You betta Belize it!

Now onto the middle part of December... First on December 10, we had an ultrasound, sorry I would have scanned in pictures but I left them at my parent's house, and found out we are having a GIRL! Eric is excited that he doesn't have to participate in scouts with her and I am just so excited at the sight of all things girly.

Then, two days later, we were off on a relaxing getaway to 5 days in Caye Caulker, Belize. We called this trip our "Babymoon". It is officially our last big trip anywhere without any parental responsibility. Well, that isn't entirely true. I mean I did have to refuse alcohol several times, cevichy made with raw Conche, several different kinds of seafood and any strenuous activities, so physically I have definitely felt the constraint of parental responsibility. Although the first two things I listed weren't really difficult to refuse, I was kind of glad to have such a good excuse because it scared me to eat raw Conche that was prepared by Jose. (And I'm not being stereotypical, that was really his name.)


Here I am, 20 weeks pregnant. We took a sideview of me standing up but I posted this one because it shows our cute beds in our cabana. If you are ever staying on Caye Caulker, I do recommend the Maxhapan Cabanas. The owner, Louise is very nice and helpful, the rooms are clean and nice. Eric thinks he may have gotten bed bug bites but I didn't really have any problems so who knows? He may have confused them with mosquito bites because I got several of those. The only real annoyance is that in Belize it is customary to wake up at 7:00 am and play all sorts of rap music at full volume capacity from your home. In fact, if you are not listening to some kind of beatalicious reggae or rap music at all times, you can consider yourself completely unbelizean! Here is our first sighting of a "wild" starfish. We were actually standing on the dock about 10 yards away from this starfish but the water is so clear you can see right through to the bottom!And what would a trip to the beach be without seashells? We found these while snorkeling right off the beach. There are tons of really pretty and big seashells. I even saw several conche shells right there but when I went to pick them up I saw lots of little ocean inhabitants on them so I didn't want to disturb them. On Sunday we took a snorkeling tour on a sailboat with Ragamuffin tours to Hol Chan marine reserve, Shark Ray Alley and Coral Gardens. Neither of us had ever been on a sailboat before and it was nice. Jose needed me to hold the rope while he was taking the sails down. "I'm sailing! I sailed! I'm a sailor! Ahoy!"These are our guides, Jose was the first mate and Jerry in the white shirt is the captain. He was born on Caye Caulker so we talked to him about the island quite a bit. The island is very small, so small that Eric and rode bikes around basically the entire island and it took about 30 minutes. There isn't a whole lot to do other than lounge, sleep, lay out (which they only have what they call "natural" beaches so finding a good spot to lay out can be a little difficult), eat, walk around or bike around on the island. Unless you leave the island, that is pretty much what you will be doing. It was perfect for what we wanted at that time but I don't think I could have possibly taken another day with nothing to do and I cannot fathom how the locals live there. Here's a picture of Eric while we were sailing off. Caye Caulker is behind him.The food was great and very inexpensive in Caye Caulker. The nicest restaurants, like the Bamboo Grill, had lobster dinners for 25 belize dollars, which is equal to $12.50 US! The fun thing about this restaurant is that the chairs are swings! Our other most favorite places to eat were Amore y Cafe and The Sandbox Grill. Avoid Sobres Las Olas and if you go to Latinos, try not to make friends with the owner because then you have to avoid walking past him for the rest of the trip.
Look, you can even see a bump when I'm laying down! Crazy! You should see me now though, I literally have popped out over the last two weeks! But anyway, this is the "natural" beach I was talking about, not bad and once you stirred up the sand it was really nice but it doesn't even compare to some caribbean beaches I've been to.
Here is Eric's sunburn. This poor boy cannot apply sunscreen to save his life! I think the Bear Lake sunburn from earlier this year was worse, but still, he does this unintentionally! I love the little circle in the middle of his chest that was missed due to the fact that apparently Eric can only contact surfaces on a flat plane and this concavity was just too deep for him to reach. This picture was taken with Stephanie in mind. Eric is covering his "underarm" to aviod offending her.

This is the outside view of our cabana. Cute, huh?And this boat may as well be the official mascot for Caye Caulker, it sums it up in one picture! Unbelizeable!