Small Things and Big Things

We will start with the small things and end on the big things. Anticipation is great.

First small thing is that Sidney learned to tie her shoes. And ever so briefly tie shoes were preferred over flashy shoes. That lasted about two days. It really was easy to teach her, taking only a 15 minute lesson.

Second small thing. She has learned to swing by herself. She has always loved to swing and to swing high. That meant a lot of work for the pusher. Now she can propel herself as high as she wants. Next her mother will teach her to properly jump out of a swing. She is going to learn it from someone and it may as well be mom.



Third small thing. We have two new "pets". They actually live outside and will be with us only briefly. We came home from church with two monarch butterfly caterpillars last Sunday. One of the choir members brought them for Sidney and knowing we have the plant in our yard that they prefer to eat. They like butterfly weed and are working on ours now. They are two different ages. One will go into chrysalis in a few days and the other in about two weeks. They will each by in chrysalis for three weeks before emerging for their approximate three week lifespan as a Monarch butterfly. There is a popular book called "The Very Hungry Caterpillar". Well these guys eat constantly and grow daily. The larger one ate two leaves of his transport plant during the sermon. They also look the same front and back which Sidney finds entertaining. Hopefully we will get pictures when they go into chrysalis and if we are lucky, when they emerge.




Fourth small thing is that we have started doing a little painting around the house. We have been living with the contractor colors and now are starting to make it a little more ours. The first project were are niches in the living room and pillar and bar in the kitchen area painted a rusty red color. That will be followed by one kitchen wall of the same color to tie it all together. I think our bedroom will be next.

So the big thing! We just used some of our frequent flier miles to book tickets to Australia. We are super excited. We will be there for three weeks in late summer. Something we have talked about for so long is about to become reality! So we will keep you posted on how plans progress.

Christmas Cruise

Happy New Year everyone! We hope that your new year is starting off well. We also know it is tough to get back into the routine of work, school and life.

This is our Christmas Cruise blog post. We spent the days leading up to Christmas and Christmas on the Carnival Magic traveling to Costa Maya Mexico, Belize City, Roatan Honduras, and Cozumel. A very warm and unwintery Christmas.

We boarded the Carnival Magic on December 18. The ship departed Galveston at 1600 for two days of sailing to Costa Maya Mexico. We ate our first meal in the dining room that night and met table mates and new friends Karen, Keaton and Kaitlyn. We hit it off wonderfully with Sidney and Kaitlyn becoming fast friends and our family’s enjoying every meal together and planning for future meetings.

We spent two days at sea during which Sidney attended Camp Carnival for some time and swam and played for the rest of the time. She loved Camp Carnival with all of their great activities. The camp leaders are all trained or certified in childhood education and it is a very well run program for kids of all ages. Sidney had a blast. It was a bit cool for swimming during the first two days as we had significant winds. They were unable to open the ropes course on the ship for most of the two days due to the wind. Night one of the cruise is also when the nightly “animals” started showing up in our room. The pictures show the dog and elephant. Others not pictured were a frog, swan, bear, bull, and monkey (who was hanging off the ceiling). Sidney thought these were the greatest things ever and proceeded to collect their eyes (yes, totally Sidney).

We arrived in Costa Maya on day three. Now we have to tell you, there isn’t much there. We would not return given the option. We had not pre-booked an excursion here so we just wandered off the ship and picked up a taxi to a local beach. It was an all inclusive deal where you get a lounge chair each, free beverages, access to the beach and all the facilities and equipment there. Sidney and Kirk swam and snorkeled and Sidney built sand castles. Mom watched the world go by and unwound. Kimber just isn’t so beachy. We stayed for about three hours and were done. We ate dinner alone that night at the Italian restaurant on the ship. It is a little extra money but a nice change with excellent food. While we were eating, a colleague from when Kimber worked at the Texas City Refinery walked in. It was a pleasure to see Darrell again and meet his wife.

