Lucas recovering from the annestetic. He went from being sleepy to trashing around violently, to being all sleepy and then trashing around violently again. It was quite a weird experience. Thank god that's all behind us now.

Lucas is fine

Today was the big day when Lucas had his operation. He is recovering really well. We won't know if the eyelid has been pulled up enough (or too little or too much) until the swelling goes down, which will be in a few days. But it looks pretty good.

You know, there is so much t write about today....but I am exhausted. I'll try and write more tomorrow. Right now, I'm gonna veg out in front of the telly for a bit & then have an early night.

Anyway, just wanted everyone to know that Lucas is fine.
Thanks for all good wishes!

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Five Sisters Falls

Andy and the kids climbing the Five Sisters Falls

William & Jimmy came with us for the day. In hindsight, not such a great idea. Because they are so much older than Lucas they can climb much better too. But Lucas wanted to do everything that they did, it was heart-stopping to watch him climb to the top of waterfall (Andy could barely hold on to him)

When the swimming and climbing was over it was time for chips & ketchup (never forget the ketchup!)

This is where Lucas decided to fall asleep after our adventures at the waterfalls

Expanding our options

In the last few days we've been visiting some of the other resorts in our district. Basically, we are looking for a nice place to send our guests to whenever we get fully booked. We are already a third full for December and are getting tons of inquiries every day. We should be booked up pretty soon. Not surprising when you consider that we only have 3 rental units at the Belize Jungle Dome and our website gets about 1000 hits a day (webmaster Andy has worked his magic there)

We found a lovely place to work with in the Mountain Pine Ridge, called Five Sisters Lodge. It's a place we've often visited on daytrips (they have the most beautiful waterfalls there), but I had never looked at the rooms before. Anyway, the rooms are great and reasonably priced. So many lodges in Belize are totally overpriced, it's ridiculous. Oh, and another nice thing is that this resort is one of the only Belizean owned resorts on the mainland.

So anyway, whenever we are full we can still offer the inland part our all-inclusive packages (we already have 3 resorts on San Pedro that we work with for the island extension). All we have to do is make sure that people would be happy to stay at Five Sisters instead of the Jungle Dome.

Now, let's hope that this resort is good to work with as far as bookings are concerned. It's amazing to see how many resorts don't answer emails or give you confirmation when you try and book a room. I often wonder how some of them survive when they are being so unprofessional.

Well, enough about all that. I'm slowly gonna start packing for our Rochester trip. We're off on Monday & I already have this nagging feeling that I've forgotten something. I'm quite sure that's only going to increase the closer we get to Monday. So I better get organized. That may help a little. Having this foggy "pregnancy brain" doesn't help, that's for sure.

Adios amigos!

Fish at Hol Chan Dive

Dolphins off the Belizean coast

Our BATSUB friends flying over the Blue Hole (famous Belizean dive site)

For all my friends who haven't made it to Belize yet (that's most of you).....get down here!!!! Come and sit on the beach with us.

It's great to know some people of the British Army in Belize. They take the best pictures from their helicopter! And Lucas loves it when they fly over and wave at him.

Testing, testing, one, two

Hmmm, interesting…..you can now write and upload blogs straight from Microsoft Word. This is my test posting, so if it happens to look weird, it’s because I’m experimenting.

Anyway, all is well here. My belly is slowly growing (running out of clothes to wear already). We finished tiling around the pool, making the place look even more beautiful. And we’ve had some lovely guests staying with us lately, which has been good fun. Everything is just very pleasant again.

Thank God we’re over that boring period, the one where there were no guests and we were crawling up the walls. Actually, saying that, we have another period like that to get through still, the month of October. That’s a very quiet month here with regards to tourism. So funny, everyone in Belize suffers from the same boredom and disillusionment in the slow season. Lots of people put their businesses up for sale at that time of year only to resume with new enthusiasm when the next high season arrives (and then you don’t hear them mention anything about selling up until they’re in the next slow season again)

Oh by the way, Lucas has been a terror this last week. I don’t know what’s happened. He has gone from being such a lovely boy to being plain horrible (not all the time, of course). According to the local women, it’s because he feels that something is changing. They say that a first child always plays up when the mother gets pregnant again. I always assumed that that kind of behavior wouldn’t start until the baby was here. But according to the locals, things actually start getting better again once the new baby has arrived. That’s when the first child accepts the new situation, they say. I’m not sure what to believe. I just hope that I can hold on to my sanity through it all.

