What a wild and crazy ride 2018 has been for us. It was just one year ago we were ringing in the new year at our home in Cholla Bay, Mexico wishing some day that we would be living in the Belizean jungle. Well, careful what you wish for, because all of a sudden a piece of property we had sold, so we figured that would justify us building a small casita on our property in Belize. This way we could go down for a few weeks at a time until we got to that point in our lives when we were ready to make Belize our permanent home. Just before we were ready to start building a small casita, an offer came in for our house in Mexico,  plus we had buyers for a few other pieces of property we had in Mexico, so now it looked like we were committed.

Now everything is pushed into fast gear to build a new home since we soon wouldn’t have a place to live. After a couple of quick trips to Belize to line up workers and set up accounts for materials and such, it was time to pack up our Mexican home of 24 years and get ready for the big move. It took awhile to consolidate everything down to what we thought was important and could fit in a 20’ shipping container, but we did it. At this point everything we had, including us, was sent up to our kids home in Arizona for about a month until we could get it all lined up and sent to down to Belize.

By the middle of June our little casita was done and it was time for us to start this new adventure. So we decided to make the move and move into the little casita while our house was being built. Of course there were setbacks along the way, such as the wood we wanted for the entire house wasn’t available. We spent a lot of time running around and ordering materials and trying to figure out who had the best price and if or when they might be able to get what we needed. After six months of hurdles and constant construction, we believe all the basics are done for now, so we were able to move into our new home just before we leave 2018 behind us. It is now very peaceful and quite here in the jungle without all the construction going on, and a lot of the birds and other animals are starting to come back around. It’s nice to see all the parrots, toucans and other colorful birds around the property once again.

We are now moved out of our guest casita and it is ready for company. It has a king size bed, a fold out futon, a private bath with hot water (yes, we are civilized here), a nice porch for enjoying your favorite drink and of course a big Iguana and her baby keeping you safe during your stay.

Enough of that, here’s what is happening now. Kelley is very, very happy to have an oven, a stove with more than one burner and a real size microwave. For the last six months we have been cooking with a single induction burner, a tiny BBQ and a tiny microwave. Now Kelley is cooking turkey dinner, eggs Benedict, lasagna and of course Christmas cookies. All we need now is to get the big BBQ built, a pizza oven, a smokehouse and then we will be cooking fools.

The other day we were surprised when our friend brought over a hind leg from a Gibnut that he had just shot. Gibnut is a very tasty animal down here, so good that they served it to the Queen of England when she visited Belize. This was a very special treat for us and I’m sure it will be quite awhile before we get it again.

The one thing I’ve come to realize is that without an oven and only one pot to cook with at a time you will tend to loose weight. It’s having an oven that will make you fat, all those baked goods and everything else you can cook with more than one burner at a time. Actually, I think we can control the evil oven once we get past the holidays and get all those good foods out of our system that we haven’t had in awhile.

A lot of people don’t know where Belize is and think it is a long and expensive flight to get here. Well ,here’s the skinny on it. Belize is on the southern border of Mexico on the Caribbean side, it is only about a 2 1/2 hour flight from Phoenix to Houston and then a 2 hour flight down to Belize. If you look around, Southwest can usually get you here for around $500 RT. There are other major carriers that fly here, but SW usually has the best rates.

We are finally settling in and starting to enjoy everything we had worked so hard to achieve and we hope friends and family will come down for a visit to see our piece of paradise. See ya’ll soon!