Cayo Trip and Our First Day

The first morning dawned and I just laid in bed, listening to the beautiful birds. Oh how I love it here in Belize! We decided to get ready and head into Cayo to get some groceries and things that were needed for the house. After our return, Grady worked on some finishing touches on the dining table he was making for our family. The poor guy had so many projects (and still does!) just to get us functioning and up and running here.. it is a blessing that the boys are just that much older and can help so much.

Travelling Bull

Following an Old Order Mennonite

We had to stop at Mamas coffee shop for some java since there was none in the house!

The shop is located on the second story.. Mandy looks down at the street below

Next stop was the marketplace. It wasn't Saturday but there were still quite a few produce vendors

 

Look at that sky!

For a treat we stopped by one of our favorite places and shared a few plates of

Belizean chicken and rice

Even the bathrooms are colorful in Belize!

 

After returning, Grady and the children resume the table project

Even Gracie gets in on it!

I love Mr Serious being watched by the stuffed horsie!

 

We had left many things here in storage and were so pleased that MOST of our things, including this cute horse of Grace's were still here! Yay!

Almost bedtime!

 

Daddy reads the little ones one of our favorite children's books

Missionary Stories and the Millers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our Experience at the Airport and Finally Getting Home! :-)

The travel day for us ladies was lonnnng.. by the time we reached Belize, the little girls were pretty exhausted. The prospects of going through immigration, then finding our 14 checked bags, and 2 carseats and then heading into customs to have them rifle through all of our things seemed very overwhelming. Once we stepped off the plane and started down the steep metal steps, I relaxed and thought 'Hey, this is Belize.. even if it's stressful, it'll be over soon..' I wished that Daddy would be able to come help us but I knew that we wouldn't see him until after the whole ordeal was over. He would have to stand outside and we wouldn't see him until we passed through customs. First was the LONG line. We were last in line which was fine and it gave us a chance to chat with a very sweet American girl who was heading out to a resort to work with their horses. Finally came our chance to meet with the immigrations officer who was very kind. Then on to the luggage area where we started the search for our 16 items.. all was going great until I realized that someone had mistakenly taken one of our yellow and black containers I had purchased at Costco and had accidently left theirs.. we knew that because we were the LAST person in the luggage area and my other black and yellow container was not there but in it's stead was one identical to mine but with someone elses' name on it. Well that became quite the ordeal and the United lady, who was a Belizean was SO helpful. There was a phone number on the tote so we tried calling the people.. to no avail. Well, she said, worse case scenario was that we would have to come back the next day to Belize City once they located our container (a three hour round trip!) Ok- I started finally making my way to the customs counter.. meanwhile the little girls had HAD it and were running on the conveyor belts, whining, pushing the stroller into customs agents and Mandy, Ash and I were absolutely melting. AND Laura was still in her pjs because there was no way I was about to make the time to locate her clothes at this point. I had a mountain of luggage and 8 customs agents staring at me, wondering if I was ever going to let them go home for the day. I finally cried out pathetically 'Could one of you help me?" that did it! 4 very kind and sweaty agents ran toward me and helped us wheel the 3 carts full of luggage. One of the men, whom we had dealt with before offered to wheel the girls out in the stroller to their daddy and let him know why the delay. Now, normally having some guy wheeling my daughters out of the building would completely be against my better judgement but I was desperate to get these things resolved and get out of there! I DID have Ash run after him and peek through the door to make sure daddy got them. :-) I had accidently left the identical container that belonged to the other person on my cart and so they started questioning me about why I had someone else's tote.. I went on to explain the whole story and they all got very animated! "Oh, we know who that was! She came through with many, many totes just like this.." She left a few totes at the airport side of the building because they wouldn't all fit in her vehicle! Lets go see if by chance yours was one that she left there!" So I followed the agents and as I passed from that door into the airport side, I saw my forlorn hubby standing on the sidewalk outside. He shrugged to me questioningly and I just shrugged back and grinned. This is Belize! Who knows what will happen next! Well, thankfully my tote was one of the ones which the lady had left there at the airport to pick up later! Praise the Lord! Now, the only problem was that the airport manager did not want to release the tote until he spoke with the woman who had left it. He was under strict order NOT to let them out of his sight until she returned to get them. That incited quite an argument between the customs agents and the airport workers. I am sure they just all wanted to GO HOME as we were literally the last people in the entire place. (in third world countries of course, the airport closes when there are no more flights coming in for the day) Oh boy! Meanwhile, Grady has no information except for the fact that there was a delay and that I was now on the airport side of the building instead of the customs side.. he finally broke the 'rules' and walked into the customs area and over to the airport side to find me. In stormed a very official looking customs guy who silenced the airport worker, threw our 50 lb tote over his shoulder and marched back to the customs side. He was done with this! So started the search through our bags.. and of course we were brought into the little room where we had to explain Sadie and show all of her permit and vet papers.. they also confiscated my heritage heirloom seeds that I had sought a permit for because they were not in hermetically sealed bags. Bummer. Oh well. Because we were there literally 1 1/2 hours after everyone else they only glanced at all of our things and only charged us duties on our dog and Ashley's sewing machine. $80 all together! That was A M A Z I N G and an answer to prayer. We GLADLY paid the porter (the one who had strolled the girls out 1.5 hrs earlier) to take ALL of the bags out to the van where he packed them in and chatted with Ashley, Amanda and the little girls (Laura of course still in her sleeper pjs poor thing!) until Grady and I came out. It was dark now and 2 1/2 hrs after landing. Seriously I don't think anyone has ever been there that late. They were shutting all the lights off as we drove out of the driveway and they had to remove the barrier in order for us to leave the airport. Whew! What a day! All in all, it wasn't really a stress and we all laughed about it all the way home. We are back! :-)

 

Once home, the guys told us all about their exciting trip through the States and Mexico

Daddy tried keeping it light because of the little girls but wow, I couldn't believe some of the stories he was telling us!

