Family

Last weekend we took a four-day camping trip to the Mojave National Preserve with Vanessa and Thomas. (Bob, unfortunately, had to stay at home due to a work emergency. He was missed.) I was worried about the 8-plus hour drive (!) and the inconsistent weather reports, but Bruce was really keen on making the trip. I’m so glad we did — it was an adventure-filled weekend.

We had the car mostly packed on Thursday night, and even though we got a later start than we wanted (those darn bikes take so much time to load!) we were still on the road before 7:00 a.m. Good thing, because it took us all day to get there. It’s just so, so far! Vanessa arrived an hour or two before we did and picked out a great spot. Upon our arrival, we started setting up our tent while the boys immediately engaged in a Nerf battle.

We were concerned about the ominous clouds rolling in and it was getting very cold. We heated up dinner and ate in our tent. Ezra had the right idea to keep warm.

We were snuggled in the tent for a couple of hours listening to the storm outside when we realized it was actually snowing. It was a very cold night but we managed to get a little rest, and in the morning we woke to clear skies and desert beauty.

I took a walk around the campground to get some additional shots.

We finally managed to get the water hot enough for coffee and hot chocolate to warm us up a bit. Finn hadn’t transitioned into wearing jeans yet, but it was about to happen.

As the morning warmed up, the boys had a great time throwing snowballs and scraping the snow off of the cars.

Then they went on a short bike ride around the campground while the adults figured out a game plan for the day.

We settled on a rockhounding outing, packed up stuff for lunch, and headed out. We weren’t sure how the roads would be, and some parts said a 4-wheel drive car was necessary which was a bit of a problem since we couldn’t all fit in our Subaru and Vanessa’s car is 2-wheel drive. But we gave it a shot. Almost immediately after turning off the main road, she was stuck.

The Subaru struggled too, but we made it far enough to realize we were in the wrong place. Luckily we kept going and got back around to where Vanessa was. Bruce had a plan to dig her car out and got to work.

While I made lunch for the boys, Bruce and Vanessa worked to get mats and rocks under the tires so her car could gain some traction. The fix worked, but I feel like a failure as a documentarian that I don’t have video of her hightailing it out of the sand in reverse!

We ended up heading back out the main road to try to find the correct offshoot to the rockhounding place. The guide books are vague and I think the map hadn’t been updated, so it was a challenge. We left Vanessa’s car at the main road, she and Thomas piled in the back seat with us, and we headed out over the bumpy but not quite as sandy terrain. We eventually found what we thought could be the right place, and we got out and started hunting.

Our trusty steed served us well again.

Once we’d had enough rockhounding, we piled into the car and headed back out the dirt road. I was just dozing off when Bruce slammed on the brakes and scared us all half to death. Turns out, he spotted a desert tortoise in the road and stopped just in time. They are endangered and in all his time in the desert he’s never seen one. Of course, none of the rest of us had ever seen one either.

He wasn’t very big and was comically slow; he barely moved the whole time we watched him. And we watched him for quite a while as we were trying to decide if we should move him out of the road. Bruce knew that you’re not supposed to pick them up, and since the road was wide enough that we could get around him, that’s what we did. We were, of course, worried about leaving him in the road, but since we hadn’t seen another soul the whole afternoon we thought it would be OK.

Eventually we left the tortoise and found Vanessa’s car. She took the boys and went back to the campsite; Bruce and I stopped at a local store to buy firewood because we hadn’t brought any and we couldn’t go another night without a campfire. We had dinner by the fire.

And a mini birthday celebration for Ezra with cupcakes and Thomas playing Happy Birthday on the ukulele.

Even with the fire it was super cold so we didn’t last too long outside. We’d learned our lesson, though, and bundled up in layers for bed.

Sunday’s excursion was Kelso Dunes with a stop at the Visitor Center first. The boys filled out their Junior Ranger booklets outside.

Then we took a quick tour of the center, they got their badges and patches for being Junior Rangers, and spent some time in the Kelso jail.

Next stop was the Kelso Dunes, that big giant pile of sand Bruce is walking to.

The day was spectacular.

Lots of wildflowers were popping up.

