(Note: will put up cruise pics & stories once FTP gets fixed. Again.)
Before we left for our cruise, I let C play the Sims 3 game. If you're not familiar with it, here's the wikipedia link to it. Basically, you create a town, and houses, and people, and then control every aspect of the people's lives - from bodily needs & functions, to hopes & dreams. It's fun, addictive, and, at times, exhausting.
It's also, possibly, not a great game for a kid with OCD tendencies. He's spent 99% of his time creating & customizing characters and their houses, and 1% playing the game. But it's been an interesting glimpse into his mind. Here's what I've learned so far:
1. He loves to create characters that look evil/edgy/scary, and then give them really great personality traits. He'll show me a dude with tattoos, a green mohawk, a unibrow and black leather clothing - and say things like, "He's just misunderstood. He's a really nice guy but sometimes people don't give him a chance."
2. He's quite thrifty. He builds a house and somehow has $8,000 left over (a fortune in the Sims world). But then realizes he needs to give his poor people a countertop so they can prepare food, and begrudgingly buys it for them.
3. He apparently doesn't like being an only child. He's forever creating families with 4 or 5 children in them. I suppose that if he were one of 4 or 5 children in real life, his Sim households would be filled with only children. No way to know, I guess.
4. He really wants people to regard him as brave and daring. He created a mock Livaudais family, and gave the son the "daredevil" trait, then told me, "You know, because he's kind of like me." When I expressed surprise, he spent most of the rest of the day trying to convince me that he's a daredevil - using such evidence as, "Sometimes I throw grapes in the air and then catch them in my mouth! I could CHOKE!"
Christopher saved all of his money for 2+ years, and was finally able to buy the object of his desire: the Lego Death Star, a $400 monstrosity of a creation. We'd honestly thought that by the time he had enough money for it, he'd have lost interest in something Lego, but nope! He remained determined throughout to buy it, and triumphantly announced at the end of May that he had enough money.
Frank asked him, "Are you sure? You've almost got enough money for your own iPad!"
But the boy was not to be deterred. We went online to buy it, after verifying that it wasn't available locally. After the purchase, I received an email from Lego saying that the set was back-ordered and wouldn't be in til the end of June...almost a month later. I told Christopher, reluctantly, and his response astounded me: "Mom, I've waited 2 years. One more month will be easy." (Holy cow!)
A few days later, I got another email from Lego, apologizing for the inconvenience and saying the set was now not going to ship til September. As I was mulling how to break the news, I got a *third* email from them - but this was a shipping notice (what the hell?).
So, when we arrived home from our Triple Marathon trip, it was waiting on the front doorstep.
Here's the overjoyed boy and his Precious:
Here are some interesting facts about the Lego Death Star: the box weighed 21 pounds; the set contains 3,803 pieces; it's designed for ages 14+ (I think it's more a collectors piece for nerds than a play set for younger kids); and the instructions consist of a 260-page spiral bound booklet.
C has spent the little time we've been home this summer putting the Death Star together, and predicts it'll take him the rest of the summer. Here's the latest stage:
We're really proud of him for saving all his money for something important to him, and not being distracted by being able to afford smaller things all along - even if we think $400 is a ridiculous amount of money for Legos.
Updated to say: This is what the Death Star will look like when done.
Well, I might have lost my mind: today I registered for the Rock 'n Roll Las Vegas half marathon on December 5.
If you know much about me, you know that I'm not the runner in the house. In fact, of the three of us I'm by far the least able to do it. My one-lung issue has prevented me from being able to run for more than about a half-mile without stopping to walk. Nevertheless, I've decided to give it a shot. My friend Carla will be there, and after she finishes the race she'll be renewing her vows with her husband. Seemed like a cool time to try it.
I 'ran' four days last week on the treadmill (little more than a mile each time) and once I get rid of this little chest cold I'll get back to it. I'll log my progress here occasionally, mostly for my own accountability. As of now, it takes me a ridiculous 14 minutes to finish a mile. I'd like to get this down to 10. I'm going to focus on increasing the mileage/total time in motion, and hope the pace improves along the way. If I'm actually able to pull this thing off, I'll consider it a major life achievement. We shall see!
The kids woke up and ran amok for a little while, jumping off the boat and swimming to shore to make more sand castles. We were in a pretty strong current at this spot, so if they wanted to jump off, they had to jump at the bow and then bob along til they got to the back of the boat to get back on. Christopher, of course, jumped off the side, but inched ever closer to the dreaded bow.
Next, we sailed for a couple of hours and tied up at a place Bruce & Sheila referred to as Danger Reef. They threw the leftover breakfast food over, and almost immediately there was a swarm of large fish and some sharks. We were told that the adults were allowed to carefully get in the water but that the children were to stay on the boat. Also, when our friends grabbed their fins, they were quickly told NO FINS - because wearing fins makes it much harder to get back into the boat quickly if need be. With that in mind, about 10 of us slowly crept into the water to float and admire the sharks swimming around us.
This is me, really happy that I can float for the 2nd time in my life. Ever.
Not sure why it's in black & white - I think I must've pushed a wrong button.
There were at one point about 15 sharks in our vicinity, and a few times they came within a foot or two of us - right under our bellies. They were mostly lemon sharks, but there were also a few black-tipped sharks and two bull sharks, so we were all cautious with our movements. They ranged from maybe 7 to about 10 feet in length. This was probably my favorite activity of the week.
