The Rain in Venezuela

Short but sweet video celebrating the end of the worst drought in Venezuela since 1992. Kids will be kids, and here is how mine celebrated. Enjoy the video.

Where have all the good times gone?

I posted this as a(n) (un)healthy reminder to myself about how I really have to work hard to look and feel the way I do now. And to make my friends now pee in their pants laughing. If there was ever a wonder as to why I am such a freak about health, good diet and exercise.......

Swim Meet - Part 2

Just a couple more swimming shots.....

Tale of Two Swimmers

Last weekend was Katherine and Madeline's first real swimming tournament. Madeline was finally old enough, and Katherine had been sick for the last two. The both swim after school three days a week and just love it. I usually take a seat in the bleachers and just watch them go back and forth. It amazes me. I am never bored. I could do it for hours.

It is hard to get a sense of how "good" they are versus their peers as they swim lap after lap in one lane with about 6 or 7 kids. At any time there may be 30+ kids in the pool swimming at different levels, so talent is a little hard to spot. They both make it to the end, turn around, and swim back. It has been fun watching them both go from barely able to do a crawl, to learning the butterfly in just a few months.

We woke up early on Saturday and got ready for the meet. Katherine had two swim team friends sleep over, and we were all going together in our van. We packed up swimsuits, hats, goggles, towels, water, snacks, swim jackets, and sunscreen into their oversized Speedo swim bags. Seriously, I doubt if Michael Phelps was ever this prepared.

Katherine was scheduled to swim in 3 events (Crawl, Breast, Backstroke) and Madeline in 1 event (crawl). Madeline JUST turned 6 in December but swam with the 7 year olds as she turns 7 this year, and Katherine swam in the 10 year old group as she turns 10 in August.

The meet was scheduled to start at 0800, and being gringos, we arrived at 15 minutes till. Ahem. The kids started stretching at about 0820 and jumped in the pool for warmups at around 845. There were 5 teams participating — which meant there were about 200 kids from 6 - 18 years of age. The energy was excellent and everyone was in a wonderful mood.

Katherine's first event was the backstroke — not her best or favorite stroke. There were three heats at her age group for a total of 11 girls. Her heat only had three girls in it and one scratched so only two swam. She came in second. I was jumping and screaming so loud you would have thought it was the Olympic Games. All heats get medals, so she got a silver. I was so proud.

The kids mostly stayed together in the covered court area behind the pool, but were allowed to visit their parents in the bleachers. Several minutes after her age group had finished their race, she came over to me and looked very sad. She laid down on my lap and would not tell me what was wrong. I held her and wondered if she had gotten into an argument with one of her friends. After a while, she said she had something to tell me. She said that the coaches had posted a list of her age group and overall, she had gotten second to last in the overall rankings. She was devastated.

My heart broke in a million pieces. My beautiful, precious angel, of whom I am so proud to be her mother, was so very sad. I sat stunned for a minute. I had had no idea of her ranking (and quite frankly did not care), and had no idea it would bother her so much.

I held her for a few minutes, took a deep breath, and cleared my head. I had watched this little girl work tirelessly three hours a week, without fail, and with very little complaint. I knew she loved swimming, and had made tremendous improvements since we moved here in August. I also knew that she had two more events to swim, and would likely have a similar showing in both. I gave her a huge hug, prayed for divine inspiration, and said, "Katherine, forget about those girls. You are only here to race against you. Your only goal should be to beat your best time. I am so proud of you."

That seemed to work, as she kissed me, climbed off my lap, and went to play with her friends. My heart shattered as I watched her walk away.

Madeline swam next. The 7 year old crawl race was to begin. Those girls were little bitty. Madeline weighs 42 pounds so you can just imagine what she looked like on the edge of that pool. Knowing Katherine's outcome, I steeled myself for the worst. Knowing Madeline's personality, she would not be as graceful of a loser.

They blew the whistle and those babies lined up on the edge. The buzzer went off and they all looked a little scared for a minute then jumped into the water. That was the longest and most exciting arms flailing, legs kicking, 34 seconds of my life. It was pretty close at first, then Maddie took the lead and won it. The whole Chevron family was there screaming their heads off (as we had all done for each other's kids). It was just so cute. She got a gold medal for her heat, but placed 4th or 5th in her age group - and I could have cared less.

Katherine swam the 50 meter crawl in 53 seconds. She beat her best time by 2 seconds and executed a perfect flip turn, much to the surprise of her screaming mother. She placed last in her age group, but seemed to be very happy about her performance. I breathed a sigh of relief that there seemed to be no long term psychological damage.

The toughest part of the day was waiting for the relays.

