This past Christmas was great for so many reasons. One is that there were quite a few gift giving and receiving occasions (December 19, 23, 24, 25, and 31). Jenelle and I went to my parents’ house on the 23rd. We all got lots of cool stuff, some of which I captured on digital film. Here’s the album.
Hangin’ with the parents
Christmas at Gail’s
On Saturday, December 19, Jenelle and I traveled to Lodi to celebrate “Isaacson Christmas” with all of dad’s family. Aunt Gail and Uncle Mike hosted an amazing party. Andrew, Ella, and Lily made the trip from Minnesota. Also joining us were Dan & Sandy from Ohio, who picked up Katie and her boyfriend, Chris, in Chicago on the way. Todd, my cousin from the Houston area, had flown up to Wisconsin for the holidays, so he joined us as well, along with Uncle Jerry. Grandpa Milt’s “lady-friend”, Jeri, was also able to make it.
We celebrated with great food, Christmas songs, and lots of catching up with family from near and far. Here’s a movie that shows everyone there (except for Uncle Mike and Jeri — sorry about that!)
We had lots of fun, and time flew by while we there. Gail & Mike were nice enough to let Mom, Dad, Andrew, Ella, Lily, Jenelle and me spend the night. It was a wonderful trip!
The Little Red Car
There should be lots more posts here in the coming days, as I begin to post Christmas photo albums and share some of the great family times we had. But first, I’d like to tell you about Jenelle’s 1997 Toyota Corolla.
Jenelle bought the Corolla from a college friend while she was at Northwestern. We’ve been impressed with how little maintenance has been required to keep it running. It now has over 100,000 miles on it, and we don’t have any plans to retire it.
At the end of last year, this car survived three separate mishaps, each of which occurred because of a male with the last name “Isaacson”:
1) While Jenelle and I were in Oregon, the Corolla was parked in my parents’ driveway. At some point during the trip, my brother, who was in town visiting for the holidays, accidentally backed in to it, though it was barely a gentle bump. There may be a tiny scratch on the front bumper, but the car has so many love marks of this kind that I don’t really notice anymore.
2) The morning of our return from Oregon, my dad had the wonderful thought of warming up the car for us so that it would be ready to drive home. This was especially nice, considering that we had to take three flights during the course of the night to get home (PDX-SEA, SEA-MSP, MSP-MKE). Unfortunately, he locked the keys in the car with the engine running. My uncle, a locksmith, came over to fix it within a couple of hours, before we got back from the airport. The car was certainly nice and warm when we got in. 🙂
3) The last mistake can be traced to none other than ME. I must have been tired after all that traveling, because I left the lights on when I parked the car in the driveway. It usually beeps at the driver when this is done, but I must not have heard it. So, the battery was dead. Thankfully, my brother came over later with a battery charger that my dad has in the garage. After a few hours of charging, the car ran as good as new.
Here’s to all the years you served us well, Corolla. And many, many more.
Welcome back from Grand Cayman
We got back from the Cayman Islands on Tuesday the 8th. When I arrived at work on Wednesday the 9th, I was delighted to discover that my colleagues had decorated my cube. It’s not easy to get a slightly-filled plastic wading pool and real sandcastles in an office environment, but they did it. Nice work! 🙂
The “Just Married” sign is left over from a colleague down the hall whose wedding was about a month ago.
Cayman Islands, Day 4
In case you missed the earlier entries:
Day 1 Day 2 Day 3
Here’s the photo album for our last full day in the Cayman Islands.
We once again started our day with free breakfast at the hotel. After that, it was off to the south for our kayaking/snorkeling adventure! There were a number of things that made this particular outing so great:
1) There were only six “customers” + the guide. Smaller groups make for a better time.
2) The guide was well-informed. He knew the best places to go, and he told us a lot about the history of the island and the various wildlife. He picked up different things off the sea floor and let us hold them (sea cucumbers, conch shells, and even a sea urchin — but I didn’t dare touch that!)
3) The underwater view was AMAZING — there was one bed of coral that had tons of fish and a couple of lobsters around it. We got plenty of photos, and even some video.
After lunch, we went to a beach on the northwest part of the island for more snorkeling. There weren’t that many fish at first, but then a whole group of them seemed to be following us around! As best we could tell, they must have thought the camera was food. The sequence of events progressed something like this:
1) Ben takes pictures.
2) Fish swarm around Ben.
3) Ben hands the camera to Jenelle to get a shot of the fish all around Ben.
4) Fish swarm around Jenelle.
5) Jenelle hands camera back to Ben.
6) Back to step one.
We did get some great shots!
After a quick stop back at the hotel, we went back to the beach to relax and watch the sun set. What a view.
In the evening, we visited a shopping mall. It looked very upscale, but to our surprise, a lot of the buildings were still vacant! It must be pretty new. In any case, the mall was well-decorated with Christmas lights, which made it fun to stroll around. We’re not big on souvenirs anyways. 🙂
We left Grand Cayman the next morning, and after a slight delay in Miami because of weather at O’Hare, we eventually took off, arrived in Chicago, and took a bus back home — just in time for all the snow.
Merry Christmas!
Here’s our 2009 Christmas letter. We’re keeping it short and sweet this year.
