January 30, 2011 Sunday

Today I woke up and discovered I had slept really well. This relaxed atmospear really soothes a person. Brandon and Richard went diving this morning on the SSC dive boat. They came back telling stories of all the fabulous creatures they saw underwater. I do believe them. I stayed at the house and worked on the yard pulling weeds. It brought back memories of last year. The morning just flew by. Of course it was time to do laundry. It was a beautifuly morning to hang it out on the line. Once again, my line is rigged with a pully so I can stand on the porch and roll it on out.

We had a good lunch, and then got to work again. Mid afternoon we headed over to the Blue Lagoon and had an ice cream drink. We can't do that every day as it came to $25 for three drinks. I do have a blender here (can you believe that) so I could make my own. Might be fun. It is good to get out though. While there, Betty Bau (Boo) came in. We invited her to come see the house. She was gone last year when we were here so it was nice to see her.

Tonight I made speghetti and meat sauce for dinner. I made a spinach and mango salad with it. We had our piece of chocolate for desert. Brandon hasn't had a soda since arriving at the house. Maybe he can break the habit? Poor guy must be going through withdrawal.

There are no photos to post tonight as I am too sleepy. Brandon wanted to go diving again tomorrow but not sure it will work. SSC said suddenly a photographer is coming and he is bringing helpers so the boat is too full. They will call at last minute if they have room. So it looks like the agenda for tomorrow will be fishing and snorkling. What a rough life. I can't wait to wake up and get out of bed tomorrow.

Tonight we sleep without a ceiling fan in our room as I was fluffing a blanket and it hit the fan when turned on. Broke a blade right off the thing. Boy! What a ruckus! Our new fans will be arriving on the barge on Wednesday baring any bad ocean waves.

Tomorrow I hope to have time to do a little raking on the beach sand. We have been able to get things under control here even though some grew back. Some weed things I pulled never grew back at all. Yes!

Richard and Brandon are both snoring so it must be time for bed. Another glorious day in paradise is over.

Saturday 1/29/11

The three of us cannot believe it is Saturday already. We worked in the yard early as it wasn't as hot then. Mid morning we headed to SSC for Brandon to do the pool dive instruction. I went along and walked the beach and read a good book. Talk about relaxing! We ate lunch there too and visited with some people we met there last year who were also vacationing.

Back at the house, I made some potatoe salad and then Brandon and I went on a nice long kayak ride on smooth beautiful water. What a ride! Brandon took a lot of nice photos of some hugh birds and some of the houses here. He seemed to enjoy himself. I think he likes it here. I'm sorry to say Richard worked on the beach while we played. Poor Richard. The beach is taking shape though, thanks Richard.

I grilled some meat and vegees to go with the potatoe salad. This island life is wonderful!

We then headed to the Blue Lagoon for a treat, but they weren't open. Saturday night and not open. Figure that out. Oh well, we went back to the house and ate chocolate. Hard to beat that.

It is off to bed for us. Tomorrow morning at 8:00 we will be at SSC so Brandon and Richard can go diving. I think I'll stay here and do something fun. Actually, I am planning on raking the beach.

I've finally got a few photos to post. Do we look like we are having fun or what!

Here is a photo of the three of us (myself, Brandon, and Richard), getting ready to snorkle at Point of Sand at Little Cayman. We saw the most beautiful corals and fish and a 5 and 1/2 foot baracuda. Excitement! We sure had fun! Perfect weather, I might add.

Here is a pic. Richard took as we were walking at Southern Cross Club today. We were enjoying ourselves as Brandon was doing his pool dive instruction. He will ocean dive tomorrow.

Colorful geckos crawling on the bedroom wall. Next I will find some contempory bright orange colored lamps for the nightstands.

Brandon in the pool with his instructor for the pool dive. He did a great job.

