Banner Day at the Cabrelli Household

What's with ricotta and strawberries? Let me explain...

When we started this blog we were excited at the prospect of sharing this big scary adventure with our family and friends. We would post brilliant insights on Bahamian life and share the thrill of living on the ocean in a sun-drenched country. We would regale you all constantly with wonderful stories of doing something so very... different.

Well - as of today we have been living on Water's Edge for about 6 months and it hasn't exactly turned out that way. After the initial nightmare of our actual move and our adjustment to the island style, it turns out that we live a very quiet life. Apart from missing Emily we are nicely settled in to our routines of daily walks, swims and (now that Emily is gone) accidental 10 hour working days - it's very easy to sit in an office overlooking the ocean, working away, and not realize that it is all of a sudden 7:00pm and you are still sitting in front of the computer. There isn't much of a rush to get home and relax since we are already there, and already doing it.

So it with that in mind that I request you not laugh at our Banner Day. The plan was to get up early and walk to the grocery store for breakfast. Well early turned in to Sunday morning late and with the European Championship Final looming and some work to do this morning, we decided to drive instead. The grocery stores only open for a few hours on Sunday morning and are always packed. This morning was no exception and we were also treated to the store sound system blasting out the crazy sermon of an evangelical preacher. I won't share with you the details of today's sermon as it is not appropriate for public reading but let me just tell you that Bahamians are not shy about expressing their views on sexuality.

I digress - we walked in to the produce section and a heavenly sight stood before me. It was a tray of recently delivered strawberries and they weren't moldy. Let me repeat that... they were not moldy. A very unusual and exciting find that turned our average day in to a day that we could spend looking forward to strawberries for desert. I will tell you that I was unable to create the planned guacamole, as unfortunately the $2.99 tiny Haas avocados were moldy... oh well. But wait, the day got amazingly better... ricotta cheese! They had ricotta cheese! The only other time we have managed ricotta cheese is when we drove all the way across the island to the tiny gourmet market and bought a teeny tiny tub for $9.00.

So our banner day has begun - a drive, a swim, scoring at the grocery store, the European Championship Final and later tonight, with a glass of wine in hand, strawberries and ricotta cheese out on the patio overlooking the ocean.

Calm down. Please try and control your excitement.

She's Off!

Well Emily has had her fun week with Nanny & Grandad and she's of on her trip across America! Tom has started a really nice looking blog (man sometimes I wish I was a Maccy) to track their adventures. It's here...

Tom's Blog

Through the Lens

Lisa here... one of my favorite bloggers Hallie, who blogs at From the Rubber Room is graciously hosting a photography class on her blog. One look at her photos on her site and you will want to do it too. The first assignment was to "read your camera manual" which I did last night. And... surprise, surprise actually learned quite a few things I didn't know.

Now I am still very much of the belief that you can know everything in the world about photography but if you don't have Hallie's or Keith's eye you won't be able to take good pictures. But feeling inspired by my new knowledge I decided to tackle the Desert Rose. This is my favorite plant in out garden. It has these bare, vulnerable, silver branches that randomly and sparingly sprout these gorgeous flowers from the very tip.

Here's my go... I know I didn't do it justice but I certainly did better than I would have yesterday thanks to Hallie's first lesson. I can't wait for more.

New Family Members

We have a pretty diverse household here at Water's Edge. A Scotsman, an English woman, an American girl, a big fat black cat, a skinny fierce tabby cat, quite a few guest lizards, the occasional ant invasion, the resident stingrays... and now we can apparently add sparrows to our household tally. A pair of sparrows have very decidely chosen our patio plam tree as their new home and they are making it very, very clear. Even as I sit here typing I hear them calling to me through the open french doors. "We are here, we are here!" They have been perching on the roof of the bar, swinging in the palm leaves and sitting on the sea wall shouting for about 3 days. Well, OK one of them flies around shouting while the other works extremly hard on building a nest - flying in every few minutes with another branch or piece of useful fluff. Guess which one is the man and which one is the women. We only hope they don't fly low enough for toothless Ow to gum them to death.

Ch...ch....ch...changes....

Turn and face the strange!

Well when things happen around here it seems they happen very quickly. It feels as though we only just moved here and now Emily is off for her summer Holidays. She left on Friday and laughed at Lisa when she cried at the airport. How did super emotional Lisa end up with such a confident and independent child? Now Emily is safely ensconced with Nanny and Grandad and is having a grand time swimming in their pool and showing off her new swimming skills, sharing her amazing end of year school report, as well as watching too much television and being completely pampered - just her style. Emily's Dad has promised some sort of blog or accesible record of their summer adventures, so we are looking forward to that.

The business is changing too. Mark and Lisa are off to China next month to get product for Emily Rose. This is a big step for us and we are really thrilled to be moving forward sooner than we had expected - but an opportunity arose that we just couldn't pass up. Lisa's Dad is already scoping business spaces nearby after Lisa's request of this morning (he doesn't waste any time)! Michelle is trying to adjust to her new schedule and we are asking her to adjust yet again. Michelle and Ryan take it all in stride and I think may be secretly thrilled to have their house back :-)

We'll keep you updated. Ch...ch....changes!

I'm Lame - Michelle's Not...

I must admit our posting have been pretty lame over the last few weeks. Business has been absorbing most of our time and Emily's end of year activities the rest of it.

I'm stealing today. My sister Michelle wrote a post for the Emily Rose business blog, Raising American Girls, and I so enjoyed it I wanted to share it with everyone who has been bored to death by our posts over the last few weeks but are polite enough to continue reading :-).

You can read it here.