Little boy growing up

Lucas seems to spending less & less time indoor these days. He is becoming so independent, it's crazy. Basically, we have a big pile of sand outside of our house that he plays on all the time and his best friend's house is right at the edge of our property. So Lucas and all his friends move between our house, the sandpit and next door's house all day. I am no longer "allowed" to come with him. All I get asked to do is walk him up & down our stairs (we agreed that someone always has to hold his hand on the stairs and he is sticking to that perfectly)

Here in Belize, kids of all ages play together & they all look after each other. So there may be kids aged 9 or 10 playing with 4 & 5 year olds and this group will also be wheeling a stroller around with an infant in it. It's not something we're used to in Europe, but I find it quite wonderful anyhow. Of course, we don't have to deal with any car traffic here and it's unusual to encounter any strangers where we live. We're in quite a protected little community.

Still, I do worry a bit. But I guess this is just how life is here & I wouldn't want Lucas to grow up separated from all the local children. And he is already amazingly good at judging what he is and isn't capable of. So he doesn't seem to get into too many crazy things.

Oh, as far as the pregnancy goes....I am getting a bit better now. Today is a good day, yesterday was another awful one. I felt so bad I couldn't even stand up under the shower, I had to sit on the floor as I was washing my hair. But overall I am getting better. Just waiting to "start glowing" now (don't they say pregnant women start glowing once they are past their first trimester?)

This is how Lucas looks after playing outside every day...covered from head to toe in sand. Here he is with one of his best buddies "Jimmy" who obviously loves playing in the sand as much as Lucas does. Those raskals.

Mosquito coast

Well, San Pedro was a nice break apart from the fact that it was full of mosquitoes. I mean, it was insane. There were so many mosquitoes that Lucas kept thinking that he stepped on a nest of fire ants. The poor little man had so many bites. The people of San Pedro said that they had never seen so many mosquitoes on the island. There literally were swarms of them, it was horrible. Anyway, the government finally sent one of the spraying trucks (apparently there are only two of those for the whole country). Once the island had been sprayed it all became a lot more bearable.

What else has happened? Oh, I handed out most of the school books. I only have a few more to buy.

And we've booked our flights to Rochester, NY. We are taking Lucas there in September for an eye operation. He has ptosis, which means that one of the eyelid muscles doesn't function properly. The eyelid muscle will be shortened a little, just enough to open up that eye. I'm not looking forward to it, but it's something we'd have to do sooner or later. We were actually hoping that the eye would open up by itself over time, but there has been no improvement whatsoever since he was an infant. And the nice thing is that we know the medical team in Rochester. They came down to Belize a while ago and we all became good friends. So we know that we're in good hands there.

Oh, Lucas made me laugh yesterday....he looked up my nostril and shouted "Hello, anybody there?" I told him that there was nobody up my nose. He looked up my nostril again and said "Mum, what is it? Is it some kind of jungle in there?"

Much better

Good news! Karen is not leaving us after all. We had a good chat earlier and have come to the conclusion that we are all crazy just sitting here in this big old house in the jungle whilst there is so little going on right now. No wonder we're all losing it a bit. So, we are going to take turns in going to the islands and doing other fun things. All we need is one or two people to "hold the ford" & the rest of us can go and have some fun somewhere else.

So Andy, Lucas and I will go to San Pedro tomorrow & Karen will change places with us on Wednesday. That's all I wanted to share right now. I'm gonna go and pack our bag.

Adios!

Stir-crazy

Living at the Belize Jungle Dome is a wonderful experience, but sometimes we all go a bit stir- crazy here. Especially at this time of the year, the slow season. There aren't enough guests around to keep us on our toes and sometimes it feels like the jungle is caving in on you. Everything is just so bloody quiet and predictable this time of year. And our nearest "town", the capital Belmopan is so incredibly sleepy and small (9000 inhabitants) that going there isn't much of a relieve from the boredom. There is no gym, no nice restaurants or cafes, no theatre, no interesting shops, no cinema (you can see 2 movies a month: one at the British High Commission and one at the Cultural Centre) & there is little that resembles a "social scene" in Belmopan. It is a pretty boring place. Safe though, which is a plus, but still quite boring.

The highlight of our day is the daily shopping trip. I guess we could buy food for a few days in advance, but then what would we do? At least this way we get out of the house for a little and have a short change of scenery.

