Belize
And a week later I get around to the second post. Hello life! Well, better later than expected than never.
We were debating what to do in Belize, we really wanted to see some Mayan ruins, but we also heard great things about a cave tubing tour, so naturally we wanted to do both, and were trying to see if we could. The morning of we showed up at the place to do the cave tubing and they said there was no way to do both and make it back to the ship in time, so we decided to just do cave tubing at that point.
One of our crazy guides. We learned a lot about the people of Belize and history and culture on our bus ride out to the caves.
Their people have to be buried in boxes above the ground because of the water level being so high. We couldn't get any pictures in the caves because we didn't have a waterproof camera, but we got an unexpected surprise when we went on a beautiful hike through the jungle where we learned a little more about the plant life and animals, and I ate a termite- it tasted minty, and wasn't that bad. It's supposed to be high in protein and something else healthy I can't remember. At the last minute they had to rearrange the guides once we got to the river in our tubes, and so we didn't get the craziest tour guide named Speedy while going down the water. So the actual tour of the river and caves, while beautiful, weren't quite as fun and informative as the ride up.
Eating our Belize chicken tamale as part of the lunch.
The local company we went through was called Butts Up Cave Tubing, here's our token picture.
The people there were really into telling us to support the local economy of Belize so when we got back, though there were nice american esque shops, we decided to go to the real Belize downtown market and got some coconut water to drink and a few fun Belize treasures, like a handmade drum and rainstick.
This was our coconut water seller, and cutter after the water was gone so we could eat the coconut that was left inside.
Here is him cutting up our coconut after we finished the water. You get a real sense of the character of these guys.
We loved the towel animals, this was on our bed when we got back that night.
Roatan, Hondurus
With our successful excursion with snorkeling and scuba diving in the mainland in Cozumel, we decided to see if we could repeat our luck in Roatan. However, this area was different and instead of paying $10 per cab to go to a site you had to pay $80 for a driver for the whole day for two people, or when we walked a little farther to the cheaper locals, $50 for a driver. We weren't planning on spending that much money just to get to a beach, and luckily heard a larger group walking by say some of the people in their group didn't show up, and so we asked if we could join their group for $10 per person! Way cheaper than any other options we had at that point.
Our driver was named Luis, and we sat right next to him and he told us all about Roatan and Hondurus and he was really nice and had a really interesting life. We got to the beach and tried to find out about scuba diving there and snorkeling, but by the time someone really understood us the scuba group had already left, and they said we needed to pay for a boat to take us out to see any good snorkeling things anyway. (Not true! We found out later you can just go all the way to the left of the West End beach and see some AMAZING coral and fish right off the beach) So we paid our snorkeling guide, and he took us out with this cute French couple that had an underwater video camera.
On our snorkeling boat.
Going in!
Ready to snorkel!
Caught from our French friend's video camera
Can you spot the turtle? I LOVED watching the turtle swim in its natural environment, not in an aquarium or zoo, but out in the wild! It is so graceful. One of the highlights of my trip for sure!
Can you spot Eric and the turtle?
It was really windy back on board the ship. Although my eyes are closed, this is a fun picture of the top deck on our ship.
Eric got to check off one of his "things to do before I die" list...Escargot for dinner!
I even tried it! It tasted like a pepperoni sausage flavor, which both aren't my favorite, but it wasn't horrible.
Trying to play miniature golf on the top deck with the wind being CRAZY!! We also had to try to stay in the shade because we didn't want to get too burned, still fun.
We went inside and finally got into the library! Where we met our first couple that were also LDS on the ship. They were a hoot! And they had gone to the ruins at both Cozumel and Belize and showed us lots of the cool things they saw and learned, so that made me happy. We also played scattergories, a total win game with friends.
Such a clever towel monkey we found hanging in our room that night! They also had a medical emergency that night and asked if someone that hadn't been drinking for the last 24 hours with a right blood match could come and donate blood. Eric and I were already in bed in our pajamas, but we knew we might be one of the few people on board that could help with that, so we went down. They ended up having lots of people show up, but it was so great to know we could help if we needed to because we stayed true to our standards.
Grand Cayman
We tried again to go scuba diving here, because Grand Cayman is one of the best scuba spots in the world, but they are a lot more strict about scuba certification here, so after awhile we found out it was a no go for Eric to scuba. Oh well, of all the places we visited on our cruise, we feel we could come back here and really have fun spending more time here.
