Fifteen years ago....

It was the last week of July 1995 and on that Friday afternoon, I drove back to my Mom's house in San Antonio having completed the grueling two and a half day long Texas Bar Exam.  It would be three long months before I got my scores and found out I could practice as a lawyer.  The last Friday in July is always a reminder of that exam and the months of studying for it followed by the long months of waiting for the results.  To all the prospective lawyers in Texas heading home this afternoon I wish you good luck and a good nights sleep tonight.  I believe my first two days after the exam I woke up to eat once on the Saturday after but my first real memories aren't until the Sunday following, so sleep well. 

Cleaning out desk for Hurricane Season

Our desk is downstairs and during hurricane season, if a storm is on the way we move a lot of the electronic items and discs as well as other other materials upstairs into a plastic bin. I was going through the desk inventorying what we have in case we need to move it and came across a CD with some photographs. Upon putting it in the computer, I realized it was old photographs of the 2006 Rose Bowl National Championship game. I was having so much fun reliving the game and the festivities afterward that I figured I would post one of the shots. Here is a random Rose Bowl photo of my friend Gary and I after the game. We had gone to the game as my "bachelor party". I was five months from getting married at that point and he was not yet a Father. Here we are four plus years later and he has two kids while Katie and I are expecting our first. Wow has time flown or what?

East End Dinner

This evening we drove out to East End for a combination date night and celebratory dinner. We went to a restaurant we had not been to in a while, Portofino Wreck View, which sits on the northeast point of the Island. We were treated to a tremendous storm just as we entered East End. The wind picked up tremendously and the waves got huge crashing against the shore. We drove past the blow hole and saw a couple of very large explosions of water out of it. We are celebrating Scott's nomination to a possible government related position and if he gets it will let you know soon. It is a political position and in politics nothing is certain until the government officially announces the appointment. Still, it is quite an honor to even be nominated and so whether it happens or not, today was to celebrate that nomination. If it does happen it will not affect Scott's work or position at the college though it will mean extra work. We had to eat inside because of the wind and rain but sat next to a window and watched it all as we eat. It was a great evening and gave us a good chance to see the eastern end of the island for the first time in a couple of months.

Despicable Me and A La Kebob

This past weekend Katie and I decided to get in the car, fight through the rain and actually get out of the house. We headed over to Camana Bay which has really become a nice outdoor mall after its slow start of just having the Hollywood movie theatres and book store. Katie needed to work on some of her DU stuff so we went to Cafe Del Sol, a coffee shop, and sat in the back, me drinking a Latte and her a hot chocolate while we took advantage of their free wireless. After an hour or so of Masters work we headed over to A La Kebob and got some gyro's before heading back to Camana Bay to watch a movie. We had to choose between the new Twilight movie and Despicable Me. Katie is a huge Twilight fan and I figured we would be going to that film but surprisingly, Katie really wanted to see Despicable Me. We bought our tickets to the early afternoon showing and in addition to the movie got to experience what life will be like in a few years. The theatre was packed with parents taking their young kids to the movie. In front of us were some young girls dressed up like princesses out with their Mom and behind us a family with all three young kids seated in a row between Mom and Dad. Everywhere you looked were families. We even ran into one of our students bringing his young daughter and he said we were "too old to be at this movie" to which we replied "we were practicing for the future". The combination of rain plus it being an early showing probably played some role in the large number of young kids brought by their parents but it was still something of an eye opener to see that many youngsters with their parents.

After the movie we headed home so Katie could focus on getting her school work done. With assignments due every weekend for her classes, Saturday's and Sunday's have become class time. We are now in the fifth week of our summer quarter at ICCI. I did a radio appearance Monday on Radio Cayman talking about the 40th anniversary of the college and the changes at the institution over the past few years. We are both getting a little better at getting our morning walk in between the rain and might actually try some snorkeling if the weather allows. It is strange not having an off island trip in the works and knowing that we aren't going anywhere until we have a new family member. One thing we are working on now is making sure that as soon as our little one is born we get her properly registered and get her a US passport and social security number. She will be a dependent on my work permit so there is a ton of paperwork we have to have ready well before she comes.

Stormy weekend

While we aren't facing anything resembling a tropical storm, we are getting deluged by rain today and last night the storm knocked out our power for several hours. This morning as I look out our front window our parking lot is a lake and the waterfall off our roof is keeping Gypsy very focused. For about a year now we have kept our A/C at 82 degrees Fahrenheit so the loss of power last night and resulting heat didn't affect us that much. Interestingly enough even with the pregnancy Katie hasn't needed the A/C turned down so her body temperature doesn't seem to be fluctuating that much. We both sleep underneath covers at night and it is amazing how much our blood has thinned to where temperatures in the 70's now seem cold. The rainy season is now in full force here in the tropics and not a day goes by that we don't see some rain.

Katie in Texas

This weekend Kathleen is back in Texas to visit her family, do some maternity shopping and attend the wedding of a friend of hers. Gypsy and I are holding down the fort here in Cayman. Gypsy has to wonder what is going on as last weekend it was her and Kathleen alone in the house. She must think we are both nuts. This morning she yelled at me for an hour and I could just make out the words, "where is the girl boy, where is the girl?" While Katie has been gone we got our car window fixed so the plastic window is no more. We are into week four of our summer term and with the height of hurricane season approaching are stocking up. The baby blog is updated with all the info on our visit last week and obviously that will be our focus these next few months (and the rest of lives).