Karen is feeling it too. She just went to San Pedro for a few days and was offered a job there. Now she's confused about what to do. San Pedro is definitely more exciting for a single girl like her. It's on an island and is Belize's main tourist destination. I mean, they even have 3 gyms there! What a luxury. Still, I honestly don't think that this job would be right for her. She'd be selling timeshare. And Karen is way too nice of a person for that. Because, let's face it, timeshare usually isn't that great of a deal for the buyers (you just have to convince them that it is)

If Karen were to leave us, we'd have a bit of a problem on our hands too. She is such a great person to have around and such a brilliant worker. She does all our paperwork, answers emails, runs the bar, plans the work schedules, etc. Plus, she helps with the pick-ups and drop-offs from the airport & takes turns in doing the food shopping.

If we have to do the coming high-season without her, there would only be Andy & me to do all these things. We would have to run the bar, drive up & down to Belize City to pick people up, do all the food shopping, answer emails, do all the paperwork & look after Lucas at the same time. Plus, I would be heavily pregnant at that point.

So, obviously, we hope that Karen will not decide to just leave us like that. I mean, I know things always work out anyway. But still....it would be so much better if Karen just decided to stay here. Plus, I would really miss having her around on a personal level. It's so nice to have some more female energy around this place. It makes living here much easier for me.

But then, what if she decides that she wants more excitement? How on earth can we give that to her? At this time of the year, it isn't exciting here. I totally agree with her. I'm going stir-crazy myself, so what can I say to her?

Getting ready for school

Okay, got almost all the schoolbooks for the local kids. Last year it took me weeks to buy the books, but this year it's a lot easier. One main reason is that we don't sponsor as many children this time around. A lot of families have moved from the area, some older children have started working instead of going to school (this is normal in this part of the world) & some families are in a better financial position this year, in which case they pay for the first child and we pay for their other children.

Also, I never managed to raise as much money this year as last year and the local people know this, so there are no other children coming out of the woodworks either. Last year was the opposite, someone made a rather large donation and the word spread quickly. Suddenly I got swamped with families & children that I had never seen before.

Anyway, I'm actually relieved to have an easier year this year with regards to the charity work. Next year I'd like to help a lot more children again (hopefully in collaboration with some PeaceCorps volunteers)

Still have to find the money to pay for the transport for all the kids for the year, but I'm confident that that will come somehow.

A bit late....but here are some Aruba pictures.

It was great to see my mum and my sister again.

Miriam and her husband Laurenz, After all these years together, they are still so in love with eachother. Very cute.

It was nice to see how gentle Lucas was with a baby that we met at the restaurant. Let's hope he'll be that nice to his future brother or sister too.

Lucas forcing my sister Miriam to lick a lime (he thought that was hillarious)

Already a party animal, just like my mum

My dear old London

My heart is breaking as I read about the latest London disaster on the BBC website. Oh my God, bombs going off, others almost going off, someone getting shot on the Underground....where does it all end? It's weird, even though I would never want to live in London again, I still feel such a close relationship to it. Almost like it's a dear old friend, a person more than a place. But then I did spent all my adult life there (11 years in total) until we moved to Belize.

It must be so hard living in London now. I mean, you are so dependent on public transport in a place like that. So what are you going to do? Stop living? Stay indoors all the time? Walk everywhere? I especially feel for my London friends who have children. Because, of course, you worry even more about your children's welfare than your own. And how are you going to protect them? When you don't know where the next threat is coming from?

My heart goes out to all of you there. I wish there was something I could do to help. I guess all I can do is send my love. I love you all.

Sick, sick, sick

Now, it's not like nothing has happened here recently, I've just been feeling too sick to write. This pregnancy is really putting me through it. That's why I never wrote anything from Aruba either. Oh well, one more month of this and I should be getting in the creative stage of the pregnancy. So don't expect many postings for a little while, as I gear up for the essays that will surely follow in the second and third trimester (when I was pregnant with Lucas I became this wild, slighly insane creative force in the second trimester)

Aruba was fun. Just hung out with family, really. Lucas was getting really spoiled by his nan and aunty & obviously, he was loving it. Oh, and we were being followed around by hurricanes. First, hurricane Dennis came right past us in Miami, then Emilly brushed past Aruba and then that same hurricane followed us towards the Yukatan. We didn't feel much of it in Belize, though.

That's all for now. My head is pounding, I'm gonna chill for a bit.

