Dear faithful diary reader I am determined to bring you up to date on my (exciting!! ha!) life as I have fallen so dismally behind. I have lots to share with you, so lets get started.
November 8: Nicholas turns 20!
Well, it has finally happened! I can no longer say I am the mother of two teenagers. (How did that happen?) We had a quiet family birthday for Nicholas with Nana coming from Kincardine to join in. We decided to set Nicholas on the path to adulthood in style. We all pitched in and surprised him with a leather jacket for his birthday.
November 9: Pippin at the Royal Alex
My mother and I enjoyed an evening out at the Royal Alex. Pippin is a magical tale about the eldest son of the eighth-century King Charlemagne and his quest to find the secret of true happiness and fulfillment. There were lots of pop inspired song & dance numbers with even a little magic thrown in. Alas it was not enough to keep my mother from snoring.
November 19 - 26: Cuba bound . . . Happy Birthday Joe!
Well, our long awaited Cuba trip finally arrived. (You may recall Joe's Not-Quite-50- Yet party in August?) His actual birthday is November 26th and we planned on celebrating somewhere warm & sunny. We got the warm part right but unfortunately had a freak week of rain, rain, rain!!!! Our destination was the Occidental Playa Turquesa in Holguin, Cuba.
The resort was truly beautiful with seven pools, luscious gardens, colourful rooms and a choice of 5 a la carte restaurants and a huge buffet. (Joe loved the calamari!) The resort also had numerous resident cats!
Our first indication that the trip was not going to go according to plan was a detour that took us 3 hours to get to our hotel as the road was covered in 3 feet of water! Yikes. However, we figured it will pass. We'll wake up to sun, sun, sun. By Thursday we decided that even if it was overcast we were tanning! They finally opened up the beach bar & the lower pool swim up bar. Yeah! We kept ourselves occupied with chess (I am certain Joe cheated as he won) and the fantastic stage shows at night and lots of walks in the rain along the beach and the many pathways through the resort (it was huge). A saving grace was renting motor scooters. We are motorcycle enthusiasts and love exploring so we rented scooters twice.
The first trip was into Guardalavaca (the nearest town) to their open air market. We also explored some of the other resorts in the area. The next motor scoot was to the town of Banes - a three hour drive. We went with another couple (Arthur & Jacqueline) and had a blast. Jacqueline is fluent in eight languages and was a godsend in communicating with the locals. We loved seeing the beautiful countryside and made many impromptu stops along the way for photo ops and to chat with the locals.
If you are planning on a trip to Cuba takes lots of items to give away (i.e. shampoo, soap, shoes, hats, pencils, pens). We were graced with a little sunshine (the sun peaked out from behind the clouds) on Joe's birthday (26th) - our last day.
