Barefoot with Champagne: Belize Trip!

Warning: Super Long Post with Lots of Pictures!

It's been a month since the Belize trip and I still wish I was there everyday! It was such a great vacation, I can't say enough wonderful things about it!
We stayed on San Pedro Island in Ambergris Caye. Our townhouse/condo thing was about 2 1/2 miles from the center of San Pedro so we went into town a few times by boat. Some of the more adventurous travelers (Mom, Dad, Matt and Dave) rented a golf cart and took the back roads into town one day. We had the perfect setup at Coco beach. The pool and grounds were kept looking immaculate everyday. Once I saw one of the landscapers clean off 1 plant for 20 minutes! That guy really cared about that plant!

There were just the right amount of people staying at the resort with us that we never felt crowded but also didn't feel like we were all alone. We were able to walk down the beach to several restaurants and to the sister resort Captain Morgan's for drinks at night. We ate at Captain Morgans on their Belizian Night, which is where we met Oscar, who set up all of our excursions for us with his "brothers". His brother Adelso took us to the ruins and entertained us the whole way. His other "brother" Victor took us fishing. (turns out Adelso really was Oscar's brother and Victor was just his brotha from another motha) But they were both a lot of fun and we ended up paying less than booking with an excursion company and we didn't have to go with a group of people we didn't know.

We had a blast every night either watching movies (Blind Side, Avatar, Aliens in the Attic, Men in Black, Con Air - they had a lot of good movie channels!), going to the bar down the beach (Belikin anyone?), or playing games in the condo (Cranium, Scrabble and open the coconut).

All of the seafood we ate was delicious! Dave ordered seafood for just about every meal! And I've never seen him eat more than 1 piece of fish a week! He loved it! The day we went fishing, our fisherman Victor, grilled up all our catches with some vegetables and rice and it was probably one of if not the best meal we had the whole week!

I really hope we can go back to Belize someday as it was by far the best family vacation we've ever had!

Here are a few of the best out of the 800 pictures I took:

waiting for the water taxi to take us to San Pedro!

Taking the small water taxi from San Pedro to our resort, it was windy!

We made it! Check out the windblown look me and Juls are rocking after traveling all day:

Welcome drinks to take to the hot tub!

Matt and Dave trying to open a coconut.

Great Success!

hehe!

Woke up our first morning there to this beautiful view!

ahhhh! Paradise found!

Day 1 at the pool and beach games!

Me and Juls were trying to paddle to Mexico but got tired...

Matt did some sweet spin jumps off the pool cliff!

1st dinner out at Aji's Tapas Bar down the beach from us!

Pretty lake behind the tapas bar, there's a croc in there somewhere!

The next day we ventured into town, San Pedro.

San Pedro is such a fun little town, full of beach side restaurants and bars, souvenir shops, grocery stores, and street vendors. We were welcomed everywhere we went and never felt unsafe. It was a hot beast that day, we were happy to find a restaurant on the bay with a covered deck and cold beers!

After lunch we explored the town some more.

Dave thought this crocodile tooth would make a sweet key chain, until he found out it cost $700! I guess the picture will have to do! What did this guy wrestle the croc and pull out this tooth himself?

Pretty sure this is Dad's life motto!

I might try some of these reasons for why I need jewelry... they're not bad!

Matt and Dad caught a ride with Island Dog to his art shop! We met him in a bakery and found out he retired in Belize after serving in the 1st Infantry and now he does pen ink drawings of Belize because "it keeps me outta the bars during the day". Very cool guy!
We came home with one of his drawings:

The Belizian Our Father

Matt got an outfit you can only find in Belize! We were all jealous.

After sweating our Belikin's out we headed back to the resort for some cooling off pool time!

Preparation and JUMP!

That night we ordered pizza from the resort and watched a movie, we were exhausted!
The next day we hit up the pool again!

I alternated from the float to this chair all day:

The fam went into town while Juls and I opted to relax by the pool.
We made friends with this little guy:

That night we headed to the neighbor resort for "Belize night" Where we dined on some Belizian food (pretty much the same as Mexican food with the addition of some fish) And Juls and Dad tried to win musical chairs.

Then we headed back to our resort for a memorable game of Cranium!

Me and Dave won!
Chest Bump!

2nd Place Chest Bump!

and 3rd Place Chest Bump! Juls can't quite jump as high as Matt.

The next day we headed to Belize City to visit the Mayan Ruins with Adelso!

We stopped to buy some watermelon from some Mennonites for a snack on the way.

Yummm!

Stopped for some awesome lunch and beers in San Ignacio before visiting the ruins.

This is Adelso

This guy cranks the ferry all day! That's how they get it across the river. What? Yeah.. why don't they just build a bridge? Who knows - it was an experience.

The ruins!!!

Gorgeous views from the hike up. The guide said you could see all the way to Honduras.

Resting on the way up!

We made it! :)

Dad got sentimental and said he needed to present Matt with a necklace symbolizing his passage into manhood or something. Nobody's really sure what it was about but we all wanted to sing, "He's gonna be a Mighty King" from the Lion King afterwards.

Our guide offered to take our picture from the bottom and ran all the way down in what seemed like 2 minutes!

That's us at the top there!

Then we climbed down the scary huge pyramid rock that had no safety rails... When I asked if anyone has ever fallen down, Victor replied, "No one today!" Yikes! Let's just say this would not be allowed in the States but it was worth it.

Mom and Dad enjoying the view!

We found some big long vines at the bottom of the hike and couldn't help ourselves from pretending we were Tarzan and Jane.

Then we saw a friendly monkey.

yeah... it was definitely a boy.

Then we all piled back into Adelso's van and drove back to Belize city. 2 hours later.. we barely made it to the 4 o'clock ferry and Mom and Dad had to go by the atm so they took the later ferry.
After we rode the hour and a half ferry to San Pedro Island we had to take a small water taxi to our hotel and it wasn't leaving for 45 minutes so we decided a drink was in order.

Those are "we're happy and sweaty and hot but had fun" smiles.

It was time for our water taxi to go and we paid and got on. Then the waiter chased us down.. apparently we weren't so good at figuring out Belize dollars to US dollars and still owed him $13. Oops! So Juls and I went back to the restaurant only to realize we had no more money! The taxi took off with Dave and Matt and Juls and I were stranded. And since we had no more money we couldn't order any more drinks :( We were fine though. We just waited for the rents to show up off the later ferry and ordered some drinks and they settled our bill for us. It was pretty funny. Our waiter was super nice about it and never acted like he was annoyed.
We got back to the resort and couldn't wait to take a shower. Juls said it best while we waiting for our parents to bail us out, "I feel like I got dipped in honey". Yep. That's what a 100 degree day in Belize where there is no air conditioning will do to ya.
After we all got cleaned up, we walked down to the sister resort, Captain Morgans to tell Oscar how much fun we had with his brother Adelso.

We had a pretty good time with the Belikins and Rum Punches this night....

Maybe a little too much fun..

We met this lady... who bought us all way too many drinks... we now know she just didn't want to be the only one hammered.

BFF's

yiiiiikes crazy captain morgan lady tried to feel me up!

What's happening???
The next day we were a good hour and a half late for our fishing trip... Evidence of a good night before. We had fun fishing for about 30 minutes.