Monday, October 31, 2011

All Over October


. October 2011 .


The kids are off scrounging chocolate/candy andwhatever else they can get


Errr... oops!

Well, an interesting month has just whizzed by! We have some travel, some sport, a small party and we also catch up with a few interesting characters on the way. There were also some late nights and early mornings as we watched the World Cup from afar. The main games were on at about 3 or 4 am here, and some of the pool games starting around 9/10pm...But the good guys prevailed and we can't complain about that...unless you are French, Welsh, South African or Australian.
Did you know that the first qualifying game for this year's world cup was played here in Cayman? See link: http://www.rugbyworldcup.com/mediazone/news/newsid=2022896.html

Enjoy the read, and also the pics!



Halloween 2011
Halloween has just been and gone and as usual, there was the Rugby Club's Annual Halloween party. And as usual it was well attended by people with some pretty cool costumes. Here are a few images from the night.



Meanwhile, back in the Blue Oyster Bar


Errr...Oops again! Code brown!!!




Awwwww......
It was held at one of the local hotels/resorts and they had several bars set up outside as well as inside and a DJ. We don't know how many people were there, but it was pretty busy and everyone seemd to be having a good time.

We were about to head home at the end of the night and as we passed the pool, a hoard of drunken Irishmen dressed as Roman Gladiators came racing out of the dark to launch us unsuspecting partygoers into the pool.

Luckily none of our get up was affected by the water, but some costumes dissolved or dissintigrated fairly quickly - especially the paper/cardboard ones!
We managed a wee sleep in the next morning which was needed. Then it was off to the beach for the afternoon.


ince it was mid-term break for the kids, we decided to take some time out and head up to Orlando, Florida and check out the theme parks there. We had been to Disneyworld about four years ago but thought it was time to see some of the new attractions in the area - and besides, Jake couldn't do some of the rides last time because he wasn't quite tall enough. This time he was pretty confident in getting his heart rate up.

We flew direct from Cayman to Tampa, thus avoiding Miami airport and then took a rental car over to Orlando, which is a little over an hour's drive - that's if you get the directions right, which we didn't...initially. We included a GPS with the rental so we could find our way a little easier. This was fine in theory, however we neglected to turn it on until we were out of the airport and passed the 'critical' turn-off. This meant an additional trip across one of the Tampa Bay bridges...and back. But we eventually got on the main road to Orlando and found our lodgings.

We must make special mention to our friends Marianne & Simon (and James!) for the use of their lovely house. It was so nice coming home to a real home at the end of each day. Although having said that our initial introduction to the house revealed that there was an alarm set and we didn't have the code to turn it off. So we did the next best thing and jumped in the car and went out for dinner while the neighbors enjoyed the soothing shrill of the alarm as it blasted into the quiet street.

We got hold of Marianne who assured us that they didn't have an alarm. We assured her that they did but managed to remove the fuse to it imediately restoring the tranquil silence that you get when living on a golf course resort. However that same fuse was responsible for lighting in the upstairs bathrooms but we preferred darkness to noise and survived in peace...although shaving wasn't quite as accurate in those conditions. Oh well - Movember comes!


The Everest Rollercoater at Animal Kingdom


The longest drive we had from the house to one of the Theme parks was about 20 minutes. So we were able to have a wee bit of a sleep in each day beforeracing off to get to the respective Park for opening time.


Lion King show

We spent a day at each of Animal Kingdom and Magic Kingdom and both days met up with some Canadian friends (living in Cayman) which was good. It meant the kids could run around with their friends and allow the bigger kids a bit of space, although it was a pretty full-on couple of days!


Swarming to see "It's Tough to be a Bug!" (in 3-D)



Tonya looking a bit worried stuck at the top of Everest

with a mangled track ...


Sam looking worried as we head over another waterfall


Mum, Dad and Baby gorilla.

The Baby's antics were a hit with everyone.

We pretty much did all of the good rides as soon as we could in each of the parks we went to. Then if there was time, we went back and did them again or tried out other ones. There wasn't too many that you could consider boring, but there were a few that were hair-raising to say the least!


Sam takes pot shots at unsuspecting tourists


Jake tries to run everyone off the track at Daytona


Sam and Skyler and Don Crockett


Not many people pose for this shot...


More Disney pics:


We took a day out from the theme parks to drop Michelle at the Airport (she had to go back to work). And as luck would have it, as we drove away from the airport, our faithful GPS lady sent us across that damn Tampa Bay bridge again! Another 20 minute drive for no reason. We have now driven across this bridge four times... and we never wanted to go there in the first place!


Anyway, once we got back on track we headed off to catch up with our good Mate Rebecca from BVI days. Rebecca now lives in Melbourne (Florida) with her pet Hubby and two very little, but cute girls Scarlett and Vienna.

We met up at their local zoo and had a good wander about while catching up. For a small zoo it had plenty in it. The kids fed the Giraffe and saw the Hippos and Alligators and various other animals and birds.

Rebecca was Sam's very first PE teacher and they didn't hit it off very well on her first day (well, to be honest, Sam didn't want to do whatever game had been set for them and gave "Miss Rebecca" the old evil stare and arms crossed routine. But that didn't last very long and things picked up from there.
It was a nice afternoon out and it was great to catch up with Rebecca.

On our way back we managed to go through one of the automated toll gates without paying...Oops! .75cents missing from the day's take. We tried to contact the Toll people and the rental car place, but gave up in the end as none of them knew what to do. Maybe they'll just bill us the outstanding amount...


Pirate impression


More "Non-Theme Park" pics:




Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure



Jake and Elwood Blues!

