Merry Christmas

Christmas 2010 at
Seven Mile Public Beach

This morning to celebrate Christmas we took Arianna to Seven Mile Public Beach for her first dip in the Caribbean.  Unfortunately the water was a little too cold to really have her do a swim so all she could do was dip her toes into the water.  She was not crazy about the experience because the water was so cold.  On the way back we stopped at Governor's Beach next to the British Governor's Residence to take another picture of her with one of the Blue Dragon statues.  Four down, eleven to go.

Daddy and Arianna





Governor's Beach Blue Dragon



Mommy and Arianna with
the Blue Dragon







Christmas Eve

This evening we took Arianna to the Bodden House on South Church Street to see the Christmas lights.  A few years back we started going to this house across from Sunset House in George Town on Christmas Eve and it has now become something of a tradition.  Arianna was wide eyed and very awake as we walked around and was definitely intrigued by the colorful display.  It was a little chilly so we dressed her in pants and socks along with her onesie.  It wasn't a very eventful Christmas eve, though earlier in the day we went to Camana Bay for a couple of hours and Daddy and Arianna walked the trails there while Mommy did some work  for her Masters capstone.  Tomorrow will be Arianna's first day in the water as the Doctor has given the OK to Katie to start swimming again.  Since we have gone for a snorkel each year on Christmas that we have been here, Arianna will be cementing that family tradition, at least for as long as we are down here.

Arianna's Play Mat

Earlier this month, Arianna's Godfather Chuck and her Aunt Twila sent some money to her for an early Christmas present.  Yesterday we went to Little Darlings, the big baby store on the Island and picked out a play mat for her with the money.  Today she got to try it out for the first time and she loved it.  She enjoys talking to her animals and kicking the hanging pad which is designed to exercise her legs.  We had been doing "floor time" with Katie's yoga mat and a blanket.  Now she has something far more exciting to play on.  Thanks to Chuck, Twila, Cori and Christi for such a timely present.

Six Weeks Old

It is hard to believe it has been six weeks.  Time really flies.

Green Iguanas

Friday night Scott, Arianna, and I went for our evening family walk around 5 p.m. As we were walking, we noticed at the very top of one of the houses along the route a green iguana perched in the sun. Commenting about how strange it was to see them up there and trying to figure out how it got on top of the two story house we moved on with our walk. To our surprise we saw another one on top of another house. With the second house we could see the tree that he probably climbed to get up on top of the roof.

I don't know what was up with the iguanas on Friday but I wish we'd had a camera to capture it!

Santa and Mrs. Claus

Today Arianna got to meet Santa for the first time.

Arianna and the Blue Dragons

All around Cayman are statues of Blue Iguanas placed at often visited locations.  We have started taking pictures of Arianna with the statues and here are the first three from Smith's Cove, Rum Point and the Botanic Gardens.



Smith's Cove




Rum Point




Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Gardens

 

Sunday and Monday with Grandma Cummings

Katie, Arianna and Mary Anna
at the Wreck of the Ten Sail Monument
to Queen Elizabeth II

Visits on Sunday and Monday to the Eastern and Northern districts saw us spend time at Rum Point, the Botanic Gardens and various sites on the "Cayman" side of the Island. 



Katie and Arianna get
introduced to a Blue Iguana at the
Botanic Gardens



Mary Anna has decided she wants to be Grandma Cummings, thus the name change. She leaves tomorrow after a really fun visit.



Daddy and Arianna at the Tukka
Restaurant in East End



Seven Mile, Pedro and Parade of Lights



Seven Mile Public Beach



Pedro Saint James

Long and busy day today with Grandma Mary Anna, starting at Seven Mile Public Beach, then a visit to Pedro Saint James and ending with a trip to Camana Bay for the Parade of Lights.



Waiting on the Parade of Lights



Observation Tower at Camana Bay



One of Boats in Parade of Lights



Grandma Mary Anna

This afternoon Arianna was introduced to her Grandma Mary Anna who is down for a visit.  After an overnight flight from Seattle and layovers in Dallas and Miami, Grandma Mary Anna arrived in Cayman this afternoon a little tired but very excited to meet her granddaughter.  We had a picnic dinner on the beach at Smith's Cove and spent the evening catching up on all the news from home.  We have a full couple of days for Grandma who is here through Tuesday morning and had just one condition for her visit, lots of Grandma and Arianna time.

