Belize It

Erin and I went to Belize for a week of vacation.... and it was awesome! We stayed at Ramon's Village, and spent most of our time in hammocks on the beach! For the first three days we were there we just chilled out on the beach. Our room was the top part of a thatched hut, and it had a mini fridge, and a microwave.... but no TV. At first the no TV through me for a loop, but it turned out to be really good. There were no distractions. Erin and I could just hang out. We played a lot of cards, and I've discovered that deep down inside of me lies a Rummy Champion waiting to be unleashed on the world.

The first tour we went on was to the national Belize Zoo and Cave tubing. The Belize Zoo was beautiful, and we had the tour guide all to ourselves. All the animals in the zoo are native to Belize, and in their natural habitat. It seemed like very few of the enclosures were artificial... it was almost as though they'd thrown up fences in random areas and whatever happened to be there during fence construction was what you saw. After the Zoo, we went out to a jungle resort for cave tubing. A river had cut through some limestone outcrop creating some spectacular caves...... and being a geo-geek I really liked it. We hiked for 30 min or so upstream with our intertubes and then floated the river. The river was high, and the water was really moving. At one point there was a fork in the river, and everyone else went one way andI got sucked the other direction where I was sure to be eaten by crocodiles..... somehow I managed to right myself, and caught up with the group... but it definitely wasn't pleasant for a few minutes.....

The next tour we went on was of some Mayan ruins called Lamanai'na which means 'submerged crocodile.' Because we were staying on an island (Ambergris Caye) we traveled by boat everywhere.... the total trip to Lamanai'na was ~3 hrs.... but the trip was beautiful. Our first time to the mainland on boat we saw dolphins, and what our guide claimed to be Tiger Woods yacht.....When we went to Lamanai'na we passed a huge Mennonite/Amish settlement...which was pretty sweet.....after an hour so up one particular river, it opened up into a beautiful lagoon and peaking above the trees you could make out the tallest temple. The ruins were really cool, and Erin and I climbed the tallest one.... unfortunately we had to go back down which is brutal since I have 'height issues.' Anyway, this temple was smaller than one we'd climbed at Chichen Itza on our honeymoon so I felt OK about it.

The next day we snorkeled and saw sharks, and sting rays, and a random assortment of colorful fish. Overall we had an amazing time in Belize. There was a couple on the island who ran a frozen custard shop which changed my life......they had pumpkin pie custard..... two scoops pumpkin pie + one scoop vanilla.... = thanksgiving any day of the year....

But I digress... After we got back from Belize we drove out to Beaumont to pick up a puppy for Erin to bring to Juanita.... the puppy - Aspen - and Battelcat got on quite well... I think Battelcat misses her. I miss Aspen's cuteness... but not her need to pee at 4 in the morning every night she was here!

And now: pictures

View from the plane

Corey Duncan and another monkey

Italy v Germany..... I only caught parts of it, and it caused me much angst

Erin and I: Self Portrait outside the caves

Ramon's from the pier

View from the High Temple at Lamanai'na

Erin snorkeling at Shark Ray Alley

Erin and I in are natural habitat

Ramon's by night

Battlecat and Aspen

Officially an MS2

After 11 months of classes, studying non-stop & tests—I have officially completed my first year of medical school! Now only 5 more months of Basic Science classes to go and then I will be on to Clinical training. It has been a very long year—I can still hardly believe it is really over. I am SO tired of studying! I am very much looking forward to this month to relax and try to recuperate a bit. Throughout God has been very gracious to me and Jake has been very understanding and patient, taking very good care of me! I have an enormous amount of information crammed into my head somewhere—I’m sure I don’t remember everything I am supposed to have learned, but hopefully I will remember enough that I can build on it during the clinical years.

This is a silly picture of Battlecat. During test weeks I pretty much sit on the futon for about 15 hours a day studying. It’s good and bad for Battlecat—she doesn’t have to be home alone, but she finds me frankly very boring. Lucky for her generally Jake comes home in the evenings to talk & play with her. However during my last week of tests Jake had to go out of town for work and so Battlecat had only boring me for company…and though we have very good neighbors with dogs that come and get Battlecat to play for a little while, by the end of the week she had had enough of not getting enough attention! As I was trying to study for my last test, she kept jumping up onto the chair I was sitting in…it was really funny though because she wouldn’t sit next to me even if I pushed her to the side…she kept sitting directly on top of me.

Jake & I just returned from vacation in Belize last night. We had a great time and will post some pictures and tell you about it soon. For now we must return to watching the World Cup Final!