Botanic Garden- Grand Cayman

Every weekend Joel and I have been trying to be tourists in our own city so that we can try to cure our "rock fever" and see new things.  It is hard when you live on a small island, life very quickly gets monotonous.  But with great friends and a good sense of humor, you can make the best of the place that you live!  I will share a few more pics of our other "adventures" but for now I thought I would share our day trip to the botanic gardens.  It really exceeded our expectation.  We enjoyed ourselves and spent much longer than we had thought wandering the paths and enjoying the scenery.  It was hot, but not too hot that we minded.  I think even Olive enjoyed herself.  Here are the pics!

G and G Cooper visit

My parents have been here several times, I think I did a blog on one of my dad's trips, but it seems like most of the time they end up helping us move or it rains (sorry mom) so this was the first trip that they really got to have fun and see Cayman.  We did a lot while they were here, boat, beach, lots of yummy dinners out so they can now say they had a nice trip here!  Here are a few pics of everything we did while they were here....

I think we have the most pictures from our boat trip to stingray city and the rum point.  We had a great day out on the boat  It was beautiful!

Joel and Carlos, heading to stingray city!

Mom enjoying the ride.

Olive and I skipped the stingrays but we watched from the boat!

Ok, Olive was braver than me and actually got it.

Stingray!

Dad with a stingray!

Olive trying out Joel's snorkel.

Posing with the stingray.

and with Olive

Watching safely from the boat.

Done swimming.

Starfish point.

Olive liked the starfish!

Family pic!

Stopping for lunch.

Hey guys, I am hungry!

Lunch with grandpa, pizza yum!

Staying cool in the shade.

Someone had too much fun!

Getting off the boat, what a fun day!

Some of the other things we did included sitting on our back porch every night.  The temp was nice and cool so it was perfect sitting out!

Before Olive went to bed.

We also had lots of yummy dinners out, and also lots of happy hours!

Just chatting at happy hour.

Grandpa and Grandma even watched Olive one night so Joel and I could go out to dinner.  We love having a night off!  Grandpa liked to make up his own stories though to go with the bedtime books.  I think Olive was starting to catch on : )

Almost time for bed!

We spent a ton of time at the beach, we bought Olive some beach toys and had fun with them.  I think I had the most fun, Olive really just enjoys eating the sand at this point.  Yuck.

Building sandcastles.

Chatting with grandpa.

We also had a really nice lunch at a friend of my dad's house.  We stayed after and enjoyed the pool.

Waiting to eat.

Happy hour!

Looks just like her dad.

Beach with gma!

What a fun trip!  I love it when we have visitors because it feels like we are on vacation too!

Our (very small!) garden

If you follow me on instagram (@jandjlissy) you may have seen a few pics of us clearing out and planting the small garden on the back porch.  I wanted to share a little update, and some pics!  I know, pics of plants really are exciting ;).
A few weeks back Joel and I cleaned out our garden and hit the plant nursery so we could start growing our own veggies and herbs.  So far our plants seem to be doing really well, no veggies yet but it looks like we may get some soon!  I have a friend here who said as soon as I get a cucumber we will have a party and all try it to celebrate.  We must be bored here to celebrate a cucumber but  it would be the first I have ever grown!

Joel at work

When we were clearing out we found someone living in our garden...yes it is a giant crab!

Signs to remember what I planted!

Little miss helper, enjoying the shade.

Joel, my manly hubby, also built me a potting/serving bench for the porch.  It will be great for entertaining and looks so cute with my herbs and succulents.

Finished!

One of the problems here is that I have had a few run-ins with the iguanas... they like to nibble on my plants!  But Joel built a make-shift wall with extra tile around the main garden to deter them.  They don't seem to go after the plants in pots, just the ones in the ground.  At the local grocery store they sell iguana repellant...something I never thought I would need in life!  Hopefully I will have an update soon on some veggies!