Day four brought us to Belize City. Now this we really enjoyed. We had an excursion that took us to Mayan pyramid ruins followed by lunch and a trip down the River Wallace. We had a great time. The guides were extremely informative and made the tour very pleasant. We learned a lot about Belizian culture and Belize City as well as about the ruins and the river. Sidney loved climbing a pyramid and of course scrambled to the top with ease. After the ruins we had a traditional lunch of chicken, rice, beans and plantains. Kirk had a local beer and I tried some blackberry wine which was quite good. Lunch was followed by a trip down the River Wallace where we saw crocodiles, iguanas of all shapes and sizes, Howler Monkeys, insect eating bats, and at the river mouth, manatees. It was a great trip. The wind blowing through your hair and making it nice and cool and seeing all sorts of wildlife. We really enjoyed Belize and look forward to a return there to possibly spend more time.



Day five took us to Roatan Honduras. This was another stop we found rich in culture and activities. Our excursion here was a catamaran sail and snorkeling. We sailed for about an hour to our snorkeling location, then snorkeled for an hour. Sidney did great. She is such a trooper to try new things. She got cold toward the end so she rode one of the kayaks back to the catamaran while mom tried to swim as fast as the kayak. Fortunately some nice folks on the catamaran helped get her wrapped up and comfortable because mom couldn’t keep up and arrived several minutes later. We didn't take the good camera snorkeling but we did take a waterproof camera and Kirk was able to get this picture of Kimber and Sidney.
We enjoyed a fantastic meal of chicken, rice, pasta salad and rum punch after finishing snorkeling. We rode a bus back to the ship but actually enjoyed seeing more of the city and local spots. Again, we would love to return here to spend more time exploring. That night we ate dinner without Sidney in the steakhouse. Kimber had lobster and Kirk had New York Strip. It was a fine dinner and Sidney enjoyed going to camp carnival again. The pirate look is how Sidney came home from dinner. We also went to a magic show that night. We didn't have the best seats and could actually see a lot of the "magic." For the engineer that was still very interesting and quite impressive.


Day six took us to Cozumel. This was also Christmas Eve. We didn’t have plans in Cozumel and just spent some time walking around. Kimber had been there some years before for a friend's wedding (Jinni of previous posts) and wanted to see how the city had changed. It has grown significantly with many new tourist attractions, hotels, shops, etc. There were seven cruise ships there and the Cozumel Kimber remembered would not have handled that. We walked around town and then did some tide pooling on the way back to the ship. We found many of the usual tide pool finds including many crabs, snails and urchins. But we also found one small sergeant major fish and a tiny octopus. These made Sidney’s day. She loved them. We brought home a few shells for Sidney’s collection.

Christmas was spent at sea and brought a few gifts from Santa. He left a note that because mom and dad had to carry everything off the ship and that we would be home tomorrow, he left everything else at the house. We spent a relaxing morning eating and swimming. Sidney then went to Camp Carnival for the last time. The afternoon brought a huge surprise. The kids at camp had been practicing to perform in a musical with the performers on the ship. Sidney came home and said she had a solo in the show. There were actually two shows so that was our entire afternoon. Well the kids got up to sing about two thirds of the way through the show. Two of the performers held microphones on front of the kids two at a time while they sang a song. We thought this was the solo. But at the very end of the show, Sidney and Kaitlyn had a duet of several lines entirely by themselves. It was amazing. Of 1300 kids on the ship that the two girls who had never met before and ate dinner together every night would end up doing a duet together. Mom melted of course. It was originally supposed to be that each of the girls would solo in one performance. But Kaitlyn was very nervous and Sidney worried about Kaitlyn. So Sidney suggested a duet by both girls in both performances. Sidney was worried that Kaitlyn wouldn't get to sing if she was too nervous. What incredible girls. And we loved listening to them both times and then celebrating with them at dinner. The lead performer also commented between the shows on how good of a singer Sidney was and how enjoyable. We are so proud.

December 26 brought us home. Disembarkation was not so much fun. We did eat a relaxing breakfast but the line through passport control was outrageously slow. We finally made and got home to reality. Santa had left the remaining presents at the house so we did that and spent a relaxing day at home before Kirk went back to work.

Now we are all back at work and school. It has been a long week and we are ready for a weekend. Here is one last picture of Sidney at the beach. What a beach bum.

The Tooth Fairy Visits

Sorry, no good pictures but the Tooth Fairy will come for a visit tonight. This is her first visit, bottom right front tooth. The Tooth Fairy thought it would be good to leave a few dollars folded as origami. There is a butterfly and folded box with note. Not sure how the Tooth Fairy will top that with the next few teeth. I think she needs a better plan or to get really good at folding dollars. We will try to put up a picture tomorrow.

