New Digs! - 2/24/07

Our biggest news of the week is that we moved last Sunday. We moved because of several reasons that aren't important enough to blog about, what is important is that we LOVE our new place!

Perks of the new digs:

• We have a front and back yard
• We have a palm-lined driveway
• We have pointsettias year-round
• Our bathroom is no longer the size of a broom closet.
• We have a cat. Cats hunt spiders and other creatures. Yay cat!
• We have ficus trees is our backyard- ficus trees grow HUGE here!
• We have a comfy bed that actually fits Nathan's body - No more back problems from legs hanging off the rock-hard matress!
• We have rain water, we can actually drink the tap water!
• It's an actual house

It's not just the house though, Nathan and I absolutely love the new location as well. We are still very near the school and the "downtown" area of Blue Creek, so Nathan can still walk to school. We can acutally see the shopping center where we used to live from our front yard. But there is much less noise and the house is set off the road. Also, Nathan loves a species of tree that grows here in Belize. We don't know the name but large, beautiful bright orange flowers grow in shocking contrast to their dark green leaves. There are two of these trees in our front yard! It gives me a place to hit the volleyball with my friends and sunbathe in the afternoons! It is so much more peaceful and we will have saved quite a bit of money in rent by the time we leave.

I can't wait to have family visit so I can show them our rain-water shower!

The Kids of Belize - 2/24/07

I have taken lots of cute pictures of kids during the last 7 months so I thought I would finally get around to sharing them with you guys. I know all the girls will enjoy them...the guys will too...they'll just deny it later. All in all, they sure seem to grow them extra-cute around here, I think it's all the sun and fresh air.

Enjoy!

Rodeo Time, Ya'll! - 2/17/07

A few things I didn't know when I woke up this morning:

#1- Important Blue Creek holidays are ranked as follows: Christmas, Rodeo Day, Easter....etc.

#2- The bravest cowboy I have ever known is a 5 year old girl who ignored her fear and got on the back of a bucking baby sheep and smiled after she was bucked off 2 seconds later.

#3- When a little boy says, "Daddy, I wanna be a cowboy when I grow up" that is an attainable goal. There are job openings here and it's a very competitive field!










#4- It doesn't snow in Belize, but that doesn't keep kids from being pulled by a horse-drawn sled!















#5- There are a few kids in Nathan's Junior High class that won't make great cowboys someday--they already are!















#6- Sheep can be aggressive! "I am Jesus' little lamb" has taken on a whole new meaning to me!















#7- There is a reason rodeos are held in corrals (most of the events today took place in an open field). When the calf gets spooked, it runs as fast as it can in any direction away from the cowboy, even if it's right into the crowd!







#8- Calves are very offended at the thought of wearing underwear!





Nathan and I spent the day at a Rodeo hosted by Blue Creek. We brought two local kids along with us. Kenny, a boy I am tutoring, and his sister, Leslie. Their parents own the restaurant, 3 Flags, and would be serving food at the rodeo. This meant their kids wouldn't be able to go because they wouldn't have time to supervise them. That just didn't seem fair to me, so we brought them along with us! Most of the participants in the rodeo were locals, but some people came from as far away as Spanish Lookout, Belize, a town about 3 1/2 hours away.

As far as I can remember, I have never been to a rodeo, and although this one did not include any bull-riding, it was a thrill I will not soon forget! Men and women participated in events such as calf roping and barrel racing. They also had shovel racing, where there is one cowboy riding a horse and one cowboy riding a shovel being pulled by the horse! As far as I could tell, the key to this event was to stay on the shovel and in the event that you fall off, avoid losing as eye on the edge of the shovel or face planting in a cowpie. Other events included children. There was sheep riding--and I had no idea sheep could be so aggressive. One small sheep, apparently more familiar with the work of Gandhi than the others, must have decided if it would simply lie itself down on the ground and refuse to move, the child would eventually get off and leave it alone. Another sheep did not have the same passive, non-violent approach to the event. He threw himself head-first into the walls of the small enclosure, throwing his rider into the metal bars. In another event, an old truck bed liner was tied behind a horse and the cowboy dragged one child at a time around the arena. The goal was for the child to remain standing and, or course, not fall out of the truck bed. While watching this event, I thought it was make a great commercial for the durability of Rhino Linings! And of course, since this is Belize, this was all done without even the smallest child wearing a helmet! Ah, what a different world in which we live!

The final, and by far the most humorous event was the "calf dressing" event. Teams of two went into a small arena, had to catch a calf, put men's underwear on it, and drag it across the arena to a pre-designated position. The team to complete the task the fastest was awarded $100! I don't even know if words can describe in words how hilarious this was to watch!

It was a wonderful day! Horses, Belizean sun, a nice breeze, kids, friends, palm trees, and fun all served with your choice of rice & beans, BBQ chicken, or ceviche. Another wonderful memory for us to cherish!

Cancún – 2/13/07

An interesting fact about teaching at the Linda Vista School in Blue Creek – they would be hard pressed to get through one month without a three day weekend. If there is not a national holiday in any given month, the school has a local “Blue Creek” holiday to give people the chance to get out of town and do some shopping. This month, we had some help planning our destination.

Melissa’s sister and her new husband, Jeffy Weffy, spent their honeymoon North of us in Mexico – enjoying the beauty of Cancún before the spring breakers crowd the beaches. They were generous enough to leave behind their quality snorkel gear at the resort for us to pick up – giving us a good enough reason to take a bus trip up the Yucatán peninsula. We left town after school and spent the evening riding up the Mexican coastline while watching movies on our surprisingly comfortable bus.

