Most of our leaves are on the ground now. I feel like we missed the peak of the fall colors while we were away, although this hasn’t been the most spectacular year. I know winter is still a month away, but when we chop leaves and I see the farmers cutting soybeans I feel like fall is over.
BASKETBALL
Basketball season is about to get under way. Ben made the team at school so we’ve got to get him to practice or a game six days a week. Sometimes practice starts at 6:30 am. Other times he doesn’t get out of practice until 6:00 pm. Fortunately he can catch a ride with someone who lives close by some of the time. Stay tuned for updates as the season wears on.
GETTING READY FOR HAITI
Jenna has signed up for her third trip to Haiti. She’s going in February. She’s already been putting a lot of the money she has earned from various jobs toward this trip and is planning to bake and sell pies and such during the holidays to raise the rest of the money she needs. If you need an order form just let me know.
TRUNK OR TREAT
We had trunk or treat at church again this year. I showed up for a hot dog. Everyone else stayed for the whole thing. I must say that it was quite a different experience this year. It sure was nice not to have to get there early to get ready for the event.
Vicki said it was a good night, but the whole thing was cut short by about fifteen minutes. Law enforcement officials were in pursuit of three fugitives who got off the interstate in White House. They asked us to send everyone home to avoid unnecessary risk in case the manhunt came our way. Two of the fugitives were apprehended before morning and the third lost his life in a shoot out when cornered by law enforcement officials in Kentucky the next day.
ENJOYING THE PERFORMING ARTS
Since getting back from vacation we have enjoyed performance on both stage and screen. Vicki and I have been to the movies twice and the kids once. The first film we saw was The Martian, which we enjoyed. Given that there is always some artistic license I thought they stayed pretty true to the science and current technology, however, as good as the film is I felt they could have humanized the main character, Mark Watney, a bit more. The kids watched Pan while we were watching our movie. I don’t think they enjoyed it as much as they expected. Last weekend Vicki and I caught a matinee showing of the latest 007 flick, Spectre. We enjoyed this as well.
Nate is the only one of us to see all three of the live theatre performances I’ll mention here. I served as a chaperone for a 7th grade field trip to see I own the sky at TPAC. This is a one act play with no dialogue performed by a French Canadian troupe from Quebec. The play was about an immigrant forced to flee from her homeland due to war. Her only possessions were what she could put in a small suitcase. The play was about how she was accepted (or not) in the strange new city where she found herself. I didn’t know the back story before I saw the play so it didn’t make one shred of sense to me. I enjoyed it because the performance was good, but I was scratching my head over the story the whole time.
We all went to Adams the night before Halloween to see Spirit, which is the story of the Bell Witch. Vicki and I had seen this with friends back in 2003 and had wanted to take the kids back to see it at some point since Old Kate is a Robertson County legend. We enjoyed it, but Vicki and I both felt this director’s interpretation drifted a bit too far from the original story.
Finally, Vicki and Nate went to see DA’s performance of Still Life with Iris. This is the fantastical adventure of a little girl’s search for home. Vicki and Nate both came home talking about how good the play was. Vicki even said she wants to make sure she sees everything DA puts on from here on.
FACING REALITY
I’ve been offered a bus route at work. This means I will get to drive a bus to school rather than my personal vehicle, making stops in Cross Plains, White House, and Goodlettsville to pick up students. This means I have to get a commercial drivers license so I can drive the bus. I took the written test the other day so I now have my learner’s permit. That’s a story in and of itself because they gave the wrong test first which completely rattled my confidence. They mistakenly gave me the test for the combination trailer endorsement first which I had no need to study for. That got me so stirred up that by the time I got to the general knowledge test I couldn’t think clearly, but I did pass!
The funny thing was that in filling out the application I decided should get help on one particular question. So I said to the guy at the counter, “I really want to mark ‘red’ for my hair color, but something tells me ‘gray’ is more accurate.” He politely said, “You should go with gray.” I’ll just read Proverbs 16:31 and move on.
