Fall Break 2010

In lieu of time off for Thanksgiving, our kids get a Fall Break in October for one week.  Last year we went to Curacao, but this year we decided to go home to Louisiana and Galveston as we are not going to the States for Christmas or Spring Break this year.

Fortunately, my best friend Stephanie decided to celebrate her 40th birthday in New Orleans the weekend we arrived.  When we touched down in Houston on Friday, Chris took the girls on to rent a car to drive to Galveston, and I boarded a plane to New Orleans.  

New Orleans was a blast, and a bit of a blur.  Stephanie rented us beautiful rooms at the Royal Sonesta on Bourbon Street.  We even had a balcony to watch all of the activities below.  I laughed until my sides hurt, danced until my feet hurt (my shoe choice, although stylish, was not conducive to a long night on Bourbon Street), and had a fabulous time.  I got smart the second night and packed a pair of flip flops in my purse to change into when my feet started hurting and I just didn't care about fashion anymore.  Highly recommended.  

Here is Heidi, me, Steph, Pamela, Emily and Margaret on Friday night.  I think the guy behind us is the bellman from our hotel.  Gracias to the photographer.  

 On Sunday, we headed to Mandeville and Madisonville to see my cousin, Marla and some old friends from medical school.  Marla is as funny and gorgeous as ever.  Here we are at a lake front restaurant in Mandeville, having, what accidentally turned out to be a 5 hour lunch/pub crawl.  Got to love family dinners and it was worth every minute to see her and my aunt and uncle.

After lunch, we spent the night in Madsionville with Jherie (my roommate from medical school) and her husband Charlie and their beautiful kids Trent, Kate and Lauren.  She asked me what I wanted to eat for dinner before we arrived and I told her good seafood is hard to find in Caracas.  She made the MOST fabulous gumbo with lump crab, shrimp and crab claws AND had seared tuna steaks and scallops on the side.

Uncle Jude and Aunt Jamie came in from New Orleans for a visit and Uncle Jeremiah was able to bring cousin Juliana over for a day to play with the girls.  On our last night in Louisiana, I was able to drag myself out of bed to take the girls to Randol's, their favorite cajun restaurant.  Aunt Leah and most of the uncles were able to make it and we had a wonderful dinner.  The girls love it so much because they play cajun music and dance.   

I captured a short video of the girls dancing together - but as cute as they are, they did not steal the show.  You have to watch the video to understand what I am talking about.  Some people really know how to have fun. The next two days we spent in Galveston, running errands and visiting our loved ones there. 

On Saturday night, we returned to Caracas. 

We have a couple of months of routine, and then we head out to Peru and Argentina for three weeks over the winter break.  Expect a blog with video and all of the usual trimmings.  

We plan to visit Lima for three days then head to Buenos Aires to meet up with Chris' sister and her family there for Christmas Day.  On December 26th we leave for Bariloche - a resort high in the Patagoinian Andes.  After exploring the lakes around Bariloche, we will head to the Glaciers National Park to see Mount Fitzroy and the surrounding glaciers and finally we will head to Tierra Del Fuego and Ushuaia - at the end of the world.  

Good Things About Venezuela.....

We are back.

I did not leave claw marks on the tarmac in Houston.  I was actually glad to go back.  Don't get me wrong, I had a fantastic summer working, visiting friends, and soaking up some Galveston time, but when it was time to go back - I was ready.

You could say I missed my rock star apartment, the near perfect daily spring like weather, the gorgeous mountain view from every window in my home, the kids swanky private school — and you would only be partially correct.

You see, I really, really missed Julia, my maid.

After a summer of single motherhood, while I was bringing in the bacon, driving it home, cooking it, serving it AND cleaning up after it was done made me acutely realize how lucky I am here in Caracas.  I know that most women in America do what I did every day and call it life, and it is very humbling to me.  When I was working, my 100 + hour weeks qualified me for a live-in housekeeper/baby sitter — so I never really did it all before.

I asked Chris to have Julia there when we arrived in Caracas to help us unpack and get settled as the kids were starting school in a couple of days after our arrival.  I missed Julia so much that I had visions of me running in slow motion, to the tune of "Chariots of Fire," towards her, only to crumple, sobbing, at her feet in sheer gratitude.

Well, there was a miscommunication, and she was not there when we arrived.  I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and started unpacking our 9 suitcases.  Julia called and apologized for the misunderstanding and we told her to come the next day.  A few hours later, my door bell rang, and I absentmindedly went to answer it.

It was Julia - in all of her 5 foot 1 shining glory, there to save me from unpacking hell.  I literally threw my arms around her and showered her with the gifts I had brought her back from the states.  She quickly shooed me away, and changed into her uniform.  Within minutes, she took charge of the unpacking I basically acted as her grateful assistant.

She has eased us back into our routine and I am eternally grateful.  The kids are back at school and loving it.  They have new friends, great teachers, and are looking forward to another wonderful year.

Monday is sheet changing day at our house.  I guess Julia decided changing the sheets is not enough.  She decided to wash the duvet covers and pillow shams as well.  Our pillows suffer from years of my Mediterranean blooded husband sleeping on them and his, well essence, being left on them nightly.  The pillows (inside the cases) were stained a splotchy brownish color.  They were cleanish, just stained from years of use.

I figured when I got fed up enough, I would bring in some new ones from the states.

It seems, however, that Julia had other ideas.

She opened the seams of the pillows and removed the stuffing so she could bleach and scour the covers. When I got home from tennis lessons, I watched in shock as she was hand sewing the seams back together after she had dried and restuffed the covers.

