visitors: brett's parents

Before we moved and when we had just gotten here, people would mention to us that living so far from family could end up being really good for your relationships with them. They said that while you may see your family less frequently than if you lived closer, you end up spending more quality time with them. I don't think I really believed them. :) But it seems to be coming true for us so far! Back in the States, we lived close enough to family that we didn't need to spend extended time at each other's homes. We'd usually pop in for the day (or even just a meal) with my family, and we'd spend a long weekend here and there at Brett's parents' house. However, in the past seven months since we moved to Cayman, we've had family visit for several days, a week, and, just recently, Brett's parents came for almost two weeks. And it's been so much fun!

The obligatory "watching for ____'s plane at the airport!" picture. :)

It definitely seems as though we've been getting a lot more quality time with our parents while they visit. Maybe it's because we know that time together is less frequent and therefore more precious... or maybe it's because we're eating meals together for several days in a row (and there's just something about sharing a meal together, right?)... or maybe it's because we don't have as many things/people fighting for our attention. 

Showing Grandpa the fountains at Camana Bay.

I don't know what it is, but I'm thankful that it's happening. One of the hardest things to consider when we were deciding about moving to Cayman was the distance from family. We were already spoiled in that we were within a few hours of our immediate families... and having a baby just seemed to increase our desire to be near to family. We couldn't bear the thought of Joshua not having the same kind of relationship with his grandparents that we had growing up with ours. We wanted him to spend lots of time with his cousins and make memories together. It was heartbreaking, actually. 

But... we felt that God wanted us to move. We were excited for Brett to be in Pastoral Ministry, we were excited about what God was doing at Sunrise Community Church and wanted to be a part of that, and, ultimately, we wanted to be obedient to God. We remembered Jesus' words in Matthew 19:29, "And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life." 

So we moved... trusting that God would take care of us and praying that this move would be good for our family, in many ways.

Showing Grandma his favorite thing about our backyard...

...the lizards!

So seeing Joshua recognize and know his grandparents even after months of Skype-only interaction, watching his relationship with them grow even over a few days, and being able to spend un-hurried time with our parents... praise God. I am just so thankful. 

LOVED being chased by Grandpa!

Brett's parents visited in February, and we got to see prayers being answered before our eyes. :) Joshua recognized Grandma and Grandpa almost immediately (thank God for video chatting!) and was comfortable with them right away. He even stayed with them overnight while Brett and I had a quick getaway. (It was the first time I was away from Joshua for a night, and the first time Joshua has been put to bed by anyone other than Brett or I!) It was almost as if the distance had no effect!

At the Botanic Park with Grandma and Grandpa...
Little man on a mission.

So so thankful for this new home of ours, for our families coming to visit us, and for God answering our prayers. I can't wait to see how Joshua's relationships with his aunts, uncles, and cousins grow while we visit them this summer! :)

photo tour: guest room

It's been awhile since I've given you a photo tour of one of the rooms in our house. In fact, I've only given you a tour of one room... and that was almost four months ago! To be honest, I had been putting off any more photo tour posts until I had "finished" another room. I wanted to be done re-arranging furniture, hanging and re-hanging art on the walls, etc. Like I mentioned in the first (only) photo tour post, it's hard to make a fully-furnished rental feel like ours but I was going to try. And it's been harder than I thought! So I kept putting it off and putting it off... but I realized that the point of these photo tour posts (and this blog in general) is to give our friends and family back in the US a glimpse into what our normal, day-to-day life is like... and I guess that includes our un-"finished" home. :)

So... I'm going to take a deep breath, swallow my pride, and start posting pictures of our not-Pinteresty-enough-for-the-internet home for all of the internet the seven readers of this blog to see. 

We found our house on ecayTrade, which is a Craigslist-type site for the islands. When I first saw the ad, it looked way too good to be true: three bedrooms + an office, for the same price as many of the two bedroom places we had seen! And with Brett working from home, we were hoping to find something with an office. I figured there must be something glaringly wrong with it, such as no air conditioning or just really dumpy inside... but we had a friend check it out for us and she said it was great! (And it is!)

We feel so blessed to have so much space. I especially love being able to have a dedicated guest room so that we can host visitors. My mom stayed with us in January and we have Brett's parents here with us right now. It is really fun to have people stay with us in our home since we get to see so much more of them. (And Joshua loves the extra attention, too!) 