After a while, we apparently all floated into a tight group, and the sharks started swimming faster and circling us, so Bruce told us to come back in. Heather was the last one in the water, and was just about to take a video of the sharks when Sheila threw the rest of the food in the water. Heather swam toward the boat just in time, as the sharks starting darting toward her. Sheila apologized to Heather and said she was told everyone was back on board. Happily, no was was eaten, though we did discuss, afterward, that perhaps not all of the parents should have been in the water at the same time. Oh well. Parenting Award #2.
After our shark swim and another short boat ride, we got to do my second-favorite activity of the week: snorkel a plane wreck.
Norman's Cay used to house a huge cocaine smuggling operation. Bruce told us the runway there was as big as the one in Nassau. In the 1970s, a drug plane went down into the water and has been there since, partially submgerged. It made a great snorkeling site, and was fun for the kids because when they got tired they could just stand on the wings of the plane. There were tons of fish around, the fuselage was still in halfway decent shape, and we saw a huge stingray. All in all, a great activity.
Again, not sure why this video is in black & white, or why I couldn't manage to hold the camera steady :)
We passed by a small island with a lone palm tree, made famous by Corona.
Finally, we stopped for drinks on Norman's Cay at a place called McDuff's, which is apparently a favorite place of Jimmy Buffett's. Not being a big Buffett fan, I didn't care a lot about this, but I did have a nice drink there.
We woke up at Compass Cay and let the kids swim with and harass the nurse sharks for a bit, then packed some water and headed off for a hike. We walked on a trail and then across a really large flat area of sand that they sometimes us as a runway. Part of it had received asphalt at one time, and based on how it looked when we walked across, this was not a good idea.
We ended up at the Bat Cave. The kids were sorely disappointed as the only bat in sight was a black plastic baseball bat hanging from the ceiling. D even wrote in his travel journal, "The parents all laughed at the joke but I didn't see why it was funny."
We climbed around some cliffs for a while, and then walked across the desolate sandy/asphalt area toward Crescent Beach. It was during this long walk that I discovered something about myself: as much as I love sand, I don't think I could last walking across a desert more than about 6 hours before I went batshit insane. Even in this relatively firm sand, after a quarter mile or so I started feeling like I was in a bad dream - one of those dreams where it's like you're running through molasses. Also, I was hungry and thirsty, so I was already a little cranky.
Anyway, eventually we got back to Crescent Beach and passed a couple of hours playing.
For lunch we had burgers & dogs from Tucker's restaurant (where restaurant = 1 grill on a dock) and really enjoyed them.
Around 3, everyone came back to the boat. Charlie had been off in a kayak fishing for bonefish, and came back with a cool story and video: he'd been bitten on the arm by a baby bull shark he'd hooked. His shirt sleeve was shredded and he had a nice semicircle on his arm, and he was grinning from ear to ear. After this encounter, he said he was sitting in his kayak when he noticed an 8-foot bull shark right underneath him. As these are pretty aggressive sharks, he sat perfectly still until it swam away.
We headed out from Compass Cay to a place called Rocky Dundas, where you could snorkel into some caves.
From there, we sailed to South Warderick Wells, and anchored off shore. After dinner (mahi spaghetti), when it got dark, we grabbed flashlights and dinghied to the island to search for hutias. A hutia is a native rodent somewhere in size between a guinea pig and a cat, and when you shine a light on one, it freezes. To be honest, I thought it was going to be a snipe hunt until we saw our first hutia. It was fun to hear them rustling around and then scramble to try to spotlight them. The kids had a blast.
The boys got up at the crack of dawn and began jumping off the boat. C and D happily jumped off the bow, but Christopher was a bit too scared to try it - he got upset after a while with all the taunting from his friends, which we sort of ignored in the hopes that they'd convince him to jump. He did jump off the side, near the front, which was almost as high, but he was pretty pissed about people bugging him. (It's funny that Frank and I ended up with such a cautious kid - is this how he rebels against us?)
After breakfast, we sailed again and the guys caught 4 more dolphin fish. D's dad let D reel another one in, but he was disappointed to find out it wasn't a keeper.
Today we arrived at Compass Cay, the first inhabited island we'd been on so far. The island is owned by a guy named Tucker, and there are a few vacation homes, a nice pier, a store/'restaurant', a gorgeous beach, and a population of nurse sharks.
Nurse sharks are docile and friendly, and to me resembled giant catfish. We got to swim among them even during feeding time. Christopher was scared, at first, but even he got comfortable pretty quickly with the sharks.
After swimming with the sharks for a bit, we walked across the island to Crescent Beach. To call the beach beautiful would be an understatement. The sand was white, and the water was ideal in color and in temperature. Commercials should be filmed on this beach, it was so pretty.
While we were playing, a large sting ray swam within a couple feet of shore and glided by us slowly a few times. It was a really pleasant afternoon.
When we got back to the boat, we were starving, and Bruce & Sheila did not disappoint. They'd set up a fryer on the dock and fried an entire turkey, which they served along with more mahi, potatoes, and veggies. It was delicious.
Before we left for our cruise, I let C play the Sims 3 game. If you're not familiar with it, here's the wikipedia link to it. Basically, you create a town, and houses, and people, and then control every aspect of the people's lives - from bodily needs & functions, to hopes & dreams. It's fun, addictive, and, at times, exhausting.