The Blues Brothers put on a show for us at Universal Studios. The kids didn't really know who they were but enjoyed the show anyway. We must get the movie for them.


This is one of those live statue guys.
Everytime someone posed in front of him he made fun of them.

It was pretty entertaining.

Celebrity Scoop!
Yep, we bumped into a few well known characters on our travels. If you've never heard of them you can probably Google them and learn a bit more.

Dustyn Mulver - well known astronaut and beer taster.

Spends a bit of time at his secluded holiday spot in the BVI.

He had just popped into the bar we were at for a beer after a hard day at the Kennedy Space Centre.


The lovely Cassandra "M" - part time model and all-round good chick.

Cass is also a semi pro Rugby player on the Caribbean women's circuit.




Famous Gymnast, Personal Trainer and now super-mum, Rebecca Smith-Reese!

Rebecca travels globe these days causing havoc and having babies.

Has been known to frequent small Caribbean islands laughing at uncoordinated kids.



Capt Hook's best buddy...



The Mayor of Trentham, Mr Graham Auker.


Graham and the lovely Susie took time out from his Mayoral duties to do a quick circuit of the Caribbean, experience a Hurricane close up, and try out some international beer and rum.

OK, back to Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure....



Two Kiwi's the day the All Blacks won the world cup.



Three drips...

Some of the 'water' rides were pretty impressive. We got absolutely soaked on a couple of them and they certainly made sure that you felt lucky to be alive afterwards.

We dried out after this and headed off to do the Hulk! A massive rollercoaster with plenty of twists and turns and loopsand speed. This one doesn't inch it's way to the top like most of them. It shoots you up like a rocket launch and doesn't slow down until the end.

Spiderman was another cool 3-D ride.

The last ride at Universal was the Rip Rockit Ride. This was a ridiculous set up where at the start you are tipped back and begin a vertical ascent about 200 feet up, before heading down the otherside at a great rate of knots. This carries on for what some would call an eternity. There were some wobbly knees after that!


Butter Beer Mo's at Harry Potterville


The Harry Potter set up was very impressive. They had Hogwarts, and Hogsmeade with all the shops and the
Jellybeans of all different flavours. The Dragon ride was a hit with the kids - it's a Rollercoaster that you hung underneath. It does the loops and things as well so you get thrown about a bit. Sam was a bit hesitant, but after the first ride she was into it!


The Hogwart's Express


Wasn't scary at all...
This is a really cool ride


One of the water rides.

Check out Sam's face... genuine fear


Killing Alien critters

See more pics from the Orlando trip:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150346976983602.346216.766998601&type=1&l=72bcb27331


Dave and the kids came back on the Thursday after almost a week in Orlando. On the Friday they went out to Rum Point for a play with Lisa, Tommy and Molly. Unfortunately the rain that had been pelting down all week in Cayman (it was dry and sunny in Orlando) came back. The kids promptly jumped in the sea and had a ball thrashing around in the pouring rain. Lisa and Dave sought shelter of an overhanging roof and sampled a wee mudslide while watching the kids horse about. Probably a very sad sight indeed!


Swimming...

The kids continue swimming strongly, with mostly PBs in two swim meets this month, and both of them getting top points scorers in the first meet. Weather put a damper on the first one and the kids were upset that it was called off due to heavy rain and lightning before their favourite races - they didn't care - they were getting wet anyway but the officials were looking a lot like drowned rats! Michelle is now getting more involved when she can and was one of the stroke and turn judges at the second meet - she even had to DQ Jake for an illegal turn - what a tough mum! It became obvious at that meet that one of the reasons that she doesn't always volunteer to help out is that she cannot trust a certain boy to get to his race if she isn't able to keep an eye on him. He had been told about his race and had wandered in the right direction but when the whistle went there was no sign of him on the blocks. Michelle saw him just in time and promptly yelled (while all else was silent) "Jake - this is your race!". Amazingly, he ran straight onto the blocks, dived in, did the correct stroke and won the race...


The recent stash of trophies...


Building up to the big event...
Michelle has been training hard for this year's Olympic distance triathlon but this month has been the biggest challenges yet. After managing to barely escape being hit by a car and attacked by dogs last month, she lost control on a sandy corner coming into the carpark at the end of one of her rides and hit the deck, landing on her shoulder. She came off with a few scrapes and bruises but the shoulder issue put a stop to the swimming training for 4 weeks - hopefully this won't have too major impact since it's her strongest part of the event.

The following week she started out in the dark of the morning and managed to hit a pot hole, causing two flat tyres and a buckled back wheel. She tried to carry the bike home but ended up having to get Dave out of bed to the rescue (who had been asleep for about an hour as he was up all night watching the rugby!)!

She took the bike to the bike shop but they did not have any replacement wheels in stock – it would take 4 weeks for delivery - Fat lot of use that was as the triathlon was just over two weeks away. Luckily we were travelling to the US so decided to order online and bring one back….unfortunately they didn’t deliver it when expected and we missed it by a day. What a saga – had to have it returned and then redirected to Cayman at additional cost of course! Still no sign of it and the triathlon is this weekend!

A friend has kindly lent her a bike which she took out at the weekend, making sure she was extra careful - all was well until that evening when her calf started to be really sore and even more so the next day - it seems the bike is a lot bigger than the last one and she strained her muscle - OMG what next? - will she actually get to the start, let alone the finish? Watch this space...


Next Month:



  • Plenty happening in MOvember!


  • Race report from the tri (weather and incident permitting)


  • Pirate's week is a comin! Aaaarrrggghhh!!!!


  • More swim meets


  • 1/2 Mile Sea Swim


  • and...and... other stuff!

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