Catching Up

I'm sure you all are sick of seeing the suishi post every time you open our blog, so finally I will catch you all up on what we've been doing.

The pictures below are from a BBQ that Del Sol 2 planned a couple weekends ago. It was a combined birthday party for David, Rosa, and Avi and everyone had been planning it for weeks. The funny thing was that only two out of seven employees showed up, even though they all pitched in part of their pay checks. Luckily, Rosa and Deanne have big families that made up for everything. We had a lot of fun with all of them- especially the adorable little black babies!

Casey is holding little Bruce Junior (father Bruce from Jamaica, mother Rosa from Trinidad) and I am holding baby Charity (father Dave and mother Samantha, both from Cayman). The term Jamaicans and Caymanians use all the time is "Baby Daddy" or "Baby Fada" since often times the parents aren't married. It's really funny how they will use it in small talk, "I been waitin for my baby fada to bring me money to pay for pre-school." The language out here is English, but there is such a mix of different slang. The craziest thing is when two Jamaicans speak Patua. At the close of this post I'll leave you with a few Patua phrases to practice.

Davian (who I kept calling Damion all day), Nicardo, and David. Don't these guys look like famous rappers or something? ( except David).

We ate under these little tin roof huts. The afternoon definitely had the Caribbean feel.

These people can really cook! We ate so much and were even sent home with some leftovers to enjoy for lunch the following day.

Isn't Deanne beautiful? She looks like an exotic model and makes me look very white. I've never really had the problem of being the whitest in the group. :) Her little baby Deandre is the cutest thing in the world.

Here he is eating a chicken right off the bone. Jamaicans sure love their barbecued chicken, even as young as seven months old!

We also celebrated David's birthday on Wednesday. We both had to work, but we managed to take a little hobeycat sailboat out during our lunch hour and we also went to one of our favorite places to eat- Copper Falls Steak House. It was delicious and I loved spending time with David. I didn't have my memory card in my camera that day unfortunately, but the sweet girl from the boat rental place took a picture and will hopefully be emailing that to us soon. So, the details of that day will come later with the picture. 

David has been working on a few projects for work. Kirk Freeport recently hired the Friedman Group to train all of their managers and introduce a new way of doing business. The first training took place in July and the follow up meetings start tomorrow. David had a ton of "homework" to do and has been making me so proud for how much effort he is putting into everything. One thing he had to do was create what is called a pride book. Basically it is just a book with pictures and instructions about the areas of the store. David has worked on this thing all weekend and has made it look so professional, but creative at the same time. I guess he misses school a lot more than I thought!

We are really looking forward to next week. A friend from work is going out of town and asked us to watch her cat. I am usually not a huge fan of cats, until I found out we are staying at her condo! She and her husband live right on one of the most beautiful beaches (Cemetery Beach- Asialene and Davis do you guys remember it?). Even though we live only a short drive from the beach and can go there any time, it will still seem like a little vacation actually living on the beach. So if all goes as planned we will be eating dinner on the balcony, reading books with the sound of the waves, and even watching a little TV!

As promised, here are a few Jamaican phrases in their genuine Patua language (imagine Sebastian's accent from the Little Mermaid or the Legendary Bob Marley as you read them)...

English: My stomach hurts.

Jamaican: Mi belly ah gripe me.

English: Girl, your acne is terrible.

Jamaican: Massi, pickney yuh face bumpy bumpy an fayva grayta eeh?

English: That man over there is missing his dentures.

Jamaican: Cooh pan dat deh mashmout bredda ova deh soh.

And of course, the most famous...

English: What's up/what's going on/how's it going

Jamaican: Wag wan, mon?

So, there you go. Now you all know how to speak like a Jamaican.

And to my family: 

We wish we could be there in Utah with everyone. I'm so jealous that everyone is there, but David and I. This might be a good time for you all to plan a time to come visit us or to plan the next Disney trip, or maybe even a Disney cruise... Tell the kids to call Auntie Sha Sha/Auntie Lina and Uncle David sometime to chat. I love hearing their cute voices over the phone. Love you all.