Jan. 28,2011 Friday

Today is Friday 1/28/11 and I am in paradise once again. On Wednesday morning I got up at 4:00 A.M., rushed and left the house at 5:00 so Richard and I could pick up Brandon at his apartment in Ankeny. It was a very foggy trip in 9 degree weather. Burr! When we got to Grand Cayman for dinner, it was 85 degrees and sunny.

It was an adventurest trip this year as our luggage was extremely overweight and cost us tons extra. Better write on my list for next year to buy a scale.

We ate at the Wharf Restaurant again this year and it was sure fun to share the experience with Brandon. The atmosphere couldn't have been more beautiful. We had a good nights sleep and after a huge breakfast went shopping. Boy did we buy. New ceiling fans, microwave, kitchen faucet, bed pillows, air compressor, and tons of groceries.

We got to the house and discovered my new coconut tree grew like a weed. It survived! So did all the weeds and trees that we had eliminated last year. But everything looked great. We are thrilled to be here and get the place back into shape.

The first thing to do on arrival is to turn on the pump and get our water flowing and turn on the electricity. The pump was broken. No water for us. Richard tried everything. The motor had somehow failed. So we headed to Southern Cross Club for dinner and they gave us a 3 gallon jug of water. Very nice of them as water is a treasured item here on the island. In the morning Richard got the new pump installed and we all jumped for joy. We then began working on the yard. Work is fun but we decided snorkeling is more fun. We headed to Point of Sand and it was the best ever. I love it there! I want to snorkle there every day. Richard took his cell phone snorkling in his swim trunks so we had to buy a new one. The phone number stays the same though. Taking a shower sure felt good, as we couldn't the night before.

I made steaks for dinner on our new grill and we are all saying we will sleep good tonight. It is 8:30 here (one hour ahead of Ames) so I am going to bed. Our new bedding looks great but the painted gecko's crawling all over our walls look the best! What fun! They are so cute.

We have been already enjoying our beautiful new porch on the house and tomorrow I will post photos of it and some of our adventures.

The luckiest girl around is signing off.

Saturday, Feb. 27, 2010 9:30 CI

This morning we work up early and prepared to leave our house. I said goodby to my tiny coconut tree that we planted on the beach. He has to make it on his own now. I will not be there to water him anymore.

The air was very still this morning and the water was super smooth. We just had to take our kayaks out. We glided along effortlessly. We just didn't want to get out of the water. It was so pretty.

Richard managed to get all the hurricane shutters on. We finished off all our food and washed dishes. We rinsed off our kayaks and put them in the house. We drained pipes and shut off the power and pump. There were many things to accomplish. We did a last sit in the hammocks and took them down. The little gecko that lives by our steps came out to say goodby. He has become very friendly. I wonder if he will remember us when we return?

This trip to our new house has been such an adventure. We enjoyed every minute of it. It is so exciting to know we can come back next year.

At 3:00 we loaded up the rental car and headed for the airport. After dropping off our luggage, we headed to Iggy's "Hungry Iguana". I had a pina colada and Richard had a Corona. We saw our airplane arrived so we ran over and got on. It was only us and one other girl on board.

After about 25 minutes we arrived at the Grand Cayman airport. We got a cab and went to our hotel on 7 Mile Beach. Then we had a very nice meal at a open air restaurant on the waters edge. Tomorrow morning we catch an early plane to Chicago and then on to Des Moines. Hope it won't be too cold.

Carolyn

Friday, Feb. 26, 2010 8:21 pm CI

Today is our last full day at our house on Little Cayman Island. Tomorrow at 4:10 pm we get on the plane for Grand Cayman. We will spend Saturday night there. The weather couldn't have been more perfect today and the water was calm and beautiful. It is sure going to be hard to leave. We'll be back before we know it though.

We accomplished a lot of detail things today and did a lot of just enjoying our property. This afternoon we rented a car and visited some of our new friends at their houses. It was fun. While just standing awhile on the beach close to the water a nurse shark swam up to us about 1 and 1/2 feet from us. Then a nice barracuda and even a little grouper. The water is so clear. I should add, we did the friend visits after we saw the fish on our beach.

