We are 100% awful at updating the
blog. Wow. Here’s what we wrote on February 9, 2013 and
failed to post. :-P (More to come, we promise!)
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| Stay thirsty, my friends. |
That's the sound of relaxation right there.
We write this to you as we are sitting in a
palapa, sipping some fine Mexican brew, staring at the Gulf on the Riviera Maya
and waiting for our family to join us.
(But that is for another blog.)
This blog is about our adventures in
January.... seeing as we have now graduated to doing MONTHLY updates. (again, a
New Years resolution we are working on!)
It was sure an event filled month with
numerous visitors from colder climates.
Now that we reside closer to the equator,
WE are a vacation destination. (We'd
always hoped we would be!)
As such, we welcome any and all of our
frozen friends and frigid family to thaw out in sunny South Florida.
And this month, happily, many have!
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January started with a visit from our
Minneapolis friend, Greg, who happened to be taking part in a coaching course
just 30 minutes from our place. Greg is
an outstanding college soccer coach, but unfortunately, he's an Arsenal fan,
but we try not to hold that against him.
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| This drink is bigger than my head! |
Greg and his wife Connie were a couple that
we were fortunate to meet while on vacation in Mexico 6 years ago (at this very
same resort we are at right now as a matter of fact!) Greg was an avid viewer of the Fox Soccer
Report when Jeremy was on it and recognized him at the bar one night. Multiple rounds of Lemon Drops followed and
we've been fast friends ever since.
Greg stayed with us for a couple of days
and unfortunately because we were both working at the time, we weren't near the
hosts that we wanted to be. (Sorry
Greg! This means you'll have to come
back! Bring Connie this time.)
But we did get to take Greg to some of our
favorite sites, out for dinner on Lincoln Road, an oversized burger and beer at
Brickell and breakfast on the beach, which included some astonishingly massive
(both in size and in price!) Miami Vice beverages. Thank goodness Miami Beach has an open liquor
law, so we were able to take our drinks with us "to-go" style to the
beach.
(photo)
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| Vacay! |
A week after Greg's visit, some friends of
ours from Steinbach - Kevin & Andrea Geisheimer - came to stay prior to
hoping on the Norwegian Epic (basically a floating apartment block) for a 7 day
cruise.
Along with trips to Lincoln Road and the
beach, we also toured the Geisheimers through the BeIN Sport studios. As a fellow broadcaster, Kevin got his first
real taste of the television side of the business, which I think they both
enjoyed.
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| Efficient restaurant - eat straight out of the skillet. |
Quality time spent between Jeremy and Kevin
would not be complete without a couple of sports video matchups complete with
screaming and profanity and jumping off the couch in fury at a last second
winning goal.
Kevin still talks about his epic Gnocchi
experience... his first time enjoying the Italian dish.
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The last of our January visitors were the
Warrens from Medicine Hat, AB. Jeremy
used to work with Scott back in his CHAT TV days. We haven't seen Scott and Val since our
wedding day almost 8 years ago. It was
fantastic to catch up with them after so many years.
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| The Warrens of Medicine Hat! A regal family indeed. |
Scott and Jeremy regaled us with (tall?)
broadcast tales from The Hat. They along
with their daughter Sierra were also in Miami for a cruise and between the
Warrens and the Geisheimers vacation stories, we are almost convinced to give a
floating apartment block trip a try. We
are both terrified of getting sea-sick though... so we'll have to think on it.
We will, however, join the Warrens at their
under-construction vacation home in Costa Rica when it is completed! Looking forward to that.
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We now interrupt this blog post for some
good old fashioned RANT TIME.
What is with America and their shopping
carts?
Please examine exhibit A:
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| "I have to go all the way over THERE? Pff, forget it." |
When you go to the grocery store, shopping
carts are usually located in the appropriate receptacles. People take them... people use them.... and
all Target and Publix and Sam's Club ask of you is to kindly place the carts,
after usage in the well-marked and conveniently located cart drop off points.
