The Water is Fine

We finally have the internet up and running.  I feel connected once again.  There have been many, many, many things that I have wanted to blog about, but new ideas have popped up and taken their place and as with all things, life moves forward.  The first day we landed in Belize City, I took a picture of my passport.  This is my first trip out of the country.  I am pretty proud of that stamp.  I wish the picture was better.

The differences between home and Belize began immediately.  The airplane opened directly outside.  I felt as if Tattoo would be there to welcome me.  Instead, we were directed to go inside the open-air building and to stand in one of 4 lanes for non-residents.  (Only one line for residents)  A reggae band played on a stage right next to the baggage claim area.  Next we were shuffled past the duty-free stores (I only noticed alcohol and perfume stores) to customs.  The officers didn't like our 14 bags so we got to experience first hand the fun of having all of them being ruffled through.  They thought it odd that we brought 2 bags of books and wouldn't be selling them even though we explained that we homeschooled.  Eventually, we were only charged duty on an electric drum set that we did bring down to donate to the church we are attending. 

A shuttle van from the hotel picked us up.  The air conditioning felt good.  Belize City is one big circle and so driving through the streets is akin to being a rat in a maze.  I have no idea how we arrived at the hotel.  People here have the right away and vehicles drive around them.   There are no rules of the road other than not to hit pedestrians and bikers and they do not move out of the way.  Made me want to cover my eyes and cringe.  We are pedestrians here in Placencia and I am growing accustomed to not fearing the vehicles that drive so closely, but we look silly as this little line of ducklings along the road.

Many of you know that one of my greatest concerns about coming here was Montezuma's Revenge.  Who wants to deal with that, especially with 3 kids?  God has provided once again however, because Placencia has the best water in the entire country.  Fresh water from the mountains that we can see from our home on a clear day.  We can drink straight from the tap.  B still installed the water filter I'd insisted on having for my peace of mind, but I feel comfortable now about having ice in my drinks at the restaurants and brushing my teeth.  I boiled water the first day here for tea and orange drink, but it takes forever and a day to cool off enough to put in the fridge. 

An unexpected issue with water is that we only have hot water in two of the three bathrooms.  No hot water for the washing machine.  No hot water in the kitchen sink.  No hot water in the guest bathroom.  It is a luxury here to have hot water taps.  We called to have hot water installed in at least the kitchen and the washing machine.  Maybe we won't go "all out" and install it in the third bathroom.  (We are thought to be extremely extravagant to have air conditioning even though it is only in our bedrooms and one guest bedroom.  We are also going to have some put in the main living area.  Cooking over the stove has been horrible.)

Strapping on snorkel vests

The best water is at the beach.  We only need to walk about 3 houses back to get to the beach.  We set up camp behind Cozy Corner, a local hotel and restaurant.  After experimenting, we've found that going in the morning is the best.  In the afternoon the water is filled with all sorts of debris--anything from palm fronds that wrap around your legs to trash that floats up from Honduras.  Yesterday we saw a school of minnows and some bigger fish chasing after them for their morning meal.  H is discovering all sorts of shells and sea creatures.  He has collected a fully intact sea urchin "shell" and a small horseshoe crab shell.  He found a itty-bitty crab--that stayed at the beach. 

Loving our time here.  We are still getting acclimated and settling into the house.  Maybe we'll do more exploring later.  We'd love to have company down at the beach.  Come on in, the water is fine!

A Cat's Life for Me

Sigh-purr

Fozzie the Forlorn

We share our home with three kitties, Fozzie, Tigger and Shadow.  They have enjoyed playing in and around suitcases for the last few days.  They've pulled things out and dragged them around the house.  Cat napping is allowed in the suitcases.  But, now the cases are starting to get filled with other items besides kitties.  Departure is near.  I wish I could've curled up on the bed with Fozzie today, but other priorities called me away.  We ate lunch with some friends.  B & I finished upholstering some sound panels we are helping with at church this afternoon.  A shower was in order after that sweaty job and not a moment too soon because we were back at church this evening for a special worship program.  Next we supped with another set of friends.  Momma L came to lunch and supper with us too.  Late night again for our kiddos.  Boy...we are in need of a vacation in a tropical location or at the very least a long nap stretched out on a comfy bed while someone brushed my furr, I mean hair.  ;)