Laura (still in the pjs) is amazed by Daddy's stories!

Ashley is simply hysterical after such a long day! :-)

Grant was reliving his harrowing experiences and enjoying having the rest of his family back

The guys had set up all of the cots upstairs. The four olders would be sleeping in the same room until they could get the girls' room cleaned and put together.

Don't forget to watch out for scorpions and spiders Gracie!

Ryan on his big XL Cabelas cot. Time for bed. What a blessing to all be together once again!

Saying our Goodbyes..

We finally got everything loaded up.. good thing we had a 15 passenger van to use. We had all of our luggage as well as a bunch of things we would be storing at Nana and Papas.. we filled that van up! We then headed over to say goodbye to Autumn and her children after which we headed to Portland where we would be eating dinner with Grandma Barb and Aunt Katie and then staying for 2 days at Nana's before flying out to BZ from PDX

 

 

Oh, it was so hard to say goodbye to my precious sister in Jesus!

There were many tears, hugs and laughter

 

Sweet friends

 

The morning of our flight, we arrived to the airport at 3:45 am which was 2 hrs and 15 minutes before our departure time. I wanted to make sure that we had enough time to check 10 bags, show all of our paperwork for our service dog and permission forms from Grady to fly out of the country with the girls. Turns out we really should have left ourselves about 1/2 hr more time.. after passing through security which took forever, we had to hike to the other side of the airport to catch our plane. They had already been boarding for about 10 minutes before we got to the gate!

 

My mother helped push the luggage carts full of bags up to the check in counter while the Rubins, who had come to help took the carseats out of the van and helped carry in the carry ons.

 

 

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Papa comforts Sadie who is about to take her first flight. ( she did so well!)

 

Our precious friends the Rubins literally pulled up right behind us at the curb of the airport. They could not have timed their arrival any better! Thank you Lord! I needed everyone's help for sure. We ended up having 10 checked bags, a stroller, 2 checked carseats, 8 carry on items, 2 little girls and a service dog. I like to call it controlled chaos.. without the help of my mother, Ben, my big girls and the Rubin family it would have been pure chaos! LOL

Of course saying goodbye to Nana is always the hardest of all. We miss you so much Nana! WE LOVE YOU!

 

At the gate of our first flight, the flight attendant offered to check some of our heavier carry ons. I quickly agreed but regretted it later when I remembered all of Laura's clothes had been in one of the carry ones that I let them check. The poor girl was in these pj's all day until we got to our rental in Belize! We ended up being at the Belizean airport in customs for over 2 hours and she was so HOT! :-) Poor baby!

Sadie was such a good girl! She just slept on Ashley's feet on both flights. United was kind enough to put both Ashley and Grace (with Sadie) in the economy plus area for free so that she would have more room to lie down.

 

After a loooong day of travel, it was so fun to see the first glimpses of Belize again! Yay, we were finally back! AND we were going to see our guys after 2 long weeks and 2 days!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Holdin' Down the Fort

After Grady and the boys left, we ladies still had so much to do! Finish all of the packing, getting all of our luggage to 50 lbs.. sorting through all our stuff to determine what to take and what to store. Cleaning and getting rid of stuff...It was such a fun and busy 2 weeks. We were blessed with lots of help from friends which helped tremendously!

Hmmm... What to do with all the trash? thankfully, our friends the Rubins came to make a dump run for us. That was a great relief since all of the seats were in the 15 passenger van and really had no idea how to manhandle them out of there!

 

 Ashley tackles the orange shower!

 

I think we may be able to fit just ONE more thing in there! LOL

Trying to get to the 'magic' 50 lbs!

We had so many things that we wanted to bring that we decided to bring the allotted 5 checked bags as well as check an additional 5 bags! 500 lbs of stuff! :-0

Getting the house all clean for our rental inspection.. we had so much help from friends too! A special young man came to wash our windows for us, a dump run... still another person so kindly let us borrow sleeping bags and their carpet shampoo-ers. We are so blessed to have such special helpful friends!

My ladies and I camped out on our bedroom floor for the last few nights. We had given Ashley and Amanda's bed back to the Kings, sent along the little girls' beds with the guys in the trailer.. and I finally put our bed for free on Craigslist.. that was a hard thing to do. I LOVED that bed! :-)

Happy 6th Birthday Gracie!

In the midst of all the packing and preparations, we celebrated Miss Grace Elizabeth's 6th birthday! Yes, she is eating her birthday cake in her pajamas.. :-) We celebrated by having cake and ice cream for breakfast after singing Happy Birthday to her.

We LOVE you Gracie! May the Lord bless you richly in this coming year and may you grow to be a girl who loves and serves our Lord Jesus!

Saying Goodbye to Daddy and the Boys

Grady decided that the best way to get our things to Belize, including our vehicle was to drive all the way from WA State, thru the US and thru Mexico! Seemed like an awful long drive but Grady was looking forward to the adventure. The boys were looking forward to it also but were a bit hesitant about driving through MX which can be dangerous. It was so hard to say goodbye to the boys, knowing that we would most likely not see them for 2 weeks when we ladies would fly down to join them in sunny Belize...

 

Our 6 sweet children

Gracie had the hardest time by far.. she was going to miss her boys so much! To her 2 weeks seemed like an eternity

 

 

 

 

Goodbye guys! God be with you till we meet again! It was sooo hard to see them drive off.. but exciting to think of our return to Belize! We will see you there guys! Lord Willing!