Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Cayman Islands? Yes please.

Dave and I had the privilege of going, yet again, on a wonderful trip.  This time we went to Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands.  It was so beautiful there.  I wish I had taken more pictures of the water, but I was too busy working on my tan to take pics.  We had a wonderful trip.  We are so lucky that Dave works so hard, and that AFLAC rewards us with all these trips.  It has been a really great experience and it rewards us with much needed alone time.  We love those kiddos but it's still nice to not have to herd everyone everywhere.  

The kids keep asking us when they get to go...my answer is never.  Ok maybe not never but it'll definitely be a while before they get to go anywhere foreign, besides Canada, and even then I still need to get them passports.  I should probably do this soon since we only live 2 -3 hours from the border.  

While we were in the Caymans, we went around the Island.  We even got to drive thru HELL on our way back to the hotel after the turtle farm.  It was pretty nice, surprisingly, a little warm.  Anyway I'll get to that.  

The first day was travel, or I guess I should say night was travel, we took a red eye to Charlotte, NC and had a lovely 4 hour layover.  Then our next flight was to Grand Cayman.  It amazes me how they fly these big planes onto these little Islands, and when we lived in Arkansas we had to take small planes to get anywhere.  Arkansas is huge compared.  Anyway, I'm not a good traveler.  So when we finally got to Grand Cayman, and were awaiting our luggage, it wasn't there.

What??  Yep no luggage in GC.  What they were doing in NC the whole 4 hours we were there I don't know but ours bags never got on the plane.  Fortunately we were one of the first ones to realize it and got to the service desk before the other 25 people on our plane lined up behind us.  Apparently an entire car of luggage didn't get put on the plane.  They later delivered it to our hotel for us. 

Dave and I were smart or possibly had jinxed ourselves, because we had swimsuits and a change of clothes on our carry-ons.  Yay us.  Because it was humid.  Anyway after lunch and a nap we were ready for dinner.  I think that's all we did was eat, sleep, and sweat on the beach.  Ok we swam a little and Dave went golfing.  Dave also went swimming with the stingrays.  I don't do boats, so I laid on the beach and read my books. 

We decided that if we were going to go that far we needed to stay at least an extra day.  So we talked our friends the Streetman's into staying too.  So here is what we did our last day without the rest of the AFLAC West Territory State Managers.  

We went to the turtle farms.  It was cool to see the turtles and a little sad too, because it turns out they are breeding them to eat.  So all of the turtles you see will one day be someones turtle steak or soup.  


Dave holding up a friend.  They were so funny when you held them.  They would start to flap their arms like they were flying.  They would also hold onto you as you can see it doing to Dave's hand.  


Her is another one a little smaller.  They had different tanks for all the turtles.  They were separated by age.  There is also a breeding pond.


A baby baby.  So very cute.  They were just swimming around in a bin.  There were about 6 or so of them.  Very soft shells, compared to the older ones.  The older ones also had algae and stuff growing on them.  Kind of gross.


Here I am holding a baby.  It's true everything baby is cute.  I don't care what you say.

Dave having a baby turtle sandwich.  Ok not really but look how tiny they are compared to the 500 pound adult turtles.


Here are some of the adult turtles.  They are in the breeding pond, but not they aren't doing anything naughty.  They were climbing all over each other trying to get out of the pond.  It was crazy.  It's like they knew they were going to be dinner sometime.


Here is a little bit closer look at the adults.  you can see all the yucky stuff on their shells.  They really were amazing to see.  I can't imagine what it would be like to see them in the ocean.

Here I am with the Mauri and Damon.  I can't even tell you what the cannon was for, but it looked cool so we took a picture.


My sweetheart and a couple of new friends.  The Tortuca Rum Pirates.  We were making our way around town.  One of the main desserts there was rum cake.  Everyone said it was delicious.  I didn't have any.  I prefer chocolate.  Or Key lime pie, which was fabulous there.  

When we went to the turtle farm we decided to take a "local bus"  which is basically a big van that honks at you and if you nod they will stop and pick you up wherever you are.  So we decided to try out one of those, but they have bus routes they need to stay on so we drove all over GC and got to see some of the Island we wouldn't have visited otherwise.  That is when we drove thru HELL.  I have to do it in caps because I think it's funny.  While driving thru HELL the driver was talking to a lady and I can't tell you what they said.  It sounded very Jamaica-ish.  Anyway we made it back to the hotel and had a lovely dinner.  At least I think I did.  We ate so much food that all the nights are one big blur.  

We did go to the movies on Sunday because the Island shuts down for the most part because of the Sabbath.  While we were there I noticed a sign that said they won't play any R rated movies on Sundays.  I thought that was interesting.    There was also a sign at the theater that told you who could see what movie.  It made a lot of sense.   It said G - Bring the family, PG - Might want to stay with your kids, PG-13 - might want to think about what kids can see it and stay with them.  R - no kids unless you are with them, and NC-17 - Leave your kids at home.  

What a fun trip, and the kiddos had a blast as usual hanging with Grandma and Grandpa.  The only thing they wanted to know was what we brought them.  

Oh and just so you know we went end of March beginning of April.  See how behind I am on everything?  I still have to post about Cancun...