Adios!

Aruba

Right, we're off to Aruba tomorrow, we're gonna visit my mum and my sister. I haven't seen my mum since last October, so I'm really looking forward to this trip. And I'm so happy that Andy is coming this time. He's never been to Aruba before, it was always just Lucas and me.

It's gonna be quite weird being in Aruba whilst that American girl is still missing there. What a bizarre story that is! My mum tells me that the island is swamped with CNN reporters. Anyway, I'll let you know what the mood is on the island, I'll try and blog from there.

That's all for today. Being pregnant makes me rather lazy and braindead. It's unbelievable actually how dumb you get when you're pregnant. When I was pregnant with Lucas I would lose my shampoo bottle under the shower, lock myself out of the car, be unable to focus on anything for too long, struggle to take in any new information & other ridiculous things like that. Anyway, I'm well on my way to being that dumb yet again (and, once again, I hope it's only temporarily)

Pops

Our sweet old gardener "Pops" has died. He passed away 3 days ago. He was Tella & Nora's stepdad. Lucas keeps saying: "Pops really, really tired" & "Pops no wake up". He also says that Pops now sleeps on the clouds and waves at the clouds. Obviously, Tella & Nora are very sad. We visited them last night at the wake (first time any of us has seen a corpse). Pop's coffin was out on Tella's porch & everybody was asked to come and have a look at Pops. I found it all rather unpleasant & had to walk away once to have a little cry (was I just being hormonal?) Anyway, I didn't want to offend the local custom, so quickly returned and just played with the children a bit. Apparently, from about 10 o'clock onwards, Tella's house was packed. And people stayed the whole night (Unlike Irish wakes, all without any alcohol).
I believe they just held an incredibly long church service, by the sounds of it.

Today we went to the funeral, which again is quite unlike funerals back home. Basically, people build their own graves here out of bricks and cement. The whole structure is above ground and the coffin gets sealed inside of it. Whilst the men were bricking up the structure, all the children were climbing on the other graves and jumping from one grave to the other. I asked Tella if they were carving or writing Pops name on the grave. But she didn't think so. Still, I wonder if this might be a better way of doing things. Why spend a fortune on funerals, cremations or grave stones anyway? We better spend that money whilst we are still alive. That's a lot more fun.

By the way, my "morning sickness" is more like "morning, afternoon & evening sickness" these days. It's horrible. There are moment when I feel human (like, right now) & the rest of the time I feel awful. I can't remember feeling this bad when I was pregnant with Lucas. The worst thing is that I can no longer drink coffee! Especially my morning coffee I miss. That was always my favorite part of the day; breakfast, coffee & watching the sun come up. It feels so weird to just have breakfast with a glass of water or juice, but coffee makes me feel sick now, even when I just look at it. Again, this is something that never happened to me when I was pregnant with Lucas. Oh well, just another month and a half of this. After the first trimester, I should start feeling much better.

Our "blob"

Went to my gynecologist the other day & apparently I'm about 5 weeks pregnant now (told you it was early days). Anyway, the ultra-sound showed that everything is in the right place. See, my biggest fear was to have an ectopic pregnancy again. I had one last year ago and it ruptured one of my tubes, nearly killing me in the process. All rather unpleasant....(but that's another story)

So anyway, the good news is that "the blob" (that's all it is right now, not much of a baby yet) is in the right place. Will have to come back in two week for another scan to see the spine and heart developing.

Oh, funny thing....John had a scorpion stuck in his trousers yesterday. He had been bragging about never shaking out of clothes when he picks them up off the floor (John has no cupboard or shelves in his room for his clothes) & obviously he was telling the truth. By the time he had managed to pull down his pants, the scorpion had stung him 4 times! That's a record amount of stings in our household. We all know though, that a scorpion sting is no worse than a bee sting. It just sounds more sensational. Now John knows it too.

Charity annoyances

Well, I seem to have been lucky with regards to the car headlights. The side that I smashed only needed a new indicator light ($95 BZ) and they bended back the bumper. We may still replace the bumper at some point, but for now I only have to spend that $95. Thank God. I thought it was going to cost me a fortune.

