Happy New Year!

Things have been so busy and fun for the past few weeks!  We had a good friend visiting for about ten days, another visiting for about five days, showed around tons of groovy real estate clients, threw a party or two, attended a party or two, made new friends  and had lots of fun with Egan.  Here are a few choice photos of the last few weeks:

At The Split early on New Year's Eve.

Egan and Nolan dancing at The Split on NYE.

Playing Trivia NYE at the Barrier Reef Sports Bar.

Celebrating WINNING Trivia Night on NYE!!!  Great team!

Tommy's ritual photo with Egan at The Split.  One day I'll post several of them together.

We thought maybe I should start one too!

Egan action shot.

Jesse action shot.

Pirate action shot. 

At Will and Jane's Full Moon Party where we met the wonderful Ken and Allison! Jane shows Egan how to play the lap snare.

Egan shows some skill!

Egan giving the tree some love.

Christmas morning!

Christmas night at Coco Plum.  Live Reggae, bonfire and toys for Egan to play with and space for him to run free.  Wonderful!

Egan and I dancing by the bonfire at Coco Plum.

 

Band playing at Coco Plum on Christmas Night.

Santa Claus goes door to door in pickup truck!

So we were hanging out at the crib the other night and heard the odd combination of a hurricane siren and super-loud Christmas music.  We popped outside to see what was the matter and what to our wondering eyes should appear but a pickup truck with Santa Claus nestled between two huge speakers! We followed them and watched as Santa handed out presents to ecstatic children at our neighbors' homes.  Egan was entranced.  Turns out you can pay $3 BZ to the local preschool and Santa Claus will bring your child a wrapped present (that you provide) to your child at home! So fun!

Check out this quick video of the action:

Groovy Clouds and Kids

Egan's new thing is "Play monster trucks, see boys!" which means he wants to go a couple doors down the block to Anchorage Resort where very sweet  five and seven year old brothers live on site.  Their parents are caretakers of the resort and live in a pair of really cool thatched roof houses:  one is a huge kitchen and the other is their living room and bedrooms.  The boys have a few toy monster trucks that they graciously allow Egan to play with.  We started bringing toys of Egan's for them to play with and it seems a fair trade.  They look forward to his visits and vice versa.  A few days ago, the clouds were especially cool and I took a bunch of pics while we were visiting the boys.

Botfly, Mama!

So word on the street (or rather, the Internets) is that botflies are relatively common in Belize.  From what I've gathered, the botfly deposits little eggies on a mosquito and then when the mosquito bites you the egg (or larvae at this point; not sure) jumps into the little hole in your skin.  Then it stays right there and grows.  So in a couple of weeks you feel something moving around in your still-itchy bite.....a big fat maggot living off of your bodily fluids.  The tell-tale sign is that there is a small hole in the bump so the cute li'l guy can breathe.  Adorable!

Last week, pretty much overnight, Jesse the Texas Black Dog developed a surprising lump on his snout.  It had a little hole in the middle.  I scoured the internet and became convinced he had a botfly.  Egan was very interested.  When he first saw a picture of a botfly larvae, he pointed to it and said:  "I eat that."  When we got to the videos of people pulling the maggots out of their bodies, he changed his mind.

Jesse with the not-a-botfly mark on his snout.

I took Jesse to the vet and it turned out it was just a nothing little bit of nothing.  But botflies have been on the brain I guess because a couple days ago, Egan pointed to a blemish on my face and with a big smile said:  "Botfly, Mama!".

For a graphic and amusing tale of a recent botfly removal, check out the "As the Coconuts Drop" blog that I have a link to on the left side of this page.