Belize 2010_38

I was brushing my teeth when Matt says "go take care of your dog". I walk out to the patio and she was stuck at her shoulders in the railings! It was so funny. I pulled them apart and nudged her back in with my knee. We all rode bikes into town and stopped by Pampered Paws to pick up the donation bucket and thank them for all their help. I was going to get flea and tick medication from them but I knew that we were going to SAGA and it would probably be cheaper there. We had breakfast at Lime. While we waited for the food I gathered all the buckets and counted the donations. We raised $50 BZ ($25 Us) in 4 out of the 5 buckets. We said goodbye to Sharon and thanked her so much for helping us raise the big bucks. We rode down to SAGA and we were almost there when Matt realized that they were closed. I don't think we will ever remember that they are closed on Sundays and Mondays!

Back to Pampered Paws for some flea and tick medication and then it is time for one of our last ice creams. Madre' offered to buy me a bikini so we went shopping and left the boys reading there books. I found a bikini and she found a dress for a steal! We went and got the boys and headed home. I called Continental to reserve a place for Cinthia on the flight home and all I had to do was write an email to the guy I was speaking with and tell him our flight number and a few other things he asked for. After I was done sending the email we took the boat out the reef again. I took madre' back to where we saw the puffer fish and on our way back to the boat we saw a shark. I took the spear gun out and was only able to hit one fish but it got away. Matt tried again and was able to get one more fish. We called it a day and headed home to have dinner at Aji (two buildings south of us).

Belize 2010_37

Matt was up at 6:30am checking the wind it looked good but it was just to damn early so he forced himself to go back to bed. He was on the water by 8:15am shortly followed by me and padre'. Matt was kicking himself because he should have gone out when he first woke up, it was super light. Matt attached the GoPro camera onto a pvc pipe stuck in the sand out in the water. We rode by it and did what we could but there was nothing. We eventually gave up and I made eggs and bacon for breakfast and we read books by the pool. We decided to go to the reef and go snorkeling because time in paradise was running out. Dad speared a fish and madre' accidentally let it free when she was cleaning out the bucket it was in. Matt went out with the spear and got a couple more fish plus a scare from a huge moray eel flowing his bag of fish tied to his waste!

We got back around 3pm and Maddie the little girl from upstairs wanted to walk Cinthia. I told her we were going to shower so if she didn't want to walk her anymore just put her back in the porch area. When I was done showering Maddie was outside and said that Cinthia rolled in something. Did she ever! You could smell that stench for a mile, why oh why do dogs have to roll in stuff? It was bath time for Cinthia we had to use our shampoo for the perfume it was so bad. I was cleaning her feet and there were quite a few ticks in between her toes. Matt pulled them all out and we gave her a good examination for anymore.

Jerry and Kathy had us and a few others over for Happy Hour. Boy was I happy, there were hot wings, bean dip, veggies, curry and pina coladas! So yum. Dad was the entertainment for the kids doing magic tricks, riddles and math problems. We went back downstairs at around 8pm and took Cinthia on a walk. Matt noticed that it was pretty windy and decided he was going out. Dad wasn't going to let this opportunity pass him by so he went too. I would have but I was excited to get pictures of the glow sticks on the kites. The moon was I think one day past full and it was super bright (not so good for glow stick pics). The boys packed up around midnight extremely happy they went out.

Belize 2010_36

After Cinthia's morning potty walk and breakfast I did some blogging and we read books until we were all hungry. We rode our bikes to Estel's for breakfast. Matt and I rode around town to do some souvenir shopping and met the parents at Mariano's Arcade for ice cream. Padre' did some work on the boat when we got home and we all took it for a spin to see how it ran. Cinthia didn't know what to think of the boat ride it was pretty funny. She eventually got used to it and sat with Matt at the bow of the boat with her ears flapping in the wind. The boat runs great, smooth and quiet.