Well, I'm having a bit of a nightmare with regards to the kids that we sponsor through the Jaden Foundation. Apparently several have stopped going to school since they've been doing the final tests of the year. Now they have to go to summer school if they still want to pass. But I refuse the pay for their transport to and from school for that (it would cost me $200 a week for just 4 children). I mean, if they would have gone to school like everyone else they never would have had this problem. I'm also quite pissed off that no one told me before. And what about these kids' parents? Why were they just keeping their kids home? Should I be the only one who cares about their kids' education? Sometimes I just get so bloody frustrated with it all. And what about the people who have given me money to sponsor these children for next year? Should I continue to use their money on children (and families) who don't take education seriously? I tell you, doing charity work can be a bit of a headache.

Me and my big mouth!

I wish I never mentioned anything about being pregnant. Now I'm getting emails and phonecalls from all kinds of friends congratulating me and Andy. That was never what I wanted. For some stupid reason it felt nice and impersonal to blog about it. Almost like cyber space is this distant reality, far removed from "real life" and a safe place to announce something that shouldn't have been announced yet (I wouldn't have dreamed of emailing all my friends and telling them, for instance. That would have seemed too real)

Oh well, I guess all my friends know now. I just didn't think that that many of you would still be reading my blog.

The thing is, nothing was even visible yet when I had an ultra-sound last week. It's extremely early days. Apparently, the home-pregnancy test these days are so accurate, that they can detect a pregnancy after only two weeks! So there is nothing to celebrate yet. So please (to all my friends) don't congratulate us yet. That makes me way too nervous and uncomfortable.

By the way, I had a bit of a nightmare yesterday. Karen and I went to Belize City and I ended up scraping our new car past a metal pole when I reversed out of the car park. How dumb of me! I was so angry with myself. But guess what? As we stepped out of the car to assess the damage (bent bumper and the side of a head light smashed), we noticed that the other headlight had been smashed to pieces too. But that part of the car never even came near the metal post. It looked like someone had smashed it with a baseball bat. What was going on? We couldn't find the glass anywhere on the ground. We went back to all the places where we had parked that day and again.....no glass anywhere. It's a bit of a mystery. And the weird thing is that the day before Karen reversed into a metal pole too and smashed one of the lights on our other car. That makes 3 smashed car lights in two days. Now what are the chances of that? It's all rather strange. Especially that one headlight that I never even touched. What on earth happened there?

Anyway, it's going to cost me a fair bit of money getting it all fixed. I'm pretty pissed off about that. But there you go.....that's my fault for paying enough attention.

Why shouldn't I tell?

Finally, two of our kittens (now going by the names of "Lucy & Yoyo") have gone home to a family with 2 little boys. So, from being harrased by a 2-year-old, they now go on to being harrased by a 3 & 5-year-old. That must be slightly more bearable for them. The one kitten that has lost out here is the white one with ginger spots, called Molly. She will be staying with us and most probably will continue to be chased around by Lucas. At least until she's big enough to no longer be of interest to him (which definatelly will happen as he shows no interest in our adult cat)

What else is new? I'm pregnant. I'm not meant to share that with anyone yet, as it's only been a few weeks. And you're meant to talk about being pregnant until you've gone through your first 3 months safely. Still, a blog is all about being honest, isn't it? And if things go wrong, I'll just write about it. I don't feel that I have anything to hide. Of course, we all hope that it goes well. It would be so lovely. And Lucas could really do with a brother or sister. Still, I had an ectopic pregnancy last summer, which ended in an emergency operation, so I know what it means for things to wrong too. Let's just hope that nothing like that will happen this time around.

By the way, Andy & his parents have taken Lucas along on a cave tubing trip this morning. Aparently he loved it! He even walked a mile and a half on the way to the cave. He's now lounging on the sofa watching a DVD that his nan bought for him. I hope he'll nod off. Andy and his parents are all having an afternoon nap. But our little dynamo is still going....

Oh, more cool news: my mum and her boyfriend Hans are finally moving in together (after having been in a relationship for 2 years). I think it's a great idea. They've been faffing around long enough now. Congratulations, you two!

Tomorrow we're off to Guatemala. We'll be spending 2 nights in Flores and visit the temples at Tikal. It will be interesting to see how the in-laws like Guatemala. And I wonder if we'll manage to find any food plain enough for Andy's dad (he only really likes potatoes and other "English types of food") Should be interesting.

Talk to you all in a few days.

One of the nice things about living in Belize is that you can hop on a short plane ride to San Pedro whenever you feel like it (15 min. flight). We decided to bring Andy's mum & dad to the island for a little 2-night break.