We did get in on a last minute excursion to snorkel and visit sting ray city though.
On the bus ride over. We had fun chatting with the man and his wife directly behind us on the boat later they were from Minnesota and she had recently retired as a school teacher this past fall, they had been traveling the world ever since. We also had fun talking to some French speakers from Canada. Eric has a really great accent with the little french he knows, so they thought he really knew lots of french, and then assumed I did too. I pretty much tried to tell them my brother knows french, and that took like five minutes to communicate, but they were really nice, and we had fun talking with the few broken English and French words we each knew.
The boat ride was beautiful out. Really the water was so picturesque, even more than real it seemed.
We met our second LDS family on this little excursion. They were from Cottonwood Heights in Utah, and had 9 kids, the youngest being 11. They told us they decided to go on this trip about a year ago (their first family trip in five years) and said the kids could come if they earned half the money for the trip, and if they didn't earn the money they would leave them home. All their kids earned the money for it, and it was great talking to them. They told us they had devotionals every single night and morning and it had been a great experience for their family so far.
Stingray city. The stingrays really did just swim all around you and brush your legs and feet. They even let you hold one and take a picture of you kissing one, but we forgot to even look at those pictures when we got back to land to see if any were worth buying. The snorkeling was fun, but only in a small area for about thirty minutes.
We were then dropped off at the seven mile beach and we relaxed and read our books, and "sunbathed" red head style.
Eric went snorkeling a little more. He didn't see any fish, but he did pick out some fun coral rock for the kids. Do you see how crystal clear the water is?!?
We then took a walk on the beach, so beautiful and relaxing. The ocean and I we have a special thing. Eric and I have a special thing too, but the ocean and I it's different and special too. :)
On our walk back to the boat we saw some chickens, because, why not?
It was elegant night on the cruise that night. This is us all dressed up!
These were some of our dinner mates Billy and Mia.
Eric and his delicious Lobster Bisque and salad.
Hello to two entrees! Mushroom cream pasta, and a couscous stuffed pepper.
Our awesome server from Indonesia, Irma.
Last day on the boat on the way back to Miami!
Our last day on the boat our goal was RELAXATION! So we did only those things that we REALLY REALLY wanted to do, and tried to get lots of reading and lounging done.
The boat was rocking back and forth the most of the whole trip this day. I was surprised at how not seasick I was. Maybe my last three pregnancies got me used to the nauteous feeling so it didn't even bother me.
My Indonesian connections!
Almost immediately after hitting land our thrifty bone kicked back in and we decided to walk a mile or so to the train station to the airport. Saved us about 35 dollars.
And a week later I get around to the second post. Hello life! Well, better later than expected than never.
We were debating what to do in Belize, we really wanted to see some Mayan ruins, but we also heard great things about a cave tubing tour, so naturally we wanted to do both, and were trying to see if we could. The morning of we showed up at the place to do the cave tubing and they said there was no way to do both and make it back to the ship in time, so we decided to just do cave tubing at that point.
Here is him cutting up our coconut after we finished the water. You get a real sense of the character of these guys.
Roatan, Hondurus
With our successful excursion with snorkeling and scuba diving in the mainland in Cozumel, we decided to see if we could repeat our luck in Roatan. However, this area was different and instead of paying $10 per cab to go to a site you had to pay $80 for a driver for the whole day for two people, or when we walked a little farther to the cheaper locals, $50 for a driver. We weren't planning on spending that much money just to get to a beach, and luckily heard a larger group walking by say some of the people in their group didn't show up, and so we asked if we could join their group for $10 per person! Way cheaper than any other options we had at that point.
Our driver was named Luis, and we sat right next to him and he told us all about Roatan and Hondurus and he was really nice and had a really interesting life. We got to the beach and tried to find out about scuba diving there and snorkeling, but by the time someone really understood us the scuba group had already left, and they said we needed to pay for a boat to take us out to see any good snorkeling things anyway. (Not true! We found out later you can just go all the way to the left of the West End beach and see some AMAZING coral and fish right off the beach) So we paid our snorkeling guide, and he took us out with this cute French couple that had an underwater video camera.
Going in!
Ready to snorkel!
Caught from our French friend's video camera
Can you spot the turtle? I LOVED watching the turtle swim in its natural environment, not in an aquarium or zoo, but out in the wild! It is so graceful. One of the highlights of my trip for sure!