Ladies Night Out

     I love my church family, especially the women.  Last night we enjoyed what we call "Ladies Night Out".  LNO is our way of letting our hair down and just spending time with one another without having any real form or rigidness or expectations for the night or with each other.  It is not often we women allow ourselves this kind of time, so I think that this is precious for all of us.
   Last night we made body butter from coconut oil and coconut butter, which come in tubs like Criso, but they smell like chocolate!  Miss C brought some examples of butters she had already made and we sampled them.  We felt like Egyptian Princesses.  Miss C gave us the recipe and we melted the oil and the butter together and then added scents.  We had Bergamot Mint and Tangarine to choose from.  Some of us spent time looking up Bergamot on our phones to see what the benefits were and then decided it was not always a good idea to have more information.  :)  The kitchen smelled delicious!  If a the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, we may have found a short cut last night--that is if he enjoys sweets!      

      The sweet smells in the kitchen whet our appetite for some ice cream.  We all chipped in different toppings.  Forget having 31 flavors of ice cream, we had only vanilla, but the plethora of toppings made up for the small ice cream choice of "take it or leave it".  There was hot fudge, homemade peanut butter topping, strawberries, cinnamon chips, crushed sugar cones, nuts (almonds, walnuts and peanuts!), M&Ms, marshmallow topping, you name it, it was there!  Yummy!  We were like kids when it came time to try to choose what we wanted and instead chose many.  I saw some very interesting concoctions, including a very clever s'more!  I haven't eaten breakfast yet and I think that ice cream sounds good about right now. 

    Following our treats, we had a time of prayer.  We prayed over upcoming surgeries, schooling, aging parents, healthy spirits, for mended hearts, and prayer for me and my family and our upcoming trip to Belize.  I cannot express adequately what it means to me to have a body of women come and place their hands on me and pray over me and my family.   What words of encouragement, kindness and love!  Thank you. 
    I look forward to having more of these shared moments when we return from Belize.  Ladies, you will be deeply missed.  Please check in with the blog and Facebook with me!  What a blessed time of fellowship!  Sweet smelling body butter, ice cream and sweet time of prayer.  Sweet Ladies!

Traveling Home

Hubby has been home for two and a half days now, but his dopp kit remains on the bathroom counter.  I teased him that he had been traveling so much lately that the packed dopp kit on the counter made it seem as if home was the stop over and and the places away from home were where to unpack and settle.  So many deep thoughts and reflections and directions my mind had with that simple sight this morning.

Of course the first thought involved Belize, from where he just returned from a 10 day visit.  He was there to meet with many of the contacts with the new position he has taken, to get paperwork started, to familiarize himself with the situation, to see the house and make preparations for all of us to go back soon.  How dizzy we've all become with the comings and goings of our lives in the last three years.  In that time I have purchased a house and sold the same, moved, changed profession (paralegal/office manager to homeschooling mom).  B lost his first wife to cancer, lost his father, was downsized from his job of 22 years.  Two of the children lost a mom, one moved from a school and lost friends and changed to homeschooling, and all three were cross adopted.  We got married, all had recently changed churches, lost and gained friends.  We have done a lot of traveling in the last three years--part of that pulling a pop-up camper with a mini-van for a  6-week adventure around the United States and Canada.  As anyone can see, our travels have not been limited to the physical, but have also been emotional, spiritual, and mental.  

Sometimes only in retrospect can we see the Hand of God weaving all of the details together--and what a Master He is!  B and I share a new favorite song by Lora Story, called Blessings.  It brings a tear to our eyes every time we hear it, but we see what He has given us as blessings.  No matter where He is taking us; no matter from where He's brought us, we are thankful that we are traveling and that this place that we call home, is nothing like the Home that we'll have with Him in Heaven for an eternity.  We are deeply grateful and appreciative of even these trials that we have faced here on Earth because they also bring great blessing.  We are all just travelers here, the question is, "What is your final destination?" 

