Little Cayman adventure...

Backtracking a few weeks, I wanted to share the "vacation from our vacation" that Rian and I took for our 7th anniversary weekend. On Easter Sunday, we decided it was time to book a trip to Little Cayman to check out the diving at the world famous Bloody Bay Wall. 5 days later, we were off.

We boarded a 15 passenger plane (which felt more like a small bus) and took off on the 35 min journey. Thankfully, the weather was beautiful so we had a smooth flight. We landed on a small airstrip (that used to be grass) and exited the plane. We just kind of stood around at the airport/post office/fire station and waited for them to pull our bags off the plane...no worries about "lost" luggage here!

It was about a 2 min drive to the Little Cayman Beach Resort. Along the way, we passed the one church on the island as well as the one little grocery store and one rental office for cars/mopeds. We got settled into our beautiful oceanfront room and took in the view. Right outside our door was a hammock, that Rian found his way into more than once!

We decided to rent mopeds and tour the 10 mile island (the road was 23 miles around). What a fun trip! The mopeds were a great time and driving on the left hand side was getting to be pretty normal for us after a month on Grand Cayman. It took us 4 hours total (we stopped a lot to take pictures and a swim to cool off). After getting back, we got cleaned up and went to dinner. The resort was all-inclusive with meals and diving. Breakfast, lunch and dinner was served buffet style and the table had several delicious "island specialty" dishes. We were not disappointed in the food!

On Sat morning, we headed out on the dive boat. 2 dives in the morning and 1 after lunch. We met a group of people who get together each year to dive in Little Cayman. They were all underwater photographers and we were lucky enough to get our picture taken off the wall. And, they also shared some beautiful photos they took during the dives.

We dove again on Sunday twice in the morning. We saw a 8-10 ft reef shark on one dive and I felt like I sucked down about 1/2 of my tank while watching him casually swim by. Very cool! I have to admit, Little Cayman diving is even better than Grand Cayman. The visibility was spectacular and the sheer wall (starts at 20 ft and goes down to 6000 ft) was absolutely amazing.

We spent Sunday afternoon out in the sun and took a short kayak trip across to Owen Island. On Monday morning, we decided to take a bike ride down to Mahogany Estates to feed the iguana. They were all over the side of the road when we went by on our mopeds but we didn't have any treats for them. This time, we brought bananas. They really enjoyed this and one even took a piece out of my hand!

All in all, it was by far one of my most favorite trips. We would never give up our beautiful Seven Mile Beach view in Grand Cayman but I hope we are able to return to visit Little Cayman each year so we can continue to enjoy the quaint and quiet life that exists on this "island that time has forgotten"...And, to explore the underwater paradise that awaits us there.

Home Sweet Home

Well, we are settled back into reality after a wonderful 5 weeks in paradise. We got into Newark last Fri to find out our flight to Buffalo was cancelled due to weather. So, we got a nice little romantic night at the Newark Courtyard Marriott! ha ha

Thankfully, we were able to get out the next morning and after 40 minutes in a holding pattern waiting for the fog to lift, we landed safely. We had a full day of running errands before we headed up to the Seneca/Niagara Casino for the Make-a-Wish gala. Rian and I have gotten involved with this wonderful foundation and this was the main fundraising event of the year. At the end of the night, they had raised $570,000!!! Wow! A very successful event and we had a really nice time.

After almost a week back in the states, I'm having to work hard to keep our Cayman trip in the front of my mind. It's slowly fading away...boo hoo.

The life of leisure continues...

I may or may not have had too many drinks last night and am feeling quite sluggish today. My friend Cheryl invited me to "ladies night" last night at a local pub where (a faux) Tom Jones was performing. I thought, why not? We had a bite to eat at my favorite Cayman haunt, Coconut Joe's, with our guys and then left them behind as we made our way down the road to The Triple Crown Pub. After a couple glasses of free champagne, Tom hit the stage. It was quite fun watching him strut his stuff up there in true "Vegas lounge" fashion. The ladies in the audience were swinging their panties around and throwing them onstage. Tom made quite a spectacle of picking them up and wiping the sweat off of his brow...A good time was had but I could've done without the headache I woke up with! I will say however, that a couple of Tom Jones' songs found their way to my ipod this afternoon. "Sexbomb" makes me want to get up and dance. ha ha

Settling in nicely...

We've had a nice first week filled with lots of activities. On Tues, my dad, Rian and I chartered a dive boat with our friend Stu and spent the afternoon diving. Did 1 deep dive (100 ft), 1 shallow dive (40-50 ft) and right after sunset, dove in for a night dive. Rian and I have done 3 dives in one day before but never all 3 in an afternoon! Needless to say, we were all pretty tired by the end of that day! All 3 dives were great but the highlight was the huge, free-swimming Green Moray Eel we saw on the 2nd dive. Very cool!

On Wed, we took a catamaran out to Stingray Sandbar for a 30 min encounter with the Stingray and then over to Rum Point, where we spent a couple hours relaxing on the beach. Rian and I have done the Stingray trip several times but didn't know they offered one with a stop at Rum Point. A neat way to do it when we have guests who have never seen either as Rum Point is about an hour and 1/2 drive around the island. Much more pleasant when you have the option of sipping a drink and sailing rather than worrying about which side of the road to drive on (left, down here!).

Thursday we spent the morning having coffee and visiting on the patio and then loaded up our snorkel stuff and went into Georgetown. Swam out at Eden Rock and snorkeled around. A great snorkel spot but when you are a diver, all you really want to do is dive down and swim around...not be confined to the surface! We had a fabulous dinner at The Wharf for our final night with my folks. Even better, Dad treated! A great way to end a nice week with the family...

