UnBELIZEable part II...Pictures!

UnBELIZEable!!!

We're back from Belize and as the locals would say, it was unBELIZEable! We went for Cory's parents 30th anniversary. We had so much fun relaxing by the pool, snorkeling, hiking, and eating! We stayed at a private villa, Casa Torgtuga. You can check out the link for more info, but it was so great having our own place. We even had our own cook, Maria, who made the best food I've ever had in my life. Way better than any food you can get at a restaurant. She was amazing at recycling leftovers from dinner into something totally different and yummy for lunch the next day also. She went to the market every day so all of the food was totally fresh and a lot of it was local. There were fruit trees everywhere. We had a bunch of coconut palms on the property and it was so fun to pick them and eat them. The second day we were there we went on a snorkeling excursion and told our guide that it had taken us 45 minutes to get into it. He laughed and told us "All you have to do it find a sharp rock. Hit it on the end- bot, bot, bot, turn it over, bot bot bot n' bussit." That's all. We tried that and it still took like 20 minutes or 30 minutes, but it was funny. Maria made us a coconut cream pie with the fresh coconuts that we got. We did all of our excursion with Suya Tours. We swam with manitees (they are very endangered and Belize is the only place in the world where you can swim with them in the wild). We snorkeled the reef (the 2nd largest reef in the world) and saw 3 huge moray eels, nurse sharks, turtles, all of the normal reef fish, an arrowhead crab, etc. And we hiked to Mayan Ruins. The Mayan Ruins were awesome, but it was super long trip to get to them (it took about 5 hrs via 2 boats and a bus). We'll probably never have a chance to do that again so it was worth it. On the way up the river our guide was pointing out wildlife to us and at one point he pulled the boat over to the edge of the river and a spider monkey hopped out of the tree into our boat. They gave us some banana peices to feed to it. It was crazy! We also saw howler monkeys in the trees at the Mayan Ruins site. At the site we saw 3 temples, a residential area and a ball court. The tallest temple was about 112 feet tall and we were able to climb all the way to the top. It was very steep and a couple of people had panic attacks on the way up. Our guide said that I am the only pregnant lady he's seen climb to the top in the 8 years he's been doing this.
Cory loves snorkeling and tried so hard to get someone to go night snorkeling with him off of our dock. Finally his brother Jordan gave in and they were only out for like 10 minutes when Cory got stung on the lip by a jelly fish (or something, we don't actually know what it was). How soon he is to forget that if there is the slightest possibility of getting bitten, stung, sprayed, etc, it will happen to him. In the Turks when the boys all went night diving the same thing happened but he got tons of little bites from some sort of fish or something. He was also the only one who got sand mites. This trip we were all sitting around one night on the veranda and Cory got like 7 mosquito bites on his feet and no one else got any. He has bad luck like that.
When we weren't doing excursions we hung out at the villa or went into San Pedro to shop and hang out. The main forms of transportation there are bikes and golf carts. There were taxi vans also, so driving got a little crazy. There were no traffic signs or designated parking places or anything but the boys did a good job of getting around. Phoenix stayed with my parents and it was so nice to have a break for our parenting responsibilities but we were so happy to see him again on Sunday. He is almost walking and says "dad" now. How cute is that?
I tried to make a slideshow of all the trip pictures but for some reason they wouldn't upload so here are a few, and I will keep posting more as I have time.

The entry way to the villa

Looking out onto the pool and beach from our room

Inside our room

The back of the villa

Fire Pit!!

Cory spent like 3 weeks digging out the spot for our fire pit (I think I helped him twice) and then my dad came down and spent ALL day helping him put it in. We had our inaugural fire in it on Saturday with some friends (but no pictures because we are having tons of problems with our camera batteries lately-dang Kodak). It was everything we hoped it would be. So fun! Here are some before, during, and after pics of it.I forgot that they load in reverse order, so it's actually some after, during, and before pics. Oh well!

