Willow's school advertised for some international trips through EF tours, so we went to a few of the interest meetings and Willow loved the idea of traveling to Belize! She worked hard to raise money to help pay for the trip and had a great time! I asked her to write about her experience:
Off to Belize! This was my first time in Belize, but hopefully not my last! We went with a small group from my school, with 3 kids and 3 adults. It was really fun! I enjoyed everything that we did, especially snorkeling! We stayed in Belize City the day we got there, then traveled to the Cayo region for two days, then the Southern coast (which was my favorite) for three days, and then back to Belize City for our last night. It was really cool to see the different culture, even if it was from a more touristy perspective.
First flight here we come!
We had to take the little airport metro from our arrival terminal to our departure terminal, and Alyssa wasn't tall enough to reach the ropes to hang on :)
This was really cool, the first hotel we stayed at for one night, and it was a wildlife hotel, there were birds everywhere! Only one species really, but there were SO many of them!
Randy was our tour guide, and Richard was our bus driver.
Ziplining! It was so fun! We got to go over the Belize River and see all of the mountains and forestry during 6 longggg zips!
These ferns were ginormous! They started branching out near the ground, and were still growing at least 25 feet up!
This was the ferry boat we had to get maybe 5 seconds on the water to cross to the other side!
The Xunantunich ruins! These were ancient Mayan ruins that had a huge temple, sacrificing buildings, and ball courts! We got to climb up the ruin in this photo, and when we got all the way to the top, we could see Belize AND Guatemala! Sadly we didn't get to go inside, but it was still really cool to see everything from the top!
These were kind of like hieroglyphics, but make them Mayan!
The cabanas! Me and Alyssa were rooming together, and we were the only kids that got to stay in a cabana! We loved the cabana, but I regretted packing a suitcase because lugging that thing up and down that hillside was rough!
Dinner at the hotelPottery class! The pottery master was taking people to come up and attempt to make pottery, and I volunteered! It was sooo fun and hard! You don't know how hard something is when you watch someone do it who's been making pottery for over 20 years, but it is WAY different trying to do it yourself.
After pottery we got to make our own corn tortillas! We all got to have a turn grinding the corn on this traditional Mayan corn grinder. I don't know what it's called.
Shaping our tortillas
Lunch at the same place we made pottery and tortillas.
We got to eat our tortillas with some coconut oil and coconut juice!
This woman would flip the tortillas with her own hands! They told us that stone that they were baking them on was 275 degrees Fahrenheit! I repeat, her bare hands!
Canoeing! Alyssa, Nathan (who was the other kid on the trip), and I were in one canoe, and George, Jenn, and Mrs. Carr were in a different canoe.
Monkeys! We saw a toucan too but nobody got a picture of it.
Cave tubing!!!!!! I enjoyed this so much, it was sooooo fun. We got to just sit in our tubes as our guides carried us what I thought was downriver, but at one point they stopped us and had us turn off our headlamps and just experience the complete darkness of the cave. Then we turned them back on and floated actually downriver.
This was our little line of cave tubers. I'm behind George, who is behind Mrs. Carr who is taking the photo. Just for clarity :)
Lunch after cave tubing! Can you tell who likes taking pictures of their food?
On the way to the Southern coast, we stopped into a museum about Karifuna culture! The Karifuna are a type of Mayan people, but they're set aside because something about them is different from the Mayan people but don't ask me what :)
Chocolate! We got to see cacao trees and learn how chocolate is made! And we got to try a seed from the cacao pod. They told us not to chew on it because that would make it sour.
This was the little gift shop they had inside the chocolate shop we went to.
Lunch at the chocolate shop
The view from my hotel room!!!! We were right there on the beach.
View from the dining area, that was the lagoon side.
Drumming and dancing lesson! I thought they were going to teach us how to drum but instead they showed us traditional Karifuna dance, which in my opinion was way better than drumming :)
SNOREKLING!!! My favorite part of the whole trip!!! We saw so many different kinds of fish like Dory and really really colorful fish, as well as some long fish and short fish and all kinds of fish. We also saw a white sting ray and a HUGE bright red starfish! I got to touch it!
Okay so you can kind of see my sunburn in this photo but it was BAD. Like I barely put sunscreen on my back and that was a mistake. A big one. My whole back was very sunburnt. It's okay though it didn't hurt that bad, I just thought it was funny.
We had the afternoon at the hotel one day, and although Alyssa decided to spend it inside our room on her phone, I went out and went paddleboarding and swimming with the rest of my group! So fun!
This was a chicken kind of fajita but more quesadilla style. Still very yummy!
Citrus farm! We got to learn about oranges and even plant orange trees! The woman talking to us explained that her farm had been saved by the tourist industry and she wanted to help us keep giving back to the community.
Dinner across the street from the citurs farm!
The Belize sign!
This was a saying that everyone in Belize says, as well as 'unBelizeable!' I had to get something to commemorate that!
Our group with Randy, our tour guide.
We Ubered. A lot. Our flight from Atlanta to Roanoke got canceled on the way back home, and our group got separated at the airport since half of us had checked luggage and half didn't. The half that didn't have luggage went to the other side of the airport, so when we had to get a hotel to spend the night in Atlanta, we had to take two different Ubers to get to the same place. We then spent the night in Atlanta, and thought about getting a flight back to Roanoke but the next direct flight was two days away, and the flight they had to Greensboro was at 8 o'clock at night and still two hours away from home. We ended up getting a rental car to drive us 8 hours from Atlanta to Roanoke. There was five of us in a car because Jenn decided to go on standby on a flight to Roanoke. She got on a flight and landed in Roanoke when we arrived to Roanoke in our rental car. The whole thing was a mess but we didn't have to pay for most of it because EF, our tour group, reimbursed everything that we kept receipts for. All in all a good trip, but a rough way to get home. I enjoyed it though!
I got out on the ice too! I rollerbladed a lot in college and thankfully it all came back to me and felt similar to that. The girls went through a variety of stages of learning but left a lot more confident than they came in!
We also went to the cat cafe. The cats are always playful there!
Willow made ice cream sandwiches. They didn't last long!!
Willow and Kinsley practicing some tricks:
After Owen got back from his mission trip, he had his last baby tooth and his wisdom teeth removed. He was great about resting, icing, and salt water rinses. On a scale of 1-10, he never was above a 3! 
This was my best effort to hold the ice on his cheeks without him having to hold it...
Now he has a chain attached to his exposed adult tooth in order to pull it into place.
In other June news, Willow and I volunteered at VBS. She loves the 5 year old class and I've been helping with crafts. This year I did Pre-K crafts and it was great to be inside out of the unpredictable weather, but I'm not sure whose idea it was to do paint with 3 year olds or sticker crafts with ZERO extra space. We survived though!
We love blueberry season! While Willow was in Belize, we met the Caldwells, Nana, and Grandpa to pick a gallon. That always means blueberry muffins, blueberry banana bread, and cream cheese blueberry bars. Yummy!