Being neophytes to the swim meet phenomenon, we did not realize that everyone does not swim the relay. Katherine thought that she would as there were only 4 girls from our school in the 10 year old division. It turns out that her relay was for 9 and 10 year olds and the coaches picked the ones with the best times, but we did not know that.

Right before the relay, she walked up to her coach and asked him if she could swim. I realized that the answer was likely going to be no, but she had insisted on trying. I stood behind her, waiting to pick up the pieces after the bad news.

Her coach looked at her and I swear I thought he was going to cry. He gave her a big hug and kiss and told her that no, she was not going to swim. I almost had a breakdown, but then she turned around and said, "Mom, lets go watch them swim." She was completely OK. She shook it off and walked away and I don't think I have ever been prouder of her in my life. We went out for sushi to celebrate and the three of us snuggled up together in my bed as Chris was in Aspen skiing with his buddies.

I had a hard time falling asleep that night. I was so worried about her. It seems that she can't get a break of late. Chris and I made the gut wrenching decision to hold her back in third grade this year - and though we don't regret it, it has been hard on her self esteem. I did not realize how much until we were headed home for Christmas break and she pulled me aside and asked me not to tell her Galveston friends she was still in the third grade. She is now struggling with passing her timed multiplication tests - AND the results are posted on the wall of the classroom. Since we moved here she has been dealing with/teased about warts, her permanent teeth coming in yellow (both of which we have resolved), having to make all new friends, etc...

They don't give awards or medals in the third grade for what she is best at. Kindness. Selflessness. Peacemaker. Super snuggler. Best hug. Easiest to love. Most likely to be nice to the geek. Most likely to not be involved in catty classroom drama. Most likely to consider the common good before making a decision. Most likely to be the best friend you ever had. Pure hard work and dedication to a task that at best earns her a B+.

The next morning was Sunday and we had the breast stroke to finish. I gave Katherine the option of bailing, but she held her head up and said that she wanted to go. We loaded up and headed back to the school. Her race was called, she dove off the platform, swam her heart out, and finished last again. She cheered her friends on to their victories and went home with a smile on her face.

Motherhood 101. God, I love those girls.

The Pitfalls of the All Inclusive........

We just got back from our vacation to Panama.

It was good to see a bit of the country and we did drive over the Panama Canal twice.

That was cool.

We flew from Caracas to Panama City. When I planned it it thought, "Great, its only a 2 hour flight, we will be in and out of there in no time. Well, as they say, the best laid plans......

We were scheduled to leave on Friday at 4:15 pm from the Maquitiua Airport, which, in no traffic, takes about 45 minutes to get there. I decided to pull the kids out of school at noon to have plenty of time to fight the usual traffic at that time of day, and get to the airport within the recommended 2 hour early travel window for international flights.

Surprise. There was a Chavista march scheduled to leave from the Cubo Negro where Chris works and march down to the presidential palace. Our original plan was for me and the kids to leave school and then meet Chris at the office and all of us go together. The crowds from the demonstration were huge and it was considered to be a little dangerous for us to travel down there. We decided for Chris to come to school to meet us. Getting out of the Cubo was a struggle due to the marching protesters, then it turns out that the exit for the kids school was blocked and they were having to detour all over the place. What should have taken 10 minutes was looking like it might take a couple of hours, so we decided to bail on meeting up and take separate cars to the airport.

The march happened to be on the other side of the river from where we were in Caracas, and I valiantly tried to tear my kids away from their IPods so witness this historic event, but they just were not interested. Once out past the march, the traffic lessened, and we got to the airport at about 1:45.

We easily checked in and then went into the line for passport control. It was jam packed with people and I think the lines were worse than at Christmas (which is hard to do). It took over an hour to get through the passport line and finally we were at the gate. We boarded at the right time, but sat on the runway for an hour before takeoff.

Finally at 5:15 the plane took off. We landed at around 7:30 and looked around for a man holding the Decameron sign. We found him easily and he took us to a desk where we had to pay $48 a person for the bus to take us to the airport. It seems that the resort is about 115 km away from Panama City...... Oh, and what usually takes 90 minutes, might take longer because it IS Carnival, and the traffic is very bad.

We loaded up the kids on the bus (small, nice, and air conditioned) and took off for our resort. It was night time and we did not get to see much of the city. We rolled over the canal and got a glimpse of the famous bridge that spans it. After 2.5 hours, we finally arrived. It was about 10:00.