We participated in Earth hour at 8:30pm and played Phase 10 by candle light. Its a pretty easy game and we couldn't stop laughing at padre' because he was so bored with it he was almost sleeping up right in his chair. Madre' won and Padre' said "There is a god" (meaning it was finally over).

Belize 2010_35

It was hot, muggy and no wind so we took Cinthia on a walk up north. It started to rain on our walk and it was so nice. As soon as we got home we jumped in the pool to cool off and it really started to come down. Madre' and Padre' went in to get the boat from the mechanic. I did some laundry while Matt took a nap and then we got ready to go into town. We had dinner at the Papusaria and I gave them me madre's last magazine with the article we wrote on Belize last year with their picture in it. They were so thankful and gave us a discount on dinner.

We headed towards Lime for the birthday party/fundraiser. We rode via the beach with Cinthia running besides me to wear her out and a little girl stopped me and said is that...from the...? I finished her sentence, Cinthia from the newspaper. She gave her love and asked why she looked so different. I told her the story of when SAGA found her she was in bad shape and they fixed her up.

Matt took my bike so I could walk Cinthia so she would go to the bathroom right before we went in and all there was to walk was a dark, dirt alley way. Well she ate something that I had to pull out of her mouth and it was rancid! I walked straight into Lime and straight back to the bathroom. We got Cinthia a drink and gave her almost all her food we carry around with us for treats. It helped a little bit, by the end of the night she smelt normal again. All I could think about was how it was the worst timing, right before we were trying to show her off! Well it didn't matter everybody loved her and she played hard and had to take a nap under the table. I did my part and helped collect money for the raffle by taking the goody basket around and making sure everybody that wanted a raffle ticket bought one.

They drew for the raffle and we counted all the money. We raised $200 BZ ($100 US)! I was pretty sure we were going to make our goal. We said our thanks and goodbyes and went back to the Papusaria for one more late night snack.

Belize 2010_34

The first time we have had to set an alarm this whole trip, for a dog. We ran Cinthia all the way into town and we had coffee at Sail Away Cafe'. She was so tired she sprawled out on the floor while people had to step over her, they didn't mind. We got to SAGA at 9am and there was no sign of Ingrid, I asked the only lady there cleaning out the cages if she was going to be in and she told me that she just had to run out for a minute. The vet and assistant came in around 9:30am did some things with some kitty's and then called us in. Cinthia didn't mind waiting around she had a tiny little black puppy to terrorize in the mean time.

The vet was really good with her letting her sniff all the tools he was about to probe her with. She got wormed which she liked the taste of and a few shots that she didn't even notice. It reminded me of Kristah when we took her to the vet for the first time and she slept the whole time even through getting her shots, she hates the vet now though. The vet checked her up and down and gave her a clean bill of health. The vet said that Cinthia might be tired the rest of the day because of the shots. Ingrid came in and printed up her health certificate and we were good to go. We rode passed Pampered Paws and paid for the kennel, they even agreed that if we were not able to raise the money they would take the kennel back for a refund, very nice people.

So much for Cinthia being tired, as soon as we hit the beach trail she wanted to get out of the basket and ran all the way home. We had some cereal for breakfast and got ready to kite (10/12m). Madre' took pictures and watched Cinthia for us. I called for Cinthia to jump in at the end of the dock and she started to get excited and bark. A few tacks later madre' yells "have you seen Cinthia?" I laughed and said she might have gone back to the condo for water or something. Matt went in because he flipped his kite inside out and I went in because it was getting a little light for the 10m. There was no sign of Cinthia so we took off on our bikes up and down the beach asking people if they had seen her.

Matt and I split up and as soon as I got back she was sitting under madre's chair by the pool. I went looking for Matt with no luck. He came back glad to see she was back but irritated because he went all the way down to Legends Burger House and talked to a couple riding their bikes that said they had seen her. Wow she went for a long walk. Matt and I went to the Palapa Bar for a late lunch and people at the bar recognized Cinthia. The wind was pretty light when we got home so Matt and I were going to share the 14m. He went out and it was a lot lighter than it looked, so came back in.