Tonight I made leftover chicken with Sauteed celery, carrots, onions & garlic over it and rice & black beans. We are trying to use up all our food. It will be interesting closing up the house. We will put the kayaks in the house. The bikes are hanging in the storage room downstairs. Our mattresses will arrive Sat. right after we leave. The builder who is putting on our porch and new roof is going to pick them up at the barge and put them in the house for us. Yes, we are also putting on a new roof. We just decided not to wait as it will work best with the roof over the porch. Our house will be busy while we are gone.

I sure have a lot of memories to take home with me.

Carolyn

Thursday Feb. 25, 2010 7:52 pm CI

This is a shot of the house from the beach .
The moon was almost full.



I am pointing to a little coconut tree we planted.



Here I am lounging today in my hammock.
Notice the nice white paint on the house.




This is the driveway entrance to our house
from the street. The picture is small but you
can see the hammocks in the far back.





Another shot of the entrance from the street.




Thursday was a glorious day. Overnight we had a thunderstorm. The temperature cooled and there is hardly any humidity. The sky was clear all day and the sun was warm and perfect. It was the kind of weather that made you want to get some work done. I washed windows this morning and the blinds too. I still have more to do but they aren't going anywhere so I'm not worried. I worked at least an hour picking up Sea Grape leaves left laying around after the thunderstorm. Richard worked putting the storage room in order and putting the open area under the house back together. Everything sure looks nice. After lunch we worked on the beach some more. It is really looking good. We took more photos. We can't seem to take enough photos. It is so fun to see the before and afters.


The moon is almost full tonight. We walked our beach tonight and it was so pretty. Tons of stars are out and the moon is so bright. It is also very quiet as the breaker waves are being sent out to sea. It is hard to put into words how much I love this. It is so relaxing.


Tomorrow we are planning to rent a car and drive around the island. Should be fun. I will do laundry in the morning as we leave soon and I don't want to come back to dirty things. It will be hard to leave here but we have a beautiful home in Ames and more important, our kids are there and close by in Minneapolis. In the meantime, I am still here in paradise.

Carolyn

Wednesday Feb. 24, 2010 9:00 pm CI

Richard's big bone fish


He is a good size fish.

Our house can be seen in the background. It

is in the center. This shot is on Owen Island.

Now our house is right up from the tip of the

yellow boat.

It is raining right now at our house. It smells so good. We went to SSC for dinner as it was Wet Your Whistle Wednesday. Richard had checked the radar & said it would rain. I called Lynne Lock to see if she was going and asked if she would pick us up. It was so nice of her to give us a ride. I did not want to chance getting stuck in the rain on my bike.

Boy, did we have a good meal at SSC. They really know how to feed you. We got to visit again with several couples who come for the winter and have homes here like we do. It is fun.

Today Richard went up on the roof early and made sure everything was in good repair. He had to work on a pipe up there. Then we took the kayaks to Owen Island. We had to go against waves and it was quite a job. Well worth the effort though. We took photos. Richard did some fishing over there while I read my book. I am reading "Where is Joe Merchant?" by Jimmy Buffett. It was here at the house. On the way back (easy work with the waves this time) Richard caught a big "bone fish". Very exciting. We had a late lunch. We left here at 10:00 am and didn't get home until 2:00 pm.

After our fun, we went out to our yard and worked on clearing some more brush etc. on the sides of our driveway and entrance to our driveway. It is nice and wide and looks beautiful. We were definitely ready to get cleaned up and go to dinner tonight.

The house and grounds look so much better than when we arrived. We are both very proud of all the work we have done. It will be interesting to see how it looks when we arrive next year. We have already talked about what we want to work on next year.

I'm expecting to sleep good tonight with this rain shower. Last night I slept like I was dead. It was wonderful!

Carolyn

Carolyn