More of Sidney's Work

These things really make us laugh so we think you might like them as well.



The one about Georgia is from last year. I don't think we already posted it. So especially for the Georgia Family!

Thanksgiving in Warsaw

Kirk and Sidney joined Kimber in Warsaw for the long holiday weekend. While it may seem a bit crazy to fly a third of the way around the world for five days, it has made a difference to all of us to get to spend a little time together with Kimber's travel schedule being what it is.


The hotel we are in is just down from Kimber's office, as well as just across the street from what is probably one of the most "recognized" buildings in Warsaw, the Palace of Culture and Science. The Palace was a gift to Poland from Josef Stalin and was built in 1955. While it is viewed as a symbol of the Communist era and not a favorite symbol of Warsaw for many people. It is quite lovely lit up and a purplish-blue at night, especially from the 43rd floor swimming pool of our hotel.


Kimber's office is located in the same building as a local mall. The wavy glass roof is the mall, and Kimber's office is located in the tower portion on the front. Marathon occupies part of the 6th floor.

I mention Kimber's office here for a special reason. We have celebrated many holidays in some interesting places over the past few years - Christmas in South Africa, Easter in Croatia and Germany, etc., and Thanksgiving here in Poland at Kimber's office. It was an eclectic mix of people that joined us for the "traditional" dinner, Scots, Brits, Poles, a Spaniard, as well as some other Americans. The menu was turkey, stuffing, gravy, green beans, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn on the cob, clam chowder, rolls, cheesecake, pumpkin pie and brownies. The food, prepared as a package by the Warsaw Marriott, was good, but not quite as unique as you would find around a family dinner table in the States. It was a wonderful evening of sharing, and quite interesting to see those that had never celebrated, and in some cases, knew little about Thanksgiving, all gathered together. Some had never eaten roast turkey, and the Spaniard commented that the carrots (actually sweet potatoes) were quite nice. It did remind me a bit of the spirit of the holiday, with a mix of different cultures coming together to share a meal and give thanks for all we have, and we, thankfully, shared it all as a family.


On Friday, we went to the Copernicus Museum of Science, a recent addition on the list of "things to do in Warsaw." Like other science centers, it is full of hands-on experiments and demonstrations for everyone, especially kids, to try. Here you see Sidney truly getting "hands-on", using her hands as a form to blow bubbles. There were lots of things to do, and the place was stuffed to the gills with kids of all ages learning and having a good time. After the museum, we had a nice walk back to the Fenicia Lebanese restaurant, a favorite of Kimber's since arriving in Warsaw.



Saturday was a relaxing day for us. We had a wonderful breakfast in the hotel, then walked down to a local park. Along the walk, we saw statues of Charles de Gaulle and Ronald Reagan. The statue of de Gaulle is positioned to face away from the former communist party headquarters. The statue of Reagan sits across from the U.S. Embassy. Reagan, as you may recall, was president during the time of the Solidarity movement, and was monumental in the change from communism to capitalism in Poland.

The park we visited, Ujazdowski park, had a great playground for Sidney, as well as a nice pond and sculptures. It was first opened in 1896, but has been updated many times since. There are several rare tree specimens, as well as brown-tufted squirrels and ducks.



Sidney played for a while, then we walked down the street past the university botanical gardens and parliament to the Lazienkowski park. The monument to Chopin is here. This is the monument featured on the Warsaw coffee mug from the Starbuck's city collection. A picture of it can be found in Kimber's earlier "Poland Part 1" post.

We made one more stop back at the playground before heading back to the city center. We took a trip up to the top of the Palace of Culture and Science to get a look at the city from a different perspective. While it wasn't as high as the view from the 43rd floor of our hotel, it was clearer because there was no glass between us and the view. The picture of Kimbers office building was taken from up here.


After returning to the hotel for a break, we headed back out to the Old Town to take in the Christmas Market. There were booths set up selling traditional foods, crafts and lots of other stuff. It is located on the square where the "Little Mermaid's Sister" fountain is. Those that have followed the blog for a while may remember a picture of Sidney here about a year and a half ago when Kirk and Sidney did their camping trip. Here is a more up-to-date picture of her with the mermaid.