Apparently in South Florida, people have
their own ideas. These obvious drop
points must seem like a marathon distance away, or clearly they just can't spare
the 10 seconds it will take to roll their carts back to their home. Not to mention the accompanying exercise.
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| Points for ensuring it won't roll into someone's car. Classic. |
This made Jeremy so livid upon witnessing
the sheer laziness that surrounded him in the Target parking lot, he documented
the scene to share with our Canadian friends, because no doubt they would share
in his fury.
So let's all collectively shake our heads
in exasperation and hope that this was just a bad day.
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| "I'm back, baby!" |
For those who don't know... Jeremy started
working at the beginning of January!
After many weeks of negotiations, Jeremy is officially the Senior
Producer and Host of a weekly football panel debate show called 'The Locker
Room'. Jeremy is also overseeing 'The
Express Extra' shows on Saturday and Sunday.
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| "These pants are cutting off my circulation!" |
The catch is, he is in charge of all of
these shows in both English AND Spanish.
With one month under his belt, Jeremy is still getting comfortable being
back in TV and he's loving every minute of it.
The Spanish side of the programming has been a challenge, seeing as
Jeremy doesn't know the language quite yet, but TV is TV and he's been able to
contribute positively.
He's also getting a lesson in Milanese fashion and is taking advantage of being 'clothed' by the wardrobe experts on a weekly basis. This includes a wide range of textured suit jackets, an array of colored pocket squares, a assortment of skinny ties and skinny trousers. Soon you'll be seeing Mr. St. Louis in GQ sporting the season's hot apparel choices.
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January also featured one of the winter
season’s highlights for us. On a balmy
25 degree night, we were finally able to see our Winnipeg Jets play the Florida
Panthers in one of three visits the team would make to South Florida this
season.
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| "Get ready to eat it, Panthers!" |
“Hockey?
What’s that?” asked a number of bemused South Floridians we work
with. Seeing as NBA and Soccer are the
key sports down here, we thought we’d invite our colleagues to experience what
a true Canadian sport looked, felt and sounded like and soon we had a caravan
of eager people anxious to see our Jets play.
We even outfitted many of them with our (growing) collection of Jets
clothing and scarves. Seeing as we would
be the visiting team, we figured it would be best if we all supported the
team. Strength in numbers.
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| The Lagos' from Spain. New Jets fans! |
What we soon realized, and what we did not
expect going in, was that Florida actually has Panthers fans! Go figure!
It was a surprisingly raucous atmosphere and we were definitely in the
minority with our Jets gear, contrary to what many Canadians assume to be the
case when picturing a hockey arena amidst the palm trees. But don’t get me wrong. It was no MTS Centre! We had a great time, our friends learned a
thing or two about the sport and we were even heckled from the surrounding
Reds. But we certainly prefer being
surrounded by like-minded fans who cheer on the Jets and intimidate everyone
else.
Seeing our boys come onto the ice
before the anthems brought a reminiscent tear to my eye of the inaugural
season’s excitement in Winnipeg. Where
we could share the love and adoration of our team with the stranger sitting
next to us, who was equally as thrilled to be there as we were. We didn’t know
each other and we didn’t necessarily care to get to know one another, but we
were brought together by a common purpose and that is to support our home
team. That was definitely missing while
watching the Jets play in Florida. But
our pride for our guys never left and we wore the colours proudly and cheered
loudly and screamed ‘TRUE NORTH’ at the top of our lungs hoping our friends
back home watching the game on TSN could hear us. And when we happened to spot another person
donning a Jets jersey across the arena or pass them in the concourse, we would
wave like idiots or eagerly put our hands up, hoping our compatriots wouldn’t
leave us hanging.
So, even though we weren’t rubbing elbows
with fellow supporters, it still felt amazing to see we weren’t the only ones
who fly the Jets flag in the lion’s den.
And hey, now we’ve recruited some new fans to help us cheer “Go Jets Go!”
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| Members of the beIN family... and new Jets fans. |
