house guests.23

If you're a regular reader of this blog and you're really into statistics and order and accuracy, you'll notice that the title of this blog series skipped a number. My last house guest post was based on our January 2013 visitors. The following post is about my brother and his wife visiting us (for the second time) over Labor Day this year. But in between these two posts, MM and KT came for a quick visit in April when I didn't know which side was up due to my audit busy season. So quickly, here's a shot from the long lost post that should have been entitled "house guests.22":

MM // KT // NS // WH.
Bellies full from Pancake Palooza. Thanks SM!

Now back to September.

Without much advanced warning, D&K booked a trip to visit our new Cayman condo when they had some coordinated time off last month. Both of them work in the ER, and getting a coordinated string of vacation days together at the same time is considered such a luxury that they pulled the trigger and booked flights to see my parents in Florida and then us in Cayman all in a 10-day trip. I loved the last-minuteness of it all - hardly any time to wait around for them to arrive. I barely had time to buy new guest bath towels before D&K were on my doorstep! It was kinda like when you were a kid and your parents would tell you that tomorrow you got to go to the water park for the day. Not next month, not next week...tomorrow. That was the best.

We barely got a full weekend with the lovebirds during this visit, so we spent all of Sunday enjoying the beach scenery and eating local food, all while dodging the rain clouds.

N enjoying the beach that shares his name.

Smith Cove is one of the prettiest beaches on this side of the island. Instead of just white sand and blue water (which admittedly is a perfect combo without any other add-ons), Smith Cove also has these beautiful iron shore formations that make the sand and water just pop with vibrance.

It's a great place to take new snorkelers, as swimmers find fish and lobster and interesting coral formations just a few meters away from shore without having to use any advanced swimming skills.

DJP also found himself a cute little girlfriend.

Through the writing of this blog, we recently became friends with J&J, who moved to Cayman this summer with their newborn, Baby O. It's really wonderful having a baby around, especially when this one is identical twins with the Gerber Baby, she has a fabulous double-chin, and she loves the beach.

Taken with the iPod Touch 5.

After a few rain sprinkles convinced us it was time to leave the beach, we went to Da Fish Shack along George Town's waterfront for a late lunch.

I enjoyed the Caribbean-styled menu, the quiet Sunday afternoon pace, and the excellent view of the George Town harbour. The faces across the table from me were the cherry on top.

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Like I said, we didn't even have a full weekend with these two due their flight schedule, so I took a day off work on a sunny weekday to enjoy a morning on the links and catch some pool time with the bro and his girl.

Taken with the iPod Touch 5.

For whatever reason, our maintenance guy hadn't been around to do the weekly pool cleaning, so DJP took it upon himself to act as pool boy for the afternoon.

I'd give him credit for doing a good deal of work on his vacation, but then I caught him harassing the locals, so his productivity wasn't all that impressive...

video cred: DJP

I tried to get him to be a little helpful in the kitchen later as we prepared for dinner with R&M, but behind our backs, he was taking frequent dance breaks.

You don't know how little has changed over the past 20 years. 

We got him to stand still long enough to cut up some parsley.  I take what I can get around here.

Meanwhile, KP made a delicious tomato salad, unfazed by D's antics. What a girl.

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No trip to Cayman is complete without at least one or two visits to Camana Bay.

Sitting and watching the fountain on The Crescent is as mesmerizing
as watching the flames at a campfire.

For a nice, chilled out dinner, we ate at the relatively new Waterfront Urban Diner, which I find to be a great mix of North American and Caribbean flavors. The menu, with many items familiar to the American palate, offers a pretty stellar breakfast selection as well.

The kids seemed to like it.

We do love all the visitors that we've been blessed to host while living in Cayman, but D&K definitely rank up there in our list of favorites. Thanks for making the trip again, and we hope to see you in a few weeks for the new family holiday tradition of "Thanksmas"! 

xoxo ~ JSS