Some highlights of the trip:

• The stunning view of the coast along this part of Mexico and the Caribbean colors along the beach outside our hotel. Nowhere else on Earth looks quite like this.
• Speeding a boat across the lagoon, through the mangroves, and to the reef to do some snorkeling. We saw a barracuda, a giant parrot fish, and little bizarre, clear lobsters digging in the sand at the reef.
• The sunrise Saturday morning. We slept with the balcony door open to listen to the ocean, and the sunrise came pouring in early that morning. If you’ve never seen the sun rise over the Caribbean, it looks something like this…
• Dinner at Bubba Gump’s with Maria and easy access to Starbucks. Not to mention walking along the beach.

Monday morning it rained, but hey, we’re locals. That didn’t bother us. What’s a little tropical rain during an outdoor breakfast? Wet toast, the wind blowing our napkins away, the table and all four chairs across the patio sliding across the wet tile toward us as the wind funneled through the dining area – just part of the tropical getaway! We realized after awhile that we were the only ones still attempting an outdoor breakfast; all the other tourists had long since ran inside and probably stared in disbelief at the crazy couple insisting on finishing their coffee before allowing a silly storm to chase them away.

It was a fun weekend. There’s a reason so many thousands of people flock to Cancún every year. I wouldn’t attempt to go during the madness of Spring Break again, but I’m glad I got to share this experience with my wife. We are so blessed!

Stay tuned for next month’s getaway! And don’t forget to email me! I want to hear from you, too!

Back to Basics - 2/10/07

We have been back in Belize for nearly a month and life is back to normal. Internet access continues to be a problem, so Nathan and I have been avoiding it altogether. This is less stressful and disappointing for us, but less convenient and informative for you, our friends and loved ones—and the occasional stranger—who keeps track of our lives through this blog. So, here is a quick run-down of what we have been up to over the past month…..

We arrived back in Belize after "The Great Wedding of 2007," on January 15th and Nathan went back to work the next day. Nathan has begun his second and final semester as the 7th and 8th grade teacher at Linda Vista School. He has added two new subjects to the Junior High curriculum this semester- Spanish 1 and Public Speaking. The kids are really enjoying both, especially public speaking. They have given three speeches so far, including a demonstrative speech. Kids talked about various subjects, including how to wash dishes, how to make different kinds of food, and one kid even explained bull castration! Wow! Thanks for the info kids! Nathan is enjoying a bit of a lighter load this semester, with two other teachers stepping in to help him teach some of his classes. He still has more subjects than class periods, but his schedule is definitely more manageable and he spends much less of his Saturday playing catch up and planning the next week’s lessons.

My days have been much less exciting since our return to Belize as I am no longer at the school two periods a day. I am still in charge of detentions, and the kids have been keeping me busier than usual the past couple of weeks. I am also still tutoring students after school. Since I generally don’t have anything scheduled until 3 pm, I have been spending more time getting to know some of the women in the community. One woman in particular, Susy, a young mother of two vivacious girls, has been a lot of fun to get to know. We have played volleyball on occasion and are involved in 2 bible studies during the week. We also get together on Tuesday evenings with our husbands and 4 other people and eat a potluck dinner together.

Also, I am taking advantage of all of my spare time to continue to hone my cooking skills. I have become a master bread baker (without a bread machine!) and even got together with some women in the community and made tamales. I arrived at the house where the tamales were being prepared and was SHOCKED to find them sitting around shucking 200 ears of corn. I stopped and stuttered, “Wha-? Corn! Corn? We’re making them from corn?” I don’t know why I was so surprised. I should have learned by now that everything is truly made from scratch here—even cornmeal is a shortcut! The ladies got a good laugh at my surprise and patiently walked me through each step of the tamale-creating process. It was a lot of fun, very educational and of course, delicious!

Oh yes, and the biggest football event of the year did not pass us by just because we are living in Central America, where futbol is much more popular than football. One of Nathan’s co-workers, John, had a Super Bowl party at his home and quite a few people turned out to watch. Everyone chose a team to root for, but it was very obvious that these were not die-hard football fans, much less Bears or Colt fans. Never-the-less everyone enjoyed themselves! We even had great Super Bowl food! Two ladies, our friend Hilda and the pastor's wife, Corrina, made Belizean Style Hot Wingz!!They're cooked outside on a grill that looks very similar to a wok, called a "disco." They were soooo spicy and soooo good! None of the Belizean kids were interested in watching the game at all, I have no idea where they boys went, but here are the girls jumping and jumping and jumping on the trampoline. I joined in for a while—I just couldn’t resist!

So, that’s all for us! Nathan went on a great hike with a friend, Daniel, but I’ll let him tell you about that. For now, you are nearly caught up. We are currently spending a long weekend in Cancun and will write about it soon. For now I will leave you with this unbelievably beautiful picture of the breathtaking view from our hotel room.

iAdios!

Féliz Cumpleaños! - 2/4/07

Happy Birthday To You!
Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday dear Jocelyn
Happy birthday to you!

One year ago today, Jocelyn Karalee (Joss the Boss) blessed all of us when she entered our lives. She is so stinkin' cute! It makes me sad that we live so far from her, but that won't last forever. We'll get to spoil her soon.

Judging from the pictures her mom sends us, she gets cuter as each month goes by. Now, you may be thinking to yourself, "I don't know, she's pretty darn cute there - probably can't get much cuter than that." But you're wrong! You've never been more wrong than you are now! She won the genetic lottery, as our pastor's daughter-in-law pointed out. So imagine how cute she is two months after this picture was taken! Mind boggling...

Happy Birthday Jocelyn!