2nd Honeymoon in Belize

We decided that now was a good time to throw in a 2nd honeymoon before we get more kids than our parents are willing to watch (no, I'm not pregnant). Kristine (Scott's Mom) was so great to watch the kids for us. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! We had always talked about going to Mexico where Scott served his mission, but things are not looking too safe in Mexico these days. So, we choose Belize because it is only a two hour flight from Houston, and we could experience both the mountains for some hiking and the beach for some relaxation. Belize used to be a British colony so the main language is English. Tourism is their number one industry, so they are generally very nice to tourists. We were able to go hiking, visit some Mayan ruins and caves, and go snorkeling.

Here is a picture of how we exited the plane in Belize City. Because security is not as big of a deal in Belize, their airport was so relaxed compared to the United States.

I know this is random, but I could not resist sharing some amusing "Sky Mall" products I found.

Who thinks up these things? And who buys them? I guess this is what I have to take pictures of when I do not have my cute kids around to amuse/annoy me!

There are more pictures in the next 3 posts.

One last thing. Since this is the first time we have both left the kids for more than a few hours, Peter was confused as to why we left and where we had gone to. So, in his prayers he prayed, "Bless Uncle Ryan (Scott's brother on a mission in Argentina) and Mommy and Daddy on their missions." So cute! I'll go on another mission like this any day!

Hidden Valley Inn

We stayed at Hidden Valley Inn in the mountains of Belize for the first 4 nights. It was so peaceful and beautiful. We loved the beach, but the mountains were definitely our favorite. They have a couple of chefs that cook every meal. I do not think I have ever had so many delicious and top-notch meals! The rooms were each a separate cottage.

The inside of the cottages were very fancy by Belizian standards. I love how they used the flowers to decorate the beds every day.

We had a room guest our first night which we promptly kicked out.

The inn has hundreds of acres of land with trails that you can go hiking through. They also have several water falls. One of our favorites was butterfly falls.

Oh, how romantic!

We ran into these leaf-cutter ants everywhere.

We were amazed that they could carve out such distinct trails like this.

Many of the trails had little log bridges. Some of them seemed a little unstable. You definitely would not want to be on these when it is raining!

We also biked a little bit. I teased Scott about turning 30 this year because he had difficulty keeping up with me on the bikes:). I love you my boy (or should I say old man)!

Carocal & the ATM Cave

We were able to go to some Mayan ruins called Carocal that date from 600 to 900 A.D. These ruins are not as large as Tikal in Guatemala or Chitzen-Itza in Mexico, but they have thousands of smaller ruins yet to be excavated. Here is the largest structure at Carocal which was reserved for royalty.

To put things in perspective as to how large this things is, this structure below is actually the really small mound that you see on the top left hand corner of the first picture.

The view from on top was beautiful!

There were intricate carvings everywhere to commemorate significant events.

I thought it was interesting that Carocal is located 17 miles from any river. The Mayans actually built reservoirs lined with slate.

If you look closely, you can see long brown sacks on this tree. The male bird builds these sacks for mating (I don't remember the species). When he completes it, a female will inspect. If she approves, they go inside and get busy; if she does not approve, she cuts it down!

Here is a palm tree that is being engulfed by a parasite plant that will eventually choke the it to death.

I also thought this tree was interesting. Because there is not much topsoil to anchor this tree, it has compensated by growing some interesting supports.

We were also able to visit a couple of caves. Caves were considered a very special/spiritual place to the Mayan people. After smoking a hallucinogenic plant, they would go into the caves to burn incense in pottery and perform human sacrifices (creepy). The Actun Tunichil Muknal (ATM) cave was the most intense and most fun cave that we visited. Here we are with our hard hats and flashlights ready to swim through the cave entrance.

Throughout most of the cave we walked through water up to our knees, sometimes our waists, and a couple of time it was deep enough to swim for a few yards.

The cave formations are beautiful.
Here is a complete skeleton of a Mayan young woman probably 17-21 years old.
Almost all of the pottery was broken for ceremonial reasons.

We could not wear shoes in part of the cave for fear of causing damage to the artifacts. These formations are referred to as "the cathedral."

