They say home is where your heart is. I think my heart is scattered around the globe. There are too many people to love, too far apart. This holiday season my family is in sunny Florida, enjoying the beautiful weather. Spending quality time with their cousins, grandfather and grandmother. We arrived last Wednesday, Josh got our impala upgraded to an SUV, we picked up my nephew Gary and headed up to West Palm Beach to our hotel. Josh had organized us a room last year which he pre-paid to lock in the rate, wow. A two bedroom suite for less then what a regular room costs. We are staying in the lap of luxury - it is a real treat and I am so impressed with what he organized (thank you sweetie). All three kids had their one TV's - peace prevailed. Thursday the kids had camp from 9am until 2pm.(his dad lives in the most unbelievable community which has a daily camp during school holidays and loads of other activities for the older set the rest of the year. You can sit on your butt or move all day long - whatever you choose to do. My father-in-law has his weekly ROMEO luncheon - which stands for Retired Old Men Eating Out, one of the best things is all the help is South African so its great being surrounded by friendly folk who praat die Taal, even if I am a tad rusty).
We took advantage of the kids being occupied, Josh, his dad and I cycled around and had a great time. The houses on the water are stunning and it felt so weird to be in the heat after being in the cold. Christmas season in the sun has become quite foreign to me after living in NY for so long.
Friday we spent running around to the pool and playground so the kids could shake their sillies out. Stopping at the South African store on the way back for bags of biltong - they were so yummy. We dropped the kids at my sisters place while we went to check in at our hotel. (We stay near her on the weekends so we are not driving back and forth). The hotel had lost our reservation, all our paperwork was in J's briefcase at his dad's place, about 1.5 hours away. Anyway my super duper negotiator organized us a room - not quite as luxurious as the one before but just what we needed.
Friday night my sister organized a shabbat dinner of note, tuna cerviche with tomatie bredie, a huge feast. She sure can cook.
The 24th was her 40th birthday. She had to celebrate it by driving up North to finish a closing that two of her closers had screwed up on two seperate occasiions, it was near Cape Canaveral. About a 4 hour drive both ways. I decided to go up with her and took Ryan with us as Josh was just not up for watching both kids. Ryan was an angel, Heid picked us up at 6am and we drove up North, at around 7:30am, I called J's dad and asked if we could drop Ry off at them as we were passing by. The said no problem. We dropped her off and headed on up. The closing was in the vilest house, it was filthy dirty, a menagerie of animals, 5 kids and plot straight out of Jeff Foxworthy - real salt of the earth people, although must say his amputated finger, swastiker and tatoos were just the tip of the iceberg. Strange people. We used anti-bacterial soap from head to toe - ewwwwwwwww. Great having an uninterupted huck. It was a bonus of family bonding, although we were just too exhausted to celebrate her birthday with any style!! Ry ended up being in camp and having the best time out of everyone. Josh, Stephen, Gary, Jo jo and Nikki all headed out for South Beach and had a great time.
Sunday was the party, a true Heidi production, family goodie bags loaded with badmington bats, jump ropes, bug catchers, and tons of other activities to keep the families busy, canoes, fishing, we were right on the water, ate a yummy lunch, everyone brought bikes, etc. It was a great day except for Jo Jo making a getaway every few minutes - he is so cute but what a little rascal. really delicious. Although the biggest trouble maker of all was my daughter Nikki who ended up giving Jo Jo an impromptu haircut - he has huge chunks missing from the back of his head - not quite sure what possessed her???
Monday we headed back North, to spend time with J's dad and stepmom. A friend of theirs was visiting so we got to hang out, eat way to much and chat. The kids did the camp thing and we just took it easy. J and his dad spent a lot of quality time while I just went to the malls, hit a few consignment and antique stores with his step-mom, Les. It was very nice. Friday ended up being a date day, J and I droveup Route A1A along the coast from Fort lauderdale to West Palm, it is so breathtaking and the homes along the water are just spectacular. We had a sitter for the kids and went to our favourite restaurant Cafe Chardonnay - yum. The next day my sister, her husband and the boys arrived, must say it was the start of the vacation, we all had such a lovely time together, the kids swam and had a real ball together and the grownups all got to bond and hang out. It was really special, it was the best way to spend New Years, we had an early dinner, then headed back to the hotel, watch fireworks from our hotel room, Josh and Stephen went dow to the hot tub for a few hours, they had a great time. Happy New Year. The next day I took Gary and my girls to a party at my in-laws, it was lovely and they really went all out. They had about 80 people there. We then hit the pool, were having such a great time we decided to extent the stay at the hotel one more night. we all really got to relax and the cousins had a ball. Monday we headed back to Aventura. Heid organized a sitter and we went to Opa for dinner - the had dancing on the tables reminiscent of all those nights at Theo's in Norwood and at the Clay Oven in Fourways, a million moons ago.
Tuesday, heavy hearted we left. Always sad to say goodbye - a great time was had by all.
By the way, J and I are "cursed" when we travel from Florida, the simple 3 hour flight on the return leg is always delayed, usually by snow. It once took us 27 hours to get home. This time we checked the weather - no snow - yay we were in the clear, a bit of rain at LaGardia but hey that's ok. get to the airport - mechanical trouble, lol, the three hours turned into 9!!