Joe
Saturday, November 14, 2015
Sunday, November 1, 2015
Our Enchanted Cruise, Part 4
We enjoyed two ports of call on our cruise, and if the strong winds had persisted we would have missed out on one of those. Fortunately things worked out and I credit our captain for making that happen. One of my students from DA took a similar cruise on another cruise line and things didn’t work out so well for her family so I feel we were fortunate here.
NASSAU
Our first port of call turned out to be Nassau. It was supposed to be second. As I mentioned in the first part of this series, the winds and a medical emergency changed that. We wound up docking in Nassau about 3:00 pm Tuesday and didn’t leave until almost midnight the next day.
Vicki got the chance to visit Nassau in 2013 when she went on a Carnival cruise with several friends from church. She said the snorkeling there was terrific so we were all looking forward to booking a snorkeling trip while there. The winds made the water too choppy for this to happen so we started the day with a taxi tour of the city instead.
Our tour took us to Fort Fincastle, Fort Montagu, around the wharf where all the fishing boats dock, through the residential and business areas of the city, and over to Paradise Island where we got a chance to look around the Atlantis resort.
Upon returning to the dock we decided to do some shopping along Bay Street and headed toward the straw market. That’s where we ran into my student from DA (I had noticed that her ship was docked along side ours when I came out on deck that morning). Our shopping excursion included a late lunch at Señor Frogs and ice cream at a little shop nearby. By this time the boys were itching to play ping pong back on the ship so we left Vicki and Jenna to do a little more shopping. They weren’t too long behind us in returning to the ship.
COCO CAY
We dropped anchor off Coco Cay Thursday morning and spent the day there with a final boarding call of 4:30.
Coco Cay is a small island about 55 miles north of Nassau that is leased by Royal Caribbean as their own private island. Its actual name is Little Stirrup Cay. Our visit here was, for me, the best part of the trip.
If you’ve not done something like this before, a private island like this is essentially an extension of the ship. Your fare covers a lot of things, food for example. Of course, there are extras you can purchase as well. We decided to rent a cabana which included snorkeling equipment and floating mats. The cabana was a nice touch given that I really didn’t want to be reapplying sunscreen every hour (okay, I’m exaggerating a little here, but not much).
Another thing that was nice was that the place didn’t seem crowded even with all of the people coming off the ship. Of course, Royal Caribbean has much larger ships than the Enchantment so I’m sure this would be a different story if we had been sailing on the Oasis or the Allure which can carry almost 6,300 passengers (compare to the 2,400 passengers the Enchantment can carry).
Ben and I started the day by snorkeling. The winds had calmed quite a bit by Thursday, but the water was still choppy and a little cloudy when looking down through the mask. Ben took to this pretty easily, but it was choppy enough for me that I swallowed a lot of seawater. I was also having to stop about every 30-60 seconds to tread water and really blow out my snorkel tube.
Vicki went out with Ben next and they had a great time, even explored a ship wreck and plane wreck. When they were done Vicki grabbed a float and spent a long time out in the water.
Ben made a third trip out with Nate. Nate found the flippers too uncomfortable and wouldn’t wear them. Ben wound up having to drag Nate along the whole time so this didn’t end well.
Jenna never snorkeled. She played in the water for a while and then retired to the cabana to read and nap. I caught up with her after snorkeling and walking the beach and we ate lunch. The cabana being our center of operations we drifted in and out as we pleased. The island was too small to get lost on so it proved to be a most relaxing day. By 2:30 we were all there either reading or sleeping. Shortly before time to leave Vicki and I took a stroll around the island and poked through the little straw market there. Then it was time to head back to the ship. I could have stayed another day.
FUTURE PLANS
On the way home we were talking about future vacation plans. Ben wants to do another Disney cruise for his senior trip. Vicki wants to go to Alaska. I simply said, “I’m ready to see the mountains again, but whatever we do between now and our 30th anniversary is fine with me. I do want all of us, whoever is part of the family by then, to take a nice cruise for our 30th anniversary.”
At this Jenna and Ben figured up how old they’ll be by then. When Nate didn’t give his projected age Vicki asked, “Nate, how old will you be in nine years?”
From the back of the van we heard, “I’m still on vacation and I don’t wanna do math!”
I don’t know where we’ll go next or when we’ll go there, but whatever it turns out to be it’s going to be good because I’ll be with the people I love. Until then there’s a lot of living to do here at home and that’s a lot of fun too.
