St Martin

For the second year in a row, we've taken a trip to St Martin with our good friends, Brian & Amber. And, for the second year in a row, we had a great time. Lots of sun and sand and alcoholic beverages. We decided to try a new resort this year so we stayed at L'Hoste Hotel on Orient Beach. Orient Beach is on the French side of the island so feels even more "international" than the Dutch side (which is where Rian and I stayed on our first trip to the island in 2005). Orient Beach is very interesting...you sometimes see things that you later wish you hadn't, considering the nudist resort at one end of the beach. The beach is very fun and active during the day, filled with people. About 5pm, most everything shuts down. And, I mean shuts down. The bars on the beach close and board up. They put the chairs away and we even got told one night (at 5pm) that we needed to get off the chairs so they could put them away. It is evident that this beach is more for the day people and the nightlife happens elsewhere. One funny thing we found was that pretty much every person walking out of the little grocery store was carrying a baguette. The French love their baguettes! No matter what time of day, people were buying baguettes.

There is a small beach and bar at the end of the runway at the airport. We went for a couple beers while awaiting Brian and Amber's flight. This is definitely a cool spot to sit and watch the planes come in. They (literally) land right over top of you!





My favorite beach on St Martin is Baie Rouge. It's pretty secluded so not too many people but there are chairs/umbrellas to rent as well as Chez Raymond, a little beachside grill that has the best shrimp kebabs and beans and rice (oh, and delicious grilled plantains!) on the island.




We celebrated Rian's 32nd birthday in Marigot at the marina. We went to Le France restaurant and had a delicious meal and good wine. Rian said "just what I wanted to do, get all dressed up and go have an expensive dinner on MY day." Well, sorry, I guess sitting in the basement playing x-box all day wasn't an option! ha ha But, he did get to have a piece of apple pie so all was not lost.

We all took a cab into Philipsburg one day and "people-watched" while enjoying drinks and lunch at the Blue Bitch Cafe. There were 4 cruise ships in that day so the people watching was great. Went to Ballerina Jewelers to see our friend Deepak (whom we like to visit each trip) and I got a beautiful new watch. Might have been the highlight of the trip for me!



Rian is like a big kid when we're at the beach and enjoys jumping around in the waves. He says it's good exercise but I like to think it's also just "fun." Here he is at Orient Beach...



All in all, it was another fun trip to St Martin. We got plenty of sun and beach time and it was nice to get away from the Buffalo weather...

It's Golden Globe day!!!

Another movie award season is upon us and as usual, the Lindell's have spent the last month seeing as many movies as possible. After last year's writer's strike, the Golden Globes have returned! And as usual, several movies nominated are "limited release" and not in theaters currently around Buffalo. What kind of place is this?? The good news, it looks like at least a few will be in theaters by end of January so at least we'll be able to see them before the Oscars. Here is a list of the movies we were able to see prior to tonight's award show:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire
Burn After Reading
In Bruges
Mamma Mia
I've Loved You So Long
Milk
Changeling
Doubt
Pineapple Express
Bolt (in 3-D even!)
Kung Fu Panda
Wall-E

The movies we weren't able to see:

Frost/Nixon
Revolutionary Road (come on, a Jan 23 worldwide release?? 2 weeks after the Globes??)
Happy-Go-Lucky
Vicky Cristina Barcelona (we straight blew that one as it left Regal before we saw it)
The Wrestler
Last Chance Harvey
Defiance
Gran Torino
Cadillac Records

So, we did a pretty good job with what we had since there was only one movie we didn't see that we even had a chance of seeing. This life in Buffalo isn't conducive to our love of movies. Yeah, the blockbuster movies are fun to see but it's always the Oscar nominated "smaller audience" ones that leave me feeling really satisfied. Oh well, someday we'll be back in the Seattle/Portland area and this won't be a problem.

I will save my predictions for the Oscars since we just didn't see enough movies in each category to give an educated guess. However, I will give my opinion in the 2 categories that we did complete:

Supporting Actor--Heath Ledger will win it hands down due to all the publicity he's received and I will admit, he did a great job in the Dark Knight. I just hope when it comes to the Oscar, they don't solely give it to him because he passed away. He was a great actor but this performance might not be enough for me to give it to him. I will make a better prediction once I see the other Oscar nominees.

