Our spoiled dog

I decided to dedicate this blog to Limerick. While it doesn't involve Bermuda, I thought people must know what has progressed with our dog.

Limerick has become completely spoiled and I think it may be because I am home with her all day. While I didn't think little scraps of food (she licks out my yogurt container every morning) or daily long walks would make much of a difference, something has changed.

Limerick has refused to drink out of her dog bowl. She whines at the door to go out and then begs to drink water out of my plastic watering can. For the past two weeks she hasn't touched her water bowl in the house! When I go out to water my plants, she gets extremely excited. Limerick has also decided to become a finicky eater and sometimes doesn't touch her food all day. When this happens, she usually goes out to eat some grass and then throws it all up. Ryan's new plan has been to put shredded cheddar cheese in her food dish so she of course will eat every last bit of her food. So now we have to feed her cheese in her dog bowl and water out of a watering can!

Now this last story is the best. Please picture it as I write. Last night Ryan decided to cut Limerick's nails. It turned into a mini-pedicure. Limerick's nails were breaking off and had rough edges so Ryan used my nail file to smooth out every last nail! Next we will be using lotions and nail polish...what have we turned into!

Anyways, our dog is happy and we are glad for a great companion. I have thought that maybe Ceasar Millan, "The Dog Whisperer" might need to come in and get us back on track.

Until next time...

Giant Toads, Ants & Lizards

Bermuda is getting significantly warmer this week. I can tell summer is on its way! Since the weather is changing, we feel the creatures may be getting more active. Last night Ryan saw his first giant Bermuda toad (also know as the cane toad). He had to go back outside after bringing the dog in to see it again with a flashlight. They get huge and were brought to the island to eat cockroaches. Luckily for me, I haven't seen a live cockroach yet! We sprayed the perimeter of our house today for ants, spiders, and cockroaches. Hopefully that will keep the little pests out. Actually I shouldn't say little, the cockroaches get HUGE here!

The tree frogs are also out and noisy and we hear them "whistle" all night long. It is actually a pleasant noise and we don't mind at all. We are also starting to see more lizards also called anoles. They change colors and have been brown and green when we have seen them.

I have attached a funny picture of our bedroom over the weekend. We have ordered curtains, but they are back ordered, so Ryan made a make-shift sun shade for us over the weekend. The umbrella works nicely to keep the morning sun out of our eyes. We were getting sick of waking up every morning by 7am when the sun beat down right on our faces. Hopefully in the future we will only use the umbrella for some shade at the beach.

We went out for lunch yesterday at Mickey's at Elbow Beach Resort. It is right on the beach. It was so nice to sit outside and eat lunch. We felt like tourists! The food was decent but of course expensive. We spent $40 on a burger, a tuna sandwich, and two glasses of tap water! Of course food in general is expensive here. After charting our grocery and restaurant expenses, I found out that we spent $1,000 on food in the month of April! That is crazy for two people!

I loved my cardio boot camp classes this week. The class is an hour 3 days a week and we workout at the Arboretum. The Arboretum is a beautiful area for picnics, walking your dog, or just hanging out. I love that we can workout outside almost everyday. It hasn't rained hard here in days which is good for scooter riding, but I can tell the grass is getting very dry!

Ryan takes his actuary exam on May 12th! After that is over, hopefully we will get out more and sight see around the island. More to come soon!

Until next time...

I feel the need to write

I have neglected the blog for over a week now. I do have a good excuse as I was in Minneapolis visiting family and friends. I decided to surprise my parents and arrived in Minnesota on Wednesday of last week. We had a great time shopping, eating, and relaxing.

I did enjoy the luxury of taking long showers and using a dish washer. Meanwhile, Ryan ran out of water and had to call a water truck. We had to get 3 loads of water costing us a whopping $210! We do know that we won't have to get water every month or even every other month, so we can handle the cost.

Unfortunately, I don't have an update on anything new in Bermuda. Hopefully there will be more to come this week. I did start a 3 night a week boot camp exercise class this week and am volunteering at the Centre on Philanthropy. Hopefully these activities will keep me busy and will allow me to meet some new people.

Until next time...

Crazy Ducks

I have included the first video on my blog. Today Ryan and I went to Paget Marsh which is a 25 acre nature reserve. There wasn't too much to see, but there were some crazy ducks. After some research, I think they were Muscovy Ducks. We brought some bread and as soon as the ducks heard the crinkle of the bag, they were right at our feet. We couldn't get rid of them. They followed us all along the bridge into the nature reserve.

