Belize

Hopkins village

We visited this guy's wood shop, and he showed us all around. He's engraving the bowl we bought from him.

Dave getting ready to eat some of "nature's tic-tacs:" termites. I politely declined to try them.

We hiked up to this waterfall and got to swim around in the pool.

After the hike. We were so sweaty, rain-soaked and muddy, but it was one of the highlights of the trip.

Dave and I just got back from a relaxing vacation to Belize. It's one of our favorite places to visit, and this was our fourth time there. Our previous visits were to Ambergris Caye, an island off the coast, but this time we decided to try someplace new, so we went to Hopkins. We stayed at Hamanasi Resort, and decided it's probably our favorite place we've been. It was very remote and undeveloped. We dove on Saturday, and on our boat ride back to the resort we came across 5 manatees and got to snorkel with them. In all of our diving and snorkeling experiences, it was probably the coolest thing I've seen. On Monday we went on a hike/climb to a cool waterfall. It was a challenging, but very fun climb. The other days we relaxed at the resort and rode our bikes into the village.

The culture in the area is Garifuna, more Creole than Hispanic. Drumming is a major part of the culture, so one day we visited the drumming center in the village and got our own private concert.

18 months

My baby boy is 18 months old today. In some ways he still seems like he is a little baby; in others he seems like he's growing up so fast. He is talking so much. Some of my favorite things he says are: "A-going?" [Where are we going?] "Ice cream CO-OLD!" and today as we were getting ready to cross the street "A car [is] coming!" It blows my mind that he can say sentences at 18 months, when Charlie vocabulary was still pretty limited until well after he turned 2.

He's a little bit the instigator with Charlie. Nate will grab a toy that Charlie is playing with and run away knowing Charlie will chase after him. It's usually playful fun for both of them, but every once and while Nate will do it out of malice, and it doesn't end well.

Things seem to be going well with the boys sharing a room. They spend a lot of time talking before they nap, but they fall asleep pretty quickly at bedtime. I love hearing them talk and play together when we're not around. We hope this will encourage a close friendship between them.

Charlie likes to call Nate "The Nater Tater" which has lately evolved to "The Natey Tatey" and now is just shortened to "Nater." Charlie often tells us how much he loves Nate.

Nate is also our drama queen (I guess that should be king). He has big crocodile tears anytime he wronged in any way, and is quick to throw a tantrums. They'll continue and escalate until someone picks him up. That means there are many meals cooked and dishes washed with Nate trying to climb up my legs. Sometimes I've just got to let him cry it out, but other times I love stopping down and holding him while rests his head on my shoulder.

Charlie's Birthday Party

We celebrated Charlie's birthday with our family at the fire station. The boys (young and old) loved getting to climb on the fire truck.

The awesome cake by Aunt Nancy

Yes, that is smoke coming out the windows of the house and the fire truck lights flickering.