Oh Canada!

We went up to Canada for my cousin's wedding this weekend. It was a lot of fun, but it was exhausting, and driving that much is something I'm glad we don't do often. I found out border patrol rarely, if ever have their stamps on them, so we didn't get a Canadian stamp for going over the border. bummer. It was nice to see family and realize that I look a lot like some people in my family! Here's a few pictures of before, during and after the wedding:


We're prepping E for Halloween-cause you can't have Halloween on just ONE day!


Stopping quickly at IKEA to try out the toys. If I didn't have more will power, this would have come home, she really liked it.


She looks so tall (I mean, she is, but she just looks like a big kid to me in the pic)


Loving the icey water (come to find out, she was teething and a molar came through on Monday!)


Loving Hunterpup


I think she was giggling at one of the dogs who was playing with their chew toys


The happy newlyweds


Getting all smiley at the reception!


What? I can't hear you! My phone isn't working right!

p.s. using someone else's camera has made me realize how much more I miss mine, and how excited I am to be getting an awesome one in a few months!!!

The end!

And here's a few more random pictures. Thanks Mom and Rissy for going with us so we could have some company and "free" babysitters!!


this kid loves water and has very little fear of it. I love it!


Perfection!


just playing


Hi maummy!








This banana boat looked so fun! We are totally doing that next time we go somewhere!


Rissy reading to E


Family pic, and of course, Ellie *needs* to be somewhere else

Life is Great

Scuba!

Drew decided we needed to go scuba diving. We aren't certified, but they have this thing where you can "try out scuba diving" to see if it's something you want to pursue in the future. We spent the day learning how to scuba, practiced in the pool, and then went for a dive with an instructor. We went down 20 feet and swam around some huge coral heads. It was incredible once you figure out what you're doing!

So I'm an eager person. I had to be first to do everything in the pool (I didn't ask to be first, but the instructor felt that I *needed* to be first...whatevs!) but we all did a good job (all 3 of us!) Once we got into the ocean though, you have to take a line down to the bottom so you remember to pop those ears. Once we were down though, something happened and I just floated right to the top. I realized that you can control how deep you go with messing with your lungs. If you keep blowing out, even though you don't think there's any more air in those lungs, you'll just go deeper. It was crazy weird. Then Drew on the other hand, had the complete opposite problem. He just sunk. He had to work on floating.

Once we had everything down though (took a good 15 minutes)- it was pretty fun. I would definitely do it again.

--We weren't allowed to take pictures in the ocean due to liability reasons. Which is fine, cause I probably would have floated to the top again. hahaha guess I don't need to worry about drowning!



on the boat, getting ready to take off (I think of FB I said we were done, but I was wrong)


the tanks across from us. I don't know why I didn't take a pic of our tanks attached to our gear


playing in the pool- I remind myself of a borg


Drew in the pool...which by the way was way dirtier than the ocean...

.
cheese!

Boatswain's Turtle Farm

We took Elliecakes to the turtle farm. I had been really excited to go as well. We got to hold little turtles and touch the big ones if a staff member was around. I opted out of touching the big ones. It was a bit stinky and they didn't seem as fun to touch since they weren't as cute.

We also got to hang out while they did a feeding. They have a dry food similar to dog chow that they drop in. They feed the adult turtles (I have no idea how many hang out together, but it's a lot)- anyway, they feed them 200lbs of food, 3 times a day. Not per turtle, but just total. It was kind of gross.


This was one of the many holding tanks for the smaller turtles. They let you just go in and grab the turtles- which to me was fabulous!


awesome Nemo shot!


E LOVED the turtles. She sat and squealed with delight and wanted to touch them all, ALL over!
She also loves salt water. It was difficult to keep her out of their water, and unfortunately, we didn't always succeed. Salt water makes the germs go away, right?!?!


Checking out the adult sized tank- those guys are massive


more of the adults. There were so many---about 5-6 groups just huddling in the shade.


Soft bellies!


This is their egg laying ground. I loved the tracks they make, but most importantly, the iguana.


The littler turtles would flip their arms up and over their shells, I thought it was adorable


The egg hatchery!


E getting her salt water fix...oh boy...

....to be continued!...

Bits N Pieces

This is just a collection of a few things we did and saw on some of the more low-profile days we were there. **I also was dumb and didn't seal our water bag for our camera correctly and my camera accidentally went for swim. I can't imagine how many pictures I would have had if I hadn't ruined it. I almost cried because I loved that thing *so* much (still do!)


A huge lizard hanging out in a church parking lot - they were everywhere---on sides of roads, in turtle farms, on walls, in the grass, under cars, under tires, etc., etc., etc.


Tons of these everywhere- just abandoned half built houses


If she ever forgives me for dragging her around, I'll be a happy person! -she was really a great sport through it all though


Their teensy city called Hell


panoramic from our balcony. You could see the ocean really well to the left, just not exactly where Drew was standing to take this picture. It was quite nice though for not being specific Moritt's owners who all got the front buildings. This was pretty much as good as it got.



Bird sanctuary where we saw that duck and a bunch of turtles. hah!


The Tortuga Rum Cake factory - they had this huge sign that said, "See how our rum cake is made!" so I walk up these steps and all it is is a glass window to look in. Nice.

Welcome to the Island!

We've had a crazy busy last 2 weeks. From birthday parties, 1 year old pictures, packing and heading out for our summer vacation. We got back this afternoon and I am exhausted. I am so glad tomorrow is a day off for Drew just to get life back to normal before being Stay at home mom for awhile. :)

I think I'm going to break this trip up into a couple of posts just to keep it easy for me to talk about.

We went down to Grand Cayman for those who are wondering but have forgotten or I'm too lame to remember to tell. We stayed in East End at Moritt's Tortuga Club. It was absolutely fabulous. We came in on the tail end of the Hurricane headed toward Texas, so when we got there, it was raining. I think that was the only time it rained during the day. There were a couple nights of thunderstorms and a ton of wind, but during the day it stayed dry. It was a bit cloudy until the sun had a chance to burn the clouds away, but really, it was great because it kept the temperatures tolerable. I can't imagine the sunburns we would have had it if had been SUNNY the whole time- oh boy!!

So one of the things we did was go to Stingray sandbar. This is a *must* if you go there. These stingrays are wild, but come around the boats because they had learned long ago that sailors would drop their trash there and it was an easy meal. So these guys come out, hang out with you, and if you feed them, they act like excited puppy dogs and will literally come OUT of the water and get up on you- it was crazy awesome!!!!! I highly recommend it!

We also went to a couple other snorkeling sites- one with tons of coral, one with tons of fish, and one with lots of star fish. - all of these were pretty great in their own respects as well.




Our photographer, Polo took these first couple of pictures for us. It's considered 7 years good luck if you kiss a sting ray on the mouth! Here's to 7 years!!!


it was bright sunshiny and it made us squinty!

Goofing off on our way back to land!


Drew coming up out after picking up a starfish


This was (obviously) the stop where there were a bunch of fish- it was amazing


hanging out on the sandbar


The big ones are female and are about 3-5 feet across. The males are smaller and only get to about 2 feet across max.


One of the starfish...definitely different from the ones we get up here in Oregon!


One of the coral reefs we snorkeled through

to be continued...