Car-nee-VAL!

Another interesting thing going on down here in Curacao is the celebration of Carnival. Revelers have had parades in virtually every part of town on various days in the past week. The parades are a little bit different than Sturgis’ “Michigan Week” parade that we all know featured John as the Dairy Queen Ice Cream Cone Guy. There were no marching bands, no fire trucks, no Boy Scouts, and no old guys driving little cars and wearing fezzes. All that was replaced with little beers (everything is 8 oz.) and repetitive and intoxicating music. Having never been to New Orleans, I don’t know how similar this is to that one celebration down there but there have been no beads or anything like that. The whole thing is a family affair despite the parades going until midnight and later. They are fun and the noise from them is completely unavoidable so you have no alternative but to join in...at least until Lent.

Notables that May Shock You

I have been on the fine Island of Curacao for just over 24 hours. And while I am not surprised that I have seen or encountered things that were quite unusual, I am surprised at the events or encounters themselves. I have started this list and plan on updating it while I am here.

• A wandering, stray dog one day is road kill the next. Verified twice.
• Denny's, no matter what hour or how busy, will take 90 minutes to make two eggs (over medium), toast and coffee.
• Toyota vans were designed by some one with extremely long arms.
• The Tyra Banks talk show is not good--ever.

If you need me...

Curacao. Not long ago, I knew very little about this island in the Caribbean. Truthfully, I didn’t even know it was in the Caribbean. But now, I’m on the doorstep of going down there for a stint to help our East Coast friends.

While on the boat, it seemed like a great idea when we asked to help, but we’ll see. Our squadron has a history of doing things like this. Last cruise, someone thought a 24-hour race through the desert would be tons of fun. Oh, and also, the portion of the race in the mountains and in soft sand, was to be completed while on a bicycle. Horrible. We ended up losing one guy and everyone got mad at one another. I think while on the boat, one needs to be careful with these grand ideas since pretty much anything (besides spending time on a boat) seems like a fantastic idea. We'll see though.

All things considered this should be a fun time. I wish Tracey could come down there. I know she and the baby would enjoy the sun and sand, but you can't do it all. While there, I hope to continue to post updates of how things are going. So far, I know that the island is virtually surrounded by coral, the water is clear and weather is consistently 80° and breezy. Not bad, eh?

Astonishing Numbers

In the excitement of yesterday's news of our healthy baby, I have found a little wacky mathematical phonomena that we have on the Cronley side of the family. This baby, when born, will represent the 11th grandchild for "Grandma Cronley" or "Grandma Tronley" if you prefer. She will also represent the 8th granddaughter. As a numbers guy, this amazes me.
If we can agree the the probability of having either a son or a daughter is equal at 50%, then the following numbers may surprise you as well. Or if you are anything like Tracey, you will have already gone to CNN.com to avoid math, especially statistics.

For 11 separate births, or events, there are two possible outcomes per event (girl or boy). This gives us a total of 2,048 different possible outcomes (See photo. It shows the first couple events and shows how the possibilities start increasing). Of those outcomes, only 11.3% of them are for either 3 or less girls or, like in our case, 3 boys. That's crazy! If we were gambling based on these numbers, the house would be broke...which sort of explains things, I guess.

To be clear, the next child (following ours) has a 50% chance of being the 9th granddaughter, which is consistent with the norm. However, as the numbers show, our family is anything but the norm and no one will argue with that.

It's a.............

Human! We're pretty sure at least :) All appendages are accounted for (including some very sizable big toes!) and everything appears to be perfectly normal. In going with Tom's hunch I wore pink today (it is Valentine's Day afterall) and wouldn't ya know it --- Tom was right! It's a GIRL!! Although the scanned image from our ultrasound doesn't do her justice, we thought we would share one of her first pictures with you. I guess there is a reason for my obsession with pink lately :) We couldn't be happier with all of the news from today's ultrasound. Oh yeah, the new due date is June 30th. Although I don't know much about the zodiac sign of Cancer, this little one is sure to be stubborn like her mama but of course a sweet Daddy's little girl. Let the name hunting resume.