La Isla Bonita

This last wknd we spent a few days on the island of San pedro , Belize... also known as: la Isla Bonita! Was gorgeous and yes, it was the island that inspired Madonna's song "Isla Bonita"! She supposedly has a mansion on the island.. This was kind of a belated 2nd anniversary trip.. We decided last sept that we would rather save our $ and do something fun/different while we were down south, and we r soo glad we did! Because we were able to relax and enjoy the island! We found an inexpensive but super nice, comfy, and clean Inn to stay in! And when we arrived Rafa had arranged for there to be champagne and famous n suuuuuper delicious Belizian chocolates in the room! (Btw we visited that chocolat boutique out last day on island..)
Anyhoo, it's a 1.5 hour water taxi ride from Chetumal to the island. It's also along the 2nd biggest barrier reef(1st largest is in Australia) so it's a very popular spot for snorkeling and scuba/deep diving. Close by is the famous "Blue hole", there was an awake article on it, or you can google blue hole, and see some cool pics. We don't scuba so we did not go. We had a short stay 3day/2night .. So we weren't able to do too much besides bum beachside, which is what we wanted :) we did want to try Night Snorkeling, but they said weather conditions were not good the night we wanted to:( but we did find awesome $20 massages on the beach! Woo hoo! And we had some great Jamaican jerk chicken!

Wish we could have stayed longer, but this wknd we traveled up north for 2day circuit assembly and pioneer meeting in Merida (5hrs north by bus from Chetumal).. We jus arrived to Merida so ill keep u posted, we r excited for assembly!

Enjoy the pics!

A dip in the beautiful lake

So Saturday after service a group of us went to Lake bacalar again , it's really starting to heat up around Chetumal again. Last few weeks have been cold , (well the locals say it's chilly while it's still low 70s... Lol) and rainy. So we took a dip and of course took food and drinks :)

Super Bowl and scorpions..

Well this past weekend was pretty fun, we had a Super Bowl party with friends from the congregation:) it was very entertaining cuz it was mostly us girls talking about the football players : laughing over why do they wear such tight pants (tighter than out pants..) then reasoning ok sports performance.., is he cute? Not really.. Eww.. You know girl talk.. Lol. But what was funny was watching Raf(49ers) and Aaron(ravens) root for their teams! Since it was mostly us girls we were just teasing them the whole time
Pretending we knew what was going on in the game.. ;) here are some pics.

Also this wknd on Saturday Rafa and i were talkin about how we surprisingly hadn't found (any big) insects in the apartment in last 1-2 weeks... Well boy did that jinx us! The very next day when we returned home rafa found a baby scorpion right next to my side of bed on the wall! Fortunately he killed it, and since it was the black kind "it's not poisonous, just very painful... And if your allergic you should probably find a clinic ASAP!..." in words of our neighbor,... GREAT!
Then the next morning I woke up and even without my glasses and with my blurry vision I could see a huge black thing on the wall!! Cockroach! So I screamed from the bedroom to raf in living room where he was working out to have him kill it.. ! I know I'm being dramatic but no I don't like bugs or scorpions, I prefer he kill em.. Lol. So I think we have officially jinxed ourselves..

Tonight's meeting adventures included rafa installing the toilet seats we bought n donated to the halls bathrooms. Seems crazy but most houses here and even the Kingdom Halls don't have toilet seats.. It so while at Wal-Mart we picked some up for the halls 3 stalls.. Most halls here barely cover or don't have enough to cover monthly Kingdom Hall expenses, so the toilet seats and a few other repairs and necessities have been put aside for time.. (Mention this because wow small luxuries we take for granted at our congregation at home..)

It's so cute there are so many cute little boys in our hall, and after every meeting they can be found cleaning the hall, of course between playing around .. But I caught a few pics of them today, of course making silly faces. They love rafa and are always looking for him. One of the boys mom told me today her son Caleb (8yrs) was crying the other day, and she asked him why he was crying and he said "because I don't want rafa to leave" how sweet is that!?! So we are planning a boys night for all the kids movie and pizza night soon.

Yesterday a family had us over for "Kivis" which is a Yucatan version of a Lebanese dish(I have yet to confirm with my semi Arabic cousin, haha) it kinda looks like a crab cake but it's made with chicken and other spices, it was very delicious! the family is originally from Merida and she said there is a large Arabic community there, so she said that is where she learned how to make the dish. She also made a Mexican form of spaghetti, which is alot different than our red sauce n meat. They make it here with a creamy chile poblano sauce , it was yummy also.