Birthday in Grenada!

I haven't updated in quite a while... I have been really busy, I've started babysitting a few days a week for a family & there's Limes & pool day & my sweet husband & my friend Chris is having a baby (maybe today!!) & it was my birthday & I've been building a website (not for a purpose really... it's just so much fun & I love doing it so I made a website! someday soon I'll share it.... ) and then there is another obsession that recently entered my life......... Dexter. dun dun dunnnn
I can't say that I suggest the show to others -mainly for violence, nudity, and language reasons....... but other than that, it's amazing! A friend gave me the first 3 seasons to watch and I've been hooked.. every evening I can be found staring into my computer doing 1 of 3 things... covering my eyes because something scary is going on, rolling my eyes are dexter's stupid sister, or laughing b/c it's so clever.

so anyway.......... this past Tuesday I had the pleasure of celebrating my 23rd Birthday in paradise.
The day started out with a surprise on my computer, Lee left a note and a bracelet we had saw in the mall for me :)  We also had a funny moment the day before when I came home from the store with a bag of Sunchips (b/c we don't buy chips often b/c they're expensive) and 2 LLBs and I said "Look what I got us for my birthday!!" and Lee said...... "are you serious" and he goes to his closet and pulls out a bag of Sunchips and Mt Dew! hahaha he knows me so well! :) So we had lots of chips and pop!!
Lee had class & lab all day Tuesday so in the morning I went to Grand Anse Beach with Amber & Sarah (another Sarah.lol) and then we had lunch at the Owl with Michelle, Alfonso, Sonia, and Adriana.... and during lunch there was a 22 degree halo that formed around the sun!! it was incredible! Lunch was so fun and delicious and my friends here are so sweet.. they made me cards and brought a flower and bought me lunch :)

After lunch and a trip to the store I went to Adriana's because she baked me a cake!! It was the first cake she had ever made! It was so sweet of her because otherwise I would not have had cake at all!

Afterward I went home to get ready to spend time with Lee after his classes and I found another surprise on my computer!  When he came home for lunch he left a necklace I pointed out to him a few weeks before at the mall hanging on the corner of  my laptop :)

We went down to Spiceland Mall to get smoothies!!  Unfortunately I decided to try something new and ended up not liking it, Sour Sop -yuck and Lee got grapefruit... so we ended up switching.  We drank our smoothies in the field next to the mall where some local club teams were playing cricket.  I don't know anything about cricket, but it was fun to watch for a while.

We headed over to Grand Anse Beach, which is just across the street with plans to take a walk and watch the sunset... however, so after getting on the beach I realized my camera battery was dead and I really wanted to take pictures.... so we hopped on a bus and came home to get my spare battery and ended up watching the sunset from campus, which was beautiful!  Lee was so sweet even though I knew he was thoroughly frustrated with having to go home to get the battery... but it was my birthday!  We then got BACK on a bus to go to La Boulangerie for dinner.  Luckily it was a Tuesday so buses were running very frequently and we only traveled in about a 2 mile radius.

a flower Lee picked for me

It was very busy, but so fun and so memorable - and my first 'married' birthday! Hopefully Lee and I have many many many more birthdays together... but I only have 1 more in Grenada.

Eating out in Grenada!

this week since Lee's parents were here we got to eat out a lot and try a lot of restaurants we had never been to.... which isn't saying much considering we hadn't been out to eat really at all!
so I thought I'd give a little review of what I thought about each. and the pictures I took of the food!

La Chateau - It's the place on the corner before the round houses... we ate here because it was open late the night Lee's parents got here and everything else was closed. .  I got a hamburger and fries, Lee and his dad had club sandwiches, and his mom had pumpkin soup.  The hamburger was gross, not so sure it was all meat... the fries were good, and Lee loved the club sandwich.  Mixed reviews about the pumpkin soup.  The service was ok, nothing great about it though, except it's open late & nothing else in the area is. average priced
Lady Fingers - at SGU's Grand Anse campus on the beach - it's local food, the day we were there all they had was chicken, despite a huge menu.. it was good chicken though! We all had chicken in a sauce that reminded me of beanie winnie sauce- but it was good, macaroni pie - basically baked macaroni but really good, rice, potato salad, and salad.. all for $12EC(like $5US) you can get a bigger portion for $20 but for lunch the smaller portion is plenty. they also had homemade pineapple juice that was delicious!