I’ll have details from the last day of our Cayman Islands trip posted soon!
Cayman Islands, Day 3
Not as many pictures from today, but here’s the album.
Sunday, December 6
I ran the marathon in the morning. I’ll eventually have a recap posted on the running log, but that’s not done yet. To summarize, it was a bit hot for running, but I still managed a solid finish in 4:04:28. The race started at 5 a.m., so my post-race meal was breakfast shortly after 9 a.m.! Jenelle got lots of video in addition to the photos that are in the album.
In the afternoon and evening, we drove around Grand Cayman, exploring the east and northern ends of the island. I had enough energy left to do a tiny bit of snorkeling, but it wasn’t nearly as awesome as our snorkeling adventures on Saturday (which I posted about earlier) and our kayaking/snorkeling adventures on Monday (which I’ll post about soon).
Cayman Islands, Day 2
You can browse the photo album in a new window while reading the recap.
Saturday, December 5
I got up a bit early (but not too early) on Saturday morning to run two miles. This is standard day-before-the-marathon practice for me, especially when traveling. Feeling how hot it was, even before 8 a.m., confirmed that I would need to make an extra effort to stay cool and hydrated at the race on Sunday. It also gave me a chance to check out the area near our hotel.
Later that morning, Jenelle and I went out for a walk after enjoying free continental breakfast. We ventured to the beach across the street as well as a nearby grocery store.
Here’s the perfect time to talk about money in the Cayman Islands. All prices are given in Cayman Island dollars (which I’ll abbreviate as $CI from now on). The exchange rate between $CI and the US dollar is fixed at $1 CI = $1.25 US. The prices of everything are elevated, which is what you’d expect for an island in the Caribbean, but because of the exchange rate, it’s more expensive than you realize. For example, a combo meal at a Wendy’s cost $6.70. That’s a little more that we’d pay in the states. However, that’s $6.70 CI, which works out to about $8.37 US. If I paid for this with a US $20 bill, I’d get $9.30 CI back. How’s that for heavy math? 🙂
After returning to the hotel with our groceries, we boarded a bus for the Marriott (a few miles to the south) to pick up my race number. More on that in tomorrow’s entry. After lunch at Wendy’s, we went back to the hotel to relax a little bit before our main activity of the day.
SNORKELING! We booked a boat tour at Captain Marvin’s Watersports. There were three separate stops on the tour. We left around 1 p.m. and made our way to Stingray City, about a half hour boat ride off shore. The water was not even shoulder-deep, and string rays swam all around us. We were scared at first, but when we noticed all the people mingling about with the rays, we were pretty sure it was safe. Thanks to our waterproof camera, we got some great shots of the rays and of us holding them. Guides instructed us to kiss the ray to get seven years good luck. 🙂
The next two stops were both snorkeling places — Barrier Reef and Coral Gardens. Both of these gave us ample opportunties to don our own snorkels (which I bought before our honeymoon six years ago) and swim with the fishies. It was pretty neat, but little did I know that more exciting snorkeling was in store for us later on the trip.
Between the boat trip and dinner, we decided to go rent a car for the remainder of our trip. It would make things a lot easier for us, as Jenelle would need to easily get around while I was running the race on Sunday. We took the car to Breezes by the Bay, a restaurant in George Town (the closest thing to “downtown” in Grand Cayman), for the pre-race pasta party. We ended up sitting with a couple from Chicago, both of whom were running the half marathon. Another interesting note was that the brand of butter was “Wisconsin Gold”. A little taste of home.
We took it easy the rest of the night, as we would be getting up very early the next day.
Our Cayman Islands Adventure
Yesterday, we returned from our vacation in the Cayman Islands. My hope is that, every few days, I will post about each big event that happened during our trip. Here we go!
Friday, December 4: Getting There
We used our frequent flier miles to book travel from O’Hare to Grand Cayman. The journey involved two intermediate stops — one in Nashville, and one in Miami. The first flight went perfectly. The second flight made us a bit anxious, as we had to wait on a somewhat hot and stuffy plane for several minutes while they got a ramp in place. Then we had to board a bus to the terminal. As if that wasn’t enough, we had to board a tram-type vehicle to go to another concourse to catch our flight to Grand Cayman. Boarding had just started when we arrived. Whew! Our third flight had no problems at all. Yay! We made it!
We boarded a bus to our hotel (Sunshine Suites Resort). Check-in was quick and easy. We got a GREAT deal on our hotel. For four nights, we paid $632, which included free breakfast, free internet access, and airport transportation. In addition, since we booked using an American Express card, we received two $100 gift checks — essentially the same as cash. That works out to about $108 a night. Had we stayed elsewhere, it would have probably cost us over $250 a night, and it might not have included all the amenities. Our room was beautiful — it certainly did not feel like we were skimping.
After dinner at the Sunshine Grill (on the resort property), we did some simple planning of the days ahead, and got a great night’s sleep.
This picture was actually taken on Saturday morning, but it’s from just outside our hotel room.
Bright Red & Green
We put our lights up over the weekend. The biggest additions from last year are the red and green lights on each side of the garage and the icicle lights above our bedroom window. It was quite fun being up high on an extension ladder. 🙂
