A Visit From the States

I was pleasantly surprised to find out that some of my family was going to be coming to Roatan on their cruise and immedietly took a personal day to make sure that I could meet up with them for some crazy Honduras adventures.

Even though they didn't come until Wednesday, Owen and I decided to fly out on Tuesday and stay the night in West Bay so we could make sure to meet up and not have anything (aka rain) spoil our plans.  We ended up staying at Fosters and had a great time.  I was able to rent Sky Cabin 3 and everyone was super nice because I was a woman traveling alone with my baby.  Holla!  Owen and had a great dinner and they even made my margarita to go.

We woke up the next morning and drove to the dock and met up with Uncle Ralph, Aunt Lace, Scott, Michael, Lauren and Brett and headed off to adventure.

We ended up booking a zip lining tour because they allowed 6 months old to go.  Being the mother of the year (cough cough) I was very excited for Owen to head on this adventure with me.  All of us had a great time until it started pouring rain on us for the last half of the tour.  Owen handled it like a champ and by the end of the tour, we all looked like wet rats.  :)

After that we went to lunch at Gio's so they could all get a taste of the giant seafood platter they have to offer!

We ended the day with some light shopping in West End and I was pretty sad to say goodbye. 

Overall, it was a great trip and awesome to see them!

Tis the Season

Luke and I are both obsessed with Christmas and as soon as we returned from Roatan made it a point to decorate the house and blast Christmas music.  Well, the stockings are hung, the tree is up and the lights are on and we couldn't be happier.

Here are a couple shots of Owen by the tree as we are trying to capture this kids first Christmas!

Don't worry - we haven't forgotten about our other babies.

Halloween Ceibeño Style

Sorry this is out of order but I realized I didn't post about Owen's first Halloween!

Halloween isn't really celebrated here in Honduras but that didn't stop me from going all out for my kiddos.  Some of our fun projects included making some awesome pumpkins and hand puppets.  We had a really fun day of Halloween themed activities and the third grade teacher and I played games like mummy wrap with the kids and 4 corners.  All of them had fun and we wrapped it up with the Halloween parade for the whole school.

When we were searching for Owen's costume, we didn't have a huge selection to go through and found a cute one that we settled on.

He is the best little pumpkin.  :)

Owen made his appearance at school and was not put down by any of the students.  Overall, it was a great day.

Happy Thanksgiving

 Thanksgiving dinner on the beach in Roatan

Another year in Hondo and another happy happy Thanksgiving.  This year, we decided rather than staying in Ceiba we would head to Roatan and enjoy some tropical paradise while we still could.

The trip started out rough when we arrived at the airport to find out that our flight had been cancelled.  Granted, they didn't cancel it until we were going to board - but apparently if the runway is wet, the plane cannot pick up enough speed to take off or land so it was a no go.  We all (we traveled with some friends from school) jumped back in the car and sped towards the ferry to see if we could get some last minute tickets.  We arrived in plenty of time and were able to get on the ferry but - talk about some rough waters.  Owen and Luke napped the whole time and I distracted myself with the on board movie 'The Decent II'.

When we arrived it was much later but we were extremely excited to get on the island and head to our house.

We ended up renting the same house we stayed in with Nonny and Poppy (The Purple Palace).  It was great, we had our amazing infinity pool and were able to stay comfortable with Owen for the long weekend.

 Not a bad view on Thanksgiving morning

On Thanksgiving, we ended up not cooking because we didn't have time to make a turkey, so we went down to the beach and had a Thanksgiving buffet while watching football.  Not too shaby for Owen's first real holiday.

 The boys walking to dinner

Other than that, it was a lot of relaxing by the pool and reading.  Owen tried the pool a couple times but thought it was a little too cold so we played on the deck a lot.

On the flight back - we all piled into one of the smallest planes ever and Owen and I were asked to sit in the front seat since we were the smallest.  Sadly, one of the propellers did not start, so we moved to a different plant (oh darn).  But it was still a pretty interesting experience.  :)

Owen as a co-pilot

It was a great weekend and we were very sad to leave but excited to get back to our puppies and set up for Christmas as the season has officially begun!

 Unpacking the tree

Cancer Walk in Ceiba

 
Around my birthday every year in Oregon is the Komen Race for the Cure.  When I was in the States, I would ask people to run with me versus get me gifts because I really like helping support breast cancer research.

Well, since living abroad, I never really have the opportunity to do the run and it bums me out but I get over it.  However, this year in Ceiba, the city decided to do a fund raising walk for cancer research and Luke and I jumped on board.  So this Saturday, Luke, Baby O and I all put on our shirts and went to Central Park to join in the walk.

You could tell Ceiba was new at this because they organized the walk for a Saturday at 2:00 pm...  Lots of cars and in the heat of the day, it didn't stop us though.

We had a lot of fun, most of Luke's students were there and they had a ball with Baby O (who promptly fell asleep due to the heat).  We walked towards the beach and then up the road for sometime before arriving at a tent on the beach with games and a show. 

It was a really fun time and I hope that Ceiba continues to do fundraisers like this!

Field Trip Adventures!

 The Tiger Butterfly

 

This year, we have been focusing a lot on butterflies and their life cycles.  I decided that I wanted to take the kids on a field trip to a butterfly farm that is in Pico Bonito National Park.  All though it was a lot of work to plan and organize - we packed up all 30 kids and chaperones and headed to the farm on Tuesday.

The trip was great.  I was nervous about getting rained out but someone was on our side because the sun came out as soon as we arrived at the farm and all of the butterflies began to fly around for the kiddos.

Two of my kiddos in the farm

 

In the farm, there are at least 18 different kinds of butterflies.  The kids had a great time looking at all of the different ones but their favorite had to be the giant blue one.  I don't blame them because it was really pretty.

Kiddos checking out a caterpillar

 

We not only checked out the butterfly farm, but then went to the serpent house that was full of different snakes (all poisonous of course).  I really enjoyed that but some of the kids were a little scared.  Next to the snakes is an iguana house which was also really fun to see.  There is a huge male who is in there and makes all the other ones look like nothing.

Group A outside of the serpent house

All of the kids had different parts that they liked the best and I had a great time listening to them talk about it all the way home.  The next day, they got to write about their favorite part.  Perhaps my favorite one was one of my students who I think drew an incredible picture of me.  It totally pays to be a 1st grade teacher when you can look like this all the time.  :)

One of my favorite depiction of my student and I

 

I am looking foward to the spring when we can go on another trip and hopefully they will be just as excited about the next one as they were for this one.

Happy 5 Months Baby O

Baby O has made it to the 5 month mark.  He is a very healthy baby boy (so says our doctor).  He is 65 cm long, 16 pound and 12 ounces and has a head that is 44 cm around.  We keep getting told how tall he is but that he should eat more.  Oh well.

He is continuing to goo and interact.  He has also learned to roll over (mostly when he is sleeping) which means Luke and I can't just set him down anymore and go off to take care of things.

He is enjoying his bouncy chair that we bought him and loves to grab and drop things.  Oh - and shove things in his mouth but that is pretty normal.

Can't wait to see what month 6 has in store for us!

Here is a video of O rolling over for your enjoyment.