The Brandes Family

Okay, so I think you should know we were gone to the Cayman Islands for the past week. At first we went down to Cayman Brac to my MIL's retreat Barefoot and Breaking Free. It was a good retreat with an awesome speaker and singer- Renee Swope and Babbie Mason. My parents were able to come down and go with us. It was great to have everyone there. The whole group left on Monday to return to "the real world." My parents took Warren back with them to TN. Tyler, Benjamin and I were able to stay for a little bit longer. My favorite memory is watching the hermit crabs. I am fascinated with them anyway (Warren is too, he tried to eat one!). After dinner Monday night we all went out to see them. They were under a couple of sea grape trees- eating the grapes that were on the ground. We saw a group that were all on top of each other and went to examine the scene. After we cleared some away, we found out that two of them were fighting over an empty shell. Tyler got one and the empty shell and cleared out the rest. We watched in amazement as to what happened next. The crab found the shell was empty and thoroughly inspected every inch of that shell. He made sure there were no cracks or holes in it. He flipped it over and did the same. He stuck his legs up in it to see if there was anything living in it. Then, just when he thought it was perfect, he switched to the new shell while holding on to the old shell. When he was comfortable enough he let go of his old shell and went on his merry little way. It was sooooo cool to watch. We continued to play Hermit Crab Moving Up for about 45 more minutes. It was so neat to see the other side of the crabs.

On Tuesday morning we went to Grand Cayman. We stayed in Tyler's grandparents town home. On Wednesday we went to the Turtle Farm. It was totally destroyed in 2004 with Hurricane Ivan, so now they have totally redone it. It was really fun and interesting. We got to hold and touch turtles! They have also built a predator reef with sharks, an aviary, and iguanas. We also got to see some very tiny baby hatchlings. I really thought they were fake, but they started moving! Later that day we went down in a submarine to 104 feet. It was neat to see what it looks like down there (having a husband that LOVES to scuba dive, and I am not so sure about it). We saw tons of fish and more turtles. We returned on the flight today; now back to the real world for us! Here's some pics.