BELIZE! Spring break with Moms and teenagers! Day One

Well the countdown has ended and we are finally here in my favorite paradise Belize! I plan to blog our adventures every day of the trip so come back and check out what we are up to!

Day one started with a 3:45am wake up call to head to the airport. 3 Moms (including me) and 4 teens starting with Jenny and Molly both on their senior spring break trip and Drew and Jen my two, 16 and 13. Poor Drew, he's the solo guy on the trip. Although I think he can handle us just fine!

Day one has us flying to Belize City with a van pickup and 2 hour drive north to a fabulous eco lodge near San Ignacio called The Lodge at Chaa Creek. Beautiful resort in the jungle but pretty much you, a few other guests and the howler monkeys and wildlife.

made it to Chaa Creek and this tired, hot and sweaty entourage made an immediate beeline to the beautiful salt water pool!

then we headed to our fabulous cottage to unwind

the outdoor palapa covered bar and restaurant was a beautiful place to relax!

Drew and Jenny chillin out

The restaurant here is fantastic! They have a fixed price menu for dinner and you can choose from several fabulous entrees. Shrimp risotto was outstanding!

Awesome outdoor bar with beautiful lights at night

Gotta figure some of these out for the Zen Garden!!

DAY TWO: Off Cave tubing and Ziplining through the jungle!

Fabulous fun adventure!

We are all geared up and ready to go!

Hiking up the platform for the first zip

Some amazing hikes up to platforms

Ziplining in the jungle is pretty much just amazing!

Kris climbing up a platform looking Cute as always!!

Here comes Jenny Bailey!!

Mooooolllllllyyyyyy!!! Zipping over the river!

Here comes Drew

Drew and Jenny

Our crazy group on one of the last platforms

Jennifer about to land!

beautiful flowers in the jungle

Had an awesome authentic Belizean lunch and now we are off cave tubing

Hiked about 30 minutes through the jungle to the entrance

Beautiful walk

Bats in the caves! Watch out!

Finally made it and started the float through the caves

Off we go!

Done cave tubing and headed to Belize Municipal airport for our Tropic Air flight to Ambergris Caye and our condo!

It's too late to run Molly - you're boarded now!!

Good Lord look who's flying the plane! Hope we don't end up like Malaysia 370!!

OK - maybe it's too soon for that tasteless joke...

Here we are at our home in Belize, Grand Colony island villas. Kris is roughing it with a Beliken beer

Clearly so is Jenny

And Jennifer!

Absolutely fabulous first 2 days here!

More to come tomorrow!! Stay tuned!

The Bathroom is COMPLETE! Before and after photos!

Well we have arrived and it has been totally worth it! The bathroom is done (minus the glass shower doors that had to be measured after the tile was finished) and it is absolutely beautiful and SO MUCH more functional than the space we had before. Just to recap, we have a divided two room bathroom. The layout before the remodel was the toilet, sink and tub/shower combo in the front room of the two rooms and a door connected that room to the laundry room which was in the back room of the two rooms. Here are some before and after photos:

BEFORE: one sink/vanity area and toilet, no storage, 2 kids = YIKES!

AFTER - double sink top with huge vanity cabinet full of drawers and individual space for teenagers

another view

I took a picture of the pendant lights before the mirror was installed - I love the look!

BEFORE: fiberglass tub/shower combo unit, very small space

AFTER: We gutted this entire bathroom right down to and including the subfloors and moved everything around for privacy, functionality and space. Washer and dryer are now where the tub/shower used to be in the front room directly across from the double sink vanity. Laundry counter installed on top of them with extra tall cabinets above them.

BEFORE: This is standing in the front bathroom looking into the back room that used to be just for laundry. The paint splotch on the wall is the color we ended up using for the back room.

Standing looking through the door which moved to the left

To the right of the washer/dryer was a utility sink that we rarely used. Our storage was limited to the white wire shelf you see above.

AFTER: toilet and floor to ceiling linen cabinet and cabinets above toilet. Uber storage now!

little cubby next to the toilet and shower for extra TP, shower gel, shampoo etc.

standing in the shower looking back at the opposite wall where we have towel hooks installed. Incidentally my daughter's towel that should be on the hook is on the floor in a wad in her room... Aaaack!!!!

My OCD nature couldn't stand it... that's better!

BEFORE: the dryer in the photo is now where the toilet is and the empty space to the right is where the shower is.

AFTER: after a lot of heartburn I got the beautiful tile shower that I wanted in the first place! It was our good luck that the fiberglass shower sat on a loading dock in NC for weeks with no signs of heading north! Problem solved - tile shower! :-)

beautiful marble shelves

gorgeous accent tile - this stupid bathroom is nicer than ours now! Ugh

Glass shower doors have been ordered and that completes the remodel. I figured the photos are better without the doors in anyway to see the entire shower unobstructed.

