Holy jet-lag Batman, we made it to Houston

My children are complete angels. There I said it and have now quite probably jinxed myself for eternity (and beyond) but my two children, despite all evidence to the contrary, are two perfect angels.

We left on Monday afternoon for Paris where we spent the night before our long-haul flight to Houston, and we had no meltdowns. None, nada, nisba. We had no meltdowns despite the fact that they were tired, in a completely unfamiliar situation and we were stressed. Though we slept in the airport hotel, we still somehow managed to arrive at security check a bit late, we got in the wrong line, for the wrong gate, we had to retrace our steps, get to the right gate and then the husband realized he had left some pretty critical meds in the hotel fridge. We frantically called the hotel, apparently getting meds beyond passport control is harder that it would appear. But we needed those meds so he took off with a sympathetic Air France employee (rarer than one would think) to get his meds, I took off for security (again) with the kids and the nanny and enough hand luggage for a soccer team, oh, and a temperamental stroller that wouldn’t fold. All this happened fifteen minutes before the plane was supposed to take off (not board, take off). I’m not good under pressure.

And yet the kids? No meltdowns. I’m shocked. Also, now I know that they can be expected to deal serenely with quite a bit of stress, so I’m not taking any more random whining  or tantrums at the supermarket.

Arriving in Houston after three and a half years has been a bit unsettling. Things have changed just enough for everything to look and feel familiar, but just slightly off somehow, kind of like I stepped into a parallel universe. Now I’m going to be freaking out about being in a parallel universe, by the way.

That’s it for now, as I’m dealing with jet-lag (my own and four other people’s). Also, my children are angels.

Virtual Coffee {21}

Hello friends, welcome to coffee!

Today’s coffee is being served on a beach in Sardinia!

Well, the truth is it’s being served on a beach in Sardinia mostly in my imagination cause this place… not so big on service. But who’s complaining, I’m on vacation aren’t I?!

I have plenty of time to write a post complaining about the crappy resort, much like I already complained about flying CAA (Cheap Ass Air) but today I’m going to be positive and only mention the things we like, like this:

This is the beach near our resort. Each room has an assigned umbrella and two chairs, which makes our lives much more relaxed as we’re not worried about rushing down to the beach early to get the “good seats”. We’ve got a grand total of two umbrellas and four chairs as we have two rooms, so we have loads of space to play in and throw sand at each other without bothering our neighbors, this too makes for a much more relaxing time (and, in case you were wondering, by “we” in this sentence I actually mean the kids, as the Husband and I try not to throw sand at each other, unless he does something really stupid, of course!).

We’re not right at the water’s edge, we’re actually in the very last row (of five, so not bad) but we’ve discovered this arrangement is pretty good as it makes for easy running behind the dunes for emergency pee situations (ahem, not that that’s ever happened, of course).

I have the brunt of the water play duties as it’s been pretty windy (you can tell by the state of my hair), and the husband has a pretty bad cough which we’re still trying to figure out (don’t know yet if it’s permanent damage to his lungs due to the radiation therapy, but that’s fodder for another post, as we’re keeping a positive spin on this one) so I’m basically spending A LOT of time in the water with one or the other little fish (the oldest of which came up to me yesterday, pointed at me and said “mama, pruny!” – thanks kiddo!)

Yesterday though the wind let up a little and the husband braved the open sea:

It was his first dip in  over two years, he was very happy, though a little freaked out and paranoid. Today he didn’t jump in, but I guess he just needs to gain confidence in his immune system with baby steps. So we balance our mornings at the beach with more husband friendly activities in the afternoon, like ice cream eating:

And horseback riding:

And car driving:

And animal watching:

This is a miniature horse mare with her colt 

Yes, that’s a peacock in the playground. I thought that was a little weird, but they just freely roam the resort. The ostriches, horses and donkeys on the other hand are penned up. Which is lucky, because I, for one, would not like to run into an ostrich on my evening stroll, those things are huge!

Another really relaxing thing about this place is the fact that it’s really family oriented, seriously family oriented:

Those are all strollers parked at the entrance of the restaurant, the go all the way around. That’s A LOT of kids! I for one am not a great child lover, I mean, I like my own kids, I’ve just never gotten all misty eyed at the sight of other people’s kids, so I thought it would be torture being in such a child-friendly place. The truth is though, that in a place where everybody has small children, nobody gives a shit if your kid is throwing the mother of all tantrums or smearing food all over her tray and herself, they’re all too busy looking at their own offspring doing pretty much the same thing. So I don’t have to spend my time with all the “don’t scream”, “don’t play with your food”, “don’t bang on your plate” and can actually look around and (inwardly) pat myself on the back for how well mannered my kids are. No stress, plus great for my ego!

Though if we were really having coffee I’d confess that apart from the above-mentioned perks it hasn’t been the most relaxing vacation we’ve ever had, mostly due to the fact that it’s the husband’s first time away from the “comfort zone” of the hospital since we started this whole leukemia saga, but, a little worry aside, we’re very happy to actually be able to take a vacation as a family. More pictures coming soon, we are now off to visit Cagliari, a nice little city near us.

Thanks for stopping for coffee, although, now that I think of it, I probably should have served Daiquiri’s with these pictures!

And, as usual, don’t forget to visit our hostess Amy!

<

Up, up and away! (Would you like to buy a watch?)