Can you spot Eric and the turtle?
Grand Cayman
We tried again to go scuba diving here, because Grand Cayman is one of the best scuba spots in the world, but they are a lot more strict about scuba certification here, so after awhile we found out it was a no go for Eric to scuba. Oh well, of all the places we visited on our cruise, we feel we could come back here and really have fun spending more time here.
We did get in on a last minute excursion to snorkel and visit sting ray city though.
The ONLY rain we experienced on the whole trip was a 10 minute sprinkle on the boat to the sting rays which passed by completely when we got there.
Last day on the boat on the way back to Miami!
Our last day on the boat our goal was RELAXATION! So we did only those things that we REALLY REALLY wanted to do, and tried to get lots of reading and lounging done.
Our LDS friends from West Valley, Lynn and Merilee. We spent a couple hours playing games with them and eating fish and chips (with a really yummy seafood soup) and more amazing hamburgers.
Working off all those extra calories while reading. I had ran on the treadmill earlier that morning, so I didn't work particularly hard at biking here, but Eric rocked it! Side note, running on a treadmill on a boat is a really crazy experience, everyone should have it at least once in their life.
Last sunset from the ship, it was glorious. I think it was fitting that it was from the back of the ship as we sailed away from a truly magnificent experience for the both of us.
Eric and Heidi from West Virginia: along with a random picture of my pumpkin-cinnamon-squash-nutmeg pie entree. I unfortunately could only eat about half of that.
From left to right: Mia from Minnesota, Billy from Canada, two of our servers Irma and Tutut (he was also from Indonesia), Eric, Brooke, Maria (our other server), Heidi and Eric from West Virginia.
Fun final show on the ship. Passengers on the ship auditioned to be in the show as different singers, like Elton John, and Cher, it was better than I expected it to be.
Kind of bummed we only hit this guy up the last night. This guy was incredible. He took requests all night long and never skipped a beat in being able to play and sing. Seriously though, amazing. Next time, the piano guy will be one of my first things to try.
This was the room right across from us, a balcony suite. We actually had more room than we were anticipating having an inside cabin, but when we saw the size of this room we thinking we might need to save up a little more for next time.
Last breakfast on our vacation, yummy!
"Where am I?"
"Miami"
[Burn Notice]
Cause you always need to take a picture of you standing in line at customs.
A perfect excuse to covertly take a picture of the random bald guy behind us on the plane. Had an amazing experience talking to the person next to us on the plane. She was full of questions about the church, and Salt Lake City, and us living in Portland now. We told her to go see Temple Square when she was driving through with her daughter on the way back to New York and get a free tour and book out of it, and to use familysearch.org for more family history helps. It was fun to help her see that we believe in creationism AND evolution, and science and religion don't have to be mutually exclusive one or the other.
Then we drove home and our kids were already asleep because of awesome Kathryn Olsen watching them all day for us and wearing them out, so they couldn't even wait up for us. :) The next morning Avey just cried for the first half hour because she was so sad she didn't get to give grandma a hug and kiss goodbye. (Although she really did, she didn't know it was a full good-bye good-bye kiss) So grateful for the HUGE sacrifice of my mom flying in to watch the kids all week! And everyone else that helped so much to make it happen! Really all the service rendered to us, it was a little overwhelming actually. But it really was an amazing trip, and Eric and I are changed people for the better because of it.
One of the things I realized on the trip though, is happiness comes when you recognize the little things, whether on a trip or in your regular daily grind of life. Appreciating the beautiful color of the ocean, or the first smile you see on your four year old for the day, or how delicious a fresh coconut from a tree is, or your daily breakfast of oatmeal, coconut milk and cinnamon is. I was happy to come home and realize I love my life here too, and I don't have to go on a trip to feel happiness and contentment.
But I'm still glad we got to go and take time out for just Eric and I to be together, that also is very important in life and our marriage.
One of the things I realized on the trip though, is happiness comes when you recognize the little things, whether on a trip or in your regular daily grind of life. Appreciating the beautiful color of the ocean, or the first smile you see on your four year old for the day, or how delicious a fresh coconut from a tree is, or your daily breakfast of oatmeal, coconut milk and cinnamon is. I was happy to come home and realize I love my life here too, and I don't have to go on a trip to feel happiness and contentment.
But I'm still glad we got to go and take time out for just Eric and I to be together, that also is very important in life and our marriage.
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