It wasn’t the most exciting walk ever …

… but once we stopped for a break and the boys played in the sand, they were happy.

I waited with the boys while Bruce made the difficult climb to the top. Then we all walked back to the cars and drove back to the campsite. After more Nerf battles …

… Bruce and I took the boys on a little hike while Vanessa made gumbo for dinner. The landscape was mostly burned out from a 2005 fire but it makes for interesting scenery.

Once back at the site, we got the fire going and had dinner.

The boys had lots of s’mores and had a super fun time roasting Peeps.

Thomas made a marshmallow sculpture (and got the thumbs up photo bomb from Ezra).

The next morning we had a delicious “griddle fest” breakfast and packed everything up to get on the road. Bruce and I decided to stop at the Pisgah Crater on the way home which was quite a sight.

The boys (all three of them) got some lava samples to add to our other rockhounding specimens.

Here’s our total haul, spread out on the dining room table once we got back.

The ride home was long and slow due to high winds and extra stops for gas. But we made it safely and have some great memories from the Mojave!

We spent the last couple of days of the trip on the mainland after saying goodbye to Jamma on December 27th and flying over to municipal airport. We’d booked a rental car for our first foray into driving on the mainland by ourselves. This Honda CRV was our trusty steed for the next two days.

We had a two hour drive from Belize City to our hotel for the first night, Cahal Pech Village Resort. We stopped about halfway there for lunch at Amigo’s, a place we’d been to a few times before. It looked exactly the same. There’s never been a crowd when we’ve been there, but we assume all those tables are to accommodate large numbers of people from cruise ships.

We made it to the hotel about 2:00, which should have been check in time, but they were running a little late. So we waited around (for over an hour!) until they finally had our room ready. The grounds are wonderful — high up on the hill so that you can see the valley below, and lots of little casitas as accommodations.

Our room, however, wasn’t great — it had a broken lock and was just kind of crappy. Oh, and it had an overwhelming smell of pot. Overwhelming. It would have been funny if it weren’t so smelly. We complained to the front desk and they fixed the lock and “freshened up the room” since they didn’t have anywhere else to put us. It was marginally better and was fine for one night. It did have a hammock.

While the room was being “freshened” we walked a short ways down to the Mayan ruin that the resort is named for. It’s one of the smaller ruin sites and we’d visited it last time we were in Belize. We hired a guide who showed us around. Here are some photos.

I love all the arches in their buildings.

As always, we climbed up a pretty steep incline … and it’s always the way back down that’s the scariest.

When we finished our visit we bought a few souvenirs at their little gift shop and then went back to the hotel for dinner. After dinner we broke out Exploding Kittens again and had a grand old time.

After a pretty good night’s sleep we enjoyed breakfast at the buffet and then spent some time at the pool. I snapped another shot of the view on the way to the pool — so lovely.

The boys really enjoyed the pool.

When it was time to check out, we packed up and drove down the hill to our next destination, the Green Iguana Conservation Project at the San Ignacio Resort Hotel.

We got a great tour there — very informative and hands on. Ezra made a new friend.

So did Bruce.

Finn and I preferred to keep them at arm’s length, but enjoyed feeding them.

Lots of iguanas!

Once we were done with the iguanas, we had lunch at the hotel and started our drive to our next destination. Along the way I shot a short video of the Belizean road.

Our hotel for the night was called Cheers. We’d never been there before, but it’s sort of a jack-of-all-trades restaurant, farm, and hotel with three little cabanas they rent out. We got this one.

It was small but nice (except for the no hot water thing) and the owners and staff were all really friendly. They even have a little playground off to the side of the restaurant. Of course, Ezra hit the swing.

After a restful afternoon and an early dinner at Cheers, we went to the Belize Zoo for a night tour. It was great to see some of the nocturnal animals being more active than they are during the day. I had a heck of a time getting any good photos, but it was a great experience. Here are a few photos.

The main attraction for me is the black jaguar, Lucky Boy, who we saw last time when he had only been at the zoo for a few months after his rescue. He looks great. And totally fierce.

Ezra took this shot.

Between his dark coat and the fence, night shots are nearly impossible. Some of the other cats were easier to photograph.

The owls were also up.