You can watch the video to see Ryan feeding these crazy ducks.

Until next time...

The Waving Bermuda Man..

I have been meaning to tell you all about the waving Bermuda man. When I used to take Ryan to work every day, I would see the same man at the roundabout on the way into town. Through the thick rush hour traffic you could see a happy Bermudian man waving and kissing to everyone that rode by. At first Ryan and I thought this man was crazy. After some research, we have found that Johnny Barnes is famous. Yes, you are famous if you have your own Wikipedia page.

He is so famous that he even has his own statue. The statue is life size and looks just like Johnny waving at all the people. He is out at the same roundabout every Monday-Friday from 3:45am-10:00am. He is retired and has found joy in sending some morning cheer to people on their way to work. If only I could find something so fulfilling!

Until next time...

Summer is on its way...

Ryan and I had a good Easter weekend. We went to Horseshoe Bay on Good Friday to see the kites. People make intricate kites out of tissue paper. There was of course the typical plastic kites as well. The weather was beautiful, but there wasn't much of a breeze, so it was difficult to get the kites real high. The beach was busy and it was fun to see so many people out. The posted picture is from the beach on Friday.

I found out that it is a Good Friday tradition to eat Hot Cross Buns. I guess I thought Hot Cross Buns was a song I used to play on my recorder during elementary school. Anyone else remember the song? Anyways, people eat these buns with fish cakes. It seems weird because Hot Cross Buns have raisins or currants and sometimes icing. Sweet buns with fish doesn't seem like a great combo. Ryan decided to relate it to putting meat in jello. You just don't do it!

Limerick officially has the darkest suntan of the family. She has been laying outside almost every day and loves laying directly in the sun. Her belly is now brown and tan. We decided to google this to see if it was truly a suntan, and an interesting yahoo post came up. It recommended that we use dog sunscreen. I am not sold on that yet.

Tourist season is fast approaching Bermuda. There was a cruise ship in the bay over the weekend. It was neat to see such a huge ship so close to town. The resorts and restaurants are also starting to open up their outdoor seating on the beaches. It will be just as much fun for us as it will for the tourists to see what Bermuda is like in full tourism season. Summer will be fun.

Until next time...

Easter is For Kite Flying...

This weekend we went to a hat party. The party was a fundraiser for the Mariners Rugby Club. While we both decided that we would not be joining the rugby club, we did meet some nice people that gave us other ideas of what is fun on the island.

We went for a stroll on Warwick Long Bay this weekend. The sand was pink. While I had been told that the sand is pink in Bermuda, Warwick Long Bay Beach was the first beach where I could really see the pink in the sand. According to an article by Keith Archibald Forbes, "Beaches begin with tiny single-celled animals, Foraminifera, in particular, homotrema rubrum - or forams - dark red skeletal animals that grow profusely on the underside of Bermuda's coral reefs. When the red forms die, the skeletons plummet to the ocean floor. Wave action erodes the forams. They become mixed with other debris on the seabed such as the white shells of clams, snails and sea urchins. It is at that time that Bermuda's white sand takes on its characteristic pink hue." The beach was beautiful and I am told that many locals go there and it doesn't get crazy busy in the summer like some of the other beaches. The attached picture was from the beach.

Limerick and I have been continuing our walks. Today the roosters and hens were out in full force. While Limerick has always been intrigued by them, today was quite the spectacle. The birds usually hang out in a field below the trail. Since someone was mowing the grass in the field, they were hanging out on the railway trail. Well if you can picture this, I was trying to take pictures of the hens and their babies. They had at least 10-12 babies each and they were so cute. In my effort for a photo opportunity, Limerick stuck her nose a little to close and the hen was not happy. She ballooned up twice her size and chased us a good ways down the trail. We will be staying away. For anyone that went to Iowa State, it reminded me of being chased by Sir Lancelot and Elaine!

Everyone around Bermuda has been making their kites for Good Friday. It is tradition to fly kites at Horseshoe Bay in the afternoon of Good Friday. People make intricate kites or you can buy them at about any store in town. Yesterday we even saw someone selling kites with Obama's face painted on them. While I was tempted, this year Ryan and I will not be the two white Americans flying Obama kites on the beach. We actually haven't bought a kite yet, but will go down to the beach to see it all.

I am still staining our patio table and six chairs. We bought high quality marine stain and have given it three coats in order to protect it from the salt, wind, and rain on the island. What a pain it has been, but it looks great and will hopefully hold up through the elements.

Until next time...