We rolled a huge log out of the sea as a decoration for the landscaping, went in, cleaned up and played Phase 10.

Belize 2010_33

We woke up at 9am with not one peep from Cinthia the whole night. We fed her breakfast and took a walk north up the beach to Captain Morgans for coffee. On the way Matt did some training exercises and Madre' had joined us on her bike and the coffee was...lets just say we won't be going back. We put Cinthia away and made ourselves some cereal. Madre' went out to the pool and Cinthia escaped over the enclosure Matt made, guess its time for off leash training. She stuck around really well just exploring around the pool. I walked her around the buildings off leash for a potty with no problems. Later we went into town for Chinese. We tied Cinthia up outside and she found a dog to bark at across the street but besides that she did fine.

After lunch we stopped by The Lime to introduce Sharon to Cinthia. She was out running errands so we went to SAGA to talk to Ingrid about getting her shots and health certificate. We needed a kennel to start training Cinthia and Ingrid said that she could sell us one if Pampered Paws did not have one. We stopped by Tropic Air to ask them if they had any used kennels they could sell us and they said they only had two for transporting dogs back and forth. We told them we were trying to adopt Cinthia from SAGA and wondered how much it would be for her to fly to Belize City. They said they would transport her at no cost. Tropic Air has been nothing but fabulous.

Pampered Paws had one used kennel and a few new ones we could buy. The used one did not have all the clips to keep it shut and the guy said he would have to ask the boss how much it would be to sell and that the boss would be back at 5pm. It was 4pm so we went to ice cream and the beach on Central Park. Cinthia had a whale of a time running up and down the beach and eventually found another dog to play with, unfortunately the owner was a drunk. It was almost 5pm so we went back to Pampered Paws. They told us we could buy it for $80BZ ($40US) and we thought that was really expensive for a used kennel that didn't work properly. We told them that we would rent it for the night and think about it if we could use that money towards buying it, they agreed.

Matt got the kennel home and Cinthia ran the whole way. We put a towel in her kennel and fed her and she ended up loving the kennel and sleeping in it all night. I picked the left over bbq'd chicken for madre's curry and we had tuna sandwiches for dinner.

Belize 2010_32

We woke up early to go to town because Matt has been having an ear ache and it is getting worse. On the way to town we had to hide under a tree because it started to rain and I didn't have any jacket. We new madre' & padre' were right behind us and one of them would have a poncho for me. Dad went to a Gynecologist when he sliced his finger open with his kite lines to get some stitches a year ago so we went to the same doctor for Matt's ear. There was a line waiting but as soon as he got to us he figured out that Matt's ear ache was indeed a middle ear infection. He gave him a prescription for ear drops and an antibiotic. We went to three pharmacy's to fill the prescription and the last one only had the antibiotic in a generic form which is fine we just didn't know if they were selling us the right thing. We bought it and rode our bikes back to the doctor to make sure and they did sell us the right antibiotic.

After all of that we finally met the parents at The Lime for breakfast and they were almost finished. We ordered breakfast and then Matt, madre', and I went to SAGA to walk the dogs. There were some more volunteers there leashing up some dogs to take them on a walk and we got to talking. One of them said not to take Cinthia because there was a couple trying to adopt her, we laughed and told them it was us. The other volunteers made it easy for us to get all the dogs walked today. When we got back we let Blossom and Cinthia play for a long time before we decided to go and ask Ingrid if we could have Cinthia for the night. Ingrid said no problem do you need food? We told her we would get some at the store and whatever we didn't use we would donate.

On the busy streets in town I put Cinthia in my basket lined with her towel from her kennel. She did really well. We went to Pampered Paws and picked up some food and a piece of hide for her to chew on later. While we were on the beach I let her run but when we got to the trail on the beach towards our house I put her back in because it was to narrow. When we got home we set up the patio for her by blocking the entrance and making a bed for her. She had a snack and lapped up some water. We played ball for a little bit and then I took her on a walk north of us on the beach. Madre' joined us on her bike and we went all the way up to Journey's End about 2 miles. I was banking on the fact that she would be so tired and sleep all through the night. On our way back we picked up this really long cool piece of wood as a push stick for the boat. I left Cinthia with her raw hide and went to get ready to Tuesday night at Legends.