Having fun with the hunties! (Left to right: me, Andy, Yvon, Lucas and Terry)

On the beach at the Exotic Caye Beach Resort with the grandparents

Swimming with nan & grandad

Getting ready for snorkling with sharks & sting rays. It was great! Even though Andy's mum & dad struggled a bit with the snorkeling gear.

Last night we went to a wonderful restaurant "Rocho" on the north of San Pedro for Andy's birthday. You can only get to the restaurant by boat. Quite a cool start to the evening, really.

Glorious rain!

Yes, it's finally raining! Yehaa! We so needed this. I hope that it will rain (on & off) for the next few days, just to clear the air.

See, the weather in Belize has been quite unbearable lately (at least for someone like me who doesn't "do well" in the heat). The humidity has been building and building for days, weeks even & we were just waiting for a good old storm. This is really the hardest time of the year for me, weather-wise. But hopefully this first bit of rain is the start of rainy season. We'll see.....

By the way, our resort The Belize Jungle Dome is doing great. We are getting lots of positive press & the bookings are pouring in. We now also offer All-Inclusive Belize Scuba Diving Packages for those who want to come to Belize especifically for the diving. It looks like Andy & I will get to do some scuba diving again soon. It has been years since we've dived. But with Lucas' grandparents here we finally have baby-sitters. We will probably shoot off to the islands in the next few days, so that will be a perfect opportunity.

I think I mentioned it before, but I am only now realizing (since coming back from Europe & seeing how hard everyone seems to work there) what a fun business we have. I never fully appreciated what we had. But then, isn't that a problem we all have? Not seeing what we have....Always thinking that the grass is greener on the other side, etc. Anyway, I love what we're doing here & it's a lifestyle that's so easy to combine with parenting. I mean, how lucky is Lucas to have both his mum & his dad around all the time? How many kids get that?

Oh, by the way, I'm getting a bit worried about finding homes for the kittens. We still have 3 kitten here & that definitely is too much. They are 9 weeks now and really have to go soon. I think I better hang up some notices around town.

Racing beetles

What do you do for night-time entertainment when in the jungle? Racing beetles, of course. That's what Lucas & his grandpa did last night. Very funny.

Daphne (the cat) has been neutered now. All went well. And one of her kittens has moved in to her new home. So that is one down, two to go (one kitten we'll keep ourselves)

By the way, I never did manage to organize a charity dinner in London. It was all too rushed. Still, Karen's mum has made a donation, John's parents are making a monthly contribution to sponsor 4 brothers, Jay & Jasper (former guests of the Jungle Dome) have sponsored 4 children for the coming school year & Andy and I are donating $2000 US of our own money to the Jaden Foundation too. I'm also still expecting donations from James Hyman and Caroline Prothero, so all in all, we should be okay for the coming school year.

But I also would love to assist the Tumul k'in school. That's the school I wrote about a while back. The school that is helping to preserve the Mayan way of life & is teaching the Mayan kids skills that can help their villages move out of poverty. Skills like organic farming, computer literacy, eco-tourism, marketing and research, food processing, carpentry skills, etc. It's an incredible place & they really deserve all the assistance that they can get.

In September they are planning to accept 20 new students and new dorms are needed to house them all. The school needs $20.000 US for the building of the dorms (this includes furnishing them). So I want to see if I can assist them a little with this.

If any of you reading this want to know more about the Tumul k'in school, let me know. Especially those of you who live in the United States. I mean, you can either give your tax dollars to the IRS at the end of the year or you can give your dollars to non-profit organizations like the Tumul k'in school & know that you are making a real difference in the world (I assume that you all know that charity donations are 100% tax deductible in the US)

I would be happy to assist those of you who want to donate or those of you who want to come to Belize and help in person. There are many great projects to get involved with here.

Oh, and with regards to the Tumul k'in school....there is a Peace Corps Volunteer who lives on site permanently. I am sure that she would be happy to update all those who donate on what progress gets made with their money.

A few more Holland pictures, starting with my dad and his daughters (in our Broadway pose)

Iris & Lucas, outside Iris & Remon's new home.

"And this is my partner, Mr. Balloon head" (poor Andy, Lucas is hiding him behind his balloon). Anyway, this is the Engeln family at my dad's 60th birthday party.

Lucas had incredibly smelly feet in his new trainers and loved chasing everybody with his sweaty socks, shouting "Smell it! Smell it!" Soooo disgusting.