We are absolutely thrilled with this remodel! We couldn't be happier! Our neighbor who works for Raven Enterprises did this entire design for us and I honestly don't think we changed anything from his design at all (except for splurging on the tile shower...). Right down to little things that I don't have an eye for like the pendant lights and the laundry counter, really enhanced this bathroom/laundry room combo. We have utilized nearly every square foot of space between these two rooms and the kids have privacy for shower and toilet while someone else uses the laundry and sink area in the front room.

FABULOUS!

Bathroom remodel...inching closer to completion

So here we are 5 weeks in. You know what they say about the best laid plans... nothing ever goes quite on schedule with a remodel but it's all worth it. It is really coming together, nearly done and absolutely beautiful! We are thrilled with the results!

Shower tile started going up yesterday and should be completed early next week. Put "should" in quotations because you just never know... The upside is the front room is absolutely 100% completed and beautiful!

the huge mirror is in and you can now see the layout, behind the sink area is the washer/dryer and cabinets. Pardon the mess, we have paint, tile and other stuff being stored there for the moment.

Tile started going up with a very cool accent tile that we picked out. Mario had to stop there because he didn't have the spacers he needed to continue up to the top yesterday but the tile will go to the ceiling when he comes back to finish.

almost there! The only things left on the list are to finish tiling the shower, grout, install shower doors and trim and finish painting that room and voila, we are done!

I will post before and after photos on the final blog post but I love how this has turned out and that we are maximizing every inch of space in these two rooms!

Bathroom remodel update 3 - the final stretch

So we are SO close to having this bathroom completed. It's really coming along beautifully and I have to say, aside from the small glitches here and there it's been relatively smooth. The biggest challenge for me has been sharing our bathroom with a 12 year old girl who is all about her hair at the moment and not having laundry facilities for a month. Yikes! Thanks to some great neighbors we have had laundry services down the street but it's really not the same as having it down the hallway. The washer and dryer are scheduled to be reinstalled finally! Yay!!!  I feel as though I have weeks of steaming laundry piling up so we are ready to have that convenience again. Cabinets, tile floor and double marble sink are all in and hopefully the final electric and plumbing will be for the most part completed this week with toilet, faucets, pendant lights and hookups. Towel bars, hooks etc tomorrow and then the shower...the one point of consternation in this whole process. The story being I ended up settling on a fiberglass shower insert from Sterling/Kohler instead of the tile shower that I REALLY wanted due to excess $$$$. I really had to talk myself into it but we also needed to get the bathroom remodel cost to a place that we could live with and the tile shower wasn't in the budget. Suffice it to say, the fiberglass shower walls are still sitting in North Carolina with no date on the schedule as to when they might be shipped north. Very frustrating. Been sitting there for weeks. So after tweaking some numbers again and using the tile that we got a GREAT deal on at Home Depot the tile shower is back ON! Yippee! Hopefully next week will see the final completion of the project and my final blog post on the bathroom. But for the latest update I'll post some pics.

Cabinets and sink top going in. One small problem, cabinets and vanity top are 50" wide with a space of only 49 1/2" to fit in! Yikes! Some creative finagling and Jeff got them in! Maybe a bit of paint touch up from us this weekend is in the plan however...

very tall linen cabinet and more cabinets for above the toilet go in the back shower/toilet room

The cabinets next to my added in little cubby shelf and shower that I hope will be installed sometime in 2013!!

Sinktop is just waiting to be hooked up with faucets and side splashes. Also drawer pulls but those will go on later this week I think. There will be a huge mirror for previously mentioned 12 year old daughter's hair and 3 very cool pendant lights installed next.

There's that lonely shower again...

VERY tall cabinets above where the washer/dryer will be in the front room along with an installed laundry counter above them.

FRIDAY END OF WEEK UPDATE!

I started this post earlier in the week and decided to wait until today to add in the last touches. We are really really close to being complete. Washer/Dryer and laundry counter are IN! Yay! One small glitch, electric outlets on the left side were installed too low and the side splash won't fit. Going to have to move the outlets up.

beautiful pendant lights are installed as well as sink and faucets. Giant wall to wall Mirror next week

washer and dryer with laundry counter installed above. See the missing side splash and too low outlets to the left?!

Toilet is in. This view is taken from the front room which has the washer/dryer and double sink looking into the back room which is toilet/shower room. Much more functional for teenage bathroom sharing!

There's that dang shower again waiting for TILE!!

It will be a nice large shower and an extra tall shower head for one 6'3" 15 yr old boy!

view of the toilet/shower room from the shower

So we are nearly there. Tommy will touch up paint this weekend, the guys will come back next week and put the mirror in and the pulls on the cabinets and the best part...

Mario will be here to tile the shower late next week! yay! Next post will be the finished product with before and after photos.

It is a beautiful and very functional space now and we are using every bit of the space now which is great!