It's Been Awhile...

Taking the girls for a long, sweaty walk in Belize

Elly and Big Monkey enjoying the flight (this lasted about 3 minutes)

It turns out it's hard to find time for extra things when you have two kids...

So along with watching movies, doing nothing, and taking showers, trying to keep a blog was lost somewhere long, long ago....

I won't try to update everyone on everywhere we've been in the last few years, but we now have two beautiful girls and a new house.  Bella is still fat.

We did just get back from an un-Belize-able trip to....Belize of course.  Since our girls birthdays our only about a week apart it worked perfect to use a joint birthday party as an excuse to take our first international trip as a family.

Basically Belize is awesome.  We loved it.  Sure it was tough traveling with kids (tough flights, early mornings, and expensive Belizian diapers), but it was worth every minute and I'm so grateful our family was able to make it happen.

Teresa and Elly relaxing by the river

The flights were tough-mostly because of the airline moving and changing things.  We did fly first-class the entire way (because it was free of course, if you're paying for flights we should have a long talk...)

Elly and Big Monkey

We stayed at Black Rock Lodge, which is pretty close to the Guatemala border and borders several rain forest preserves.  It was awesome.  The staff was great and definitely spoiled our kids (Eve is still confused why she doesn't get all that attention in America...)  We were steps from a beautiful jungle river that Elly basically lived in for the entire trip and right on different trails that led through the jungle to a small chicken farm (Elly can pet chickens for hours), a waterfall, and a cave.

Enjoying a drink on the lodge balcony

Tailless Whip Scorpion-they are about the size of your hand

We head about the cave from some other travelers and Teresa took the job of watching both girls so I could go check it out.  I love caves and this one did not disappoint.  Just to reach it involved a trek through the jungle and the highlight was the tailless whip scorpions inside (something I had never expected to see in the wild in person).  It was also the first time I've ever been alone in a cave, so a pretty neat experience, but also a muddy one...

Muddy from the cave

Teresa and a happy Eve taking a rest

We had decided to rent a car while there to be a little more adventurous and to give us a little more freedom.  Driving there was actually pretty enjoyable, there aren't a lot of roads, so we never got too lost, and it made you feel a lot less like a tourist.  It also allowed to visit a nearby butterfly farm that bred Blue Morphos and Owl Butterflies.  Elly loves butterfly houses, but has a really tough time not touching them.  She was in heaven here, just running around grabbing handfuls of giant butterflies and leaving a trail or carnage in her wake.  The guide was great, he just showed her more butterflies and let her go at it.  Every single person we met in Belize was fantastic and really helped to make the trip great.

Elly and Teresa checking out some butterflies

Long story short, you should go to Belize.  Traveling with kids is tough, but incredibly rewarding.  It made us slow down and caused us to interact with the locals more.  Instead of ziplining and rafting we petted chickens and looked for monkeys.  They made us get up at dawn so we could enjoy hikes and allowed us to spot agoutis, a howler monkey, and butterflies we wouldn't have seen otherwise. Plus, their passport pictures are cute  :)