My 2 sisters Miriam & Iris (and me)

Back in Belize

How great to be back home again. There is nothing really like sleeping in your own bed at night, is there? Still, our Europe trip was absolutely brilliant. I couldn't have wished for a better holiday.

Like I said before, it was such fun seeing family & friends again. And it was good to see Lucas bond with all his family as well. That was really important to me. From now on, we'll make sure that we see all the family more often (Andy and I said at the beginning of the year that 2005 was going to be our year of travel & we've done pretty well so far)

Andy's mum & dad have come back with us & will stay here for one month. It's their first time in Belize & I do believe that they like it (obviously, they are British and with the British you never know for sure what they think. They are all so polite, you always have to read between the lines to figure out how they really feel about something). Still they seem very happy, so I assume that they are.

By the way, everyone apart from Karen and me have gone to Caves Branch for a drop-off (some of our guests are doing the black-hole drop) and Lucas has gone with them too, so the house is peaceful and quiet. It's lovely. Maybe I should use this opportunity to curl up in bed with a good book for an hour. Our bedroom is the only room in our part of the house with AC, so that is the best place for me to be anyway. Hmmm, I may just do that......

That's the great thing about being your own boss. If you want to chill out for a bit, you simply do so. Of course, you do what needs to be done work-wise. But you can always squeeze in some lazy-time too. Actually, that's the thing that kind of shocked me when I saw all my friends and family; how hard they all have to work. It's horrible. I have decided that I will never again work for a boss or a company as long as I live (I believe that if you're clever about it, that that is not an un-realistic goal). Obviously, we have our own business and it's running well, so we should be ok with regards to that. I may one day do some theatre work again (which would be for a "boss" too), but it would simply be for fun & not to pay the rent or anything.

Oh, one more thing; later today, I'll be taking Daphne (our cat) to the vet to be neutered. There is no way that we'll let her have another litter. We still have to find homes for the ones we have now. But hopefully we'll find them homes in the coming week. I'll let you know how it went.

Best get a cup of tea and get comfy, this is a long one

Oh, what fun to have the whole family together again. It’s my dad’s 60th birthday soon and all his children have come back home to celebrate with him. There is my older sister Miriam who lives in Aruba, my younger sister Iris (who’s house we’re staying in) & my brothers JP, Vincent and Floris.

I almost forgot how much we laugh when we’re together. Yesterday I skipped rope with my sister Miriam. Only we didn’t have any rope, so we used a garden hose (I accidentally whacked myself in the face with it in the end). We played giant connect 4, the tower of pizza, badminton and an old Dutch game, called “Sjoelbakken”. And my dad and his wife crack me up as usual. They are so silly and forgetful (“I thought you had the keys?”) Hilarious! As a matter a fact, the whole family is dopey. We must have inherited that from my dad. My little sister managed to de-activate her partner’s bankcard yesterday and left her own card & cash in the house by accident. She does that kind of stuff on an almost daily basis. Personally, I’m guilty of dopey-brain activities too and annoy Andy endlessly, even though I think that I have become fairly “with it” these days and only do stupid stuff occasionally.

By the way, Lucas has been amazing this whole trip. He just plots along behind us & falls asleep whenever he needs to, regardless of where we are or what we do. He has napped on several “Starbucks” sofas now, giving me a chance to catch up with loved ones over a “tall Americano”. He never really whines (he just says “Mummy, Lucas too tired” and then falls asleep whilst I carry him) and he seems to have felt at home where ever we’ve stayed (shouting “We’re home!” whenever we enter the house we stay in)

It is so tiring though, all this traveling. That’s why we’re now staying put until we go back to Belize on the 26th. It’s all been a bit too much. Even though you feel like catching up with everybody, it’s simply not possible. You end up spreading yourself too thin. That’s also why we’re planning to do another Europe trip later this year.

Oh…one more thing; my camera works again! I had put in batteries that weren’t powerful enough, apparently (what do you mean, dopey?) And my Ipod works again as well. That was probably acting up because of the heat and humidity in Belize. All equipment seems to act up in Belize. Anyway, I can load up photos again. It’s just sad that I have no pictures of our time in the UK. Oh well…..