We shopped a little, then headed for dinner at a restaurant called U Kucharzy. It is located in the kitchen (literally, the restaurant is in the kitchen) of the old Hotel Europejski. We were able to snag a table right beside the stoves and ovens and watched as the cooks prepared the traditional Polish fare around us. The food was fantastic! Kimber had cucumber soup and veal meatballs in a cream dill sauce, I had beef wrapped in cabbage, and Sidney had perogies. And for those in Texas, H.E.B. sells perogies with this picture on front. We, however, dined on much better perogies just a few blocks down from this statue. (The statue is King Sigismund, the man who made Warsaw the capitol of Poland.)



After dinner, we walked off our meal by going back to the hotel. We passed the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier along the way, and want to share it with you as well.

Sidney and Kirk head back to Houston tomorrow, with a six hour layover in Amsterdam. We are planning on trying the art museum at the airport (they have a couple of van Gogh's) and maybe a little duty free shopping. Kimber returns Tuesday, and we will be together again until Kimber heads to London the next week.

Trip to Poland Part 1

Kimber came to Poland after her latest trip to Africa. I am filling in for the HES Manager for two and a half weeks. I will be in Poland over Thanksgiving but Kirk and Sidney are coming over Wednesday through Sunday.

The first picture has nothing to do with Poland or Africa but is of Sidney as "Lady Bug Girl" for Halloween. The kids have to dress up as characters from a book for a Character parade rather than for Halloween. So this is what she looked like going to school. Only about half the costume made it home and by Halloween, she and the cat had worked it over pretty good and nearly all the fuzz was missing.

I arrived last Monday and worked all week. Thursday I went on an adventure by train three hours to Krakow and then three hours south-southeast of there to Debica to perform an audit on a waste disposal sight. It was an interesting adventure. The train was packed to Krakow and then nearly empty after that. We toured the facility and walked through our checklists before getting some late lunch/early dinner. We headed back to the train station only to wait for the train which was late by 85 minutes. It was a long day. We left at 6 am and arrived home at 1 am the next morning. We had first class tickets which I was grateful for but I have inserted a picture of a first class cabin. It seats six. Bathrooms are on the end of each car and they are well below the standard of an airplane bathroom.

I went on two walking tours this weekend though. One other note before I begin the details of the walking tours, is that I ate Sushi (other than California rolls) in Poland for the first time. There is a nice sushi restaurant in the mall. It is reliable with good prices and convenient.

Oh and my other comment is that the Intercontinental Hotel in Warsaw is very nice. I have a small apartment with a little kitchenette and nice view. It will be very comfortable when Kirk and Sidney visit. Second, breakfast is fabulous. There are waffles, pancakes, omelets, potatoes, veggies, sausages, bacon, ham, etc for hot food. Multiple cereals, yogurts, cottage cheeses, and rolls. There is fresh fruit including watermelon and pineapple. Sliced meats and cheeses as well as smoked salmon. It is better than any breakfast I have ever seen. Kirk and Sidney will love it. Plus, there is a harpist after 8 am every morning except Sunday. It is fantastic.

So Saturday, after sleeping late and fattening myself, I set out to walk to Old Town. i walked down several of the main shopping streets, looking at the variety of shops. For those who know me, I didn't venture into them. One is that I am not crazy about shopping and two is the language barrier. But it was nice to see what was out there.

I also didn't take many pictures on Saturday because Kirk and Sidney had been here in the summer, and it was cold and gray now. Pictures would require me to uncover my hands and they were cold. So I walked along the roads here that make up "the Royal Way". This route led me into the Old town where I saw several churches, monuments and museums as well the Mermaid of Warsaw. There are few really old buildings here as most of the town was destroyed in 1944. The most notable thing I walked by was the Warsaw Uprising Monument. The uprising started 1 August 1944 and lasted 63 days. Some 200,000 polish people died in the uprising against the Germans. The monument was built prior to the end of the occupation of Poland by Russia.

