Chicago

By Scott: I am in Chicago this week for the funeral of our cousin Julia Koclanes. Julia had an incredible affect on all of our lives and will be truly missed. She was a wonderful person who lived life to the fullest and never let all the problems she faced get her down. She had a long battle with several medical conditions and after a protracted struggle died Saturday afternoon with her husband at her side. We learned about her passing Saturday night and immediately looked into whether I could fly up here. Someone upstairs must have wanted it to be as after seeing the first couple of options at 1500, 1200 and 1100 dollars we found a cheap last minute fare through Charlotte that was less expensive than some of our flights to Miami.

I arrived late Sunday and yesterday I got to see my nephew Nicholas for the first time in over two years. He has gone from being a baby in my arms to a walking talking 2 year old ball of energy. I am not bragging but my nephew is a genius, already counting and spelling and reading his books to me. While the reason for coming here is not at all what I would have wanted it is giving me the chance to catch up with a lot of family I haven't seen in the two years we have been in the Caribbean. I am staying with my cousin Chuck and his family until my sister gets back in town tomorrow. That has given me the chance to spend time with Aunt Catherine who turns 90 this August and to catch up with Twila (Chuck's wife) and Cory and Christy (their daughters). Seeing and babysitting my nephew was a great time, even changing his diaper (something I am sure that would not be near as fun the 100th time as it was the first time). I was the lone baby sitter for about 2 and a half hours and by the end I was worn out which means I need to get into better shape so when Katie and have our own I can keep up with them.

I am spending today with Julia's husband Nick and some of his family who have already made it into town. Tomorrow is the wake and the funeral is Thursday. I plan to see some other family throughout the week and will try and do an update before I leave. Keep Nick and all of Julia's family in your prayers this week as we celebrate her life and remember fondly the affect she had on all of us.

Julia Koclanes Rest In Peace

We received the sad news that our Cousin Julia passed away yesterday after a long illness. She was a fighter who held on much longer than the Doctors ever thought she would. We will always remember our time with her and she will always be in our memories. Her husband Nick is like a brother to Scott and he is headed up to Chicago for the funeral. Our thoughts are with Julia's family during this time and we ask everyone to keep them all in your prayers.

Early season storm kills some of our Appliances

Thursday night we got home from the college to find the electricity out at our house. It seems a transformer near us had blown during the fairly big rain and thunderstorm that struck Cayman from Wednesday afternoon through Friday morning. The power surge to our house knocked out the electricity and in the process fried our DVD player, our toaster, our microwave and our cable box. Fortunately, the computers and I-home were not affected nor was the television though without a cable box we are sans any stations. We bought a new DVD player last night at Cost U Less and will look for a cheap microwave and toaster in the next couple of days. The microwave that blew out wasn't ours, it belongs to the homeowner so that one will be her concern. We are just getting a small miniature one that can get us through since most of what we do is oven related anyway. We did get some good news yesterday as the repairs on our car and the two new front tires came in substantially less in cost than expected. Of course those savings are now going into the DVD player, microwave and toaster. They are also helping to pay the cost of the two adapters we had to buy when our cats chewed through both of our adapters in less than 24 hours. Next weekend is Constitution Day here in Cayman so Monday the 6th is a national holiday. In celebration, we are going on a vacation to Grand Cayman. Everything we do will be as if we were taking a vacation to the Island. Renting a house, going to all the tourist things etc.

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to our Dad's and to all the father's in our families.

Great Stirrup Cay

On Sunday the cruise ship headed to the Berry Islands and we spent the day at Great Stirrup Cay on a private beach. Scott made a donation to the Bahamas leaving his snorkel gear somewhere in the water, necessitating an expensive replacement when we got back to Cayman since he had specially made gear with stronger lenses for his vision. Later Sunday night we went to the Italian restaurant for dinner on the boat and the picture taken before the dinner had an uninvited guest who looks a lot closer than he really was and who fortunately didn't give us a present. We definitely feel now that doing an Alaskan cruise is a possibility as Katie did well with a patch to control her motion sickness.

We are back in the Cayman Islands for the balance of the summer and with hurricane season really starting in force next month will be getting the house and our kits fully ready. We plan to get a car later this summer and are hoping the little Charade can hold out until the fall so we don't go too much into debt getting the car. For ex-pats buying cars is a cash deal so we have to pay the full price up front as well as buying one years insurance and paying the government fee's so it is something you save up for a couple of months and then do. Our thought is that if the Charade can survive to September we will buy the car then. An advantage to that is that we get through the peak of hurricane season and don't have to worry about buying a car and then having it flooded right after we buy it if a bad storm hits the Island.

More Nassau Ardastra Zoo Photos

Some Bahamas Pictures

On Saturday morning our cruise ship docked in Nassau across from Paradise Island and the Atlantis Resort. At right is a picture of us on the dock right outside the ship with Paradise Island behind us. During the morning we wandered around the areas near the port before doing our tour of some of the city and the Ardastra zoo. Below right are the Queen's steps built in honor of Queen Victoria. Below is a picture of us at Fort Finfrock overlooking Nassau and the harbor in the background.

Thoughts and Prayers for our Cousin Julia

Our cousin Julia in Chicago is going through some very difficult health issues and we want to send our love and wishes for a speedy recovery to her as well as asking everyone to keep her in your thoughts and prayers.

