This is great!

I just found out that it's possible to stream video on the blog. Wow, that opens up a whole new world again. More to come.....


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We're wacked!

Wow, it's been 11 days since I last blogged. I've had many blog ideas, but no chance to write. See, Andy and I have been running the Belize Jungle Dome whilst Karen went on a well-deserved Birthday break. Throughout that whole time Deborah has been sick, so we've been working full time and looking after both the kids. Especially Lucas demands a lot of our time. He is so energetic, talks non-stop and is just a very 'in ya face' 3-year-old. One of our guest once asked if he had ADD, which annoyed me, though I also understood what he meant, as Lucas is incredibly energetic & even manic sometimes. Oh well....all part of the joys of parenting boys! Thank God we live in the jungle and can let him run riot out there, otherwise we'd all be going crazy.

I do wonder how the Mennonites manage to produce such quiet children. Those kids just sit on those horse drawn carts all day and you don't hear a peep from them. You couldn't do that with Lucas even if you did stick a straw hat on him.

So anyway, next week we fly back to England to visit the grandparents and old friends. That's when we really want Lucas and Aidan to act like those Mennonite children, on that 10-hours+ flight across the Atlantic. Do you think it would be ethical to drug our kids with children's cough syrup before the flight? Or is it even bad to think like that?

Oh, I'm sure we'll survive. Lucas is actually a pretty good traveler. As long as produce a long stream of presents and snacks throughout the trip, we should be fine. And if he sleeps at least part of the way, that's an added bonus.

And Aidan? Who knows? It will be his first long flight. But the good thing is that much of the flight is at nighttime and he usually sleeps great at night (ridiculously short cat napper by day, but a sleeping beauty by night)

So I am quietly optimistic. And very much looking forward to seeing friends and family again, to taking Lucas on family outings (Dinosaur park, playgrounds, etc.) & to shopping! So England...here we come. Only 5 more days to go!

10 cars, a horse and a helicopter

So funny...I phoned Andy at the Dome this afternoon and he told me that there were 10 cars, a horse and a helicopter parked outside the gate. We had a full house for lunch & people had come with all kinds of transport.

In the meantime, my mum is doing better already. She was able to hold down both her food and a normal conversation this evening. I mean, she is still spending all her time in bed, but there is some improvement. So hopefully this means that we're dealing with the tail-end of her Dengue Fever.

And then there's Aidan. He's is growing and developing at lightning speed these days. He laughs and giggles tons (cutest sound ever) and is now able to sit un-assisted for up to about a minute at a time. I looked at Lucas' baby book the other day and noticed that he was 5 months before he was able to sit unassisted. I really think that Aidan is going to be quick with many things. He's just so strong (according to my mother-in-law, he's going to be 'a right bruiser')

Oh well...time will tell. I'm in no particular hurry. I'm still enjoying the fact that we don't have to baby proof the house yet.

Grandma's got Dengue!

My poor mum. She's been kind of sick ever since she got here, a week-and-a-half ago. And she was sick even before then. In total she's been ill (on and off) for 2 weeks now.

The last 2 days have been particularly bad, so we had a bloodtest done today. It turns out that she has Dengue Fever.

No one knows if she picked it up in Aruba or here in Belize and whether or not she's almost over it now or just starting the illness (she could have had a different flu just before this)

All in all, it's pretty horrible. I don't think I've ever seen her this sick. And there is no medication for Dengue. All she can take is Tylenol and get through it as best she can. I wish that there was more that I could do for her....

A day on the beach

Walking to the beach BBQ & trying to keep the baby shaded. He still managed to get a tat sunburned, the poor little thing.


I was ready for a party, but sadly enough I was the only one who was. I can't wait to go out again & dance till I drop. It's been too long...

