Diarrhea Man

Thanks for all the birthday wishes from everyone last week. To celebrate my 43rd we all spent last Sunday exploring the east and north of the island that we haven't seen yet. The island is gorgeous and we started in Kaibo which is all the way in the north. It is a beautiful little beach with great views across north sound and not many people around. Then we went to Rum Point which is also on the north end and wandered around and had a nice lunch. The water is gorgeous and the kids had fun running on the pier. We even ran into a friend of Alex's that we had met at the kids indoor play area a few weeks earlier. Ellie had helped herself to several of the girls Dunkin donut holes back then and this time the girl helped herself to half of Alex's cookie which didn't seem to bother him. He has got the way of the world worked out pretty good for a two year old! For dinner we had take out from the Hard Rock Cafe to celebrate.

Alex has taken to wearing his mask in the bath. He keeps saying he is a diver man but it keeps coming out diarrhea. Emma and I wet ourselves as he keeps saying "Alex diarrhea, Alex diarrhea" and keep expecting the water to go brown!. He loves swimming with the mask and we have to pry it off his face when we put him to sleep.

It has been a busy week that culminated with us getting the keys to our house Friday morning, May 1. Of course there was no power when we went in that morning but it was quickly sorted. I spent all week trying to get all the requirements arranged for our move, power, water, TV and Internet. the Internet still hasn't been set up so as of tomorrow we may be silent on the digital front for a couple days. It was refreshing to see that even though the Caymans is the fifth largest financial centre in the world, it is still not always straight forward to get these everyday necessities arranged. We started moving our things in and are really looking forward to the delivery of our shipment scheduled for Monday morning. Three months of living out of suitcases will soon be done. The house is mostly furnished with sofas, beds, dining table, all appliances, and most of what you need for the kitchen. We are now sorting out what goodies we still need to make it home. All of our stuff from Muscat will not fit so we have a storage unit arranged for the extras.

Alex went on his first school field trip this week. They went to the fire station. For a little boy that just loves large vehicles, he has not been able to stop talking about the fire trucks all week. Today the TV install men were in the house setting up the satellite TV. (We will have Dish TV). Alex spent the whole morning standing next to the install man saying "man what are you doing? man what are you doing?" They were very good with Alex and did not seem too bothered.

The highlight of the week, especially for an American was to go to the law courts and see Emma admitted to the court of the Caymans. One of the named partners presented her credentials to the judge after all the pomp of the judge's entrance. I have to admit that even though I have lived through all of it, I sounded very impressive when he went through her career. The judge made a nice speech after confirming that all her documents were in order. She was already in the traditional black robe. After the judge officially admitted her to the court of the Caymans she got to put her wig on. I don't mean she has gone blond or ginger but the funny gray wig you see on all the British TV shows. As she doesn't do much work in court she won't be wearing it again soon but it was lots of fun to see. After the ceremony the judge came down from his bench to shake hands with Emma and congratulate her. He also said that she was the first person he has admitted who has practiced in Oman!

Tomorrow, Sunday, we move into our new house officially and will say goodbye to our view of the sunset from our living room across the beautiful beach. We are really excited to be able to finally settle in and get back to some normalcy. The kids are also really keen to get into the swimming pool Now that we are into our house we have the room so the officially come visit us sign is now up.