I know I'm a slacker

But I keep forgetting to take my camera when we go places so I have no pictures! We missed Phoenix's first time playing at the park across the street from our house, his first day at the pool (he loved it, by the way, then came home and slept for 3 hours! That's a routine I could get into), and little brother Q's graduation! I'm terrible. But, we're going to Belize next week, so I will definitely take pictures there and post a million of them on my blog so everyone can be jealous (isn't that what these blogs are for, anyway?). Oh, and PS, I'm off of no 'poo. My only problem with it was that my hair just seemed too dry and frizzy.

Promised Pictures

Phoenix LOVES bathtime! He loves to throw his bath toys out of the tub over and over and over. A couple weeks ago he started tooting in the tub so I lifted up the toilet seat lid to put him on it in case he started pooping and as soon as I did he tried to throw one of his bath toys into it. Luckily he's not a very good shot, so it bounced off the rim and into the garbage can.
No 'Poo is still going good. I'm a little over a week into it and still no major problems. My hair does seem to be a little bit more frizzy, though. I put some anti frizz cream on it on Day 4 but it made it kind of greasy. Other than that, nothing too exciting to report.
Also, I failed to mention this last post (oops!), but Cory and I celebrated our 4th anniversary on April 23rd. I can't believe it's been that long already! It's been fun and we're looking forward to the rest of it!
And finally, we're expecting baby number 2 on November 20th. Surprise! We were shocked at first but we're excited. It should be good having them so close together. Hopefully they'll be best friends!

Road Rage and No 'Poo

Time for an update! A few weekends ago our friends, Josh and Renae, came and stayed with us over the weekend. It was so great to see them. They recently moved back to Rigby (or Ririe, I forget which) from Tucson, AZ. We're excited to have them back! Friday morning the guys went golfing and Renae and I went shopping and almost got beat up! When I was trying to get over a couple of lanes to turn into a shopping center, I accidentally cut a guy off. As soon as I did I waved and kind of shrugged my shoulders to say "sorry" but he laid on his horn for about 10 seconds and followed us into the parking lot. As soon as we got into a parking row, he sped around in front of me and stopped his car sideways so that I couldn't go forward and started getting out of his car! I pulled through a couple of empty parking spots into the next row and he followed me honking and yelling and flipping me off and this went on for like a minute. I was just driving up and down the rows of this parking lot with this crazy guy following me. Renae called 911 and as soon as she got on the phone he sped off. It was so scary. Seriously, though, two girls and a baby? What was he going to do?
The rest of the weekend was fun, but our camera was MIA so we don't have any pictures. We went frolfing, and went to a Boise Burn arena football game, and hung out with friends all weekend. When we were frolfing we had Phoenix in the stroller, but he wanted to get out after a little while so I borrowed my friend's "Sleepy Wrap" to carry Phoenix in and it was awesome! He loved it. He was in it for probably 1 1/2 hours and never got fussy. When Phoenix was younger I tried a sling and a Snugli and he didn't like either, but he doesn't mind the sleepy wrap at all. I am totally getting one.
About "No 'Poo". It's a new thing I'm trying (today was the first day). It's where you don't use shampoo. I had heard about it when I was in HS and was going to do it, but never got around to it. I recently came across an article about it so I did a little research and decided to try it. You use baking soda to wash your hair and apple cider vinegar to rinse it. When I was in the shower it didn't feel like my hair was very clean, but when I got out and blow dried it, it was nice and clean. The main drawbacks that I've read from people who've tried it are the "transition period" (usually 2-3 weeks) where your head gets used to making less oil, so your hair is kind of greasy, itchy scalp, very dry hair, and the vinegar smell. After one day, my hair isn't greasy at all, my scalp doesn't itch, my hair isn't dry, and no vinegar smell! We'll see if I'm still singing this song in a couple of weeks, but so far, so good!
I'll post again soon with some cute pictures of Phoenix but I don't have time right now!

Happy Easter

Easter was great this year and very relaxed. We had a request for more pictures of Cory (I know, he's hot) so here are a couple of him and Phoenix on Easter. We're teaching Phoenix a little bit of sign language and the first picture is him doing the sign for "eat".