By the way, as you can see I am no Victoria Beckham. My post-pregnancy belly is still with me. Hopefully not for much longer though (I went back to aerobics last night, by the way, and was amazed to see a woman do the whole class with a lollipop in her mouth. That, mixed bith tons of giant June bugs flying around the place, made for quite an interesting class. I never expected Belizean women to scream when giant beetles fly into them, but I now know that they do)

One of the nice things of living inland is that whenever you go to the beach, it's a treat. I would get so bored living on a beach all the time, but I love these little breaks that we take to the islands.

A cloudy, but pleasant day on the Ambegris Caye beach.

The joys of coming home

It's so nice to go to the islands for a few days, but I'm always happy to come home again as well. There is just something so comforting in pottering or, as I like to call it, faffing. Moving our things from here to there, filling the fridge full of food, playing the music you like, even stupid things like sorting out washing has something comforting about it (am I becoming a Desperate Housewife?) Anyway, you just can't do those things in a hotel room. I guess coming home is part of the joys of traveling. It's hard to appreciate what you've got until you haven't got it anymore, even if this 'lack of' is self-imposed and only for a few days.

My family and I, we're all a bunch of gypsies, yet we all love our homes! We're incredibly homely people yet if we were to lose all our belongings tomorrow, we'd simply brush ourselves off and create new homes all over again.

I know for a fact that I don't get too attached to 'stuff' as a few years ago there was a fire threat to our home. A huge tree next to the Jungle Dome was on fire and ambers were floating onto the wood shingled roof of our wooden Dome. Whilst a group of men climbed on to the roof with buckets and hoses, I was warned to take all valuables out of the house, just in case. I wandered around the house in a daze. What was actually of value to us? I just couldn't answer that question, so I simply grabbed our laptop, some paperwork, creditcards, photographs, a few old MTV videos and some football trophees. That was it! All our 'valuables' fitted into two bags. I couldn't think of anything else to take.

The moment I realized how unimportant all our 'things' were to me, I felt totally liberated. Eventhough everybody still ran up and down the stairs with buckets and the whole situation should have been quite stressful for me, I walked around with a huge grin on my face. I remember that, as Andy hugged me, I thought 'This is all that matters. If the house burns down...so be it. As long as we've got eachother and our animals are safe (this was before our children were born)...all is okay'.

So anyway, isn't it strange that our homes are so comforting to us because we have all our stuff there, yet all this stuff is so unimportant at the same time?

It's a wonderful paradox to me. So, home sweet home.

And enjoy yours, where ever it may be!

Trying to get fit again!

Finally managed to do some aerobics. I took Deborah along to look after Aidan & Lucas and Deborah’s younger brother wanted to come too. I would never have been able to show up with that many kids at an aerobics class in Europe, but here in Belize it’s not a problem. Lots of women bring their children and they either all play together, sit quietly or join in with the exercises at the side.

Lucas loved it! He had a blast & mummy got a good work out. I actually surprised myself by not being as unfit as I thought I was. I managed to do the whole class (not bad for my first post-pregnancy work out) without fainting. I had a head like a beet by the end of it, but still…

Oh by the way, my mum is back! She only left about two weeks ago and now she’s here for another two weeks. That’s the great thing about her not working at the restaurant anymore; she can come over whenever she wants. Yeeha!


Now, the plan for today was that we would go to San Pedro for Andy’s birthday (Happy Birthday babe!) But the weather is just too miserable. So we will wait for a few days until it clears up. That’s just how things are in the rainy season; you never know what to expect weather wise.

Last week's pictures

My mum and the kids. I am days behind on myself with regards to Blogging. Still no picture of the suite (slack....I know) & my mum left Belize ages ago already. Still, these are sweet pictures, aren't they?



Andy and Aidan hard at work. Talking of work, sometimes it annoys me that my blog is linked to our business, it kind of makes me sensor myself. There are just some things that you don't want all your clients to know.

Still, I'm sure most Bloggers keep their mouths shut about certain things as they know that there might always be family members, neighbors, etc. watching in on them.


This, by the way, is how I have to carry Aidan when he's upset. In a kangaroo pouch. It's the only thing that settles him. And here we are posing here with our dear friends Cindy Gordon and Dr. Ralph Pennino from Intervol.