Here's a quick tour of the guest bedroom, which is on the first floor.

It kind of doubles as Joshua's "play room" a lot of days. One of my great fears about having kids was that their toys would slowly take over our home... and it's slowly coming true. So in the guest room we keep all of his books and the overflow of toys from the living room. 

The kid LOVES books. Sometimes he'll sit with me and read for 45 minutes! Often, it's the same book over and over and over again, but I'm just glad he's interested in reading. :) 

Which, I guess, shouldn't be a surprise considering how much his dad likes books. We keep Brett's overflow of books in the guest room, too. (Technically, this is his "Biography and Fiction" section... so if you come visit, you can feel free to browse the "library" in your very own room!)

This is also the part of the room that most screams "UNFINISHED!" to me... the empty white wall. One of the trickiest parts of decorating this house is that the outside walls are concrete... so it's a HUGE pain to try and hang anything on them. What I've been doing in the rest of the house is just using the nails/screws that are already in the wall - so just swapping out something they had hanging on the wall for something I brought/made. But this wall didn't have anything on it... and it has stumped me.

Here's a view from the other side of the room (I think the reflection in the mirror helps to give perspective, but the doorway out of the room is to the right of this picture.)

The room has a full bathroom connected to it, so does that mean I can call it a guest "suite"?

So that's a quick look at my very un-decorated guest room. It might not be the prettiest, but it's still functional... so come visit us! Maybe I'll rope you into helping me decorate. :)

visitors: my mom

My mom recently came to visit for a week - her first time in Cayman. It was so, so wonderful to have her here to see our new home and to get some quality time with Joshua. He warmed up to her very quickly - we were worried that he might not recognize her and would treat her as a "stranger" for the first few days, but even by the next morning they were best buds! I guess all those Skype calls and Google Hangouts have really helped him know her. :)

Brett, Joshua, and I got to the airport a little early so we could watch my mom's plane land. The Grand Cayman airport has a small deck above the airport which overlooks the runway and the pathway the travelers will walk to the airport. We also thought Joshua would like getting to see so many airplanes... and boy, were we right.

The plane he's pointing at is the one my mom flew in on.

And here she is!

Mostly, Mom just hung out with us while we did normal things - I think we even ended up at three different grocery stores throughout the course of the week! - but we did take her to do some tourist-y things.

At the Observation Tower at Camana Bay...

Standing under a palm tree in January... (When I asked her what she was excited to do while we were here, her first response after "hang out with Joshua" was "take a picture of me under a palm tree in January"... check!)

And here she is making progress on that first thing on her checklist...

We went to Spott's Beach... we didn't swim, but even just standing on the pier we could see several turtles.

And Joshua had a blast walking around in the sand.

Is there anything cuter than baby footprints in the sand??

We also visited the Turtle Farm (that was the third item on her list). No, Joshua didn't hold any turtles... but he liked seeing Brett pick them up!

We also visited the Botanic Park.

We bribed Joshua with snacks to behave while we were there. That's good parenting, right?

The Botanic Park is home to the Blue Iguana. Since it's endangered, there's a Recovery Program centered at the park. One wandered over to us and got very friendly.

Thanks for visiting us, Grandma! Come back and visit soon. :)

visitors: my dad

Last month my dad came to visit for a few days before Thanksgiving. We were so, so excited to have him here - to spend time with him, to show him around our new home, and for Joshua to get some quality Grandpa time. It had only been about three months since we left the US, but we were really excited to see family. 

Funny side note: My dad had a flight out of O'Hare the same morning that we were flying to Cayman on a one-way ticket in August. We were able to eat breakfast together in the airport and he saw us off at our gate! So his was the last familiar face we saw before we moved to Cayman, and the first one since we moved. 

It was a quick visit (Sunday afternoon to Wednesday morning) but we loved every minute of it. (Well, I guess I can't speak for Joshua who threw a fit every time we tried to eat at a restaurant... but maybe that's how he shows love? In tantrums?)

We visited the Cayman Turtle Farm one morning and tried out some restaurants, but mostly we just did a lot of this:

My dad was staying at The Westin which has beautiful beach access. So we took advantage of that quite a bit.

We loved having my dad here! Of course, the trip was way too short so we look forward to having him come back again soon!