We were going to take her with us but she was passed out so we left her. We had a light dinner at Legends, heard a few songs and called it a night. There was a bunch of British men (boys really) that ended up coming from the British Army Training camp on the mainland of Belize. I thought it was a bachelor party or something because they were so young!

Belize 2010_31

I went up stairs to see Kathy about another print out for more donation buckets and she showed me how far she'd come on the flag. It's fabulous! She said she had to do a touch up here and there and it would be done. I went back down stairs and reformatted my ad to fit for the newspapers. We moved the boat off of the shallows at high tide and got ready to go into town. Jerry came down with the finished flag and my print out. We had to hang the flag before we left so we all went out to the dock for a flag raising ceremony (OA=OceanAire).

Matt and I rode into town while madre' and padre' drove the boat. Matt had the GoPro on his wrist refilming our ride into town. We were to meet at My Secret Deli for breakfast but the parents weren't there. I figured we could get some of my errands done in the mean time. While riding to our first stop Matt got video of the man with the pet raccoon. Pampered Paws was first to drop off the donation bucket and they had a print out of my ad already tapped to their front counter! Next stop was the newspaper Ambergris Daily just upstairs from Pampered Paws. I gave them my ad and they said they would put it online for free. We dropped of another bucket to The Lime and rode past the vendors in Central Park to see if they had some things I wanted to buy. By the time we got back to My Secret Deli the parents were there and had only been waiting 10 mins.

We rode home via the beach in town for some more great video. When we got home we uploaded it, I know we have a lot of great video it's just going to take some time to put it all together. It was almost sunset and Matt though we could attach the GoPro to the top of the hobie and go for a sunset cruise. We all tipped it over and went out. We were excited to see if we got anything so as soon as we got home we uploaded it and we did but the sunset was blown out (overexposed).

Belize 2010_30

We woke up to light rain so I started to go through the GoPro video to delete the awful stuff off of Karlene's computer. The power went out so we all helped dad get the boat onto the shallows so he could take a better look at the engine and we scraped the bottom. Dad couldn't do much with the tools he had so we called it good and left it there until high tide the next day. We all swam in the pool to wash off because the water in the pipes needs electricity to pump it through.

We read books by the pool until we were all hungry and rode our bikes to the back street on the lagoon side where the Lazy Croc BBQ was. They didn't have power either so that just meant we could have anything that didn't need deep fat frying which was fine with us. Matt and I had the pulled pork sandwiches which were mouth watering and loaded. The rain came again and the cook pointed out a crock swimming through the lagoon. They don't feed them because they don't want their attention, they are just to look at.

When we got home Madre' and I took our flag design up to Kathy to get her opinion. We all decided on a great design and I cut it out while Kathy made me a cocktail. We made plans to get together after dinner to play board games by lantern light. Madre' and I went back downstairs and we read some more by headlamp. Kathy called us up about an hour later and we all played Strategy. It was really fun and the lights came on in the middle of our second round. Very fun powerless day.

Belize 2010_29

The wind is back in full force. We rode our 8/10 meter kites this morning and it felt nearly as gusty as the gorge. Madre' took some pictures before she ran out of memory because I forgot to format my other cards. Matt was out in waves when I got on the water. I could see dad headed towards town as a kiter from town was headed towards us. He only got as far as the Palapa Bar and turned around. Matt went to see what dad was doing and they both came back as the wind started to die down. They both went in and I was starting to have to work at making the 8 meter stay up wind. I went in and we packed up and headed to town for breakfast.