Animated Film--Wall-E definitely deserves it in my book. I really enjoyed our 3-D experience of "Bolt" but Wall-E gets my vote. The animation was incredible and I really loved the story.

That's about it for now. I love awards season! Red Carpet arrival at 6pm...

"I guess just one too many..."

Ha, Ha, My favorite line from "A Christmas Story" when dad plugs in the tree and a small fire starts in the outlet. There's about 15 cords all plugged in. Well, I experienced my own little scene yesterday while working on my tree. Every year, I have to put tons of white lights on my tree. I like to wind them down as many branches as possible. And, even though this year's tree seems smaller, I still ran out of lights. So off I went to the local True Value and bought some more, determined to get enough. I laughed to myself as I noticed the box said "connect up to 3 strands" as I literally connected probably my 8th or 9th. Well, as soon as I plugged the new strand in, it lit and then went out. I tried the next one, yep, same thing. I realized that I was blowing the tiny fuses in the strand plug. Of course, this was after about 4 hours of working on my tree. I seriously considered opening up the front door and just throwing the entire tree into the middle of the lawn. Thankfully, Rian came downstairs just in time so I put him on the fuse replacement and I got a couple small extension cords and divided up my lights so there were only a few strands per cord. Finally, after 6 hours, I have a beautifully lit tree...but, no ornaments...that will be today's job...

Crappy ending to a fun weekend...

After a fun weekend in Toronto (I was there with my friend Amber to watch our hubbies play Miami), I received a call from my pet sitter that my cat Cole wasn't doing well. His health has been deteriorating for about a year. Last month, he had another "seizure" and I found out his heart wasn't working correctly and his lungs had a bunch of fluid in them. After some tests, he was put on a diuretic in order to help his failing heart so that it wouldn't back up into his lungs. He seemed to be doing better but I could tell it wouldn't be long before his little body gave up. So, when I got the call from my friend, I asked her to bring him to the vet, knowing that this was probably it. The vet called a short time later and told me his left lung was completely full of fluid as was about 1/2 of his right lung. I asked her to keep him comfortable and I would come in as soon as we got back into town and put him to sleep. It was a tough ride home knowing what my night had in store.

When I arrived (about 11:30pm), he was breathing really hard but purring and "talking" to me. I burst into tears and gave him lots of hugs before asking the vet to put him down. It was so hard to do but it was time. I can honestly say, I lost a very good friend on Sunday night. He has been my buddy for 12 years and I will miss him dearly...

A new day...

Things seem to be ok here this morning (well, afternoon now!). We got hit pretty good last night but I was safe and sound in my condo. We somehow managed to get lucky enough to have power all night so it was quite nice having tv and internet to help me pass the time. It was incredible watching the winds and rain out the windows...

I turned everything off and went to bed about midnight. Fell asleep to the sounds of the waves crashing. So, now that it's all said and done, what an amazing experience. It truly makes you in awe of what Mother Nature is capable of. I'm glad I was able to experience this but hope that it's my last run in with a hurricane. I was able to get booked on a flight out on Monday, which is exactly what I wanted because I don't want to be flying tomorrow during the Bills game! Have to watch that!

I hope the people on Little Cayman and Cayman Brac are safe as they got hit WAY worse than us. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers are we start to learn of the devastation on those islands...

The eye

Still have internet...Yay! Here is an updated satellite photo as the eye is getting ready to pass the island. Now winds are 80 mph sustained with gusts of 100. Eek!

The adventure continues...

It's dark out now so my storm watching out the window is done. I much prefer to see what's going on out there! I am absolutely amazed at how secure this building is. The new hurricane windows we installed a few months ago are able to withstand a Category 5 and I'm not surprised, as I cannot hear a whisper of wind! We still have power and internet so I'm going to continue to keep myself occupied. Here are some current satellite pictures of Paloma as it goes through Grand Cayman. The little outline on the bottom image is the island...

They are saying it now may be a Category 3 as it passes the island in the next few hours. Winds are around 50-60mph now with higher gusts and are expected to be over 100mph as it passes us by. This is crazy! Sure wish I wasn't sitting here alone and that my hubby was with me!