The lobby was nice, and the place was HUGE... It was sprawling, and billed itself as an eco-resort. Our building was the very last one on the end, but there were so many pools and restaurants that we never felt like we were too far away from anyone. The restaurant/buffets closed at 10:30 so we threw our stuff in the room and ran down to the buffet. The buffets were OK. I mean, I have had buffets at the Galvez, and at the Plaza so those are my gold standards. These were somewhere between those and Golden Corral. They also cater to a lot of different cultures. Our hotel was thick with Europeans and wealthy South Americans, and there were a ton of French Canadians.

The resort had 49 buildings to house people in and sprawled out over about a mile of beach. It was beautifully landscaped and was built into a hillside so there were tons of steps everywhere. There were 8 pools lining the beach and each one had some type of entertainment. The one closest to us had a man who played karaoke flute (like the Zamfir flute) and kept trying to sell us CD's. He played for 3 - 4 hours every afternoon. He was dressed like an American Indian and hung up a blanket of Sitting Bull in front of his table/stage. I am no historian, but I am pretty sure that Sitting Bull never made it that far south?

The next pool had the "activities team" running conga lines and shooting the tourists with water guns, all while playing nonstop pulsating latin american beats.

On the last day we found the pool that played, "Shake It Like a Pom-Pom" over and over again, so we hung out there on the last day.

To sum things up, it was like being on a big Carnival Cruise ship, just stuck on land.... The food was about the same, the people were definitely the same, we had fun, but don't want to go back. Our plane left Panama at 11:45, so they made us take the 5:30 am bus out of the resort to get to the airport by 8:00. Unfortunately, it was again dark for most of our drive through Panama and we did not get to see much of the country.

I think we are just an EcoLodge, adventure tour kind of family. Below is a video compilation of our recent trips to the beach. Next stop, the Galapagos Islands.

Here is the link to You Tube:

Travel Plans

Good morning Caracas.

This is the view from my window this morning. Despite crazy dictators, crumbling infrastructure, soaring crime rates and recession, we have a great life here.

Water rationing is not that bad. You just need good planning. We have running water 6 hours a day - 2 in the morning, 2 at noon, and 2 in the evening. My kids are experts in hand sanitizer, timing bathroom breaks and do not argue with me at bath time.

Thank you to everyone for your outpouring of love and support after our beach adventure. It was rough the first week, but after Chris got home, the girls seemed to realize that I was not going to go anywhere and settled down back into their routines. We have a healthy respect for rip tides and are officially back to normal.

Last night was my favorite Mardi Gras ball in Galveston. So many of the people I love most in the world were there, dressed up, happy, laughing, dancing, gorgeous. Mardi Gras is one of the things I love most about Galveston. I even got a super fabulous action shot from the ball from good friends around midnight (shout out to S and T).

There is a celebration here in South America equivalent to our Mardi Gras. It is called Carnival. Monday and Tuesday are a national holiday in most countries here and Venezuela is no exception. Caracas does not have a large celebration, and most people who can leave the city for the beaches. The Havers are no exception.

On Friday, we are pulling the kids out of school early and flying to Panama City. Why Panama?We waited until November to make a decision about where to go for the holiday, and that turned out to be quite late. We could not get a flight to Miami, Houston, and all of the beach posadas in Venezuela were booked. I told Chris to get us flights SOMEWHERE and I would figure out the rest. So Panama was the lucky winner. It is a nice direct flight and not very long. After we got tickets I searched for hotels and found the Decameron Resort All Inclusive.

The Decameron is one of those Mega Resorts with 50 buildings, 10 restaurants, activity directors etc. We went online to Trip Advisor and got the scoop on the hotel (after we had booked it and paid in full). It is not the Four Seasons, but it should be fine.

Speaking of travel, the next few months are going to be very busy for the Haver family. It seems like we have trip after trip scheduled and I could not be happier. Chris is joining the Galveston Guys annual ski trip to Aspen.

On March 20, Jim and Rosemary Haver arrive for a month long visit. Chevron is rolling out the red carpet for them and setting them up with a car, driver, and phone while they are here. Of course, they have to attend a security briefing on the day after they arrive.

They day before they arrive, Chris is leaving for Buenos Aries for a business meeting. After getting the Havers acclimated to our schedule with the kids, I am flying to meet Chris for a few days of kid-less fun in Argentina. Sadly, this is the first time in our marriage since we had kids that I have been able to join him on a business trip!

On March 29 through April 5, the Havers (all 4 plus J and R) leave for Quito, Ecuador and then fly to Galapagos Islands for cruise around the islands. This is one of our dream vacations and you cannot imagine how excited we are. We discovered ITunes has lots of documentaries and BBC/NOVA specials on the Galapagos and we have downloaded them and are watching them in preparation for our trip.

Ciao for now. We have to get ready for the Superbowl! Lots of Saints fans here.