Aquarium - Magazine Beach, near the airport - we went for the Sunday BBQ, they have an open grill right out by the beach and were cooking chicken, steak, fish, ribs... I had chicken kabobs, Lee had jerk chicken, his dad had swordfish, and mom had the salad bar.  Their salad bar was pretty good, it had chips and salsa, fruit, salads, pasta salad that was made with fruit and was so good!! It is a beautiful restaurant built into the rocky hillside, right on the beach, with great food, but the service was unbelievably bad.  We got water when we sat down, but were never asked again if we wanted a drink or given a refill of water.. and we had to ask 3 times to get the bill! It took over 2 hours to get out of there.... and the waitresses were just rude. It wasn't too expensive, but you did have to buy sides separately. an average meal was probably $40-50EC

Prickly Bay Marina- Prickly Bay, Lance Aux Epines - I had heard that they had the best pizza on the island, so I definitely wanted to see for myself.  It's on pretty Prickly Bay where lots of interesting boats from around the world dock.  The service was good and the pizza was good - very thin crunchy crust, so if you like deep dish it might not be your kind of pizza, but I love all pizza! they had lots of different toppings and was average priced for pizza here $30-40EC for a personal pizza that was too big for me but not big enough for Lee... I brought leftovers home and he had a couple slices of mine! 

Beachside Terrace- The Flamboyant Hotel's restaurant for dinner - Monday night was pasta buffet night, so I'm not sure what they other nights were like... but Monday was delicious, expensive, but delicious!!  The restaurant has an incredible view of Grand Anse beach and St. George's.  I tried a lot of new things here too... I had corn chowder soup- it was amazing & I don't love corn or soup, salad -with the best homemade dressing I've ever tasted, nutmeg potato pie - wow it was soooo good! I don't even know how to describe it though, chicken parmesan -I'm not a fan anyways so it was just ok, penne pasta with white sauce -it wasn't exactly alfredo, but it was sooooo good, and penne with tomato sauce -it was really sweet, and for dessert I had the best eclairs!  I ate atleast 3 of them and was already stuffed from dinner! They also have their own homemade version of LLB soda, Lemon, Lime, and Bitters called a Bentley and the service was great!! Unfortunately I'll probably never go back because it cost more to eat here than I spend on groceries in a week....

the nutmeg potato pie

The Owl - Flamboyant Hotel's Sports Bar, located at the far left end of Grand Anse Beach - we went to the Owl for the Monday night crab races and in the evenings they only have pizza, burgers, nachos, and wings to eat... but we went back for lunch and it was so good we went back again another day!  For lunch they have a full menu with sandwiches, pizza, salads, and lots of other things... the first day I had pizza, because I love pizza and want to try it everywhere, and it was really good! (maybe better than prickly bay to me) Lee had a tuna melt sandwich & fries, and his dad had jerk chicken and fruit sandwich, and his mom had greek salad.  The next time we went back I had nachos & Lee and his dad both had the jerk chicken and fruit sandwich again!  I tasted Lee's and it was so good that I might actually order it for myself!  The nachos were so good, cheesy and had really good tomatoes on top.  The food was good and the service was great and the view is unbeatable, right on Grand Anse beach, and it's pretty cheap, cheese pizza was only $23EC, nachos were $18, and sandwiches were like $26.

La Boulangerie- in the round houses in Grand Anse - it's an italian/french restaurant... pizza and pasta, but they also have a french bakery.  We had pasta, and Lee's mom had a BLT.  I had 4 cheese penne pasta, Lee had the Chef's penne or something, sausage in a cream sauce, and his dad had seafood linguine.  Lee claims it was as good as Cheesecake Factory!  I loved mine too.  and it was about $30EC and the service was good.. we'll definitely go back here for any special occasion, or whenever I can convince Lee I shouldn't cook. 
Denya's (I think that's the name)- In St. George's across from the main bus hub.  This restaurant was our one big mistake. We had just got back from Grand Etang hiking all morning and were hungry and there aren't many options in St. George's that we saw besides Subway and KFC (and Lee said "who comes to Grenada to eat at KFC?") so I asked a police officer on the street where he recommended we eat.... and this place had to be his mother's restaurant or else he wouldn't have sent us there.  It was gross. I ordered a chicken rotti just because I knew I didn't hate rotti & I wasn't sure what anything else was & I didn't want to look too picky.... if it had just been Lee and I we would have left. lol.  I don't know what everyone else had..... slop of some kind. and my chicken rotti had bones in it!  I forgot at the spiceland mall Lee ordered boneless rotti...... who would want a rotti with bones?! a rotti is chicken and potatoes in a curry sauce wrapped up in bread.... why there would be bones is beyond me.  the one redeeming quality was their homemade juice. orange, pineapple, passion fruit!
Chinese food from bus stop - always good! and cheap!!! and she gives you so much!!!

and I actually cooked twice this week! haha... it was a great week for this housewife!!!
Thanks to my mom&dad-in law :)