Summer Nights

Do you remember the summer nights of your youth?  Staying up late.  Capturing lightning bugs.  Being called in by mother hollering out the backdoor and hearing the other mothers doing the same for their children all over the neighborhood.  Hearing the tree frogs, locusts, and crickets through the open windows while laying in bed after scrubbing off a day's worth of dirt from your bare feet.  Smelling the heaviness of the evening air.  Watching heat lightning.  Dreaming of all the new places to explore, forts to build, friends to meet back up with the next day to start all over again.  Last night I captured one of those moments through the eyes of the boys. 

Watch 'em wriggle!

As a treat I took them to purchase some heavily discounted fireworks to set off over the lake and in the driveway before bed.  For all of you who are now cringing and questioning my sanity, we did have plenty of discussions about fire safety, proper uses for the lighters, horror stories of children who misuse fireworks and lighters and the seriousness and great privilege of being able to do what they were doing.  Don't we all remember being given privileges and how that made us feel grown up and actually caused us to grow up at the same time?  Anyway, they had reached their fireworks quota for the night--they were spacing them out to have a few every night.  I started picking off bag worms from the hedges out front.  The boys decided to burn them with the lighters.  Boys.  They liked watching them wriggle.  H even stacked a firecracker on top of them and lit it to see what would happen.  I kept thinking that this was homeschooling at its finest.  Experimenting.  Hands on.  Forming a hypothesis and testing it.  Biology too.  I know that these will be nights that they remember.  I hope that they have the blessing of watching their children soak up the feelings of summer nights and have fond memories. 

Move Over Wheaties!

Complete with chocolate lips!

New breakfast of champions (and children on summer break) is chocolate covered, creme filled donuts complete with chocolate milk--or so says this mom at the end of a very busy week.  (Yes, my week didn't end until Tuesday morning.)

I took B to the airport this morning.  His flight to Dallas left a little after 8:00 and he called about 10:30 to let me know he arrived safely.  His next flight leaves at 1:30 and he should be in Belize by 4:30.  It was no small feat getting him prepared to go and wrapping up some details for me to continue life-as-usual while he is gone for the next 10 days. 

We have about a month left before we head down together.  Pray that we can endure the preparation because I don't think a breakfast of chocolate or Wheaties are good enough to get us through.  Phillipians 4:13 for Pete's sake! 

In My Backyard

View from the swing in our yard.

One of God's gifts to me last night was catching a glimpse of this sunset before tucking the kids into bed.  Kids were giggling and brushing teeth, B had disappeared (I assume to follow up on some work upstairs) and I walked by our back windows to see this.  You cannot see it in this picture, but a blue heron was wading in the middle.  Fish were jumping.  I sometimes grumble about the lake not being very deep behind our house and the noise from the bridge, but when I experience the calm nights with the warm air, the light humidity sticking to my skin, and the smell of the water, all the reasons for grumbling are forgotten. 

I began wondering what my backyard in Belize would look like.  I thought that God would be extending the feeling I was having until the end of October, perhaps into November since the temperatures hover around 70-86 degrees and we'll be close to the water there too.  Huge difference between Morse Reservoir and the Caribbean Sea, I know, but isn't that how He sometimes draws our attention to parallels in our lives to the lives of others? 

I believe that God is preparing my heart for the people of Belize.  My backyard is similar, but different.  We'll have commonalities and basis for connection.  One of my faults when it comes to meeting new people is that I am terrible at small talk.  Shoot, even getting warmed up to conversation with good friends is sometimes difficult for me. I like to hang back, or stand against the wall, to watch people first and then make decisions about who to approach and how.  I want to talk to people to keep them as friends and not acquaintances.  I mean, don't we all have many of those already?  I prefer the few deep relationships I have to the light and fluffy variety.  It does make it more difficult to have a party to play cards, but I will accept that trade off. 

Thank you to all of my family, who I love to hang out with, but distance keeps me from doing so as often as I like.  Thank you to my friends that I love like family.  Thank you, Lord for my backyard and for allowing me to share backyards with others.