Vacation: Part 1 (Betza's and Belize....)

There are SOO many pictures from these last 2 weeks! It has been, while not as we expected, a fantastic time! I am going to try to be brief w/ the text and descriptive w/ the pics so you can get an idea of our stories, but bear with me as I must be complete and methodical in my picture-posting and must start from the beginning....

Betza's potluck!
Betza and Tom had some of my classmates over to their home in West Sac on the 1st Saturday night of our vacation (it was a rotation switch for the others). It had been AGES since we'd all hung out. Labor and Delivery really kicks butt, and others had been scattered about, so it was great to come together! We had great food, fellowship, and played a fun game- "Wise or Unwise" or something like that where you get to create your own ending to an old saying and you have to guess the real one, you get points if someone guesses your made-up one, etc.

Here are Tom and Brenden w/ the birds on their shoulders...

Brenden alone...

Here is baby Sage (Susanna's 4- month old), which, as you can see, is very advanced, already self-comforting w/ thumb-sucking!

Betza with baby Sage (and, we were so excited to find out, her own baby in her tummy! I have had 3 pregnancy revelations of great friends in the last several weeks (you know who you are...! SOOOOO Fun!!!)

She is going to be a fantastic mom!!!

Okay, so onto the trip. From my last brief post, I think you got the gist of the first few days.... Anyway, we flew from Sac to Belize City last Sunday. Here is Shomir with his travel bandana (which he wore the whole plane flight(s). He also wears earplugs so he really cuts of all contact with his seat-mate, i.e. me.). He and my dad would be GREAT travel partners as they have equally embarrassing (to their partners) travel gear :)



Belize was amidst a tropical depression with POURING rain, etc., so we really couldn't do much there except plan to get the heck out. We did have a good meal and get to see the zoo, though, termed the "Best Little Zoo in the World"....

It was pretty neat. Not that it ever stopped raining for us to see the animals, though :)

Howler monkey Tapirs, which, we learned, can projectile pee!

Shom looking a bit nervous...

PUMA!
We also saw a jaguar, Junior, raised since he was abandoned as a cub, who was very elusive and hid under the wet bushes. He was cute anyway!

We did have a brief respite from the rain (leading Shom to consider changing our travel plans BACK to one which included a jaunt to the Cayes) and got to see a bit of Belize City:

Lighthouse

Harbor


We tried to go to this restaurant, mentioned in Lonely Planet, I think, but, alas:

This sign (NO building!) was all that remained. Thwarted again!!

We instead ate at a neat little restaurant, Macy's, serving authentic food:

We wandered into a grocery store which posted this appropriate flier.


Maybe preparation for hurricane season would include NOT buying tickets to Belize in October even though this was a seemed anomaly, i.e. the most rain in 10-15 years. Oh well.

.... anyway!

Next post: Puddle-jump to Guatemala.....