Belize - Day 2

Despite being on "island time", we woke up early to watch the sunrise.  The instant coffee and cloud cover didn't put a damper on it, though.  It was still so peaceful.

At 10am, we headed out for our snorkel reservation about a 15 min. walk up the coastline.  There, we got fitted for our gear.  They even had +5.0 prescription goggles for the little one.  After liberally applying our reef-safe suntan lotion, our guide, Zach, boated us out to the barrier reef.

We saw huge schools of fish, lots of coral, and conch shells.  

Then when we came upon a shark or stingray, we dove down to get a close up.

  

Sometimes the water was really shallow and we had to watch our flippers.  We didn't want to hurt the coral.

Under the rocks below, our guide found an Amore eel, so Ashlyn had to go see it.

 On the way back to the boat, we saw this sweet sea turtle nibbling on the sea grass.

Our next snorkel spot was shark and stingray alley.  Zach had a scented bait stick which attracted the marine life.

These are nurse sharks.  They aren't aggressive like most of the sharks we see on TV.  Although that gave me some comfort, we still opted to jump in on the other side of the boat!  

I had fun swimming after the sting rays.

The little one was finally getting used to the snorkel mouth piece and enjoying the salt water, so we stayed a few minutes longer to look at the large shells.

 Then one last selfie before we loaded up...

The boat ride back to Caye Caulker was quite intense!  I was sure one of us would fly out from going top speed and hitting the waves.  These three seemed to be all smiles, though.

 Then one wave smacked the side of the boat and I gripped on for dear life!

Safely back on land, we decided to get a drink and get the saltwater taste out of our mouths.

Then walked over to the west side of the island to catch the sunset!

Belize - Day 1

Our trip began with Ashlyn getting upgraded to First Class on both her flight to Houston and onto Belize.  Her international travels gave her enough mileage for the free perk!

We said hello to her as us pheasants passed by her on our way to economy.

During our 3 hour layover in Houston, we decided to have a little fun.  We found a conveyor belt walkway and pretended to be a bicycle.

We finally arrived in beautiful Belize!  Warm temperatures, sun, and an English language we can understand with a hint of Caribbean and Spanish dialects.

Eric hailed us a taxi to the water port.  Our first three days were on the island of Caye Caulker.  Here's us on the hour boat ride out to the island.

Destination success!

 Now to find our hotel for the next few days...

Found it!  It's called the Anchorage (like in Alaska).  Not too crowded, and we loved it!

Now to find a bite to eat... These were the "streets" on the island.  They only had 3 - Beach Street, Central, and West St.  No vehicles were here, but we did see a few golf carts.

Most people got around on foot or bicycle.

For dinner, we ordered from a local place that served Red Snapper fish (the whole fish), with cole slaw, rice & beans, and a fried plantain.  The rice here is cooked in coconut milk and was very flavorful!

After dinner, we headed out exploring the other areas of the island and came up on something called the "split".  In 1961, a hurricane devastated Belize City and split this small island in two.  The locals made the best of it, and had this area developed into a fun night scene.

For an island with not many beaches, this area was one of the few places you feel like taking a swim.  

The sun goes down pretty quick in the evening, so we enjoyed the music as it neared sunset.  Here you can see where the waterway splits the island in two.

Such a gorgeous sunset after a busy day of travel!

Battle of the Books

This was our little one's 3rd year in a row to participate in Battle of the Books.

The teams get together at the beginning of each summer and spend 10 months reading all the nominee books (20), including the author's notes.

Then in the spring, the school has a competition among all the teams.  This year's Battle occurred in early April.  It was a nail biter...super tense and down to the wire in what they call the sudden death round to break a tie breaker.

Her team, SASS, came in second place.  But the good news is that the top 2 teams from each school goes on to compete at the District level!

Today was that district competition.  Three middle schools in the district each had two teams, for a total of 6 competing for that coveted trophy.  Here they have a bit of prep just before the competition.  They were so nervous!



Then the matching t-shirts arrived and the lineup was drawn.  SASS was in the first draft round.  After 10 questions,they tied with another team.  Again, they went into sudden death.  Gosh, it was so tense, but exciting!

After a grueling 18 rounds of questions, SASS answered one of them wrong, although their question could have been challenged.  The sweet group of girls bowed out graciously and went home proud.

The little one's BFF came to cheer her on, so I took them out to eat when it was over.