our first month with visitors!

What a month! Lots has happened and almost all of it good!

Rick bought me a beautiful handmade hammock for Valentines Day. We found the perfect spot for it near the lagoon and, after shopping several stores, found the hardware necessary to attach it to the trees. It’s the ideal place for reading, relaxing and napping.

The red-tape on the car was finalized and we picked up our new 2010 Toyota Rav 4 in late February…just in time for the kids arrival on 2/28. We’re very happy with our purchase and have already put over 2000 km on it…most of which was while the kids were here.

Speaking of that, while they visited we checked out a couple of beaches (in sarteneja and copper bank), went on the New River/Lamanai Mayan Ruins tour, went zip-lining through the jungle canopy, did a two mile cave tubing expedition, played some games, started a puzzle, did crafts and had an overall good time. We even got to spend Jason’s birthday together as a family for the first time in several years! It was fun. I got sick with a bad cold the day they arrived, but I didn’t let that get in my way! Hope I didn’t give it to either of them… Jason was less than impressed with our dial-up internet connection and bumpy, unpaved roads, but he was a trooper and didn’t put a damper on things. Janessa enjoyed the adventure a bit more…she made friends with the chickens, named our three resident geckos, climbed to the top of one of the excavated Lamanai ruins and thoroughly enjoyed the zip-lining. I asked them both to say a few words about their trip for the blog. Jason said “it's a nice place to visit but you have to be crazy to live there” and Janessa said “Hot and humid, but the beach is nice. Slow paced. Exotic. MONKEYS! ZIP-LINING! RUINS LIKE MOUNTAINS!” We hope they both return very soon.

While the kids were here we got an e-mail advising us that we had an offer to buy our house in AZ. We accepted the offer and are currently in the final stages of closing the deal. We’re awaiting receipt of the paperwork via Federal Express and will then need to schedule an appointment with a lawyer/notary for our signatures. Meanwhile, Janessa is packing up her things and preparing to move out tomorrow. We hope that the whole process will be finalized before the end of the month…being rid of that responsibility will be a huge relief!

Since the kids left, our lives have returned to normal (puzzles, crafts, backgammon, dominos, poker games, exercise walks, reading (I got Kindle for PC), keeping a check on our baby fish in our reef and gardening). No darts since I have tendinitis in my R elbow…boy does it hurt! We had some excitement a few days ago when one of the chickens gave us our first free range egg! Rick ate it yesterday and said it was the most flavorful egg he had ever eaten. We haven’t gotten any more since then, so yesterday while we were in town we picked up a bag of plastic eggs. Rick’s brother Bob told us that if you put those in the nesting boxes it encourages the chickens to lay…we’ll see what happens.

Looking ahead, starting in March through June, the whale sharks come to visit for apx. 10 days each month. If any of you are interested, visit: http://belizescuba.com/whalesharks.lasso Let us know and we’ll set something up! The guest house is vacant and available!

Right now Rick is preparing Belizean Venison Breakfast Sausage. Tune in next time for an update on how it turned out. I’ve been experimenting with sour dough bread and some different fish and chicken recipes. The sourdough bread has the perfect texture, but is still lacking that wonderful sourdough taste. Janessa told us to be patient as it might take several months for it to happen. We’re never at a loss for “good eats”!

Check out our photos and keep in touch! We love hearing from you and hope to see some of you very soon.