Joe
NASSAU
Our first port of call turned out to be Nassau. It was supposed to be second. As I mentioned in the first part of this series, the winds and a medical emergency changed that. We wound up docking in Nassau about 3:00 pm Tuesday and didn’t leave until almost midnight the next day.
Vicki got the chance to visit Nassau in 2013 when she went on a Carnival cruise with several friends from church. She said the snorkeling there was terrific so we were all looking forward to booking a snorkeling trip while there. The winds made the water too choppy for this to happen so we started the day with a taxi tour of the city instead.
Our tour took us to Fort Fincastle, Fort Montagu, around the wharf where all the fishing boats dock, through the residential and business areas of the city, and over to Paradise Island where we got a chance to look around the Atlantis resort.
Upon returning to the dock we decided to do some shopping along Bay Street and headed toward the straw market. That’s where we ran into my student from DA (I had noticed that her ship was docked along side ours when I came out on deck that morning). Our shopping excursion included a late lunch at Señor Frogs and ice cream at a little shop nearby. By this time the boys were itching to play ping pong back on the ship so we left Vicki and Jenna to do a little more shopping. They weren’t too long behind us in returning to the ship.
COCO CAY
We dropped anchor off Coco Cay Thursday morning and spent the day there with a final boarding call of 4:30.
Coco Cay is a small island about 55 miles north of Nassau that is leased by Royal Caribbean as their own private island. Its actual name is Little Stirrup Cay. Our visit here was, for me, the best part of the trip.
If you’ve not done something like this before, a private island like this is essentially an extension of the ship. Your fare covers a lot of things, food for example. Of course, there are extras you can purchase as well. We decided to rent a cabana which included snorkeling equipment and floating mats. The cabana was a nice touch given that I really didn’t want to be reapplying sunscreen every hour (okay, I’m exaggerating a little here, but not much).
Another thing that was nice was that the place didn’t seem crowded even with all of the people coming off the ship. Of course, Royal Caribbean has much larger ships than the Enchantment so I’m sure this would be a different story if we had been sailing on the Oasis or the Allure which can carry almost 6,300 passengers (compare to the 2,400 passengers the Enchantment can carry).
Ben and I started the day by snorkeling. The winds had calmed quite a bit by Thursday, but the water was still choppy and a little cloudy when looking down through the mask. Ben took to this pretty easily, but it was choppy enough for me that I swallowed a lot of seawater. I was also having to stop about every 30-60 seconds to tread water and really blow out my snorkel tube.
Vicki went out with Ben next and they had a great time, even explored a ship wreck and plane wreck. When they were done Vicki grabbed a float and spent a long time out in the water.
Ben made a third trip out with Nate. Nate found the flippers too uncomfortable and wouldn’t wear them. Ben wound up having to drag Nate along the whole time so this didn’t end well.
Jenna never snorkeled. She played in the water for a while and then retired to the cabana to read and nap. I caught up with her after snorkeling and walking the beach and we ate lunch. The cabana being our center of operations we drifted in and out as we pleased. The island was too small to get lost on so it proved to be a most relaxing day. By 2:30 we were all there either reading or sleeping. Shortly before time to leave Vicki and I took a stroll around the island and poked through the little straw market there. Then it was time to head back to the ship. I could have stayed another day.
FUTURE PLANS
On the way home we were talking about future vacation plans. Ben wants to do another Disney cruise for his senior trip. Vicki wants to go to Alaska. I simply said, “I’m ready to see the mountains again, but whatever we do between now and our 30th anniversary is fine with me. I do want all of us, whoever is part of the family by then, to take a nice cruise for our 30th anniversary.”
At this Jenna and Ben figured up how old they’ll be by then. When Nate didn’t give his projected age Vicki asked, “Nate, how old will you be in nine years?”
From the back of the van we heard, “I’m still on vacation and I don’t wanna do math!”
I don’t know where we’ll go next or when we’ll go there, but whatever it turns out to be it’s going to be good because I’ll be with the people I love. Until then there’s a lot of living to do here at home and that’s a lot of fun too.
Joe
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