Keeping up with the Kruithofs

Bonfire, Rum Point, Sunshine Grill - 4th of July weekend

Hello everybody. Brent here. Katie has been asking me for months to write another blog post. I believe the last blog post I wrote was in October... I guess I am due for another one. You could probably tell it was me by the title of the post. Katie is too classy to reference the Kardashians in her posts.

Since this is Brent, I will start off the post with a picture of the Cincinnati Reds napkins that Katie's sister Amy was so kind to send us in a care package. These napkins were the perfect fit for a cook-out and bonfire at Jenn and Nate's apartment in West Bay. Friends from our small group and work were invited to have some cheeseburgers and then have a bonfire on the beach, and who can eat cheeseburgers without napkins?


This bonfire was attended by Jenn's younger sister, Esther and her friend Micah and Leah. Lucky for us, Micah can play the guitar and has a great voice. No bonfire on the beach is complete without music and s'mores. Check and check!


Nate played host by chopping up a couple of old shipping pallets to use for firewood, digging a pit in the sand for the fire, and even carving some s'more sticks with his machete. After throwing a little lighter fluid on the pallets, we had ourselves the second official beach bonfire in about a month. Prior to Cayman I've never had a beach bonfire but always wanted one because it seems so summer-y and American. It's like something you would see in a Levi's commercial or a Kenny Chesney music video. It lived up to my expectations.


Micah playing the guitar and serenading the whole gang


I was surprised to learn that our friends from the UK (namely, Ed and Dan) had never had s'mores before! Of course, we had to remedy this and the Americans all took pleasure in instructing them on the correct way to make a s'more. They were a hit, especially when you add peanut butter to the equation. Here is Ed taking his first bite.


The great thing about bonfires is that sometimes you talk, sometimes you tell jokes, sometimes you tell campfire stories, but it's also okay to sit in silence and just look at the fire. We did a lot of everything, including eating s'mores.


I hope the video below works. If not, you can watch it on youtube. It's probably gone viral by now. Katie shot all of the video and the pictures with her beloved camera and did all of the video editing. She is so talented and beautiful. I did help pick the song though.

Holidays in the Caymans are very different from holidays in the States. The first Monday of July is "Constitution Day" in Cayman which just so happened to be the 4th of July. It was fun to celebrate an US holiday by getting a day off of work. Katie had been dying to go back to Rum Point since we went with my parents in May. We packed a picnic lunch and loaded up the car for the long hike out to the beach. I brought my beach hat, and we also discovered that a 1996 Honda CR-V comes standard with a folding table tucked away in the trunk. Who knew? We took advantage of our new found table and ate some PB&J, apples, and Cheez-its outside of Rum Point.

We decided to save a buck by getting smoothies instead of rum drinks this time. It was still nice to sip the cold drink on the hammocks and watch the locals enjoying the beautiful weather on this beautiful island.


When we decided to come to Cayman, I told Katie I was going to be more of a reader. It took me 7 months to finish my first book - The Runaway Jury by John Gresham. I think I will finish Tony Dungy's autobiography in about a month. That's like a 700% improvement, not bad. Also, I would recommend the book to a friend - it's really good.


The evening of Independence day (US)/Constitution day (CI), we decided to go to our favorite place on the island, Sunshine Grill. We used the gift card that my parents bought for us when they were here in May.


Katie got her usual, the old fashioned cheeseburger with only sweet potato fries.


I got the crispy mahi mahi tacos with the fried mushrooms, jalapenos, and onion straws. I would highly recommend this to a friend. It was a wonderful date night.


The 4th of July weekend was pretty different to the way that we would have celebrated in the States, but, as you can tell, it was wonderful!

Thanks for reading. I love you all!

special thanks to Katie for uploading these pictures for me.