Congratulations Sean and Claire!

Exchanging vows on the beach - what a beautiful place...

So the entire point of our trip to Grand Cayman was to attend and to celebrate the marriage of our friends Sean and Claire. And celebrate we did. Claire (and Sean too...) planned a beautiful wedding with a ceremony on the beach at the Grand Cayman Beach Suites. Fortunately the weather decided to cooperate and it turned out more than lovely.


The ceremony was set up right on the beach, and as I said the weather cooperated so nicely!


Virginia made a lovely bridesmaid :D


Claire being supported by her parents.




Claire had asked me if I would do one of the readings for their ceremony, specifically if I would do Shakespeare's Sonnet 116. I was delighted to be a part of their wedding and was excited for the challenge of reading Shakespeare in front of people. I practiced for a couple of weeks and was able to recite it without using my card, but I will admit that the nerves kind of made my arms go numb!


Josh was also asked to do a reading, he read (quite well!) The Promise by Eileen Rafter.


Josh read so well that Claire gave a great big smile - Isn't she beautiful!


After the ceremony finished, they signed all of the wedding papers and Felipe acted as one of the witnesses. I don't think I saw Claire stop smiling at any point after this!


With tears and hugs, Claire and Sean greet the wedding party and their families.


Claire has a lovely moment with her mom and dad.


After the ceremony they had cocktails on the roof of the hotel - the view was amazing! I think this was the one nice photo Felipe and I got of the two of us together. Thanks for taking the pic Mike!

Sean and Claire were originally going to have their entire reception on the roof, however they had to decide earlier in the day if they would move it to an indoor location. The decision had to be made by noon, and they decided not to risk it (it is the rainy season in Grand Cayman) and so they had it at a golf club affiliated with the hotel. And it was a great decision on their part, because just as the dancing was getting started there was a very heavy downpour!

The reception was beautiful and intimate with the fifty or so wedding guests. Claire's dad made a lovely speech, and the couple were so welcoming and excited to share the evening with all of their family and friends. And then the dancing started! And let me tell you, there was some pretty fantastic dancing happening there! Everyone had a blast, there wasn't a cool spot in the place! (well except for the air conditioned bathrooms...thank god for those little breaks!).


Here is the group photo of the "EY Contingent". The group of current and former EY-ers that came for the wedding...a pretty good representation I would say!


Post wedding hanging out at the bar.

After the reception ended, we all went back to the bridal party's hotel and had a few more drinks at the bar (and many continued on and had a "few" more drinks on the roof). It was a really fun evening with a bunch of great friends. I think we all owe a big thanks to Sean and Claire for picking such a great place for their wedding. It was so great to be able to spend so much fun time with the group in such an exotic locale. A far cry from the streets of Manhattan! We walked along the beach to go back to the hotel, and you could see far off in the distance, over the sea, great big flashes of lightening. There was no thunder, so it was very quiet, with just the sound of the waves and the sand beneath our bare feet. I couldn't help but think how nice it would be if that were our usual commute home after hanging out with friends, instead of that walk up ninth avenue...

Thank you Claire and thank you Sean for throwing such an awesome party, and mostly, Congratulations on your marriage - I am sure you will have so many happy and wonderful years together!

Grand Cayman - Friday

The view of the beach from the walkway of our hotel.

Friday was the day of the wedding (pictures of that to follow in another post). We spent the beginning part of the day at the beach and the pool. We had some sun that day too! Above you see the beach from the walkway from our hotel. The hotel was not directly on the beach, but it was only a 50 foot walkway from the pool area to the beach (not bad at all!)


A better view of the walk. The night we walked back late (I think it was Thursday night) we encountered a giant iguana in the dark on that path...Felipe tried to tell me it was a "banana leaf", but firstly there are no banana trees around there, secondly it was in the shape of an iguana, and thirdly it was not there the next morning!


It was dark, but I bet it was this guy's bigger, badder older brother. Photo by Felipe.


A nice view of the beach, not a bad place to lounge!


Mike approves!

The guys decided it would be awesome fun to play ultimate frisbee on the beach (in the hot afternoon sun). I am not very good at throwing anythings, so I offered to be the official cheer leader and photographer. Here they are plotting their strategy.



Action shots!





Looks like Kevin took a face plant into the sand...


Cooling off in the pool afterwards. I believe a few Caybrews were ordered as well!

I have a bunch of video from the ultimate frisbee which I still need to process. I will likely make a video post at the end of the picture posts. So come back for that. Also, the next post will have a few pics from the wedding festivities. Mike...I may be borrowing a few of your photos so that my non-ex-EY friends can see them too. Thanks in advance :D

Grand Cayman - Wednesday Night and Thursday

Group photo at Cimboco - dinner on the first night.

We had such a great time in Grand Cayman for Sean and Claire's wedding, what a terrific idea of having the wedding there! Not only was it a beautiful place, but we had a really great group of people to hang out with, as many of us have been friends for some time and we have a large group (at any given time there was 10-15 of us). Above is the only photo that I got from the first afternoon/evening that we were on the island. We had dinner at a little restaurant called Cimboco that was surprisingly able to accommodate our 8 people in record time. From left to right you have Mike, Felipe, Justin, Virginia, Josh, Jackie and Kevin.

