M*E*X*I*C*O.......Ole

Mari is off to Merida, Mexico for BYU Study Abroad. Merida is in the Yucatan and is 4 hours from Cancun. She will be doing spring semester going to a university in Merida and living with a local family. I've already received an email from her saying how HOT it is there. She said it's like Cayman in the summer....HOT and MUGGY. Unfortunately she can't go to class in a swimsuit...bummer. She is linguistically gifted and this study abroad will give her the confidence she needs to speak spanish. Ole...

the joys of traveling...

Air travel used to be simple. I understand when the weather is bad and you can't fly. I understand spring break....cuz we were just enjoying ours in Cayman. We had MAJOR difficulty getting home. Everything collided into what would be considered "the perfect storm". On our flight from Cayman to JFK, we had to do several "holding patterns" over the Atlantic because the weather was un-landable in JFK. We didn't experience any turbulence because we stayed out of the mess. But we did have a few other issues come up. First, we needed fuel and second,our plane crew"s work day was soon expiring. Two things that are huge in air travel. So Boston was kind and took us in--first sitting on the tarmac for an unmentionable amount of time and then making it difficult to leave. Delta was VERY accommodating and found us hotel rooms 45 minutes out of the city. Why? um...something called the Boston Marathon! The next morning back at the airport, the red coat Delta team worked very hard for 1.5 hours trying to get us home. It basically went something like this..."being a platinum medallion should count for something"...and so that is how we got seats on an oversold and overbooked direct flight to Salt Lake City. Once we landed in Salt Lake City, we had been deemed "Delta Distress". We had a car come and take us to the Radisson Hotel in downtown Salt Lake and food vouchers to boot. Back at the airport the next morning, the Delta folks just couldn't apologize enough (hey, how about a free round trip ticket to Cayman?). After Krispy Kreme doughnuts, we were ready to board our plane to Jackson....arriving just one day later than we should have!

We did a lot of waiting around...thank goodness for i-pods and we caught up on some much needed sleep.

Hooray for Crowne Rooms where we can get snacks and take a cat-nap!

saying goodbye

On our last evening in Cayman, we rode our bikes out to Starfish Point to watch the sunset. No matter how many times we have done this it is still magical and special.

Kirk and Melanie

Maya and Sage

my studmuffin
bye Cayman....see ya in August!

B*I*R*T*H*D*A*Y*S

MAYA turned "Sweet Sixteen" on April 15th !!!

we are usually in Cayman for spring break when her birthday rolls around...

we made this fun pirate cake to celebrate the birthdays...

three Roney cousins celebrated their birthdays together...Brolin turned 13 on April 13th, Maya turned "sweet sixteen" on April 15th and Avery celebrated "sweet sixteen" on April 17th....HAPPY BIRTHDAY COUSINS!

no party is complete until everyone is sporting a moustache!!


here are the proud daddies singing to their kids...

ahoy maties....cute little pinata that we broke on the beach

Discovery Cove

My nephew Brolin turned 13 on April 13th...his GOLDEN birthday. For his birthday, he went and had a dolphin experience at Discovery Cove here in Cayman. We boated across the sound to Discovery Cove and shared in Brolin's experience.


there was also a "jungle path" with exotic birds in the trees

my nephew Avery was the bird guy

we watched one of the trainers work with the dolphins

this was part of the experience...Brolin was too far away from us to get any real photos of him interacting with the dolphins...but if you want to see some SWEET pics of Brolin with the dolphins just check out fb
Happy Birthday Brolin...thanks for letting us share in your once in a lifetime birthday experience!!!

Private Party

The other day we decided to go and watch the sunset out on the water in the boat. Once we got out of our bay, we decided we'd go over to Stingray City and watch it from there. It was AWESOME as we were the only people out there to party with the stingrays.

all the kids had a great time stroking them as they all came over to get some food...but alas, we brought no food...but it still didn't stop them from checking us out



and yes...the sunset was GORGEOUS

Cousins + Cayman= FUN

it's amazing how entertaining a simple beach ball can be


this wasn't the smartest idea to shove a billion cousins in a kayak....

but it sure was fun to watch them all dump out !

I'm not sure why they all thought this was so fun...I think they were comparing their tans

and of course...the lovely (and handsome) contestants!
WE LOVE CAYMAN!!!!

Camana Bay

The other day, we took the girls to Camana Bay by boat. Camana Bay is an all enclosed little community where you can live, work and play. There are businesses, shops, restaurants and living space. They also have the nicest movie theater on the island. While boating through the canal we saw several iguanas perched in the foliage.

There was an international squash tournament being put on at Camana Bay. They had erected a glass squash court with stadium seating on three sides. We actually saw some of the players practicing while we were there. What is squash? Well...to me it looks like some sort of version of racquetball.

We wanted to show the girls the tower at Camana Bay. It's four stories high and we had the girls walk all the way to the top. On the walls of the tower, there is an INCREDIBLE mosiac of underwater life. It is mind boggling to think someone put all these teeny-tiny tiles on this huge space. If you ever go to Camana Bay...you MUST go and see this!




After discovering the Lily Pulitzer store, we had to stop for photos right outside in their cute patio furniture!

good news

wanna guess?

the job

Kirk has been busy trimming in the garden since we got to Cayman. The job was to pull all the trimmings to the lot next door and put them in a pile. Looks like the trimmings were some fun toys for these girls!

AHHHHHHHH..........

no socks, no shoes...sand beneath my toes...must be Cayman! you betcha!

and loads of BEAUTIFUL sunsets...another day in paradise
hope you're enjoying a wonderful spring break too!