The Beach

After the mountains, we took a "water taxi" to an island called Caye Caulker where we stayed for about 3 days.

For vehicles they used golf carts and their streets were paved with sand! Every week or so they would dump sand out onto the street and use a roller to pack it down.

From our hotel room's balcony, we had beautiful view of the ocean.

We stayed in their "honeymoon suite" which came complete with heart toilet paper to wipe with--hilarious!

We were also able to visit the larger island called, Ambergris Caye. It is probably 3 or 4 times larger and has upgraded roads. They still drive mostly golf carts, but also some regular cars.

We also found a wonderful, BRIGHT yellow place of worship.

Here we are enjoying lunch on Ambergris Caye. The food was GREAT the entire trip. Unfortunately, we had to come back to my cooking. I dream of hiring a cook someday.

Both of these islands started off like this. These mangrove trees grew in shallow water and trapped sand and debris until it started to create an island.

The water is such a beautiful color and so pristine.

Things went smoothly until we tried to grab some extra cash from an ATM for the water taxi and cab to the airport on Sunday. We had left our debit card at home because we did not want anyone getting into our bank accounts; so Saturday night we tried to use our credit card in the ATM to get some extra money. Well, we learned that you need a pin number to get money with a credit card. Ooops, we vaguely remembered something like that. We tried three different possibilities, but none of them worked. We decided that we would just use our credit card for dinner and then we would barely have enough money for the next day. However, when Scott went to pay after dinner, our credit card was locked up because of our failed attempts at the ATM. GREAT! We thought about calling to unlock it, but Scott's phone that had international coverage did not work. We had specifically called and added coverage; it worked for first 2 days and then just stopped for some reason. We could receive calls, send and receive texts, but calling out was not working. We started to get really worried that we might be stuck in Belize! Scott had a brilliant idea to text his mom and do a 3-way call with the credit card company. To our GREAT relief, it worked! Also, while he was on the phone I went through our stuff and discovered that we did bring our debit card after all. Well, we learned our lesson: KNOW your credit card pin, bring TWO different credit cards, and MAKE SURE that you really do leave your debit card at home! It really was naive of us, but we learned our lesson if we ever travel internationally again.

Snorkeling

Belize has the 2nd largest reef system in the world, so we could not pass up going on a snorkeling trip. Our tour guide is what I would call a Belizian hippie--long curly hair, gotee, tie-dye shirt, laid back attitude, dead-pan voice, etc.
We saw a manatee, . . .
. . . a lot of sting rays and a MILLION conch shells on the reef floor, . . .

. . . some sea turtles, . . .

. . . and probably about 10-15 nurse sharks all at once.

Our guide fed the sharks some fish to attract them, and YES, we did jump in and swim around after they were done eating! These nurse sharks are scavengers and rather docile, so it is common to see many other sea creatures swimming around them.

I guess after leading tours for 20 years, you get really comfortable around a lot of sea creatures. Like I said, a Belizian hippie.

The coral was beautiful.

My sweet boy and underwater photographer.

And here is a picture of Dori for Peter.

My Piano

My sister, Sara, just got a piano and wanted to see a picture of mine. I love my piano, and I love the fact that it was free! Just after we had moved into the house, the Relief Society President called and asked if I wanted a piano. Someone in the ward was moving and did not want to drag the piano along again, and my name was mentioned because I played and did not have a piano yet. I really think that Heavenly Father made this possible, because shortly after this I was asked to play for the stake choir, then ward organist, and then a rotating pianist for the ward choir! I would not have been able to practice for all of these things without a piano at home. It was made by an Amish piano maker in the 1920's. I am pretty sure that most of the keys have still have the original ivory on them. Some day I should have a piano technician come take a look at it and tune it.

This seat has beautiful needlepoint on it.

Hopefully, this piano will survive my little monsters!

Funny Peter

Scott: "Mommy has a bee in her bonnet."
Peter: "Oh!" He walks over to me and says. "Mom, you have a bee in your bum?"

I am changing Peter's diaper and he says . . .
"I don't have the time for this."
Yeah, neither do I kid!

I thought these were hilarious and had to share.