grand cayman

My "are you kidding me" face.  Very attractive.

Growing up on the west coast, I had always lusted after the crystal clear, light blue waters of the Caribbean that I saw in magazines.  Like lots of Californians, I had been to Hawaii a bunch of times, but the Caribbean seemed so EXOTIC and so much BLUER.  Then I moved to the east coast, and started to think that "The Islands" weren't all they were cracked up to be.  So many people told me that outside of the resorts, the islands are quite poor.  I'm the type of person who likes to explore and likes to get out of the resorts and hotels, so I began to second guess my childhood dream.  On the flip side, so many east coasters lusted after Hawaii.  The water is always bluer on the other side I guess!!

With a few vaca days to kill, P and I were looking for someplace warm, relaxing, and easy.  The Caribbean seemed to be the logical choice.  So we looked around for flights and hotels, and chose the cheapest that seemed desirable and had the best flight choices - Grand Cayman.  The only way I know about this island is from the book, The Firm.  It's where rich people go to keep their monies!

Turns out, it IS really rich.  We saw giant mansions and expensive cars.  We also saw plenty of kids (pre-teens/teenagers) dining out on their own at expensive restaurants.  We figured they were the offspring of rich people there to visit their monies.  In general though, people, including locals, seemed really nice and content.

And there was plenty to do!  We went snorkeling everyday, went to Stingray City, and P went scuba diving.  There are 365 dive spots around Grand Cayman to choose from.  I also have residual safari tendencies so took some pictures of the local wildlife.

The water really is blue and clear around Grand Cayman.  We had been to Puerto Rico a few years ago, where I was hoping to see the famed waters, but it was a deep blue just like anywhere else.  The waters around Grand Cayman were what I had imagined, so beautiful and warm - not WARM like around the equator, or COLD like around the states, but nice and cool.  It's all I was hoping for from the Caribbean island.

We had one near disaster with our rented Kia Picanto, which would have left us marooned on the other side of the island.  In short, our remote key wasn't working, and without it, we couldn't drive the car.  THAT'S RIGHT.  The physical key itself won't work if the remote isn't working.  If you use the physical key, the car alarm goes off, and it goes into "safe" mode.  The engine won't turn on.  I googled this, and it turns out this is a common problem with Kia's.  Kia designed a car that won't work independently of a battery-powered remote.  This is extremely short-sighted.  Luckily, we eventually got the key working and drove it right back to the Hertz rental and exchanged the car.  Hertz will be seeing a nice review on yelp or tripadvisor for making the process so easy for us.  Having driven another Kia rental, the Soul, you know, the car that hamsters drive in the commercial, I know that I will never ever buy a Kia for myself!  Fortunately, the car trouble didn't force us to lose too much vacation time!

Thanks, Grand Cayman, for a nice vacation!

CHAMPIONS

I tried my hand at photographing action.  Not so good, but I managed to get a few that are... decent.  So much BLURRINESS.  This is my Zogsports volleyball team, Some Spike It Hot, competing in the playoffs.  We eventually won the whole tournament, which means our league fees go to the charity of our choice, Animal Haven!  For the puppies and the kitties!!

izzy

Everyone enjoys the sun. :)

lasagna

This lasagna was made almost entirely from scratch.  It took almost the whole afternoon.  P ground dark meat chicken with a meat grinder, combined it with sweet italian sausage (ok, not homemade), and made a sauce out of it.  We then made our own pasta, which is simply a combination of egg and 00 flour, kneaded, and passed through the kitchenaid pasta making attachment.  We layered sauce, pasta sheet, spinach, ricotta, and then topped it all off with mozzarella (also not homemade).

I've made lasagna in the past with no-cook noodles and regular dry noodles, but homemade is by far the best.  It came out soft, rich, and flavorful.  I savored each bite.

These pictures were taken immediately after the lasagna came out of the oven, which is why everything is so gooey.  Not the best representation of the layers, but I couldn't wait for things to cool down before shoving it in my mouth.