Grand Cayman Adventure, Day 4: Turtle Farm, Beach and Stingray City

We went back to the beach - this time with Joseph's life vest thank goodness - and swam like fish in the ocean. Jake and I made a "Joseph" sandwich, which Joseph just thought was hilarious!


After we got tired of swimming, the bucket brigade took to patrolling the beach.

We visited the Turtle Farm. Joseph was very excited about the opportunity to touch a turtle.
Kris and I visited the turtle farm years ago - at least 8 years ago - and it was a bunch of concrete tubs. We thought it was a conservation facility, however it turns out that they process and sell the turtle meat. It has now been reborn as Botswain Bay, and includes a swimming lagoon, a snorkeling experience, and a nature trail. In addition to the large concrete tubs where the turtles live until they become burgers!

The lagoon was nice, there was a waterfall that you could climb under then jump off of. All the other kids loved it, but Joseph just thought they were crazy and safely climbed back down!


Later that evening, we took our final boat ride to Stingray City, where you can actually swim with sting rays! Joseph and David soaked up the last bit of sun before we headed home.


We got to the sandbar, and Joseph put on his "scuba diver feet" and got ready to dive in.

The sting rays were HUGE and they were all over everyone!


And although Joseph looks absolutely terrified in this picture, touching the sting rays is one of his favorite things to talk about from vacation.


After our daring sting ray adventure, we headed back home as the sunset.

Grand Cayman Adventure, Day 3: Margaritaville, Hell and Dinghy rides

We woke up bright and early and went on another walk.
Poor Jake and Joseph got so tired! We had to keep finding big rocks to sit down and rest on.
Then we went swimming some more in the pool with Riley.


After Joseph's nap, we went to Margarita-ville (Mommy's FAVORITE restaurant) for lunch.

Joseph usually loves the sharks at Margaritaville, but this time he wouldn't get near it! Jake and Grande posed for a picture though.






This Margaritaville had a water slide.
Usually little kids aren't allowed, but they were able to make an exception for us if I went down with him.

Grande waited at the bottom to help catch Joseph. Turns out, the water slide went a lot faster than any of us expected. I'm not sure which of the three of us was the most scared!

After visiting Margaritaville we headed over to Hell, Grand Cayman where we sent postcards to the only people whose addresses we have memorized - Mamoo and Papa. We then went out and looked at the hell rocks. About this time the milkshakes from Margaritaville kicked in and Joseph and Jake raised a little hell of their own!



We got back to the house and went swimming. For the first time EVER Joseph got his hair wet and did not melt down like a snowman in July! He actually loved it! We threw him and threw him for hours. We were all exhausted, but Joseph just kept on laughing.


We finally ended the day with a sunset dinghy ride. It was beautiful. We tried to catch a fish, but the only thing biting were "weedfish". For those of you who aren't familiar with that breed, they look remarkably similar to a piece of sea grass.

After this adventourus day, we ALL slept well!

Grand Cayman Adventure, Day 2: Swimming, Sand and Lobster?

We woke up bright and early our first day in Grand Cayman. Joseph, Jake and I went for an early morning walk before it got too hot. We saw lots of crows. Jake found this wonderful palm branch that he used to help shade us from the sun.

We went swimming to cool off. Riley loves to float around the pool on the raft, much to Joseph's delight.

Then we headed to the beach. The current was kind of rough, but Joseph loved the waves!

We came home for lunch, and Joseph took a nice long nap. You may remember that our luggage didn't arrive with us, so I had been thriftily using the few diapers I had tucked away in our carry-on bag. I had actually put Joseph down to nap in his very last diaper, not sure what I was going to do when he woke up. While he was sleeping, Marty and I ran to the airport to try and find my luggage. Of course as soon as we left, the luggage was delivered to the house. But at least it was there!

After Joseph's nap, we played in the pool some more, and Joseph and Jake morphed into bucket heads.

Jake and Grande caught a lobster -Joseph was so excited when he got to eat it for dinner. Gross!

Before dinner, we headed out on the boat and went over to the Ritz for a drink.

We just barely made it under the bridge.

Joseph and Jake enjoyed fruity drinks (as did the rest of us, but we weren't as cute).

And they posed in front of Grande's boat.

And then enjoyed a quiet ride home.

Grand Cayman Adventure: Day 1, Going to Cayman

Our day started out bright and early. Joseph and I got to the airport at 6 am! In plenty of time for our 8:15 am flight.

We had breakfast at Pascal's at the airport. What a treat! Joseph entertained me and the rest of the termianl by making a bacon tongue. (Bacon tongues are a trick that his Daddy taught him on our cruise, much to my dismay).

We got to our flight in plenty of time, and boarded right on schedule. There was a little delay, but then we pulled away from the gate and got into line to take off. We were the next flight to depart, when they called us back to the gate. This little old lady had boarded the wrong plane, and when she went to get off, her bag spilled all over the aisle.

The TSA had to sweep the plane in order to ensure our security. It was quite an operation. We all had to deplane and take our bags off with us. A whole team of people boarded the plane wearing heavy plastic gloves and carrying some sort of scanner detector thing. Several police were present and interviewed the entire crew about what they witnessed. I went straight to the counter to see if I could get rebooked on a later flight from Miami to Grand Cayman, since I could tell this would be taking awhile and we would miss our 12:30 connection. They weren't able to rebook us, since we hadn't actually missed our flight. They were confident that we'd be able to get on the 3:30 flight once we landed in Miami.

We finally got to reboard the plane. By this time, I had to pee pretty dang badly. I instructed Joseph to sit in his seat and not get up while I went to use the bathroom. As soon as I sat down on the comode, I hear over the loud speaker "Andrews, please report to the front on the plane immediately." I just about died! Surely they understood that parents traveling alone couldn't take their kids to the bathroom with them! Those bathrooms are so small, Joseph wouldn't even fit in there with me. I pictured myself being hauled off in handcuffs for child abadonment!

I tore out of the bathroom and back up the aisle; luckily Joseph was still sitting quietly in our seats. A flight attendant rushed up and told me that we had been rebooked on a direct flight, but we only had 15 minutes to get to the International Concourse (from the very end of the A gate). And, they had to get our stroller out from underneath the plane.

I loaded Joseph up and tore through the airport. I walked up just as they were calling the final boarding.

The gate agent smiled and said she had a surprise for me. I was really confused, but then I looked at my boarding pass, and they had upgraded us to first class!

We had an awesome flight! Joseph laid back and fell asleep before we even took off. I had a nice cocktail to start my trip off right, and we left the country in style.

We finally got to Grand Cayman, but our bags didn't. Luckily, I planned ahead and brought our bathing suits in our carry on bags.

We got to the house, and Grande took us on a boat ride to Rum Point. Joseph sat right up in the drivers seat and took it all in.

Joseph loved Grande's big white boat. In fact, every morning since this ride, when I asked him what he's dreamed about, its Grande's big white boat.


When we got to Rum Point, the restaurant and bar were closed, but we managed to take a photo of Jake with the giant painted Iguana. (Joseph wouldn't get near it!).

We then headed over to Caibo. Jake (6) and I played volleyball against David (11) and Joseph. Sadly, David won. He actually killed us! He was pretty excited about it until I reminded him that he beat a short person and an old person.

We ate chicken fingers until the mosquitos came out, then headed back home for a good night's rest.