August winding down

Sunday Dress

As August winds down and we head into September this past weekend was the last one before, as Katie likes to say, "my mistress begins to want time with me".  By mistress, she means of course football season.  Though somehow calling football a "mistress" just seems strange to me. Obsession sure, but mistress, not hardly? Regardless, with our cable just having added ESPNU and the Big Ten network (though no Longhorn network just yet) we are definitely ready for the games to begin.  The hope here is that last years disaster of a season is not repeated.  In this family we celebrate "first day of football" as a holiday and it will be Arianna's first.  We have her Longhorn onesie ready to wear and new decals for both cars.

We have two weeks left in our summer term and are getting ready for the grand opening of our new classroom building.  It has been great watching it go up all summer and now that they are in the final stages everyone is watching and the excitement is rising.  The celebration with the ribbon cutting is set for the 23rd though we actually will start classes in it on the 19th.  I have my surgery on the 14th during the off week between classes and should be ready to go by the 19th.  I meet with the anaesthesiologist next week to finalize everything.

We hope all our relatives on the east coast came through Irene OK.  The locals down here have questioned why the fuss over just a Cat 1 storm because down here going through a Cat 1 as we did with Gustav and then Paloma a couple of years ago was easy.  But we forget that those were small storms no where near the size of Irene and that had this Island been hit even by a Cat one for as long as areas were hit by Irene we would have massive flooding and issues too.  The storm season isn't even yet at its mid way point so we are still being vigilant.

Another reason why this is not exactly Paradise

August and September are our yearly reminder of one of the costs of living in "paradise", storms.  It looks certain now that Irene will not be paying us a visit but the shooting gallery has 8 more weeks so while we breathe a little easier this morning that is just until the next one on the assembly line rolls off the African coast.  We get other reminders from time to time too.  A couple of weeks ago, I was in the kitchen when out of the corner of my eye I saw a pretty big black object moving into our downstairs bathroom.  Initially thinking that it might be the largest roach ever I cautiously approached.  When it came fully into view I was shocked to see that it was in fact about a 4 inch long scorpion that had wandered into our house.  It did not survive the meeting with my shoe.  We get other exotic visitors every once in a while from centipedes to strange looking water bugs driven in during the hot summer.  With Arianna moving all over the downstairs we are extra vigilant as we don't want her making a new "friend".

Again with the A/C

Yesterday afternoon around 1 p.m. Katie called down stairs to tell me that the air had gone up to 88 degrees in the house.  We checked the air conditioner and could feel air coming out but it wasn't the normal cooled air.  We were able to get a Sunday service call but it was not a repair that could be done that afternoon and the return call would not be until first thing Monday morning.    We got a hold of our landlady who is currently in Panama and she asked us to get a second set of eyes to look at the unit and give an estimate.  Unfortunately, the man she suggested also couldn't come out until first thing Monday morning.  After some debate about spending the night at a hotel we decided to tough it out and use fans to get through the night.  It was a miserable night as poor Arianna just couldn't keep cool even with a fan on her crib.  She woke up several times and at one point was awake for about a two plus hour stretch between 1:00 and 3:30 a.m.  She finally fell asleep and slept until a little after 7 a.m.  She was happy this morning but still tired and went down for her 9 a.m. nap happily even though she had only been up two hours. 

The repairman suggested by our landlady showed up right at 8 a.m. and for now has gotten the unit back up and working (cool air never felt so good).  It is a bit disappointing that the first repairman couldnt get it back up and running at least for last night as this one did.  However, even this repairman says it is just a temporary patch job and that the unit will have to be rewired and repaired though his estimate is substantially less than the first one.  He is communicating directly with our landlady who to her credit has said to him to get it fixed asap.  Much like the blackout last week this was another dry run for a hurricane aftermath when we wouldn't have A/C though this time we got to see how it would be if we at least had battery powered fans and frankly it is only marginally better.

Blue Dragon's

The Rock and Chloe's Iguana at the Mission House
 in Bodden Town

Yesterday afternoon we went in search of more blue dragon statues to add to Arianna's photograph collection.  We have been trying to get photographs of her with all 15 of the original Blue Iguana statues that comprise the Blue Iguana trail on Grand Cayman.  We have a map of where they are supposed to be but have discovered to our distress that only about half of them are where they should be and thus far only have six of them photographed with her.  We had two hours free and wanting to keep Arianna occupied we set out to find the one in Bodden Town.  As luck would have it, we found two of them (neither of which was where they were supposed to be).  We found them at the Mission House a national trust historic site in the original capitol of the Cayman Islands.  One of them was the Bodden Town statue, the other was supposed to be out in East End.  Neither were attached to their pedestals and had we been more felonious, we could have taken one home as a souvenir as they didn't seem very heavy.