Oh, and my night out in London was rather pathetic. I begged my friends to go home at 11 o’clock, as I was knackered. The whole nightlife thing just doesn’t excite me anymore. I also missed Andy and Lucas tremendously when I was in London. After one night I nearly took the train back to Norfolk, but felt like the sad child who wanted to end the sleepover party early. So ended up staying because I didn’t want to admit how pathetic I’ve become. Still, it does proof to me that Andy and Lucas are the people I love spending time with the most and that can’t be bad. Family is just the best thing on earth.

Family reunion (left to right: My dad's wife Ina, Andy, Iris' partner Remon, Iris, Miriam, my dad, Vincent & Floris) The only ones missing in the picture were Lucas, JP & I.

On the train to Hengelo to see the rest of the family (Miriam & Lucas bonded immediately)

Quick pit-stop at my cousin Lida's house in Amsterdam

Crashed at Schiphol Airport

Meeting Miriam at the airport (Left to right: Natalie, Miriam, me, Sarah & Lida)

Meeting Miriam at the airport with my cousins

Warner Brothers get inspired by our Mayan Adventure trip

Fancy staying at our jungle resort, but don't have any money for a holiday/vacation? Than check out the Scooby Doo "Maya Mayhem" competition and win a free holiday with us! Click here to enter competion webpage. It's a collaboration between the Belize Jungle Dome, Orbitz and Warner Brothers. Good luck!

Oh bloody hell....

Can't believe it. My amazing camera (Fujifilm Finepix S700) has packed up on me just as I want to start taking some pictures of London. I'll have to stop by a photoshop/technology shop on Monday and have it looked at.I hope that I've simply got it on a wrong setting or something. So no pictures to share with you yet......

London

Oh boy, I just realized that I'm quite a bit behind on my blogging. We flew out to the UK on the 6th of May and have been staying at Andy's parents in Norfolk (did I mention at any point that we were going on a Europe trip?)

Anyway, we're having a brilliant time. It's been a bit chilly here to say the least, but I prefer it to the extreme heat that we've been having in Belize recently. We've had to buy jackets, jumpers, etc. to keep warm. Lucas looks well cute in his hooded tops and baggy pants.

Andy and Lucas are still with the grandparents in Norfolk and I made my way down to London yesterday to hang out with my mates, do some un-interrupted shopping (something a mother rarely gets to do) & to go out for a little jump-around. Still, I'm not sure if I'll manage to stay up that late tonight. We are meant to go out clubbing, but I get tired at about 10 o'clock these days, so I'm a tat worried about having to stay up past my bedtime.

Anyhow, we're planning to leave the house at 6.30 already for dinner. That way I won't sink into Tania comfy sofa & refuse to leave to go clubbing. Hopefully the plan will work and we'll have good dance at Gilly's boyfriend's clubnight.

Oh, something else....I met up with James Hyman today (my old Partyzone producer). He hasn't changed a bit. Still as quirky, weird and wonderful as ever. I love that guy. He dragged me along to Record & Tape Exchange and got me a ton of DVD's. So sweet! And he's just finished doing the soundtrack for a new Guy Ritchie movie. He's doing good. Big up to you, James!

Now, I have decided that London life is definitely not for me anymore. It's too hectic and smoggy. But catching up with old friends is just marvelous. I feel blessed to have such lovely and loyal friends.

Pleasant afternoon.

I'm sitting on the back of John's cool-looking (but rather pathetic performing) yellow Landrover. Apparently he nearly crashed it into our fence as he parked it, because the brakes are going. God knows when this Jeep will be functioning properly again. It's just one thing after another. A bit like our Jeep really. That's always at the mechanics too.

Anyway, it's a pleasant afternoon. The Banana Bank football team are practicing on the field outside our house and Lucas is playing with all the local kids.

Oh, Jaime made it into the States, by the way. That was such a drama. His smugglers were keeping him hostage or something and were demanding more money. All quite crazy. Anyway, I am now spending lots of time taking and sending pictures of Jaime's kids (Jimmy, Nicki, Emelda & Henry). Jaime also sent a picture back for them of him sitting on a Harley Davidson. I think he really misses them and I think it's starting to dawn on him that he will not see his family for many, many years. The whole thing is quite heart-breaking. His kids miss him so much and seem rather confused about the whole deal. I guess this is the kind of stuff that happens in divorces too.

Our kittens are now 4 weeks and doing great. Daphne is such a wonderful mum. We've found homes for 2 kittens already and will probably keep one ourselves.

Wow, my bum cheeks are "falling asleep". I need to get up and move around.

Adios amigos!

Our kittens