A Good Day...

Well where do I begin; It's been 9 days and my last post wasn't much of a post at all, just that video. For the past couple weeks we've had a house guest, Suzanne. So we've been having a lot of fun while she's been here. Since she's here that means that Dani has a pioneer partner who is in for the long haul day to day. Dani has been doing great with her time for this month. She's a machine and is determined to get her time this year so it was only the 10th and she had 60 hours...whew...She's awesome.

So let's see what else has happened recently. Rob and Beth had some family in town. So I went out with them one day while they were here. I went out spearfishing and we shot some stuff...good lunch. We caught a shark and got it on the boat for a picture...and then we quickly got him back in the water so he could relax...here are a few pics from that day... Gabe is ready to go spearing!!!



















Another big event was the fact that Dani's dad got married last weekend. It was moved up to Sunday and there was no way we could have afforded to go....being that we're broke and all!!! But we found out the wedding was moved up on Monday. Wednesday we get a call from some of our good friends back in NC and they want us to be there for wedding. So what do they do, they email a confirmation number for a flight home!!!! We couldn't believe it, well, they are amazingly generous so let me rephrase, we could believe it but we were so excited to be able to make it home, especially for the wedding. So we received the confirmation number Wednesday afternoon and flew out Thursday morning. We could only be gone from Belize for five days so it was a quick trip, but a great one. I crammed in as much as I could and only got a few hours of sleep over the five days. The wedding was amazing!!! It turned out so nice...PERFECT! We were also able to see friends and some family while we were there. We got to see Dani's mom and her brother and nephews. I was able to shoot pool at Bobby J's house til 4am....I had Popeye's Chicken at the airport in ATL and Brixx Pasta in Charlotte...a tuna melt at Earthfare...it was the perfect quick trip.


And finally that brings us to today...which was a good fishing day. Rob and I went out and shot some lobster and crabs. We got a few monsters...like this one. This guy took up the entire kitchen sink.















And then tonight Suzanne took us out for dinner since it's her last night. We went up north to a restuarant. They have a boat that picks you up and the boat ride was beautiful, at least on the way back home in the dark. The starry sky here is so pretty. It makes you feel so small. So here are a few pics...The first one is of us leaving the house for dinner. If you look down to the left, you'll see an old bottle I found today on the reef while we were spearfishing. The wood to the right is for some picture frames that I made for Dani.






And here we are on the boat to dinner.


This is the place we ate at. If you look in the background you can see the ocean. How nice!!!



Here's Dani and I relaxing for a few minutes while we wait for our table.








Here is Suzanne just lounging around.

Now if you look closely in the picture above of the resturant, you'll see in the back left corner a pool table. I couldn't pass this up...This is actually my first time shooting pool on the island. A pool table, a hot tub, the ocean, the breeze...this table definitely pulls a close second to Bobby J's man cave back home. So it was a nice night. We took the boat back home and watched the glowing night sky. What a great night with great food and great company. Going out was a nice treat since we don't do it often, only for special occasions and since Suzanne leaves tomorrow then there you go, special occasion.

Here's a new feature to the blog...I'm going to start doing a random pic...The picture below is of Dani and I at the top of a volcano in Guatemala. It was so cold and windy up on the mountain...but only a few feet from this the temperature sored...so much so that if you stood in one spot too long my boots would melt. Yikes!!!! Don't forget, clicking on the pics makes them larger. Until next time....

Interesting Video

Saw this on the web today....thought it was interesting...

It's official...

Well Ladies and Gents...

It's official. I received my work permit!!! I can officially work in Belize and try to make a living now. I can now do my computer work and start bringing in some money...well at least I hope so. Now I just have to get some customers. So besides service and stuff that's been the activity for the past few days...working on advertisements, passing out business cards, spreading the word that I can now work. So we'll see how that works.

Besides that not a whole lot has been going on. I haven't been fishing lately so no good stories there. Lobster season opens on the 15th so I better have some nice pics of lobster when that roles around.

I did get to work on my bike today...I had a broken spoke and needed to replace a brake cable so that's fixed. We're suppose to be back in the states for a few days later on this year but we'll see how that works out. We're trying to get residency here so we have to be in Belize for 50 of 52 consecutive weeks...so we can't really leave until after October if we want to meet the requirements for residency.

I think that's it for now. Hopefully something exciting happens around here...

I'm going to try to get Dani to post something on here one of these days...she has some great experiences in the ministry. So I'll see if I can get her to take a break and post something.

Good night...

Long Week

I can't believe it's almost been a week. Time flies when you're busy. This past weekend I was over in Caye Caulker. Since the Houghton's are back in the States they have no elders there now so our body handle's that congregation also. So two brother's from our hall go over there on the weekends. One brother in our hall goes every Sunday to do the WT and TMS. The second brother is rotated among the brother's in our hall. This past weekend it was my turn to head over there. So I had to conduct the CBS and had two parts on the Service Meeting for that Saturday night. Then Sunday morning I had the privilege to conduct the WT since we had no speaker so the other brother gave the public talk instead of the WT. Then it was back to our island on the afternoon boat and then our meeting Sunday night. It was a long weekend and tiring but it's so nice to be able to have the privilege to help out in Caye Caulker. It's a small island with a small congregation but they are doing good and it's always nice to be there.

As for field service, we've both been very busy. It's so nice to have people that actually listen and appreciate things. I mean Dani has 13+ studies right now. I accompanied her on a study yesterday where she studies with these five little girls. They are so cute and they take turns reading paragraphs in the bible story book. There are two that can't read yet so the older ones that can read will read a word and the younger girls repeat it all the way through the paragraph. It is so cute. Dani's a great teacher. I went on another one with her yesterday too where she is teaching a lady the bible and at the same time teaching her to write and read. It's so nice to see people appreciate what they are learning. I had a study the other day also with these four little boys. One studies from the "Learn to Read and Write" brochure while the others go over the bible story book. It's a job trying to keep them focused but they do well.

Besides meetings and service not a whole lot has been going on... Dani's bike broke the chain yesterday so I had to repair that. I oiled up the bikes today and cleaned them a bit. I need a few parts for mine but it's holding together pretty well. Just need a gear cable and a few spokes but it gets me around. We have a new friend at our hall too... Someone crashed a golf cart into the fence so now this dog climbs in through this hole in the fence. He's found a new shade tree as you can see here...

Oh yeah....there is a big sink hole north of us from the earthquake. Dani and I jogged up there yesterday. It's about a 15 minute run from our house up to where it's at. It is so cool. It's about 30 feet in diameter and we're not sure how deep yet. People have said it's at least 30 feet but I think they are going to cave dive it with SCUBA to see where it goes. There are cave syst

ems all under this island. We actually spear fish a few caves openings around here...they are more like cracks in the earth but they lead to caves. This picture doesn't really do it justice but it's about 6 or 7 feet from the grass down to the surface of the water. It's pretty cool to see.

I think that's about it for now though. Nothing too crazy going on. The weather has been windy so no great fishing days. My fishing buddy has some family coming for a visit in a week or two so I'll have a few good fishing days while they are here. I should have some pics of nice fish soon. Lobster season opens on the 15th so I'll have pics of lobster at least...well I hope so.