Bahamas Cruise

We are back from our three day cruise to the Bahamas and have definitely found something we will want to do again. More pictures and text will follow as we play with the photo's we took. We were in Nassau on New Providence Island Saturday and then Great Stirrup Cay in the Berry Islands Sunday. We got back to Miami this morning and flew back to Grand Cayman in the early afternoon. The picture at left is from the Ardastra Gardens and Zoo in Nassau.

Checking off another place in the song

We sometimes joke to each other that we are just going places in the Caribbean to check them off from the Beach Boys song Cocomo. From Key Largo to Montego and Jamaica we are working our way through them and this weekend we check off the Bahamas. Our cruise ship leaves Miami on Friday evening at 5 p.m. and sails to Nassau Saturday and then Stripling Cay on Sunday before returning to Miami Monday morning. We will take lots of pictures and post them early next week. This week has been strange with no classes. We are taking advantage of the time to play catch up on a lot of work and get ready for the summer quarter which starts on Tuesday. This Monday is a national holiday here to celebrate the birthday of Queen Elizabeth II so that is why we have a Tuesday start for the quarter.

Two things we wont miss

Two things we wont miss when we do finally leave Cayman are the terrible drivers and the large number of animal corpses on the roads. Unlike many parts of the USA, the Cayman Islands do not have sufficient municipal workers to go around and pick up all the dead animals on the roadways. With over 100,000 cars on this Island (compared to only 50,000 people) and very little space the run ins between car and wildlife occur all too frequently. New roads are being built through previously uninhabited parts of the Island driving the wildlife into active areas of driving. In addition, unlike the US where new development usually simply means the animals move, this is an island they cant just keep moving here. Whether driving to work or biking for exercise we are guaranteed to pass several corpses on our way. The green iguanas breed like rabbits down here (sadly the much rarer blues do not). That means lots of iguanas looking to sun themselves on the roads and lots of minor tragedies every day. The drivers here for the most part are terrible, going too fast for one lane roads and passing at incredibly stupid times. We literally have watched people pass with blind curves just ahead. They have no idea about concepts like closing distance or reaction time and will tail gate so that if the car ahead were to suddenly hit their brakes there would be no way there wouldn't be an accident. Throw in the tourists who are uncertain about driving on the left and you have a recipe for lots of accidents. There have been several head on collisions since we arrived two years ago and whenever we are on the Harquayle bypass we are hyper aware of what people around us and ahead of us are doing because the chances of them doing something stupid seem so much greater here than even Miami where the drivers are the worst in the US. This may be paradise for vacationers but is free for all on the roads.

Late night with the Texas Baseball Team and On Line Poker

By Scott: Saturday evening we got home from the Grand Old House and Katie went upstairs to scrapbook while I turned on the computer to see how my Horns were doing in the Regional baseball tournament against Boston College. They were tied in the bottom of the seventh so I logged into the streaming video site and settled in to watch the last two innings. Little did I know that the game would go 25 innings, the longest of any college baseball game ever. The Horns were actually the visiting team since it was a tournament game even though it was happening in Austin. It ended shortly after 1 a.m. some 4 1/2 hours after I started watching with the Horns winning 3-2. It included a stretch at one point where a Texas relief pitcher appropriately named Austin Wood pitched 12 and 1/3 innings of hit less ball and 13 innings of scoreless ball overall. When the Horns finally scored in the top of the 25th and then held on in the bottom of the inning, I had to quietly celebrate so as not to wake up the neighborhood. The Horns followed that up Sunday night with an amazing come from behind win by scoring 8 runs in the ninth inning that ended with a walk off grand slam. 14-10 over Army. The games are all being streamed on video and with only a few outages I was able to watch the full games Friday and Sunday and of course 18 plus innings of the marathon game Saturday night/Sunday morning. On to the Super Regional against the school I used to live next to TCU from Fort Worth this weekend and I will have to find a way to watch while working the comprehensive exams.

I also participated in an online poker tournament on Friday evening with some 3006 participants. It was all for play money though the winner got a free entry to some on line tournament for real money. We all started with 2000 play chips. The early stages were a free for all with people going all in just for the heck of it everywhere and in the first ten minutes over 500 people were eliminated. By the first hour over half the field was gone and by the one and a half hour mark we were down to about 500 players. I stayed alive for close to five hours and with only 300 players left actually had the biggest chip stack. In the end finished in 12th just shy of the final table. I don't get to play as often as I did before being married, in fact this was my first real tournament action in several months. I wanted to get a little practice time in before we go on our cruise as there is a poker tournament that happens on the ship one night that I want to play in. I was happy with my play, though I made a couple of foolish bluffs that wasted chips. Overall I laid down hands when I knew I was beat and played conservative early while all the idiots played foolish going all in on anything. I lost on two hands where I made trips and the other player made a full house on the river. He went all in and I thought I had him beat so I called, it was one of the few mistaken reads I had all night. Then I went out on a hand where I was short stacked and so I went all in with an ace and got called by someone elses king and they flopped a king. If you have to go out that is the way to do it, making the right play and just getting out drawn. There was obviously some luck involved but I never made a huge call or all in where I didn't have the better hand and the numbers played in my favor until the end. If hadn't made some foolish bluffs and gotten called down who knows what might have happened.