A little bit of bad news however, our friends from Buffalo (who were supposed to be arriving here in 1 hour) never got out of Buffalo this morning due to the 2+ feet of snow they got yesterday/last night. Arrrghhhhhh. We got a call at 6:30am this morning saying their flight was cancelled and it doesn't look good for them to get out until Wed. Our next batch of company comes in on the 19th so hopefully they can get out on Wed or Thurs and still make it down for a week...Good ol' Buffalo...

Rough Life

As I sit here on the patio of our condo in Grand Cayman, I'm realizing how lucky and spoiled I am. This is my view as I sip my morning coffee...



Ahhhhh. The sounds of the waves hitting the beach is all I hear. Well, other than my typing fingers on the keyboard. This really is our special place and we love it! My mom and dad are here with us for a week (after spending a week here on their own). I will admit, it was a little fun to be able to kick them out of the master bedroom once we arrived...that is a first! We have friends coming down on the 2nd week and then Rian's mom and stepdad will be here for our 3rd week. We have a couple days in between company to relax with a little alone time. All in all, we will be here for 5 weeks! Now do you see why I think I'm so spoiled?

We spent yesterday lying on the beach getting some sun. Pretty relaxing and I got a good start with my tan. Actually, I got enough of a tan that I had tan lines showing with my strapless top I wore to dinner. I HATE the look of tan lines showing. A good problem to have, I suppose! I'd better wear my bandeau top today to even things out...

We are headed down to the brunch at the Westin today. It's a fabulous champagne brunch that has a spread of food like no other. Omelette stations, crepe stations, seafood buffet, etc. We went one other time and managed to sit there for 2 full hours. Needless to say, we had too much to drink and eat. The perfect definition of gluttony.

That's about it for now. I will keep things updated as we continue to enjoy our time in paradise...

Not bad at all!

Not to toot my own horn, but I'd say I did pretty well on my Oscar choices. I only missed one on the major categories but who saw Tilda Swinton's win coming? She did a great job in "Michael Clayton" but no one was buzzing about her taking home the award. Of course, unless I have a strong opinion to the contrary, I love a good surprise winner. Case in point, I felt Marion Cotillard deserved the Oscar for Best Actress and was tired of hearing all the talk about Julie Christie. When Marion's name was called on Sunday night, I was so excited for her. She was so graceful and humble about her win that you couldn't help but be happy for her. And, I will admit, I had a bit of smugness in me the next day when everyone was talking about her being the surprise win of the night...I called that one all along!

I can't be too proud though because I was beat in our Oscar contest by a guess. Rian takes the ribbon by blindly choosing "A Golden Compass" for visual effects. We didn't even see the movie! But, I will accept my defeat and move on. After all, if I wouldn't have changed my choice for Art Direction (from Sweeney Todd to Atonement)at the last minute, I would've at least tied him. I did however, also change my choice for Costume Design to "Elizabeth" after watching that film...and, it won so therefore paid off!

Here are all of my correct choices for this year's Oscars:

Best Picture: "No Country for Old Men"
Best Director: Joel & Ethan Coen, "No Country for Old Men"
Best Actor: Daniel-Day Lewis, "There Will Be Blood"
Best Actress: Marion Cotillard, "La Vie en Rose"
Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem, "No Country for Old Men"
Adapted Screenplay: "No Country for Old Men"
Original Screenplay: "Juno"
Original Score: "Atonement"
Costume: "Elizabeth"
Makeup: "La Vie en Rose"
Animated Feature: "Ratatouille"

Ok, I know that 11 out of 24 doesn't sound so great but when the others are mostly "guess" categories, I'd say I at least deserve a little kudos.

All in all, it was a good show and the 2 hour arrival special was enjoyable as usual. Gary Busey interrupting Jennifer Garner's interview was great and when he had no clue who she was, that was even better. Gotta love that!

I will say that the most entertaining part of the night was the last few minutes of the broadcast when Channel 7 accidentally broke into the feed with audio and you could clearly hear them talking. Right after the announcement of the Best Picture, you heard "I don't believe in this Oscar bulls**t but this is the best movie of the year." Someone says "What's it about?", "A guy with no expression keeps blowing up everything." ha ha. Great to hear the uncensored opinions of the news broadcasters waiting for their go ahead to do the news...

I will stop back by later this week with my Best/Worst Dressed list...

Ladies and Gentleman...

The countdown is at 7 hours...Red Carpet arrival, here we come! Oh, how I love Oscar Sunday. Last year I was on a family vacation in Maui so we enjoyed the day in the sun and then cranked up the BBQ and had a nice dinner in while watching the show. The broadcast was delayed there so it took all my strength not to cheat and check the winners on the computer. This year, I'm at home. It's 29 degrees outside and the ground is covered with snow. A perfect day to cuddle up with a blanket and enjoy the hype.

We are down to one last movie, "In the Valley of Elah" which we are just about to watch. Then, I need to sit down and finalize my picks. It was a great crop of movies this year and will be interesting to see who takes home the Oscar for Best Picture. I will be even more surprised to see who wins Original/Adapted Screenplay since I am still struggling with my own choice.

For those other movie lovers out there, enjoy this "Super Bowl of the movie world" and I'm sure I'll have something to say later this week regarding the winners and fashion choices. Ah, if only I could figure out a way to be a seat filler, I would die happy...