I made some donation buckets with the help of Kathy printing them out for me to put in SAGA and The Lime for Cinthia. I met Sharon the owner of The Lime and she is so supportive of us fundraising to get little Cinthia home with us. I gave her one bucket and she asked for two more. We had a delicious breakfast at The Lime and headed off down to SAGA to give them the other bucket. Just as we were around the corner I realized they closed at noon today. We went back to The Lime and gave Sharon the other bucket.

The wind was still blowing when we got home so we took a power nap and went out for a 12/14 meter sunset session. It was freakin' awesome, the best yet for me. It was dark when we came in and couldn't see anyone to land us so Matt flew his kite off to the side and I landed my kite to him. I ran up to get my kite of off him just as we heard madre' so Matt landed his kite to her. We packed up and rinsed off in the pool. As soon as I had my pj's on Dad suggested we go to the bar in the back and play a game of pool. I wanted to get Kathy's cookie sheets back to her so Matt and I went upstairs and delivered those plus a few cookies that I had made the day before. She was so pleased with our show we put on for them and fed us supper, homemade meat balls in fresh tomato sauce. She had us make meat ball sandwiches with mozzarella cheese, YUM!!! After dinner we went down and told the parents she had dinner waiting for them if they were hungry, madre' went up and we went to play pool. Madre' joined us when she was done and we played pool while playing darts, fun but pretty confusing. We were a woke by fireworks at about 1 in the morning but it felt more like 4am!

Belize 2010_28

Legends Burger House is going to have a late St. Patricks Day/fundraiser for Derek the local 16 year old bass guitarist sensation that was recently accepted to Berkley School of Music. We were told it was going to start at 1pm so I blogged until we left at 1:30pm. When we got there Tanya the steel drum player was just bringing her drum up and we could not hear any music. Dad went to see what the plan was and we decided to go into town for a coffee. As we were leaving we saw Jerry & Kathy drive by and told them what was going on and that they should stop on in for a drink. We stopped off at the library to get a card and my book but somebody had checked it out yesterday! O-well we got the card and put a hold on the book. Coffee was delicious as usual. Madre' and I went into the gift/clothing shop by the coffee shop and found a dress each on the clearance rack.

To waste some more time we went into SAGA to see if Cinthia would fit into a tiny kennel to be carry on. I got the keys from Heidi and we all rode our bikes to Fort Dog. I leashed up Cinthia and tried her on the bike. She was raring to go and didn't get run over once! We threw some treats into the kennel and she went in to get them but would not fit all the way. Heidi gave me her cell phone to call continental again and they said that a 15lbs dog would not fit as carry on because the seat space is only 8-9 inches high. Well we tried. As we were leaving Matt came up with a brilliant idea that we could try and fundraise for the money and if we don't make it by the time we leave we will donate whatever we do raise to SAGA for all the animals. I ran back in to tell Heidi and Ingrid and they were well pleased. We took Cinthia back, took the keys back and then headed to Legends.

We were all starving by then and shared 3 burgers between the 4 of us. The music was starting up and people were filling in. They were offering jello shots for donations and we partook. After we were done eating it was getting a little chilly so Matt and I rode back to the house to get some sweaters while the parents rode to town for an ice cream. We grabbed our stuff and went to look at the bananas progress by the pool. One of the renters came out and started talking our ear off about anything she could think off. Matt excused him self to get his bag and gave me a look. I laughed to myself and tried to be as polite as I could, I think I said "well, have a good night" three times before she finally let me go. We peddled as fast as we could!

Jerry & Kathy were already there having a drink with madre' & padre'. We joined and Matt whipped out our Cuban cigars. I have only ever had a puff off of Matts once before. It took me a little bit to get it going and then I accidentally inhaled! I was done with than for the night. Thankfully it didn't make me sick. When J&K said goodnight we all moved upstairs to see the band. The tiny room was almost full of band equipment, they sounded great! We stayed for a few songs and called it a night. There was a dog with no ears that followed us all the way home. When we got home I made cookies and found SAGA Humane Society on Facebook, became a fan and uploaded some photos of our walks. Madre' went to shut the front door and the dog had curled up just outside, funny.