Long Saturday

Our day began yesterday with a 4:45 alarm. We were holding the college's annual Memorial Walk to raise funds for the Hugh Cummings Memorial scholarship and with sign ups and pre-walk activities starting at 6:00 a.m. and the walk kicking off at 6:30 in the morning that meant getting up and being out the door by 5:15. We have to start the walks early like that because by 8:00 a.m. it gets too hot for many people to be out strenuously exercising. We helped set up the tables and water stations along the route and then participated in the walk with Katie being in a faster moving group and Scott acting as the back end marshall having to make sure everyone was in front of him and that everyone who started finished the walk or got a ride back. About 40 people participated in the approximately 5k walk from the college campus down to Pedro Castle and back. Dubbed a walk from the birthplace of tertiary education in the Cayman Islands to the birthplace of Democracy in the Cayman Islands we raised over $1500 in scholarship money and had a great community building event for the student body.

Our late morning and early afternoon were uneventful but as evening drew near we dressed up to attend the long delayed retirement dinner for our past President Dr. Elsa Cummings at the Grand Old House Restaurant at Petra Plantation. The dinner and program lasted almost four hours and we pulled back into our drive way just before 10:00 p.m. and just in time to watch the second half of the Texas-Oklahoma basketball game (Horns won 73-68). At 11:15 we trudged up to bed exhausted from a long and eventful day. On Wednesday Scott heads to Miami and Katie comes up Friday afternoon. We will be in Florida through Monday morning returning early Monday afternoon. This morning we put Scott's father, John, on a flight home after a week on the Island and later in the week Scott's brother Kevin arrives and we are already planning the fun things to take him to (we hope he like stingrays because a trip to the sandbar has already been reserved).

Valentine Pizza

The past four years it has been our tradition to go out for sushi on Valentine's Day. But we have been to sushi so often of late that we wanted to do something different. So this year we decided to do our Valentine's date as a joint cooking together experience, something Katie is always pushing for. We made pizza and ice cream pie together with Scott making the meat and slicing up the vegetables for the pizza while Katie prepared the crust. For dessert Scott cut up the bananas and covered the chocolate crust of the pie, he also whipped the cream into a solid form while Katie put the ice cream and toppings on the pie after the crust was prepared. It took us a good 45 minutes together in the kitchen to get everything ready and then another 15 minutes of cooking the pizza's to make our dinner. It was a lot of fun and as we ate we watched a movie called Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day with Amy Adams and Francis McDormand, a really cute date movie that was a wonderful capper to a really fun evening of cooking together. It wasn't our traditional Valentine's date but it was really special.

We start a very busy run this week of relatives in town and trips of our own. Scott's father is in town for a week starting Sunday the 15th of February leaving on the 22nd. Then on Wednesday the 25th Scott heads to Miami to teach the Winter quarter seminar. Katie is flying up Friday for some shopping and get away time. We get back on March 2 and then on the 6th Scott's brother Kevin is coming for a visit. He will be here until the 11th and then on the 12th Katie's sisters arrive for their visit through the 23rd. We are planning lots of fun activities for all of our relatives while they are in town and looking forward ourselves to playing tourist. After everyone leaves we have a couple of weeks off before a trip back to Texas over Easter.

As some of you already know, we are currently weighing our options about where we will be and what we will be doing when our contracts expire this August with the college. We have to decide whether to renew the contracts (assuming the college offers to renew our contracts) and stay here another year or two or look for jobs back in the states starting in the fall and head back to Texas. There are a lot of factors to consider and we hope you keep a good thought for us as we decide what our next step will be.

It's cold down here

The temperature has dipped into the 60's the last couple of nights and we are getting very high winds in the western Caribbean. I know this cannot compete with what our family up north are dealing with but this almost 20 degree difference in the regular temperatures has everyone on the island sick with the flu and people walking around in sweaters. We have broken out clothing that hasn't been worn since we were in Georgia over a year ago.

Fitness February

In the past we have not been very good about maintaining our exercise regime and keeping to the good habits we always start the year off with. This year to make sure we keep on exercising and eating right we are doing a fitness February. We must workout 22 out of the 28 days, no alcohol for the entire month and a minimum of averaging 60 cardio minutes a day (which means for every rest day we have to do 120 minutes on another day). So far we have gone 2 for 2 with workouts yesterday and this morning. Today our bike ride was into a rain burst that left us both soaked but feeling very accomplished as we kept on going in spite of the shower. On Saturday we were able to run for 14 minutes around 40 or so minutes of walking. We walk to warm up then do 2 minutes of running and 2 minutes of walking seven times followed by a warm down walk. We both cant wait to get our I-pods which should arrive when Scott's father visits in February. The problem with running without music is that you tend to lose focus and get in your own head. The good news is we have both seen a small but consistent weight loss every week in January and while we are still well above where we want to be, that is slowly changing

Tomorrow is Johanna Bernard's birthday so an early Happy Birthday to Scott's sister up in Chicago. We have learned that we will be getting a visit from both of Katie's sisters in March and are already planning lots of fun activities. We are headed to Miami at the end of February for our winter seminar and now have confirmed a visit back to Texas over Easter so the next few months will stay very busy. We are in a period of time where we will be making some significant life decisions about where we will be a year from now, what work we will be doing and when we will start to try to add to our family. Keep a good thought for us as we mull over and make these momentous decisions over the next several weeks,