The next day we all slept in a bit, had breakfast together at the hotel and spent some time at the beach in the morning. It was overcast, but the weather was nice and it was even good to not be in the blazing sun.

Thursday afternoon was wonderful as well because Sean and Claire had invited us and several others (wedding party and family) to go on a boat ride out to Stingray City for snorkeling and stingrays.

from google maps. Essentially it is a sandbar out in the middle of the sea between the two ends of the island.


Mike's photo of us on the boat (thanks Mike for letting me "borrow" it!)


Another of Mike's photos, taken by the boat's photographer - us with one of the GIANT sting rays.


On the boat, look at that water!!!


Some of the boats that anchor out there with groups of people. The sting rays are so placid (as long as you don't antagonize them!) because they are so used to having people around them.


Josh and Virginia with Claire, the beaming bride.


Josh and Virginia on the boat on the way back.


Sarah (Claire's best friend and Maid of Honor) and Claire on the boat on the way back.

We had such a great time on the boat trip, and really enjoyed the sting rays (I touched one, but did not hold it), and the snorkeling was amazing - so many fish and corals!

The rest of the day we went back to the hotel and cleaned up, met for dinner at a really terrific restaurant called Deckers and then met everyone at Sean and Claire's hotel for welcome cocktails. It was a truly enjoyable day!

Sand and Surf...Time to Relax

New posts are on their way - I've been a bit occupied with vacation and my mom's visit. In the meanwhile, sit back and relax to the wonderful sounds of the surf on Seven Mile Beach where we just were last week.

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to two wonderful dads! (an all the other dad's out there) We're so lucky to have had these two great guys in our lives and continue to enjoy all that they've taught us. Wishing we could be in Spain to celebrate Father's day with Primitivo and missing Dad a lot...

An Evening with Friends

The Guys playing pool at Bar Nine

Yesterday we went out to dinner with some friends to celebrate Virginia's 30th birthday (Yay! Happy Birthday Virginia!) and had a really nice dinner at Becco. The food there is delicious and super reasonably priced - no wonder Josh and Virginia love it so much!

After Becco we went to a bar up Ninth avenue a ways, where Mike was waiting for us. The guys had a nice time playing pool (see the above photo with Josh, Mike and Felipe) while the rest of us relaxed and chatted on the huge couches they have in the back. It was a very enjoyable evening.


Felipe, Virginia and Josh


Josh showing off his fancy behind-the-back moves (he did make the shot!)


Mike taking a shot


Josh on another shot. Felipe was more a spectator/fan - didn't play but encouraged/heckled Mike and Josh.

Grace's Graduation - Videos

This is a video of all of the Soldiers exiting the auditorium together, you can hear Grace's Drill Sergeant Gonzales calling cadence.


Grace and her friend showing off.

Grace's Graduation - Fort Sill, Oklahoma

Grace is super hugged by Mom after the Family Day presentation.

I left Wednesday to go to Fort Sill Oklahoma to see my younger sister Grace Graduate from basic training. Mom and Mariam and I met at the airport in Dallas and flew in to Oklahoma City together. Thursday morning there was a brief program for the families, with skits of what the soldiers in training had been doing each week.


Here they are demonstrating how they prepared to go into the gas chamber.

After all of the skits the soldiers were released for the day to spend with their families. This mostly involved eating and picture taking. Grace's "Battle Buddy" Savard joined us for the two family days since his family was unable to make it to Oklahoma from Rhode Island. We had a lot of fun with the two of them.


Grace and Savard (first name is Frank) in the car on our way off the base.

As I said before, the day involved going out for a nice lunch, driving around the beautiful city of Lawton, OK and getting more food and coffee (this is missed on base) and red bull (I've never seen people drink so much red bull, but apparently the soldiers in training are very sleep deprived!). We had to have the two of them back at the base by 8:00pm.

The next day there was the Graduation ceremony at the McMahon Auditorium in Lawton. We arrived and all of the soldiers were already seated in the auditorium. They had strict instructions not to acknowledge the presence of anyone, looking only straight ahead. Something Grace later said was very strange and zoo-like because so many people were taking pictures.


Grace with her fellow C Battery graduates.


Captain David Leibovich, Battery Commander


Grace's Drill Sergeants - Gonzalez (left) and Alaniz (right)

After the ceremony we took the mandatory gajillion photos. Here you can see Grace next to her Drill Sergeant Gonzalez.



A nice photo of Private Frank Savard











Later Grace took us back to her base and showed us around a bit. We got to see her bay (where they sleep) and some of the grounds where they do physical training. Including below, the Treadwell Tower.




Finally saying goodbye to mom and the rest of us....it had to end sometime.


She then fell in to formation with her battery.


One more shot of her Drill Sergeant - I swear this guy is right out of a movie!


And that concludes Private First Class Grace Sergenian's graduation from basic training. She's now off to Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas for 16 weeks of Advanced training. Congratulations Grace!