from the earthquake...

This is a boat house down the road form us. It is still under constructions. It has some damage form the earthquake. You can see where things pulled apart. I guess there are a few more down that way that were affected by the quake. Mostly still under construction.

I still can't believe that there was so little damage to the area... We are so lucky and blessed!

I wonder if they will be able to repair it or if they will have to tear it down.

It is a boat house. It is on the channel that connect to the Sittee River. Across the street is the main house... very big and beautiful. All the houses in this part of the development have their home on the sea and a lot on the channel to get their boats onto the Sittee River. There are a lot of homes for sale "turn key" if you are thinking of moving down or want a vacation home!

Hibiscus of the Week, Week 8

Earthquake!!

Phil and I awoke at around 2:30 this morning wondering what was going on... Then in a bit of a dream state I yelled "The building is collapsing run to the Beach"! Well the building was safe and sound but we were having an earthquake.

For my staff in the village they said it lasted about 2-5 minutes starting with some swaying then it shook hard. A lot of the homes in the village are a simple wood construction and they say their houses just swayed. In Independence, just south of us the water tower fell down and some homes there and in my beloved Monkey River homes were destroyed.

The water level did drop some, but the sunomie warnings were called off before 5 a.m.

I guess this past weekend there was an earthquake in Mexico. Some of Belize's power comes form there and some areas were effected. Also in the past Belize has felt some of the tremmers from quakes in Mexico and Guatemala, but no quakes based here.

When I looked at this map, I cant believe how lucky we are that we didn't get a wall of water or worse damage.

Our first Earthquake. One is enough for us!

Safe and Sound with Love

PandV

A note from my Dad

SO I got this email the other day from my Dad who has the privilege of taking care of our dogs back home in Minnesota. I just got such a kick out of it I thought I should share it on our blog.

Greetings ALL I am starting to enjoy the signs of summer (we have four seasons here in MN ya know). How you know it's summer can be seen just watching Frieda. When it's summer she wants to lay in her bed on the deck and watch the world go by and pick and choose who or what she wants to bark at. Given the chance (run on a short rope) she will keep a squirrel up the pine tree for an hour. Yesterday on their romp they found a mouse nest and Frieda caught a baby and carried it around for twenty minutes playing with it. I had to finally take it away from her - not an easy task I might add as I didn't want her to swallow it. For some reason she liked to roll on it and I got my chance to get it. Now that was all well and good but nothing to the night before when on her nine o'clock + potty break she came back on the deck and caught a large body moth. Well she carried it in the family room and proceeded to first pull off it's legs, stomp on it, lay next to it nose to nose, and finally when it stopped moving - try to give it flying lesson. You know throw it up in the air time after time. Well she finally gave up and I tossed the wet carcass in the trash.

Hibiscus of the Week, Week 7

My personal favorite, and the signature flower of Butterflie Spa.

Hibiscus of the Week, Week 6

Hibiscus of the Week, Week 5

Thursday Part One

A few months ago Phil and I went to Miss Emma's Farm.

Today I took my parents

Meet Miss Emma and Mr. H.L. Haney Mr Haney bought the farm in 1982. He saw it by air as there was no road. 1 mile across and five miles deep... I forget how many acres that is. He is from southern Louisiana. He spends much of his time here, but his wife and family are back in the States. It was about 5 years ago that Miss Emma moved to the farm as somewhat of a care taker. She asked for a 10 feet by 10 feet garden and look what became of it! This woman has such incredible vision of gardening and landscaping. Its so beautiful here, food is great too!

When we arrived Mr. Haney took us in his truck for a drive around the farm. We saw the shrimp farm and all sorts of fruit trees and veggies. Here are some more photos from the trip.

Black Orchid. The National Flower of Belize

Purple Bohemian Flower

Gardenia

Yellow Passion Fruit

2 kinds of Mango. Oh My Gosh, I love Mangos!!!

Pear Apples

I have never seen a bird of Paradise so big in my life!!

After lunch was the walking tour.

These are all in the Bird of Paradise family

Aren't these cool!

Shaped like a Parrot beak

They call these Monkey Tails

Pink Bohemian Flower

In June and July the Avocado will be ready to harvest. We will be going back then for sure! They have so many trees!!! They don't even sell their stuff... its all a bit of a hobby farm.

Not sure what we will do tonight. Tomorrows plan is that Phil will have Friday and Sat off and we will drive to Belize. See the Zoo and a few other things. Spend the night and bring Mom and Dad to the air port on Sat. Then we will head back to Hopkins. I will update more soon!

Wednesday...A day of rest

A day to do "nothing much" makes a vacation! Sun on the Vista Suite Veranda

Showing off the shells he got on his fishing trip. They were SO SMELLY! For anyone who knows my Dad, he loves a project! So his first project of the trip was to wash and bleach the shells. Poor Phil had to ride in the boat with the smelly shells in front of them... blowing the smell in their faces. Now they are clean and beautiful. Sending a few home to the States.

An afternoon swim

Then a little Rum Raisin ice cream cone

Then a special dinner by our own private chef, Phil Cross-Chin.

In other words, he made Chinese! :-) Yummy!

Rain delay on the Twins game so it was off to bed early for all.

Tuesday Monkey River Tour

After a lot of sun on Monday, we were glad there were clouds starting off on Tuesday. We drove again to Mango Creek/Independence and parked the truck and met our Guide, Ralph for the tour.
This is Ralph! He did a great tour!

Sunburn form Monday fishing... We are closest to the sun in May and September.. it takes about 8 minutes to burn!

Wind blown!

This is a Banana Boat! The tug boat pulls it through channel. It will go into the boat yard and be filled up. Most of the Banana's here go to Europe.

The start of the town. No electricity. No cars. I like it!

A view from further back.

up the river we go. These are lobster traps. Lobster season starts again in June. Did you know that our fish and lobster are sold to Red Lobster!!??!!

Our guide showed us SO many things. Lots of birds nesting... great wild like tour. Here are the little bats. So small...

We watched this little guy clime up onto the branch... the sun came out for the river portion of the trip.

OK... look hard. Do you see the Iguana? Bright green. The palm on the left points right to the tip of his nose. So neat!! You can see his body too.

this little guy was next to where we parked the boat to go into the jungle

Jaguar paw print in the dried mud

This little guy is about 2 months old. So cool hanging all by himself. His Mama has his twin by her to the right.

More family hanging out together. After the hurricane in 2001, the most Howler Monkeys you would see together was 4. Now the troupes are back up to 8-12. This is great!

Palm (I forget what kind) seeds. about 4 feet of them hanging.

after the river and jungle you come back for a great lunch! We had Snook (a white fish) or Chicken with rice and stewed yellow peas. SO GOOD!!! I love the food in Belize!

The boat we were in looking down the town. Still my favorite tour in Belize!