Sunday was a bit quieter during the day. We slept in….go figure. After a wild night of rock star partying we wanted to sleep in. I don’t think most of the rock stars have small children though….big difference. We were up and at ‘em at 10ish but still that only gave us 7 hours of sleep. We wished the daddies a happy Father’s Day but really what could we give them? The kids made cards and couldn’t find them. Dang it. Anyway, I gave Bob a kiss. That’s what I had.
After cold pizza for breakfast (from the night before) we decided to plant ourselves at the lagoon. You can snorkel there and there are big round floatie things out in the middle for the kids to climb on and jump off. We dragged some chairs down close to the water and set up. The small people immediately went to the big round floatie. Bob and I snorkeled. We saw all kinds of fish, anemone, a lobster, a ray of some sort, a baby barracuda (Don’t tell Sophia. She’s terrified of them for some reason. I think William has filled her head with horror stories.), tons of yellow and white stripped fish, some blue fish and so on. I tried to get good pictures but it was hard.
After about an hour I came out of the water and Ingrid said that Coulter was melting down. He hadn’t napped all week so that seemed about right. After fighting with him he came along pleasantly as my buddy. He showered and then lay down. He informed me that he was not going to be able to sleep and then promptly did.
The reason that it was important for him to be rested and pleasant was that George and Sarah were due to pick us up at 4:00 for a dinner at their house. I was not going to be dealing with grouchy kids and I knew it was going to be a late night. A couple minutes after Coulter fell asleep the rest of the crew came back. Everyone was tired and needed a break. Kees took a nap, some of us shopped, some read, some just sat on the balcony and watched the action. There is plenty to see from up here. Rays, GIANT rays, fish feeding, sharks, water slides, screaming people on the water slides, para-sailers (sp?), walkers, diners, ships passing and so on. It’s amazing just to sit and watch.
At 3:45 we all had a pow wow in our living space. All the kids sat down and I put out some rules. I told everyone (the kids) that they were to be on their best behavior. Anything else would not be tolerated. They all agreed to the rules. I really wasn’t too worried but there have been a few moments. Heck, they have been together for almost 2 weeks.
We go to the drive and George and Sarah pick us up. Right as Sarah pulls up William pokes Coulter in the eye. They have been doing this thing where they put their fingers by a person’s eye and basically dare them to walk into it. I don’t know if Coulter wasn’t paying attention or if William just poked. None the less it wasn’t the show I wanted the first moment we all get together and I was concerned that this was going to be the tone for the evening. I said, “What were you doing William?” He felt really bad and did NOT want to talk to me. On the plus side it was the only negative interaction the whole evening.
Upon arrival we all piled out and all the kids wanted to do was swim. They put on their suits and off they went. Michael and Minas, George and Sarah’s kids were gracious and terrific young hosts. They showed the kids around, played in the pool and helped my small boys when they could. AND they have a 7 month old Pug named Mug. So cute and Sophia was smitten. She has been missing our dog a lot.
William got along very well with Minas and Michael and was THRILLED that they had video games. He had been having with drawls. The rest of the kids took the golf cart down to the new beach club in their community, the grown ups chatted and caught up some more, we cooked and had a fine time. George told some stories about high roller guests that are almost unreal. I know they’re true because you can’t make this stuff up. He’s a great story teller so it’s always fun to hear what the latest and greatest stories are. I’ll tell you that one was about a man that comes often and between him and his 2 nephews and a few other family members they lost between 5 and 6 million dollars in less than a week. Can you imagine? And this family was Italian and perhaps members of, shall we say, a tight knit gang that no-one would admit to being part of….if you get my drift. He should write all this down because there is a book in it sometime.
We heard all about the dolphins and when some came here from New Orleans. Apparently there are lots of animal activist here and they were NOT happy. The thing that doesn’t make sense is that the dolphins couldn’t survive in the wild they were born under human care and that is what they know. We heard about some of the celebrity guest that come here, weddings of the rich and famous, new development and so on. It’s always interesting and sometimes it makes me miss the business. I know I could be doing something “bigger” then I did before but I really love being at home with the kids. But still….sometimes. George always tells me I was good at what I did and that I could have done bigger things. That makes me feel good too. A bit conflicted but we all make sacrifices and choices and Bob and I feel good about the choices we’ve made. Anyway….it still has a bit of allure for me. I am glad my friends are all doing so well.
Oh, and Sarah told us all about a 50th birthday party she was invited to last fall. They were both invited but George couldn’t take the time off. Sarah took her sister. The “Save the Date” came in the form of a box like a crate. In the box were 2 bottles of fancy wine from Austria and the save the date. The party was in Vienna for a week for 150 people. There were balls every night. For one they hired the Vienna Symphony for a private affair. They had a private showing of the Lipizzaner Stallions. And a period ball where everyone was dressed in real period clothing. They were all fitted in Vienna for the clothing and had hair and makeup people available for anyone who wanted or needed help. During the days there were private tours that they could take around the city if they wanted. There was a lot more but that is what I remember. AND THEN when Sarah came home the people had a 150 page beautiful book published for everyone to remember their time in Vienna. Can you imagine that? I can’t. Bob turns 40 next year, ahhh, we WON’T be doing that.
So as you can tell the conversation was great all night. While we were talking the kids were all watching a movie in the movie room. Again, amazing. A giant movie screen with surround sound. The kids all laying around in big chairs…sleeping. Coulter came out at 11:00 and said, “Everyone is sleeping.” I said, “Who?” And then he listed all 6 of the other kids and the babysitters. It was time to go. We loaded up and went “home.”
Everyone got in bed and this is where I would have ended my blog usually but at 2:45 am Coulter got sick and threw up all over the place. We think the milk he drank in the morning made him sick. He was up for 2 hours throwing up and taking showers. I was really tired but mostly I felt really sorry for him. It was rough. Finally at 4:30 he fell asleep and stayed asleep until the morning. I’ll fill you in on Monday soon.
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