I’ve been meaning to write all week, I have loads of stuff to post, instead I’ve been packing. I packed for three days straight. And, no, I’m not moving anywhere. On Tuesday I packed an insane amount of stuff to take down to the beach house. I packed all day. Then on Wednesday I went down to the beach house to take a huge carload of stuff and once unloaded, I realized I had taken practically nothing at all. How does this happen? I mean, the car was full, to the brim, and yet the house is still empty. I didn’t even manage to take the vacuum cleaner down there cause it wouldn’t fit in the car, cause of all the stuff. And yet I didn’t even manage to make a dent in outfitting the apartment, all that work was like a drop in the ocean. I’m flummoxed.

Thursday and Friday I spent packing for our trip to Sardinia. As the beach apartment is still uninhabitable this summer, due to the lack of doors and windows, we decided to book a little last minute vacation to one of the most beautiful beach areas in Italy. Unfortunately, rather than learn from my fellow bloggers’ mistakes I decided to fly Cheap Ass Air (I refer you now to Mrs Fancy’s posts on the subject, this one here in particular, I’m blatantly stealing this moniker from her). It seemed convenient enough, CAA (cheap ass air) was flying straight from the small airport near our town, we only had an twenty minute drive to get there, much better than the usual hour and a half minimum to the next biggest airport, which still isn’t a real international airport (that’s almost three hours away), so we thought it was the best solution ever.

Let me just say, and please learn from my mistakes (though I know you’ll ignore me, much like I ignored Fancy) flying Cheap Ass Air is never the best solution, ever, and rarely is it the cheapest. In any case, armed with my previously acquired Fancy knowledge, I tried to dot all my i’s and cross all my t’s when reserving the ticket, I got extra baggage allowance, paid extra to bring my carseat, tried and failed to buy the Girl a seat even though she’s under two but apparently it’s impossible on CAA (although Fancy begs to differ), basically I did everything short of a propitiatory rain dance to ensure a smooth flying experience for my family.

Apart from the fact that we left from the only airport in the world to not have even the memory of a luggage cart anywhere on it’s premises (and though I haven’t actually flown from every airport in the world I have gone through airports that were nothing more than a hut alongside a landing strip and I’ve always found a luggage cart, but nary a one to be found here), I’d like to list a few highlights from the eventful, albeit short, thankfully, flight:

- apparently CAA is CA all around, there are advertisements everywhere you look. On the overhead luggage compartments (which incidentally we were strongly discouraged to use by the inflight personnel that kept repeating to please put our luggage underneath the seat in front of us first) there were all manner of ads, the most prolific one encouraged me to “Discover Lanzarote”, there is no place I’d rather discover less now, so not very effective advertising, in my opinion, but that’s neither here nor there.

Then again ads on the subway (metro, underground, tube, or whatever else you’d like to call it) are common enough, of course, but a subway ticket is a couple of euros at most so it’s acceptable, I would think, to try and cover the cost of running that service with a few ads, but in this case though Cheap Ass Air may be cheap (allegedly) it’s not that cheap.

- They never just shut the hell up. They are constantly on the speaker system telling you about some great deal or other you just can’t miss. Really, they just need to shut up. And when they’re not telling you to buy something or fly somewhere they put music on. I realize I’m no spring chicken, so I’m not hip or cool but really, what happened to just napping in flight to the soothing white noise provided by the plane's engines?

- They charge 3 euros for a cup of instant coffee. Now, I was travelling with both kids, one of which was on my lap because despite my attempting repeatedly to throw money at them they simply would not sell me a ticket for her, and a husband who was not on top form for the trip so I wasn’t about to risk drinking a cup of coffee (which I actually really needed, if only as a respite from the hell of travelling with two kids under four and a sick husband) but 3 euros, seriously??

- The flight attendants were actually something much more akin to those nut jobs that work on the likes of the shopping channel. They tried to entice us with the following items: smokeless cigarettes (really), perfume (not duty free of course, so why the hell would I buy perfume on an airplane?), t-shirts and (wait for it…) a watch, a Geox watch available in a variety of colors, oh and the three euro cup of instant coffee. All this on a slightly over an hour-long flight.

But the highlight of the trip, in my opinion, was provided by a fellow passenger; you see, halfway through the flight the guy sitting across the aisle from us calls the flight attendant to complain that he wasn’t getting any reception on his phone. He wasn’t getting reception on his phone. I laughed for like half an hour once the husband shared this little gem with me, it was a nervous laugh due to the possibility of all of us plummeting to a premature and violent death due to this guy’s stupidity, but still he lifted my mood for a minute so his good deed for the day is done.

Anyway, we’ve made it to our destination, I’ve unpacked, we’ve eaten, the kids are bathed and sleeping and tomorrow we’ll start exploring, though let me just say this, first impression: not great.

I won’t expound on that any further cause I’m hoping my negative outlook is due to a bit of traveller fatigue, but let’s just say that my next post will likely be about why one should never disregard the negative reviews on Tripadvisor, even if they are few and far between. As the Boy said when he saw his room “can we go home now?”. 

Oh, so that’s where you’ve been

You may have noticed a certain lack of communication from me this past week… I promise I had a really good reason, you see, I was here:

Looking at this:

From out here:

Or relaxing here:

With them:

Doing this:

And this:

 Eating this:

made us this happy:

We also did some more of this:

Then we took sail on a pirate ship:

and drove off into the sunset:

Wrestled crocodiles:

And chased little girls with glee:

We swam and swam and swam some more and caught some rays:

There'll be more pics in the next few days...

Cause they're just too cute...

But I missed you all and am very happy to be back home!