Monday, June 19, 2006

CRABS!!!!!

When John and I were first dating, he introduced me to Guster, a band I had never heard of. Now, I rate their music at the top of my favorites list. There is a song they sing that starts out: "I woke up today, to everything gray....." It is a catchy song and the tune often gets stuck in my head. Well.... I woke up today....but everything was NOT gray. It was sunny, but that is beside the point. As I sat up in bed (John had already gone to school), I squinted as I thought I saw a bug running across the floor. I jumped up and could not believe my eyes. It was a sand crab! Still half asleep, I almost lost my balance as I scanned the room for a shoe. I intended to smash the crab (hey, my adrenaline was flowing), but instead I missed and only broke off one of its "crawlers". It crawled into the closet and out of sight. As my reticular activating system did its daily job, I realized that I was standing in the middle of the bedroom with a shoe in my hand, armed to destroy any other intruders. So far, so good..., no other critters IN the house today.

Thursday, June 08, 2006

The Big 2-9




Happy Birthday to me! The best birthday present I could ever receive was having my parents here to celebrate it with me. Of course mom and dad spoiled me with the traditional birthday "week" celebration. Each day, starting with Day 1 of the birthday "week", I received all kinds of goodies! Then, on day 7, they surprised me with a ZEN! MP3 player! Later that day, we had dinner at "EATS", and John was able to join us after his evening class. Then we partied it up Cayman style back at home. Dad was a terrific bartender as always. Laura and Brenda came over and we had a ball! I am blessed to have met such good friends here, and I could not have been happier to have us all together on my birthday. All the fun made me forget that I am a year closer to 30!

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Let the fun begin!!!!!



I am so grateful for such awesome parents. They arrived on Thursday, June 1st, in the afternoon. John had class, so I headed to the airport to greet them. While waiting, I decided to walk around the side of the building to where I could see the passengers coming off the plane. I felt like a little kid when I spotted them coming down the stairs from the airplane. I started jumping up and down waving crazily, yelling "MOM! DAD!" (like they could hear me). In the midst of my excitement, I felt a stinging sensation on my foot. When I looked down, my eyes spotted ants crawling all over me. It startled me AND it hurt, so I was then jumping up and down trying to get my shoe off in a hurry. It wasn't until after my performance of the Ants-Go-Away-Dance that I noticed several security staff staring at me from the other side of the fence. One guy was laughing without any effort to hide his amusement. Covered with sweat and insect bites, I put my shoe back on and walked coolly back to greet mom and dad. I was so excited to see them! We headed home from the airport and they both took in the initial uneasiness of traveling on the left side of the road. It was fun for me to see their reactions, for it wasn't that long ago that it was me experiencing the same thing for the first time.

Company!!!


I could not be more excited! My mom and dad are coming to Cayman to visit for a week. We have promised them sunshine, a beautiful ocean view and a laid back vacation they both deserve. Time for them to get away from a barking dog, a yelping puppy, inspections, griping parents, hit-and-run drivers, etc.....

I look forward to being hostess to them for a change and showing them the way we live here. My friend Laura also has friends visiting this week. We had to laugh at the fact that our apartments have never looked so clean.

I can't wait for them to see the view from our front door. Although I will be ready to get back to the U.S. when our time is up here, I know for a fact that I will miss starting out each day by looking out to that beautiful, blue Caribbean Sea.