I am seriously thinking about putting plastic covers on them now to protect them from future damage!

God I love that woman.

Back in the USA

In a whirlwind of overscheduling, we decided that flying home to Galveston from Venezuela for one day then immediately taking off for Hawaii was a great idea.  We were celebrating Chris' mother's 70th birthday on the Big Island.

It was an 18 hour day of travel to get there and we could only stay a week as Chris had to get back to work. Hawaii was beautiful.  The girls had a great time hiking, seeing the Kilauea volcano and lava flows and hanging out with their cousins and Chris' family.

We flew home, kissed Daddy goodbye, and then the next day left for Disney World.  We went with the Resto's and had a blast. Again, thank you to my cousin Marla for providing all of the arrangements!  It made our trip organized and allowed us to relax and have fun with the kids and not worry about reservations or where we were going and when.

We rode all of the big roller coasters and scary rides (DO NOT MISS DINOSAUR!!!!) and still had time for wonderful dinners and some princess time (Tito

was a huge sport here).

After four wonderful days, we returned home exhausted and happy and ready to just hang out for a while.

I have started working again and it has been great.  I am working with residents again and enjoying it tremendously.

Katherine and I have been busy packing for camp.  I gave her most of the responsibility for packing and just act as her assistant and have been so proud about how organized she has been.  Madeline has been playing non-stop with her Galveston friends and thinks every day is another party!

Chris was able to come home for 4th of July weekend and we were able to celebrate with good friends here in Galveston.  We are looking forward to visiting with my family over the summer as well.  

Is No One Paying Attention ?

Before I go off on my rant, let me give a disclaimer: I can not say that I ever paid much attention to this stuff before I moved to Venezuela. I was a busy working mother with a full social agenda that did not involve long talks about world events or politics, and frankly, I believed the government of the United States was more than capable of protecting me and my family - so why would I care?

Since moving here, I have slowly began to pay more and more attention to the events in the world around me. I have lived in a country where people openly critizied the president - sure, Clinton and Bush II immediately come to mind, but I did not know anyone personally that was calling for their deaths. I mean, we have the luxury of "unelecting" someone after four years if we don't like him enough, or the other guy just looks better.

Now I live in a country where people either want the president dead - or will jump in front of a bullet for him. Kind of weird. I guess now that the people do not have the option of him being seriously "unelected" as he personally controls the legislature, judiciary and military.

I keep asking Chris - how did this happen? He was democratically elected 11 years ago and now he openly says he is going to take all of the banks, private land, private enterprise and turn them over to the government - all in the name of his socialist revolution. I keep wondering why this does not happen in the United States? What makes us so different from them.

I am not writing this because I think that anyone should really care as much as I do about the government in Venezuela - other than they supply 30% of the oil needs of the United States and are the Venezuelans biggest customer.

What is freaking me out is that Venezuela is aligning itself very comfortably with IRAN, CHINA, and RUSSIA. It has signed away its natural resources to China in exchange for money. By the way, the oil is not out of the ground yet and it is years away from being produced. Kind of like selling the plasma of your unborn child. Since I have moved here Ahmadinejad has visited, shook hands and kissed Chavez. Russia is selling massive amounts of arms here, oh, and don't forget about Hugo's BFF's the Castro Brothers of Cuba where Raul is a frequent visitor.

So today I was reading about Iran being really upset about the UN sanctions - due to their refusal to stop enriching uranium and all. In a speech in Shanghai today, Ahmadinejad said that Israel was doomed and singled out US President Barak Obama for scorn after the UN agreed to a to the nuclear sanctions. I also read about many countries in Latin Americas open criticisim of Hilary Clinton's comments during her tour of Latin America recently.

I immediately went to CNN.com to see what they had to say about it. NOTHING. The only information is about the World Cup on the entire front page. The New York Times website did mention it on the front page http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/world/middleeast/11assess.html?hp (were they not supposed to be one of the most liberal newspapers in the world, or did I miss something?). The Los Angeles Times and USA Today had nothing either.

I guess I worry because I have more time on my hands now and I am steeped in it. But I wonder, does anybody else really care? I see an open alignment of countries increasingly critical of the US - many of which would not shed a tear at our demise - and the front page of USA today has POP QUIZ: Do you know celebs and entertainment?

End of the School Year

Some end of the year highlights:

Katherine won the technology award for 3rd grade! She was as surprised as me. I told her sometimes it was nice to get an award for things that just came naturally to you.

Katherine completed her Mini-Society Unit. She created a product (purses) and sold them at the market, and made a profit. At first she thought that charging more than what your raw materials cost was not fair, then we had a long talk about free markets and feeding your children and it made more sense to her. I think teaching capitalism might be illegal in Venezuela - but since we are not recognized as a "real" school by the government, we can get away with it.

Madeline graduated from Kindergarten! It was so cute, as they had the stage dressed up exactly as they did for the High School Graduation. When they enter first grade (through 5th) they wear white shirts instead of red, so here she is receiving her white shirt

Beautiful Madeline in her new white shirt, and graduation cap.

Katherine's Poem

Thoughtful Me.

I am a thoughtful child.

I wonder if wars are going to have violent ends.

I hear everthing in around me in a different way.

I see things from a different perspective.

I want to be understood.

I pretend to be a hero for everyone.

I feel sad when people die of hunger or sickness.

I touch just to feel the textue of something.

I worry about the world and its pollution.

I cry when people die.

I am proud of myself for trying new things.

I understand the way people feel when they are sad.

I say "Don't feel bad" when people get sad.

I dream of a happy world with no fighting.

I try to be a peaceful person.

I hope that my wishes come true.

I am a happy person.