Returning home from Belize.

 

Woke up to the beautiful Coco Beach Resort view and this morning we were not going to town for breakfast.  However, Matthew was not hearing that!  He went all by himself into town, got himself a big breakfast fry jack and Daisy a burrito and juice and came back to the resort by 7:30 AM!!!!  I wanted to go along but was nervous about making Mike nervous.  He did not want to be late for any flight and neither did we but Neri's was open at 5 AM, so Matthew went for it!!!!

The rest of us settled for leftover bananas and peanut butter and one passion fruit.

We packed everything up and were off to the cold north.

Gunnar did so well the entire too!  Hopefully this last travel day will go well!

We had 55 steps up to our room.  We got our exercise each day and here Mike and Matthew were trying to figure out who pays for what.  When we booked our stay here at Coco Beach, we told the kids that we would pay for the flights and rooms.  They were to pay for all the food they ate.  That made it really nice to deciding what they ordered or how much or if they wanted just water or sodas or dessert.  Each family on their own with food cost.  At the resort, we did not have an all inclusive but you could charge your room with any food you got at the resort.  

Belize is not that far away but it does take a day of travel.  We were escorted to the little airport in San Pedro to take our first flight out.  Funny, the airport is really close to Neri's so Jeremiah ended up going over and grabbing them some breakfast burritos before take off.  We are gonna miss this place!

The airport is really small here and simple.  You were given color coded passes for your boarding pass.  We were all on flight red!

We flew over the water to main land Belize for our next flight.  This took about a ten minute flight.

When we arrived at Belize National Airport that is bigger airport but still nothing like Philadelphia or any big US city airports.  We went through customs and had to fill out another immigration paper to come back to the USA.  While we were doing this, we were all sitting on a bench in the airport and Ashlyn decided to take Gunnar for a short walk.  She laid her phone on the bench next to me and strolled around with Gunnar.  When she came back, her phone was missing.  Where did it go?  Meanwhile, a family came and sat on the bench right next to us so we asked if we could look around them for the missing phone.  They were not impressed and hesitantly lifted up their luggage off of the floor after we asked them to look for the phone.  No phone anywhere and it was time to go through security.  I asked the lady at the check in/out if there's a lost and found anywhere and she said to check with security.  So, off we went.  Without the phone.  We all said a prayer that it would turn up before we flew away.

We went through security and I asked the man at the end if there's any way there was a phone brought up here and that we were missing a phone.  He asked a few questions and shock his head no.  Ok .... lost a phone.  Just then another foreign man came up to me and said he heard that we were looking for a phone and asked me if this was Ashlyn's?  He had her phone in his hand!  He said he saw her leave it on the bench and was going to bring it to security.  How weird is this?  I hugged him and thanked him and he said, "God works in mysterious ways."  I still don't know the whole lesson in this answered prayer but we had the phone, an answered prayer and now we were ready for our next flight out!

We had a layover in Charlotte for three hours.  The kids got a bite to eat together while Mike and I stayed with our luggage.  Then we went for greens!  I was craving salad greens and really missed raw carrots and celery on our trip!  We ate so good and had so many nachos and it was time for raw food and not raw conch!  A salad and a big coffee and off we were!

Our flight into Philadelphia was late.  Gunnar barely slept but when we were on the highway and in his normal carseat, he was out.  All our flights went well!  Thank you, Jesus!

We came back so tired but feeling so blessed to do a trip like this with our family!

Seeing the snow on the ground was not that welcoming and I had so much laundry to do with no washer and dryer for a week!  Everything got washed, cleaned and folded!

And the groceries were restocked and it's good to be back home!  I didn't know it was gonna be faschnaut day when we returned home!

 

This will be a memory of a lifetime.  We don't do vacations like this every year!  This was a special time and I just really enjoyed all the time we spent together!  Thank you again Lord for your many blessings on us!