Chloe's Iguana which is supposed to be out in East End

Lights out in Cayman

Last night about 9:10 p.m. as I was working in my office the power suddenly went dead.  We are used to the occasional rolling brown out in Newlands so at first I just sat there for a moment expecting the power to pop back on any second.  The college has emergency lighting and after a few seconds it was clear this wasn't something that would pop back on any moment and I started to wander the campus checking rooms and making sure that no one was stuck somewhere in the complete dark.  About ten minutes into the blackout it was evident that this wasn't going to be a short one and so we ended classes early sending everyone home.  I had called home to Katie who told me the blackout was affecting Red Bay as well and that it had awoken Arianna.  After getting everyone on campus off safely and making sure the radio station was unplugged and all the A/C's along with as many lights as we could switch off were turned off, I headed home.  It was weird driving home as everything was dark except for the car headlights.  The power outage seemed to be island wide.

I got home to a dark house that was quickly heating up with no air flow.  All we had for light were flashlights and the upstairs was too hot to get Arianna settled down.  We decided to bring Arianna down stairs where it was cooler and set up sheets and pillows on the tile floor as well as her pack and play.  It wasn't so  much that the house was hot as it was there was no air flow from the fans and that makes the heat stifling.  Arianna was freaked out and didn't understand what was going on.  We tried rocking her and shushing her but she was very disturbed by how dark it was.  We opened the downstairs blinds because the near full moon gave us some good ambient light.  The power outage lasted almost an hour after I got home finally coming back on around 10:45.  It was a short dry run for what it might be like during a hurricane if we do lose power.  We definitely learned that we need to have flashlights in every room and some battery powered fans for air flow.  We found out this morning that the outage was over most of the island and caused by a truck accident right near CUC's power plant in the industrial park.  Last night was Arianna's first Caribbean style black out and hopefully isn't something she gets to repeat these next few weeks during the height of hurricane season.

Sunday Morning Snorkel

Several weeks ago Katie started a baby swap with several of the mommies in her baby group.  Basically it is free baby sitting as one mommy watches the babies for a couple of hours while the other couple gets time out.  We used one of our turns to go see Harry Potter a few weeks back and this morning cashed in another one to go have brunch at Eats cafe and do some snorkeling over at Eden Rock.  We havent been able to snorkel together just the two of us since Arianna was born so it was nice to be able to do that together again.  Here are a few shots from this morning.

A tarpon that meandered beneath us

Stoplight Parrot Fish

Black Durgon

Friday afternoon in George Town

For a long time we have talked about picking an afternoon and going into town to play tourist like we just came off a cruise ship.  Yesterday we finally found the time to do it and after packing up lots of food, toys and other items for Arianna drove over to Bayshore Mall on the water front and parked to begin our tour.  We started looking for the National Gallery which is moving to a new location on the Harquayle bypass but for now is still located in the Harbour Shops.  It took us a little time to find it but eventually we did and went in to see an exhibit on the Persistence of Memory.  There were only two viewing rooms which made it a brief stop but still interesting and when they move to their new larger location it should make for a nice afternoon out.  After the gallery we headed into the town square.

Saturday is Jamaican Independence Day and with so many Jamaicans on island, Cardinal Avenue was closed to traffic for a two day festival celebrating their independence from Britain.  We wandered past the booths smelling the food and enjoying the cultural displays.  We were headed to the downtown post office and the two blue iguana statues that are near it.



Arianna with Arti who celebrates 500 years for Cayman

 

Across from the historic downtown
post office



Arianna really liked the blue iguana in the post office roundabout and played with it and on it for several minutes.  But when we crossed the street to get pictures of her with the second statue she decided she had had enough and wanted to be held and given water (it was quite hot so we completely understood).  Katie held her for a moment we clicked the shots for the blue iguana trail book we plan to do and then it was on to Heroes Square and some food.

Our next stop was Heroes Square the town center of George Town and a look at the statues of some of the national heroes and the wall of history as well as some peaches and bread sticks for the little one.



Statue of James Bodden, First National Hero
and the man who donated the land on which ICCI sits

From Heroes Square we made the short walk over to the waterfront and Fort George.

After reading the markers we headed down the waterfront and back toward Bayshore mall.  To really be tourists we took one more photo.

Walking around in the hot sun for two plus hours left us all a little exhausted.  We headed up to Camana Bay for some frozen drinks and a chance for Arianna to unwind.  It was a great afternoon and we got to see some parts of George Town that we have always intended to visit but just never found the time.

Rainy July gives way to likely stormy August

There hasn't been a whole heck of a lot for us to write about these past few weeks other than the usual updates to the baby blog.  Of course Arianna dominates our days and activities.  In non-baby news,  my father was on island for a week and a half for college business as we get closer and closer to opening the new classroom building and negotiate with the government on the daytime program we have been working with them on for the past year.  August promises to be eventful though not necessarily the type of events we want as the storms are lining up over in Africa for their long trek across the Atlantic.  Emily should form later today though she may be a problem for Florida and hopefully not us.  We have been watching the TV series Lost and at a rapid clip of 2 plus episodes a day will finish all six seasons in just a little over a month of watching.  We have decided to do a team triathlon in November with Katie doing the ten 10k me doing the 40k bike and one of Katie's Mommy group friends doing the mile swim so we are both in training for that now.  Football season is inching closer and just the dog days of August to get through.