One Month Old

Arianna turned one month old today.  Unofficially she weighs 10 pounds and is 23 inches long.  That puts her right in the 50th percentile for weight but way up at the 90th percentile for length.  We have noticed how much longer she seemed with her clothing and the measurement today confirmed it.  Tomorrow her Grandmother Maryanna arrives and she will have the chance to show her Grandma just how active and involved a baby she is. Here are some photos we took of her this morning on the Penguin Christmas material for the 12 months of Arianna quilt that Katie plans to make.   

Harry Potter Day

Some of you may remember that one way we managed to stay sane during our first two months on the Island back in 2007 when we were in the little apartment at the college with no car and no TV and no real connection to anything beyond the college was looking forward to what we called Harry Potter Day.  That was the day that both the seventh book came out and the fifth movie premiered here in Cayman.  Ever since "Harry Potter Day", the day we get to see the next Harry Potter movie has been a big deal for us.  Yesterday we got up the nerve to ask a trusted friend to babysit Arianna and headed over to Hollywood Theatres at Camana Bay to watch the first part of the Deathly Hallows movies.  As always we were on Arianna time so the plans to be out the door by 11:30 and have lunch before hand at A La Kebab ended up not happening.  Still we enjoyed the movie immensely though both of us kept looking at our phones throughout the movie to make sure we hadn't missed a call.  It was a small first step but it showed we could go out on a date night (or in this case afternoon) and everything would be OK.  The movie was really good but we couldn't help whispering to each other several times that "hey that's different from the book".

Family Walk

This week we have really gotten into the routine of doing an evening walk with Arianna.  Since the road we live on isnt the greatest for walking a newborn, we drive over to the Royal Bank of Canada on the main road next to Grand Harbour.  It is just a few minutes from our house and sits at the bottom of Bimini Drive which is fantastic for walking and biking.  We park in the RBC lot and then walk the just over a mile distance to the North Sound where the road doubles back after a roundabout there at the water.  It is just about 2.1 miles round trip and it takes a little over 40 minutes for us not in shape people.  Obviously with some more walking under our belts we hope to cut that considerably.  It has been very good exercise for Mommy and Daddy and Arianna seems to view it as her nap time as she enjoys rolling in her stroller.  Today in fact we used it to help Arianna finally fall asleep as she had been up all afternoon and was obviously very tired but just couldn't fall asleep.  These picture are from a few days ago when we remembered to bring the camera on our walk.



Daddy near the start of the walk

Mommy and Arianna at the half way point
which is a roundabout at the end of the street
at the North Sound.



Arianna asleep in her stroller



The view as we walk south on Bimini

Hurricane Season Ends

November 30th is the traditional end of hurricane season and for the second year in a row we didn't get any uninvited visitors.  We will be pulling down our hurricane kit and using the water we had stored over the next several weeks.  These next couple of months are when Cayman truly is a Caribbean paradise and we plan to slowly introduce Arianna to the various things a young baby can do down here during these next several months when it is great to be outside.  Arianna has yet to establish anything remotely like a routine, she eats and sleeps at various and inconsistent times and in general is a newborn who is acting like, well, a newborn.  I have two more weeks of leave before I return to work on the 14th.  My Mom arrives next week for a visit and this weekend we have a friend watching Arianna for a few hours while we go see the new Harry Potter movie.  We found with Katie's relatives that we were OK going out and running errands and leaving Arianna with her grandparents and great grandparents. This will be the first time we leave Arianna with someone other than immediate family so we will see how, as parents, we handle leaving our little girl alone with someone who isn't a relative. It is only 4 hours on a Saturday afternoon but it should tell us how much we are comfortable with finding a sitter and having a date night/afternoon once or twice a month.

Arianna's Second Mommy

One of our biggest fears about bringing Arianna home was how our cat Gypsy would react to her.  Would she be jealous?  Would she try to retain our attention by acting out?  Or, in the extreme might she do something to the baby?  So for the past two weeks since we came home we have been watching her like hawks.  We have discovered to our joy that Gypsy has adopted Arianna and acts like a second Mom to her.  She watches over her in the Bassinet and Pack N Play, she comes to get us when Arianna is crying and generally keeps an eye on her whenever she is doing her floor time.  She also is very careful around her and seems to know that this is a new member of the family that she is also taking care of.  She has definitely imprinted on her as one of her own.

