date night

This is bizarre, but for the first time since arriving at Grand Cayman, last weekend I went on a date - for dinner - with NS - alone! No friends or family. (Okay, we ran into our chiropractor towards the end of dinner, but that was it.) It's not that I don't normally love the company, and we both usually maintain a "the more the merrier" attitude. But after six (six!) months here, it was nice to have the boy to myself. Besides, I had just gotten my hair cut that morning with James at Focus Salon, and when a girl gets her quarterly cut and blow-out, date night is on.

Before our date, we started out at Calico Jack's to watch the sunset with some kitesurfing friends who had spent all day on the water mastering new tricks. Calico's is perfectly positioned on the west side of Grand Cayman, right on Seven Mile public beach.  Love this view:

Dinner was at Deckers - a new restaurant for us. We'd heard mixed reviews but needed to try it for ourselves.

I am pleased to report that we really enjoyed our experience. Along with great service and ambiance, Deckers features Hi Tide - a live band - on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. The music had a relaxing, wind-down feel to it - just the kind of thing to make the week's tension melt away.

The food was quite tasty. Deckers offers all-you-can-eat lobster on Tuesday and Saturday nights, so of course one of us had to try it. NS took the plunge.

I'm always in the mood for fish, so I (characteristically) ordered the Cajun-seasoned mahi mahi - delicious, and not too spicy.

While waiting for our food, I played with the camera using my prime lens - a fun little thing, but 50mm makes for an interesting close-up...

That's the equivalent of zoomed out, folks.

Sometimes it's just best to get a hand from the wait staff.

I have to say that I do enjoy using the prime; it's less clunky and handles low-lighting situations so much better than my 18-200 lens, so I'm always keen to use it in restaurants and in the evenings. Besides, KK uses a 50mm almost exclusively, and her photos are spectacular.

After dinner, we took the short drive down the road to the Ritz just to browse around, spy on wedding parties, and enjoy the ambiance of the full moon-lit beach.

       

Between the perpetual Christmas lights and the perfectly placed palm trees, at every turn the Ritz provides another photo op.

And the magnificence of this place; I'll just never be over it...

In another experiment with the prime, we confirmed that taking a self portrait of two people sitting on the beach while trying to capture both hands and feet makes for a very blurry undertaking...

Well. At least my button is in focus.

Date night was everything I needed it to be. A break from the madness of March (not to be confused with March madness).  A chance to test out a new menu.  An evening with this guy.

To outsiders, I'm sure it seems like we are perpetually on vacation, that we have all the free time in the world, and that we get to spend every waking minute with each other. Although we do live in a vacation hot spot, and we take advantage of our amazing surroundings, and (even our busy season) weekends are pretty sweet, we still have jobs that require a lot of our time and attention. We still have housework and errands and normal responsibilities. And as is the case for many couples, life and all its distractions start to creep up on you, and before you know it, you've barely seen each other in a week's time. 

So I'm thankful for an official date night, keeping us connected and centered, happy and in love. (Sorry to end on a mushy note, folks, but isn't that what a date night is all about?!)  Here's to more (frequent) date nights in Grand Cayman with NS, my best friend.