bob's old KC number, if you want to call and say hi! See many of you soon and Merry Christmas!

Small Visitors (and their mom)

This past week Annie and her two boys Joe (age 5) and Jack (age 4) came down to Cayman for an amazing (if I do say so myself) vacation. I think it helps that the weather in Kansas this week was around 15-25 degrees F. Here are some highlights from their trip:

The boys enjoyed an impromptu bath at the fountains of Camana Bay.

Poor planning on my part left the boys wet for the next 30 min, but I don't think they minded much. We just loved the shots with the Christmas Tree in the background.

The boys also went on the Jolly Roger boat cruise were they both became real pirates and Joe actually steered the boat. The Captain was telling him which way to turn the wheel and he did a very good job.

The weather was nice here, about 85 degrees F during the day and 80 F at night. We spent each afternoon at the beach. The boys LOVE sand. Like a lot. They could not stop touching the sand, it was impulsive.

One morning there was a 10 minute rain downpour that of course we were caught in when we took the boys to the Turtle Farm (where they were able to hold sea turtles). We didn't bother to tell them why they call it a "farm". Sometimes innocence is bliss.

They also were able to hold an African Grey Parrot and a Cockatoo, with a little help.

Stingray city was another stop for the boys. The water was a little rough, which made catching the stingrays a little difficult.

Joe learned to snorkel on this trip and did a very good job. He liked seeing all the fish in their home. It took me longer to learn how to snorkel than it did him. His brother was more concerned with drinking fruit punch and playing in the sand to learn how. Maybe next year.

It was great to see the boys and Annie, and even better that I will be back in the US next week and can see them again!

Friends on TV!

Thanks to Rhonda for bringing this to my attention!

Here is my good friend Jessi on TV! She is the one in the background with the pink scarf and black jacket. She works in PR in Vegas :)

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=9247813

Good job being on national TV :)

Movember

This November was officially "Movember", a month of men grown mustaches for cancer research donations. Bob and quite a few of his friends participated and were sponsored by Deloitte. I was not a fan of Movember.

Here is Bob's "Before" picture:

And "After" picture:

He was pretty proud of his "mo" and definitely had one of the better ones of the bunch.

The good news is it has FINALLY been shaved off. The bad news is he now knows he can grow a "sweet" mustache and is going to be hanging that fact over my head for a long time.

Crabbing for Crabs

Siena's new favorite thing to do at the beach is digging for crabs. She used to just want to chase them, the rare occasion she saw one, into the sea. Finally she saw one dart in it's little crab hole and ever since she's been digging at every crab hole she sees. Here is a picture of the white sand crabs she is after.

So here is what she does. She stands in the water (or is held by one of us) watching, waiting for the crabs to get comfortable and come out of the their holes. Then she sprints up to the beach.

And proceeds to dig . . .

And dig . . . she is very persistent.

On a few lucky occasions she has brilliantly pulled one out. Here is the final face-off.

And that is where the story ends. She doesn't do anything but look, bark and paw as the crab plays dead. She has tried to put them in her mouth but I think the pinchers have taught her that is a bad idea. She just wants to watch them move, bark in excitement, and maybe chase them if she ever had the chance. Whatever makes her happy.

Taco Flavored Thanksgiving

Two tacos, a burrito, and a soda pop! (name that show) Thanksgiving for us consisted of watching Love Actually (Bob played on the computer) and eating soft tacos. Yum!

We hope you all have had a wonderful Thanksgiving and that you have a safe holiday weekend. Bob had to work Thursday and Friday (Again, Thanksgiving is not a holiday in Cayman) and we are going to have a chill weekend. No Black Friday sales here, so no Christmas shopping to worry about this year either. Maybe online . . . a little anthropologie.com never hurt anyone :)

PS. Can you name the show? Bob and I saw that episode a few weeks ago and agreed we will never think of Jennifer Lopez the same again. Actually, if I ever met her I'd probably make my hand into a little person and sing "Ben, I love you almost as much as I love tacos" or "Taco Flavored Kisses".

American Thanksgiving in Grand Cayman

This past Saturday Bob and I had 13 of our friends over for Thanksgiving dinner and college football watching (KU vs Texas was actually on our local ABC! Too bad we didn't pull off the upset). Special thanks to Grandma Mason for all the recipes and pointers. Everyone enjoyed the food!

Here is a picture of my 12.5 lb turkey. I also did a 5.8 lb turkey breast (on the bone) for additional white meat. I'm not sure why everyone complains so much about cooking turkeys, it really wasn't difficult. I guess the only issue was oven space.

Here is the spread. Not as much food as Grandma makes, but enough to feed 15 people! Many people took home extra plates and so we actually are finished with the leftovers! It must be some kind of thanksgiving record!

Apparently pumpkin pie is not a popular dish worldwide. I still have a whole one in my fridge. Good thing I love it!

