January 4th marked our one year anniversary in Belize. All in all, I think that we reached our goal to shake up our lives a bit and seek out new adventure! What a year that it's been! I really enjoy reading back in my blog once in a while. It's a fun reminder of all the things that we've done. A great diary.
The last few weeks have been busy, if not very exciting. Dad and Bea headed back to Edmonton on December 28th. Want to thank them so much for making the long trip to see us and make sure that we didn't spend our first Belizean Christmas alone! That ended almost three months of house guests so we have some housework type stuff to catch up on.
First thing on the agenda was to rebuild the shower in the house. It's been leaking since we moved in but we haven't really had a great opportunity to work on it. So, a couple of days after Dad and Bea left we started in with the sledgehammer! Awesome. We tore it out right to the studs and replaced the rotting, molding floor. Getting fairly close to being done. I have one more row of tiles and then we're ready for grout. The glass doors will be a few more weeks and then we are all done. Yah! In the mean time, we have been using the outside shower. Oh yah, it's January and we are showering outside! How amazing is that?
Our one year anniversary in Belize also means that we can officially apply for Belizean residency. As it stands we are residents of nowhere. Once we were out of Canada for six months we could no longer claim residency there. And Belize doesn't recognize us until we've been here for a year (and done a whole bunch of paperwork!). We've been working on our paperwork and we are getting close. They require all sorts of things to ensure that they want to keep us and we won't be a burden on the system. We have to get a police check, show some bank records, get a medical... etc. We also got a local bank account set up. Had to jump through a few hoops for that one, too! But hey...they actually pay 5.5% interest! Haven't seen that in Canada for a while!
What else have we done? I got my hair cut. Shortest that I've had it for quite a few years. The jury is still out on this one. I think I'll like it better once it grows out a little bit. Whatever, I'll never lose sleep over a haircut!
Adam chased a snake with the machete a couple of days ago...the snake won. It will live to slither another day. It's the first snake that we've seen in months.
We've been walking and working out everyday. The days are fairly cool (it's all relative!) so we are really enjoying outside time. The rain may have stopped. The rainy season officially ends at the end of November but we actually had a pretty wet December. But we haven't seen rain for a week now so it might be done. A lot of the trees are dropping leaves. Maybe this is the Central American version of fall. Even the lawn seems to have slowed it's growth.
That's about it for the last little while. Honestly, the bathroom has been the centre of our universe. It will be really nice to call that project done! Larissa and Adam's mom, Sheryn, will be here in a few weeks. Soooooo excited to see them both!!!
Adam chased a snake with the machete a couple of days ago...the snake won. It will live to slither another day. It's the first snake that we've seen in months.
We've been walking and working out everyday. The days are fairly cool (it's all relative!) so we are really enjoying outside time. The rain may have stopped. The rainy season officially ends at the end of November but we actually had a pretty wet December. But we haven't seen rain for a week now so it might be done. A lot of the trees are dropping leaves. Maybe this is the Central American version of fall. Even the lawn seems to have slowed it's growth.
That's about it for the last little while. Honestly, the bathroom has been the centre of our universe. It will be really nice to call that project done! Larissa and Adam's mom, Sheryn, will be here in a few weeks. Soooooo excited to see them both!!!