Happy Thanksgiving

A very Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.  In honor of her first Thanksgiving, Arianna is wearing her Thanksgiving onesie from Johanna and Brent Bernard and is looking forward to the turkey and stuffing her mom will be eating later today.  We are getting Thanksgiving dinner from a local restaurant Chicken Chicken which today is going by the name Turkey Turkey in honor of American Thanksgiving.  Katie is a bit under the weather with a cold so we aren't doing too much today beyond me going out to get the food and resting.  Of course the big Texas-Texas A&M game is on later tonight so I have to show the colors.

Visit from Great Grampa Gene

This morning we had a chance to introduce Arianna to the only living great grand parent on her Daddy's side Grampa Gene.  Gene was on island for a few hours off a cruise ship he was on with his daughters and grand daughter.  After Scott picked him up at the ship terminal, Gene had breakfast with us at the house and then we took him and Arianna to see the college that Arianna's Great Granny Maude had helped when its library was in need.  After that we took him for a tour of the island and had lunch up on the Northside.  We had a great couple of hours with him until it was time for him to return to the ship.  It was a happy coincidence that he had planned this trip several months ago and thus got chance to meet his great grand daughter.



Arianna prepares to be loaded in the car



Parents on our own

For the first ten days of Arianna's life we have been very fortunate to have some much appreciated assistance from Katie's grandparents Bruma and Brupa (Joyce and Chuck Carlisle) and her parents Russ and Gail.  We also had a visit from my father, John, who was in town for a groundbreaking ceremony at the college.  John only got to see his newest granddaughter from a far (thus no pictures of him as we had with the other grand parents and great grand parents) as he had a cold and as a result ended up staying at another place.  He ended up only stopping by briefly to minimize the chances he might pass on what he had to Arianna. Yesterday we put John, Russ and Gail on their flights home and for the first time were a family of three and just the three of us in the house. We have about three weeks before my Mom comes and are both excited to have it be just us and at the same time a little scared.  There is a comfort level of having others around to help and to call on with questions as new parents.  We want to pass on our sincerest thanks to the great grand parents and grand parents who helped us these past ten days and wish Gail a very speedy recovery from her hip surgery that she goes into later today in Dallas, she will be in our thoughts.

Wreck of the Geneva Kathleen

This afternoon Russ and I headed out to do some snorkeling.  The excuse was to give the ladies some "girl" time but we all knew that this was a chance for Dad and Grandpa to get out and see if we couldn't find the holy grail of snorkeling for us since we got down here, the Wreck of the Geneva Kathleen.  Back in June of 2007 when we first moved here we saw a snorkel site on the map for the Wreck of the Geneva Kathleen near the Reef Resort on the north side of the island near East End.  We asked where the site was and never could get a straight answer.  We never did find it and over the years several attempts to locate it have gone unfulfilled.  It even became a running joke that there was no such thing as the Geneva Kathleen.  Then about two months ago I found a website with explicit directions about how to get to the wreck site from a beach we had been to on Northside. 



Lion Fish swimming
 around the wreck



So today when Russ wanted to do some snorkeling, this was the perfect excuse to follow the directions and see what we could find. We headed out into some strong swells and the waves crashing into the shore. The wreck was supposedly next to some cliffs and so we had to be extra careful not to get caught in a wave.  After swimming about a hundred yards along the shoreline we came upon the first wreckage and exploring led us to discover three or four distinct sites where wreckage could be found.  At the end of this post are some photos of the wreckage and above and below this paragraph is a lion fish we found swimming at the site along with a juvenile.   



Very poisonous spines so no touching and
pictures only from a safe distance



Lion fish are not native to the Caribbean but are actually invaders from the Pacific.  They are dangerous so we give them a wide berth whenever they are sighted.  It is believed that some escaped from an aquarium in Florida during Hurricane Andrew back in  the 90's and they breed so quickly that they have expanded through the Caribbean.  This fish is actually quite bad for the local waters as they are in large numbers and they eat off all the young of other species so they are not a welcome sight even if they make for pretty interesting photographs. There are lion fish tournaments held quite often down here for the expert divers who are the only ones that can catch them since you must have a license to do so.  This is part of a concerted effort to cull the herds of them now in Cayman waters.