After the zoo tour we went back to our cabana and slept well. In the morning we got a tour of the Cheers farm from the owner Chrissy. The baby pigs were a favorite.

There were also goats.

And lots and lots of fowl — chickens, turkeys, guineas, ducks …

They had an old school bus repurposed as their house.

After the farm tour we went back to the zoo to see the daytime animals, like the scarlet macaw.

The toucan.

The harpy eagle.

And Lucky Boy in all his glory. It’s so wonderful to see how well he’s recovered.

We stopped to watch the spider monkeys for a while.

And then we were done. We went back to Cheers to have one last meal and pack up our things. We made it to the airport on time and returned the rental car. Unfortunately, our flight was delayed, which we knew, but it kept getting more and more delayed. By the time we finally left, we held out little hope that we would make our connection in Houston. However, as luck would have it, that flight was delayed as well so we actually made it through customs and the luggage shuffle and ended up having to wait for the second flight. We finally made it home about 3:00 am. Our house was freezing and the kids were so tired they couldn’t see straight, but we had several days to rest up before school and work started up again.

We had a mini Christmas the next morning and the boys were thrilled to open the rest of their presents.

Great trip!

Christmas Eve! The timing of this holiday was very disorienting, I have to say. After rushing to get all of the presents bought and shipped, Christmas cards mailed, and all our stuff packed, it seemed like we should have been right at Christmas upon our arrival in Belize. But in reality we had a week to go, so finally, finally Christmas Eve arrived.

I had to laugh at Ezra, upon opening the last day of his Trader Joe’s chocolate advent calendar, it became clear that he had saved all of the days’ chocolates. As I’ve said before, that boy would definitely pass the marshmallow test.

He proceeded to eat them all in one sitting.

After breakfast we embarked on our snorkeling trip. We had a general plan but were leaving the specifics up in the air because it was windy and the sea was pretty choppy. We weren’t sure how we’d all do in the boat (mostly Finn and I, the long suffering motion sickies) or if the sea would be too stirred up for good snorkeling. We had a new boat captain, Sergio, who took us north looking for a good spot. He found a pretty good one but the ride had taken a while and Finn and I weren’t feeling so good. Finn was worse and I knew from personal experience that we just needed to get him off the boat. At this point the boat was just sitting in the water bobbing up and down, the worst possible scenario after the ride.

Finally, we all got out. Bruce, Ezra and I snorkeled around with Sergio. Finn hung onto the circle and got towed around. As I thought, he felt much better once he was in the water.

Because I actually participate in the snorkeling, I end up with few pictures. I have a few from when we got back on the boat.

After the first stop, we went for a break and lunch at Tranquility Bay Resort.

We had a little time to kill before they opened for lunch, so we took a walk up the beach.

There were some free coconuts, which is kind of funny because the whole island is filled with free coconuts.

And there was this boat on a deserted property that had apparently been there so long that a tree had grown in it.

After lunch we decided to try another snorkeling spot and headed to Mexico Rocks. I wasn’t very encouraged because the first spot had been just OK due to the water being so murky. But in the end I was very glad we tried the second time — the water was much clearer, there was more of the reef to see, and we finally convinced Finn to put on his mask and snorkel. Even Jamma got in the water. We all had a great time!

And Finn got to drive the boat.

Once back from snorkeling, our task was to make Coconut Bannings. We were missing our Christmas Eve celebration with the Bannings, and in the grand tradition of Paperplate Bruce, we had decided that we needed some stand-ins. The boys collected coconuts and all sorts of decorative items from the property, and we all made our counterpart. Here’s Ezra with his Ruby.

And here’s all four of them: Rob and Cari on top, Ruby and Chapin on the bottom.

Later, just as we were getting ready to cook dinner, the power went out. And stayed out. For about four hours, and then off and on all night. So, our non-traditional Christmas Eve continued with chips and salsa for dinner and reading by iPad light.

In the morning the boys were understandably anxious to head up stairs and see if “Santa” made it to Belize. They not-so-patiently waited on the stairs for all of the adults to get out of bed.