My intention Sunday was to get to a large park in the opposite direction of the Old Town. I fattened myself up again on breakfast and started out. I was headed for Park Lazienkowski. However, I got terribly lost trying to get there. I made a complete wrong turn somewhere and ended up in an area of town with some very old communist looking apartments. I was feeling a bit out of league and nearly panicked. But I figured out where I was and moved quickly back in the right direction. I never felt unsafe, only uncomfortable.

Getting to the park was a real reward though. It was lovely even in the dreary winter. I was surprised to see peacocks among the other birds (ones I don't like say pigeons). There were also tufted brown squirrels that were a bit aggressive. I stopped to look at one and it jumped half way up my leg. I had no food and didn't even look like I had food. Here is a picture of the lady peacocks since they always get neglected. They are hanging out in an empty fountain.

I spent about two hours in the park, watching people and kids. Several people were feeding the smaller birds from their hand. It was a pretty nice day, even sunny.

On the walk home, which was much more direct and easy I might add, I saw the Frederic Chopin monument. The pool in front was drained but it was still very nice. Like much else in Warsaw though, it was a rebuild after the war. I also walked by the Botanical Garden, which is closed for the winter, and another smaller park that had a great playground. The walk home was much more pleasant than the walk there and now I know where I am going. I was starved again as I had been walking for over 4 hours. So I got a Kebab, which is like a huge Giro Sandwich and costs approximately $5. It was sooooo good.

We will likely take Sidney to the park to play. We are also going to try to go tot he new science museum, the Kopernik Science Center. We have heard it is very popular and hard to get into.

We also intend to eat a lot and play a lot. The pool is on the 43 floor so you are swimming at the height of the clock on the Palace of Science and Culture. That is a unique experience. There are also some indoor play places to try. And the Marriott delivers Thanksgiving dinner so several people from the office are getting together for dinner on Thursday at the office.

May UK Trip

Ok so like many of our posts these days, this one is well, months behind. But I suppose better late than never.

Kimber went to the UK for just over a week in late April/early May. Now for all purposes, the weather should have been bad. However, remarkably it was incredible. The sun was out every day and it was wonderfully warm. Here is a picture of a street in Aberdeen.

I went over as part of a team to help review preparations for a shutdown offshore. Because of this I had the opportunity to go offshore to the East Brae Platform. What a group pf top notch people. They are committed to safety and success. I was on East Brae for 24 hours. I was fortunate enough on the flight back to land on our other two UK platforms, Brae Alpha and Brae Bravo, as well as a platform that is not ours, Piper Bravo. Piper Bravo sits very close to where Piper Alpha used to sit. Piper Alpha was destroyed in 1988 in a major offshore disaster that killed 167 men. It was quite humbling to remember that incident and recall why it is I do what I do, which is help Marathon manage major accident risk.



Before I get into my touring adventure, I also thought you might like a couple of these unique pictures. The first picture is the Heerema Hermod, one of the largest semi-submersible crane vessels in the world. This vessel can lift 8100 metric tonnes. The second picture shows the Hermod with several service vessels nearby.

After we returned from offshore, we had roughly a half day to tour the Aberdeen country side. One of the people on the team is from the Aberdeen area so he took us on a bit of a tour outside of Aberdeen.

Our first stop was Dunnottar Castle. This is a ruined medieval fortress near Stonehaven on the Scottish east coast. The ruins are on an outcrop of land and are very much exposed. The ruins vary in age and condition but the site is quite lovely. One of the pictures of the ruins shows another photographer actually using an old fashioned camera for some shots on this lovely day.
A landscape of the castle was chosen as one of the desktop wallpaper images for Microsoft for the "United Kingdom" desktop theme for Windows 7. In addition parts of the 1990 film Hamlet were shot here.

After that we ate fish and chips at the Bervie Chipper in Inverbervie.

Once we were full and content, we drove through the Scottish Highlands along the "Slug Road" over to Banchory. We were glad John was driving as the roads were narrow and windy as well as everyone was going the "wrong" way on the street. We walked along a golf course beside the River Dee and I am sure the golfers thought we were nuts. It was very pleasant being that it was spring.

We also saw the Blackhill War Memorial which was built in 1923. It honors those from the First and Second World War.


We stopped in some little town for dinner before heading back to Aberdeen and work the next day. It was a lovely day with a nice guided tour.