. January 2017 .
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| A Jolly Rogering... |
Hello and welcome to 2017!
This issue shouldn't keep you awake for too long. We have decided to ease in the year nice and slowly. Probably a good thing after the Christmas and New Year festivities. The travelers returned for one last Hurrah (or should be one last"Aaaarrrrggghh!" ). We also had a little bit of sport going on and a couple of other random activities.
Enjoy our first for 2017!
The Travelers Return
Gordy, Lisa and Victoria had spent a few weeks exploring Cuba, Panama and finally Jamaica, before making one last stop over in Cayman. They arrived back around lunchtime friday. About an hour later they were on the beach at Smith's Cove...as you do.
Then at around 5ish, Dave picked them up and took them into town for a sunset cruise on the Jolly Roger Pirate Ship.
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| Boarding |
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| Looks ominous! |
Soon they were underway sailing off into the sunset, with Rum(s) in hand. It was an all-inclusive ticket, so no holding back!
The Jolly Roger takes you along the coast, firstly towards Smith's Cove area and then back down towards Seven Mile Beach while the sun slips slowly behind the low lying clouds. If you are interested, the Jolly Roger is actually up for sale. I think they are asking about a half a million for it. Or failing that, you could just commandeer and plunder it for a bit less!
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| A couple of other scurvy dogs were out on the high seas as well. Shame we couldn't catch them! |
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| Their last sunset for this trip... not as flash as some. |
As you might imagine, the rum stocks took a direct hit and the mutinous landlubbers started talking of pillaging and plundering the town.
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| A good time was had by all |
Luckily the plank wasn't required and everyone made it off the ship in relatively good shape. Some took a while to find their land legs...
After that it was back home to catch up with Michelle and the kids, and the barbeque....
Following that, the blender was calling, and Mud Slides were the order of the day.
After popping over to the swim meet (more about that below) Gordy and Lisa left for Miami late morning. Victoria wasn't leaving until later in the afternoon, so Dave took her for a quick snorkel just up the road a bit where there was an old wreck that was reasonably close to shore.
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| Small Lobster in a Conch shell |
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| The Wreck |
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| Some of the inhabitants of the wreck |
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| Mr. Barry Cuda was lurking. This guy was pretty big too! |
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| Flamingo Tongue |
After the snorkel, it was off to Sunset House (the local) for a quiet lunch
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| Sam and Victoria enjoy some shade |
Victoria left a couple of hours later, flying via Houston.
The Travelers seemed to have a pretty good trip. It was great to see them and enjoy their company on the occasional social outing, as well as at home!
Swim Meet
Yes, another swim meet! This was a Friday (night), Saturday and Sunday (mornings) affair. The kids had been doing the hard yards in their training cycle so this would be a challenging one for all.
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| Jake holds his own in the Fly |
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| Chillin... (Southern folk: Note the hat) |
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| One of the locals looks on |
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| "The Dab" |
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| That Dabbing sure takes it out of you |
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| Jake is off again! |
As we said, the swimmers weren't expected to do real great. However Jake managed a couple of PBs and Sam was close to a few times, so on the whole, the Coach was reasonably happy with progress to date. The last day of the meet was Jake's birthday!
The Nationals are coming up in late Feb, so we'll see how they go then!
Gaelic
The annual Gaelic Nines tournament was held just after New year. It's a mixed tournament where corporate teams take part. Michelle's work entered a team. Dave didn't take part. His views on contact are slightly at odds with the average Irishman.
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| Michelle in possession, with Mick (Ref) looking on |
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| Michelle employs some unnecessary roughness |
They played over Friday night and most of Saturday and Michelle's team won 3 of 4 their prelim games and managed to squeek into the seni-final.The semi-final was a close fought affair with Michelle's playing the only team they had lost against in the prelims - both teams kept the scoreboard ticking over, but Maples took the lead and managed to hang on to it. This was the first time Maples had made the final so they were pretty happy to get that far.
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| On the hoof |
With ony one game between the semi and the final, Mapels took to the field again. The first half didn't go to plan and they were down 10-1 at half time. They came out fighting in the second half knowing they had nothing to lose and got some early scores to be back in the game. They kept creeping closer then the other team would get a score - it was within reach but time was running out. With about a minute to go Michelle got the ball in front of the goal and decided to have a go - it went towards the goal on an odd angle, amazingly hitting the inside of the post before bouncing out but it was good enough - it was the winning goal! The team was ecstatic!!
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| Champions with their trophy! |
Randoms
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| Swimathon |
The kids had a fundraiser for the club. They had to find sponsors and the kids would swim for two hours doing as many laps (25m pool) as they could. Jake did 257 and Sam did about 252 (her coach did pull her over for some instructional advice during the swim though) - that's over 6kms each!
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| Jake's Birthday cake |
Jake turned 14 in January! As he had a swim meet the weekend of his actual birthday (he did get to go out for a special dinner with the family on his actual birthday at least!), he had to wait a couple of weeks to celebrate with his friends. He wanted to do the 'usual', which was a movie in town with his mates and then a sleepover (do they still call it that at 14?). Anyway, about seven of his mates invaded our place for the night (Sam was off like a robbers dog. She stayed at her friend's house for the night.).
The boys seemed to have a pretty good time. Pizza's, killing/shooting/tactical gunfight games, cake.... all sorted! They made plenty of noise and only kept Michelle awake until about 1:30 am (she was doing a half marathon the next day). Dave was OK, he stayed up late watching the Sevens from Wellington.
Mercuryman and Half Marathon
Also on Jake's birthday was the annual Mercuryman Half Ironman. This year they had a number of different individual options as well as the Half ironman, including a duathlon (run-swim-run), aquabike (swim and run) and an International distance triathlon (which is similar to Olympic distance but shorter swim and longer bike). Michelle had been trying to train for the half but didn't feel like she'd done the distances she needed so decided to do the triathlon. Starting half an hour after the main group she was done by 10.30 and home by midday - she was glad she did that as it was really hot at that time of the day and wouldn't have been much fun running a half marathon then! Not only that, she would not have had any energy to do anything else that day, which woudn't have been great on Jake's birthday!
As we mentioned, Michelle took part in a half Marathon last weekend. It was a social fundraising event for the Cancer Society. Times were only recorded officially for the half - everyone else was able to start whenever they felt like it which made for an interesting run, with people on the course all over the place!
Michelle's time was about 1 hour 52, which she was very happy with and in this place is a pretty good time!
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| Sam's art for exams |
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| Even the Rugby Club has the occasional sunset |
So that's it for January. A little quieter, but I'm sure things will pick up!
In February we have a couple of things lined up... Probably will involve a bit of running about, some swimming no doubt, and maybe some shaking it all about...
Hokey Cokey!
Catch ya next time!
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