When they did get upstairs, they didn’t really know where to look for their presents and ended up missing them completely. Finally, they found the iPad (Ezra) and the computer (Finn) sitting neatly on the table and they were pretty excited. They didn’t have much to open as we’d only brought a few presents with us — games from Jamma, new Google t-shirts, and stockings. Here’s everyone having a look at their stocking stuffers.

The boys spent most of the day enjoying unlimited screen time on their new electronics, with intermittent breaks for swimming with the neighbor kids.

In the late afternoon we enjoyed Christmas dinner — turkey, mashed potatoes, carrots, coleslaw, and pumpkin pie.

After a few rousing games of Exploding Kittens and King of Tokyo we went out to the dock to check out the Christmas full moon.

The next day we had to go to town to return the golf cart, so we stopped at Estel’s for breakfast on the beach. Here’s Ezra showing off his giant fry jacks.

And Finn making quick work of his pancakes.

One last bit of goofing around in the golf cart …

… a few souvenirs purchased, and we were on the water taxi headed back to Jamma’s so we could pack for our departure the next day.

On Tuesday, December 22nd we decided to take a day trip to Caye Caulker. We’d only been there as a stopover from the mainland to Ambergris Caye and then we’d only seen their tiny airstrip. We’d heard great things — that it’s a smaller, mellower island and the town is reminiscent of San Pedro fifteen years ago. It’s easy to get to by ferry, so we drove the golf cart into town to catch the boat. We had Jamma with us, so I was in back with the boys and took a few photos. Here’s the new road I wrote about before. Such an improvement!

And here are a couple more random shots from the drive.

The ferry ride was pretty good — a little tough for those of us who suffer from motion sickness but not too bad. The first thing we did when we got to Caye Caulker was find a store and buy some water. We were parched! Then we rented bikes and rode around town for about twenty minutes.

It was a little early for lunch but we went anyway, choosing to dine at the Lazy Lizard at the Split. It was a beautiful spot. We ate upstairs, but here’s our view including the sunbathers down below.

After lunch we got back on the bikes and went for a ride. We were told that there was a path that went all the way around the island so we tried to find that. Unfortunately, we either didn’t find it or we found it and it was too muddy and overgrown to cycle through. But we went for quite a while anyway and had a nice ride.

I think this was where we finally decided to throw in the towel and turn around.

By the end of the ride, we were very, very hot and sweaty and couldn’t wait to change into our suits and get in the water. We went back to the Split and I took a quick dip before sitting out with the stuff while the boys swam and snorkeled. Here are some pictures from my perch. Ezra snorkeled a lot.

The current was too strong for Finn, so Bruce rented an inner tube for him. He loved it.

Who wouldn’t love getting pushed around by your dad for an hour?

Ezra came out of the water after a while to enjoy his favorite drink.

After we were done swimming, we hit the little ice cream shop next door, returned the bikes, and headed to the dock to catch the ferry back to San Pedro. I took a few shots from the dock, which Google Photos helpfully stitched together for me as a nice panoramic.

That evening I tried to get some photos of Jamma’s Christmas lights. I’m not a very good night time photographer, but you get the idea.

She’d also decorated one of the palm trees and it looked awesome.

The next morning I went on my one and only walk. Between the weather and my laziness I just hadn’t gotten out. It was a super windy day but the sunrise was as beautiful as always.

I tried going north first because my path south was blocked due to beach erosion and a tide that seemed higher than I’d seen it before. However, I only got about a quarter of a mile before my path was blocked north, too. I headed back south, resigned to walk on the hot and breezeless road. We saw lots of people walking and jogging on the road and Bruce commented on how they all looked miserable. After a few minutes on the road, I just couldn’t do it and headed back to the beach. I got this shot going south. Like I said, it was really windy.

Sadly, this nice path quickly faded out so I only got a short walk. Two miles is better than no miles, but still it’s a bummer that it’s not easier to take a walk on the beach.

That night Bruce and I had date night at a new restaurant called Rain. It was just down the road at the Grand Caribe resort. The food was pretty good, but the view is the main selling point. Here’s a panoramic from our vantage point. Interesting how narrow the island is here — you can see both the sea and the lagoon sides.

