Diving and fun in paradise!

Belize is the second largest barrier reef in the world, second only to the great barrier reef in Australia. As such I believe the diving here is second to none. Tommy and I are both certified divers and I actually went on to get my Padi instructor certification many years ago. I think it's my retirement plan to live and teach here. Tommy can be my shrimp boat captain! :-)

Drew was certified a few years back and is now onto his advanced certification here during these two weeks. And the last in our family, Jennifer who just turned 12, is finishing up her Jr. Open Water certification on Friday morning! She is one dive away from being official!

She's giving the OK sign as she gets ready to do some of her skills

with Junior, her instructor

Drew's having a great time doing his favorite thing

those rotten little yellow fish kept trying to take a bite out of me!

Here we go on her first deep dive outside the reef! She did GREAT!

A couple of large nurse sharks circled around her as she was doing her skills checking her out!

Big Snapper

we saw a lot of cool things on this dive including a very relaxed big green sea turtle!

Finally, here is a very cool video of Jen demonstrating her "out of air...share air" skill with a controlled swimming ascent!

More tomorrow when Tommy gets in!!

La Isla Bonita

Day 2 and 3 saw welcomed my friend Kim Hahn and her son Jake to the island. Kim was my first college roommate from 25 years ago and we recently reconnected! What fun having them here! They flew in on Tropic Air and Jake sat in the co-pilot seat which he thought was pretty cool. They arrived on the island and we headed to our favorite Sunday beach barbeque, BC's beach bar for lunch! YUM!

this is what we wake up to every morning...pretty tough to take! Good morning San Pedro!

Jennifer and Junior worked on her pool skills for her diving certification in the morning

Junior said she's a natural fish!

then we headed to the airstrip to pick up Kim and Jake

They're here!

Drew and Jake went for a beach bike ride yesterday and all through town

I showed Kim "Belizean shopping" which is going to about 4 different places to get everything on your grocery list! This is Maria's fruit stand and she makes the best fresh squeezed juice I've ever had!

view from the patio...tough to take

on the beach

we went to a place called "El Fogon" last night which is a little restaurant beneath a woman's house with a beautiful palapa roof and wood fired oven.

about 5 small picnic tables in this place

Food was absolutely amazing!! Lobster chowder was amazing!!

the kids declared it one of their favorite restaurants here!

we went to Jen's favorite place the first night...Fido's pronounced FeeDohs. They clearly are hoping to change the dog policy!

Having a great time! We are hopefully on the boat today diving with Junior for Jen's first two certification dives and Tommy arrives on Friday! Yayyy!

That's it for now...

Back to our Belizean home!!

The kids and I just arrived back to our beautiful condo in San Pedro, Belize yesterday after a long and exhausting trip. I plan to blog almost every day during our 2 weeks here so watch for updates!

We were up at 3 am Friday morning (I stared at the ceiling from about 2 am onwards...) and headed to Detroit for our 6 am flight. I had planned to stay at the DTW Westin which we always do but Murphy (our Corgi) was limping badly and we ended up on a 2 hour tour to the vets so decided to stay home, relax and just get up early and drive in. Poor Tommy always has to get up at 4 am for work and I robbed him of a sleep in day. Oh well...

Flights were easy and uneventful although - note to self - NEVER declare alcohol that you bring into the country!! I stupidly decided to admit to bringing some wine in and was charged $32 for the privilege of bringing my own wine into their country!! I only paid $21 for it to begin with!! I was SO FURIOUS at the obvious ripping off of tourists just because they can. Really sucked the joy out of the beginning of our vacation. Took me an hour to shake it off. Poo.

my spoiled kids...Jen is groovin on her own personal cubicle chair at the Delta Worldclub!

then even more spoiled... a bump to first class. Wine for Mom!! :-)

A happy form to fill out

onto the Tropic Air flight

and headed to Ambergris Caye

my favorite little town where golf carts are the preferred mode of transportation!

this is our sweet Mango puppy that we brought back from Belize 2 years ago... miss her terribly

and look who showed up at the condo! I swear it's a close relation to her!

could be her brother, father... who knows

so when we travel to the island we pack things like peanut butter, coffee, wine etc. This jar of Jiffy in the grocery store was...guess how much...

$20 US!!!

SAGA Humane society tent at lobsterfest

Jen can't wait to get there to volunteer. She volunteered at the shelter almost every day last trip (which is how we ended up bringing home our sweet Mango...) We packed a HUGE bag full of dog toys, cat toys, and other things that Saga needs to donate. Customs lady when going through the bag of stuff said "do you have a dog there?" and I quickly said YES! Can't imagine how much they would have taxed me for our donation!!

Full out steel band and reggae music was a blast!

the streets were jammin

and only in San Pedro do you find someone in full-out pimp daddy attire riding a motorcycle. He had a floppy pimp hat, shiny leather jacket, the pants speak for themselves and black and white cowhide boots with SPURS!! Hahahaha! I swear this will be Tommy's new look when we retire here!!

That's it for day one...until tomorrow!

Extending our "Zen" time from spring to fall

Well it's finally here!! The centerpiece of our outdoor living room in our Zen garden, The anxiously awaited granite fire pit table! We have waited almost 7 weeks for this thing to arrive but let me tell you it was WELL worth the wait!

After sitting outdoors this past April with the sun shining and a beautiful but rather cold evening, we finally succumbed to the Michigan spring and headed indoors. Even after bundling up in sweatshirts, jeans and the like. I was really bummed out because I wanted to have some outdoor wine time with my friends but it was just too cold. I lamented to Tommy that it would really be great if we could extend our spring/summer/fall out back a month or two longer. Especially in the fall after coming home from Spartan football games there would be nothing better than sitting out back with some cocktails watching other college games. (hence the aforementioned TV that went up!)

So I had the brainstorm of the fire pit table! Let me tell you we researched the internet for quite some time and I think we looked at nearly every possible fire pit table out there. We finally headed out to our local upscale patio furniture store to see what they had to offer and found the perfect thing. Only caveat was we had to special order the one we wanted because each one is custom ordered for size, shape, color, etc.

But, after a nearly 7 week wait it is HERE! Just in time for 90 degrees on Sunday! Haha!

the delivery guys are assembling it in the front to make sure everything is there then taking it piece by piece out back

Here's the "before" pic with the glass and wicker coffee table

Holy cow! It's like it was made for this space!!

fits beautifully plus there is room to set drinks etc on the table

copper and bronze reflective glass sits in the center on top of the metal pan that conducts the propane gas

and Voila! Instant fire! This baby puts out 54,000 btu's and definitely keeps the area toasty warm

Mango was a bit freaked out!

sitting on the couch looking out at the pond and waterfall the reflection off the black granite is just beautiful!

Here's to a longer season in the Zen Garden and warm, toasty evenings of wine, warmth and football!