Run Fox Run

The sea is calm tonight,
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits

(With apologies to Matthew Arnold)…with just 26 hours in San Clemente we visited three beaches.  Full documentation in the album at right.  Thanks to the Hoida-Mulholland crew for a beach-tastic time.  Next time on the Atlantic coast!

We recently returned from a week in Colorado.  Aunt Maya and Uncle Tommy were excellent hosts, and the five cousins played together non-stop.  When we took pictures, we didn’t even have to tell them to smile.  We had lots of fun at home and out at the pool, the zoo, the science museum, various parks, and at the theater.  We even managed to see the Butterfly Pavilion with the GREAT Grandparents Stroud!  Copious documentation is provided in the Colorado 2009 album.  Thanks Crawfords for a wonderful week.  While Maya claims that we are missed, something tells me she isn’t referring to Leda and Cleo’s pre-6-am wake-up each morning

As best said in the proverbial Jewish grandmother accent, the title states that we’ve been remiss in updating our familial Web 2.0 “status”.  No more! Clear out the backblog™ and move forward. Christmas/Hanukkah were spent bathed in warmth and sunshine on the western coast of Mexico. Zihuatanejo to be specific. Other than being the terminus of Andy and Red’s exodus from Shawshank, we knew precious little about the town and its possibilities. It’s most redeeming quality at the outset was that is had a direct flight from Denver (for my sister) and that it wasn’t the most popular destination in Mexico. 

Turns out Zihuatanejo is not too bad at all. 80+ degree weather in December and lots of sunshine did wonders for our tans. Hanging out with the grandparents and cousins during our stay made it all the more enjoyable. Typical day had us at the beach in the morning and swimming in the pool in the afternoon. Cocktails promptly at 5pm were followed by excellent Mexican cuisine prepared in a sweatbox kitchen by Papa. We visited a ton of local beaches and found that they all had warm sand, small waves, and an army of small restaurants that all shared the same menu (quesadillas and pescadillas abound, oh and guacamole by the gallon). Special trips to the locals’ beaches and the central mercado gave us an idea of how life works in town. 

What isn’t included in the above encapsulation is the time spent enjoying a family reunion and seeing the cousins get to color, romp, swim, pal around, and laugh with each other. No matter what the locale, that’s always the best part of the trip. We eagerly look forward to our next intersection with Grandma and Papa (March) and the Crawfords (June). 

Way too many pictures from this vacation can be found in the two Zihua albums [#1 and #2].

Today Big Brown is racing in the Haskell at Monmouth Park, so there’s a big crowd to see the Derby/Preakness winner and his peers competing.  But the REAL race fans were there Thursday to see lesser-known ponies take a spin ’round the track.  Leda shared Uncle Gary’s affection for the grays, but her most powerful preference was for the horse/jockey combination wearing the most pink and/or purple.  Nevertheless she was the day’s big winner, picking two winners in six races.  Her selection methods at the paddock were even displayed on the track Jumbotron, as you can see in the Monmouth Park photo album.

Sicily, it turns out, has seen everything. Everything and everyone, from the ancient Greeks and Romans to the Islamic so-called “Moors” to the Normans. Everybody left their mark, architecturally at least, so in two weeks we saw a bit of everything. There’s a cathedral in Palermo that has literally seen it all — it was built as a mosque and has been added onto, remodeled, and “improved” by everybody since. The ancient sites at Segesta, Selinunte, Agrigento, and Villa Casales pretty much knocked our socks off.

Yep, we did the traveling with kids thing again, once again aided tremendously by our partners in crime, Lynn and George. They were more than willing to take a gelato break whenever we needed to recharge the girls between temples. Leda picked up enough conversational Italian to order her own snacks, and corrected Papa’s pronunciation. Cleo became even steadier on her feet, perfecting the gait necessary to cruise down the beach to leap into the onrushing surf Our homes were both well-appointed and well-situated for our explorations of the island, and we even managed to see Mount Etna!

Photos are in the two Sicily albums — start with Part I to see it all in chronological order.