We were, as usual, home early from our date, especially so considering our dinner reservations were at 5:00 so we could catch the sunset. (Unfortunately, it was too cloudy for any sunlight to pop through). We didn’t mind being early birds, since the next day was Christmas Eve and we had a snorkeling trip to prepare for.

On Sunday the 20th we set out in our golf cart for a new adventure — a drive to the “Secret Beach.” OK, so it’s not so secret anymore, thanks, in part, to a huge sign directing people there from the main road. But since we were still battling intermittent storms, it was not over-crowded on the day we went. The road, however, was a mess thanks to the recent rains, but we eventually found our way.

The Secret Beach is basically a couple of docks on the back side of the island that were the beginning of a housing development for locals. Apparently, lots were sold but only a couple of houses have been built. There is no power to that side of the island, so there are many challenges. For now, it serves as a place to hang out, swim, and have a casual lunch from the food trucks that show up.

We did some swimming and snorkeling and enjoyed the sunshine in between the rains.

That night we had the Santa talk with Finn. He’d been questioning if Santa was real for a few weeks, talking with friends at school (both skeptics and believers) and seemed to be a bit tortured by trying to figure out the truth. I’d found this book about how Santa came about and why families choose to continue the Santa story, so we sat down and read the book together. Bruce did the reading.

He ended up having some sort of bloody nose thing going on, so it wasn’t the most serious of family book readings.

But it was entertaining and the meaning of Christmas giving came through. Finn was a bit upset to learn the truth, but recovered quickly and is looking forward to next Christmas when he can participate in being Santa.

Back in California, our Pasadena friends were preparing to hike up to Echo Mountain with a large group organized by the Friends of Echo Mountain. The idea was for everyone to wear some lights and, thus, light up the trail. It sounded like a great event and I was a bit bummed that we couldn’t participate. Thankfully, Cari and Rob had an idea to bring us with them — they created us out of LEGO and stowed us in their backpacks. My LEGO doppelgänger was prepared with a cell phone (a 1990s model) and a light.

And Bruce’s was, well, typical Bruce. I love the smirk.

Here’s a photo from another Flickr user who photographed the event. It looks spectacular!

On Monday the 21st we were starting to see better weather and the kids spent a lot of time snorkeling in the pool. Ezra cracked me up with the way he walked around in his flippers.

And there was actual relaxing going on. Much deserved after a few hectic months at Google.

In the evening we took the golf cart into town to have dinner and watch the boat parade, which had been postponed due to rain. I caught a good shot of the sunset.

We had dinner at a place called Hurricanes.

And we watched the lit up boats float by. This is really the only decent shot I got but the parade was fun to watch.

San Pedro was all done up for the holidays.

Pardon the blurry shot; it’s the best I could do from the back of the golf cart!

We decided to do something a *little* different for Christmas this year — skip the cold weather and head for the tropics! We haven’t been to Belize to see Jamma in almost two and a half years, so we skipped the last day of school before winter break and started our long journey on the evening of December 17th. Our first flight (San Francisco to Houston) went well, mostly thanks to handheld devices.

We overnighted in Houston and caught a 10:00 am flight to Belize City on December 18th. After what felt like a hundred years’ wait in the customs line, we finally made it to the other side and were greeted by Jamma in a Santa hat. Our driver, John, took us to get some lunch (and our first real-sugar Fantas of the trip) and then on to the municipal airport. Here’s a pretty good shot of the Moision boys as we waited for our little flight to Ambergris Caye.

And here’s the obligatory shot out the window of the small plane on the way to the Caye.

Next up was a water taxi to take us to Jamma’s house. Ezra and Finn were in their happy place.

Our dock was a welcome sight.

It took about two seconds for the boys to get in the pool.

The next day started off with torrential rains. Hard to capture in a photo, but it was really coming down. There is nothing quite like a tropical storm.

Luckily it cleared up a bit and we took the boat into town to run some errands and rent a golf cart for the week.

We stopped at Wild Mango for lunch where the boys enjoyed giant (delicious) smoothies.

This was our view from the restaurant.

On the drive back to Jamma’s house, we were surprised by the newly-paved road. What a difference concrete makes to a four+ mile commute! There were also many new restaurants and two new small grocery stores along the route. It hardly looked familiar at all!