Thursday is going to be like any other day here. My good tv shows are on (community, Office, 30 Rock) and I think we will have tacos for dinner. There are a few restaurants doing turkey dinners but they are all kinda expensive and probably will be filled with tourists. Oh well. Christmas is coming soon and the island is getting decorated. There are lights up along the bypass and downtown, as well as on many of the homes. At least we all celebrate Christmas!

It's Pirate's Week!

Pirate's Week 2009 started this Thursday and runs through next Sunday. It is mostly a national celebration of Cayman and it's people. Each day next week honors the different districts on Grand Cayman and has little block parties. The festivities officially kicked off on Saturday with the pirates invasion of George Town. We went on a boat trip to watch the invasion from the seas.

We had a pretty good time. Everyone on the boat was dressed as a pirate, which was cool. The boat was really rocky at times and I felt kinda sick for about half of the time, which was not cool.

Anyway, here are some pictures from the boat :) Enjoy!

4 day weekend

Tomorrow is DAY 1 of Bob's 4 day weekend. It is actually a national holiday for this year only called "Commencement Day". They are declaring a new constitution or changes to the constitution or something like that. I don't really understand this island's government. I know that the Queen has to sign off on everything, but I doubt she even looks at what they are doing here.

Anyway, you can learn more about Cayman Commencement Day through this article

http://www.caymannetnews.com/local.php?news_id=19132&start=0&category_id=1

and www.constitution.gov.ky

To us, this means a day of fun and sun at the beach with friends (as long as the weather agrees).

Time change

Cayman doesn't observe Daylight Savings, so we are now in line with Eastern Standard Time. Keep that in mind you Central Time Zoners, we are an hour ahead of you now :)

I'm glad we are in line with EST now. Our tv signal comes from Miami and the timing being off was a little annoying. The 10 o'clock news was on at 9 pm and the Today show was over by 10 am. It will stink having to stay up later to watch our tv shows. Last night it felt like forever waiting the new Dexter to come on!

Halloween at the rugby club.

As predicted, I successfully avoided Halloween. Here we are at the rugby club. I guess if you were being picky you could say we were South Africans for Halloween. We ate biltong, cheered on the SA team and drank beer. Good times :)

Avoiding Halloween is easier in the Caymans

Whelp, Halloween is here again. Being someone that scares easily and isn't very fond of candy I feel it is needless to say that I don't enjoy Halloween. I do enjoy dressing up in awesome costumes, but on Halloween there is just too much pressure. And I work better with a theme. Like 80's day senior year, though I would have like it if more of my friends participated.

This year it will be much easier to avoid getting caught up in the Halloween spirit. Cayman has some decorations for sale and a limited number of costumes. The grocery store displays are downplayed and the ads for parties aren't any more predominant than the monthly "Boogie Nights" parties or last weekends "Oktoberfest" (which was super lame - but we did get free cups. The cups are kind cool because they say Oktoberfest with a palm tree/sunset picture.). We have been invited to go to the Rugby Club tomorrow afternoon to watch some rugby than go on a bus to the Rugby Halloween Party. We think we are going to just go catch the games and then head on home.

If we go, I will take pictures and post them next week. I'm also going to try to get pictures of Siena digging for crab's this weekend at the beach. It is cute.

Morning Swims

Every Saturday and Sunday morning we take Siena to the beach for a little fun in the sun. Our real motivation? To wear the pup out :) Sunday mornings are the best because a lot of people bring their dogs up by our area for dog interaction.

We play catch with siena in the water. She is very good at swimming and enjoys having something to catch.

Sometimes she just swims right by the ball and we end up being the ones to fetch.

When she gets tired siena loves to have Bob or I hold her in the water. It isn't easy for her to tread water. It is super cute and we have finally learned how to hold her in the water without getting scratched up by her claws.

She also enjoys swimming back and forth between Bob and I. Bob going under the water makes her really excited.

Her absolute favorite beach game is chasing and digging for crabs. She gets SO excited. She loves trying to get as close as she can to them without getting pinched.

Current Favorite Photos

Siena is so cute, I just can't get over it! Sometimes she will just come over to you and look at you, waiting for something. When you try to talk to her and ask her what she needs she will cock her head (as shown above) until you say the thing she wants. I'll say a long list of things like "Do you want your ball? Food? Water? Crab? Lobster? (her two toys) Potty?" until she jumps up at the thing she wants. I just love this look!

I've titled the photo above "BLAHHHH", heehee. We saw this Iguana and as we crept up to him he just made that hilarious face sticking his tongue out. I imagine it has something to do with temperature and/or water regulation, but I like to think that he was just really cheesed off saying Blahhhhhh! haha!

Turtles and Dolphins

This weekend we decided to be tourists and go swimming with dolphins! While we waited our turn we went over the the turtle farm and finally took some pictures with the turtles!

I know it is sad to see the turtles in confinement, destined to end up on a plate, but if they weren't raising them at the farm they would be catching them in the sea. They also breed and release a variety of turtle species (some endangered), which is great for the turtle population. Sustainable development, what are you going to do? The Caymans are trying to educate the children in school to like the turtles and see them more as pets than food. So that is something.

This is the only picture of a dolphin I took. We have a video of us doing the swim, but we couldn't take our camera into the pool :( It was a lot of fun and definitely worth doing once. The dolphins reminded me a lot of dogs in their mannerisms and attitude.

New Look :)

How awesome is the new look of our blog? Do I look cool and computer savvy? Well, I'm not. Rachel and Victoria made this beautiful new blog page for me and I'm just pleased as punch. They are computer geniuses! Check out them out at solandrachel.blogspot.com and www.victoriainvirgina.com .

Fall???

Well, it is October. That usually brings to mind football games, pumpkins, halloween, changing leaves and cooling weather. This year, for me, it means the weather going from unbearably hot to just hot. If I didn't have facebook, i don't think I'd have realized that fall was here at all. The weeks and months have definitely seemed to blend together. A few grocery stores put out Halloween candy, but not in the huge displays we are used to seeing in the US. Just a few bags in a little corner of the store. They do have Brach's Pumpkins, which has made Bob very happy. No treat size Junior Mints though. Blerg.

Last week was quite eventful. We spent the past weekend learning to Scuba dive (I still have two more dives to complete but Bob is now certified) and two of my girl friends left the island for vacation. On Tuesday we saw Spencer and Julia on the day stop of their Carnival honeymoon cruise. Nice to see them, especially since we couldn't be at their wedding. We made sure to show them the best of the island (stingray city, snorkeling, george town) before they had to be back on the boat.

Thing have quieted down and will be quiet for the next few weeks. Bob and I are taking this time to do some fun island stuff. Tonight we are going to a nice dinner at Copper Falls and tomorrow we are going to swim with the dolphins! Should be fun :) We also are going to throw in a few brunches here and there ;)

When one appliance starts working inevitably another one will stop.

We finally hooked up our video phone! Our internet has been a thorn in my side for the past 5 months. Finally I have everything set up and working! So if you have a phone that runs over the internet or can call on your computer and just need the IP address, let me know and we can chat face to face!

This week our tv broke. Like a tube or plug or something inside of it has burned out and it has a gray screen with white lines. You can still sort of see the picture and the sound is okay, but it is not a pleasant viewing experience. Right now, Bob and I have the tv on but are both working on our computers. If you multi-task, you almost can't tell a difference! The reason we bother at all is because it is Thursday and that means The Office and Project Runway are on! Of course this would happen on the one day I want to watch tv. Many of the American tv websites (nbc, abc, hulu, etc) do not allow us to watch shows online because we are out of the country. So it is now or never!

Vacation is over!

Sorry it has been a while since I have written. Bob and I have been talking and decided that the Cayman vacation is over. Time to actually treat Cayman like our home. This includes less eating, drinking, and unnecessary spending and more exercising! Yep, Last week we joined a gym. It has been a lot of fun going together and getting in shape. We also are going to embrace the island and learn to Scuba dive. This weekend we are doing the classroom learning and next weekend we dive! Should be fun, we are learning with our friends Rob and Monica. Lucky for me Monica isn't 100% thrilled about being trapped underwater, just like me. I've never been the strongest swimmer - Clifton received all of those genes!

The weekends are going to be very slow for the next few weeks. Most people are off island right now and hurricane season has caused many restaurants and attractions to close until the tourist season picks up again. We literally have nothing planned for the next month and it feels nice. We are going to focus on working out, eating healthy, learning french, and enjoying the beach!

Water Camera's RULE!

Back in KS Bob bought a water camera from Best Buy and got a sweet deal. The camera isn't for diving, it only goes down 10 feet, but it is still very cool. Now we will be able so send super cool photos of us in the water and of our doggie swimming.

Siena isn't a very good at treading water and so we have to hold her when she wants a break or gets tired. It is very cute for photos, but our arms end up getting scratched or bruised from her nails.

Here we are with our South African friends Monica and Rob! They are super troopers and are great to hang out with. Hooray for post-brunch beach party!

This is the first photo of me SNORKELING! More to come . . .

Kansans in the Caymans

This week Bob's sister Anne and her boyfriend Chris came to Cayman for a visit. It was once again Christina surrounded by accountants/business majors. Both Anne and Chris are starting at Deloitte KC in the fall.

Anne and Chris were here for a full week so we had plenty of time to do the fun usual stuff (Pirate ship cruise, Stingray City, George Town, Brunch, Beach) but we also added in some new stops. We took them to Kai Point, home of the restaurant/beach spots Kaibo, Rum Point and Starfish Point. Below is a starfish. They are very cool!

It is always great to hang out with friends and family down here in our new home. We spent some nice times going to the beach, restaurants, and just hanging out.

KU football begins this weekend and we are SUPER bummed that we are missing out on the season. We HOPE we are going to get to watch some of the games. Our plan is to go to some of the US sports bars that have the nice satellite dishes and see what we come up with. Hopefully the Jayhawks will do well and get more national airtime!