You know what I mean…

While driving to the grocery store…

Husband:  Ohhh.. Rush on the radio.. that’s awesome.

Listening for a while

Me:  UGH.. this stuff sucks… how can you call this good makeup?

H:  Did you just say makeup?   Don’t you mean music??

M:  I was hoping you wouldn’t notice…..

*********************************************************************************************************

Just 5 minutes ago:

H:  Hey ..  what are you doing?

M:  Checking my google reader and my blog.   I got comments from two people who’s blog I read religiously (shameless plug here…. OMG… someones reading this!!!!)

H:  Can you pull up the calculator?

M: Sure.. what am I’m calculating?

H:  3000 divided by 8

M: <typing>  The answer is 375.

H:  Well, damn..that’s totally doable.

M: <getting excited that we’re going to be spending money>  What’s doable!?!?!?!?

H:  That <points at TV>

M:  <looking up to see Mythbusters on the idiot box> blank stare ….Did you just have me calculate something for MYTHBUSTERS??!?!?!?

H:   <smiles>

Grrrrrrrrrr

To pass the time….

I’ve got 10 minutes of work left for today.  I don’t know why but Thursdays always seem to be the slowest day of the week.   Time for some randomness in the form of a list.

• I have sneezed approximately 20 times today.  Twice in the shower this morning.  One incident involved water in the nose and designer shampoo spillage.   Not Good
• I began Twittering a couple of weeks ago.  I am officially bored of Twittering. 
• I set about making a new To Do List on Tuesday - Today it’s 2 pages long and consists of things that couldn’t possibly be important to anyone on the planet but me (ie: inventory wedding gifts for insurance purposes <—WTF??)
• I’m taking OTC meds for this crud that I’ve managed to acquire.  The OTC’s do funny things to my sleeping patterns.  The last three dreams that I can remember involve me and Michael Phelps hanging out in college and living with my sorority sister “E” in a furniture store.   None of which even remotely happened.     
• I have become obsessed with the Hurricane report on the weather channel.  I blame it on the fact that we desperately need rain.
• My snoring (due in part to the crud) has gotten so bad that my husband has exiled me to sleep in the guest room… which reminds me.. (note to self: check for uber high end sheets on sale at JCP.  Use wedding gift card… buy only queen sheets for guest room. Husband gets no comfy sheets..muwwhwhahahahahaha).
• I’m in love with Suede from Project Runway.   More so I’m love with his phrase “Wackadoodle”  I think it will become part of my phrase rotation.
• The guest bedroom has no TV (aka.. bedtime distraction) and so last night, I fell asleep reading the 2008 Fall Eddie Bauer catalogue.   I know… shameless
• What’s everyone’s deal with OBAMA?  I mean… it’s become maddening how everyone is falling all over themselves about him.  The masses are OBSESSED with him.   People… he puts his pants on the same way you do… get over it.  
• For the record.. I have yet to decide who I’m voting for… so all you out there who think that last statment was a hate on Obama…. chill.  I just want to know why every thinks he’s the bees knees, that’s all.     

And with that… I’m done being random for today.

San Pedro, Belize – Part 1

** Once again, these are our honeymoon pictures and all rights are reserved. Please ask permission before using them.

Ok, so you’ve all been following the post about the honeymoon (here, here, and here), and to catch you up, on the 5th day of our honeymoon, we left MRR and headed west back to Belize City. We were scheduled to catch a small cracker jack box plane to Ambergris Caye (pronounced: Key), which is a 25 mile island off the Belizean coast.

Maybe you’ve heard of the place. Madonna sings about it in her song La Isla Bonita (uhh yeah, and those who live on Ambergris Caye use the phrase “isla bonita” everywhere. If you know the song, you’ll be singing it the entire time you’re there). San Pedro is the main ‘town’ on Ambergris Caye and has a population of around 8500. There is a very small entry on wikipedia about the town here.

Anyhoo, the Engineer and I arrived in San Pedro after one of the most interesting flights we’ve had to date. We flew out of the municipal airport in Belize City. As previously mentioned, the plane was tiny and the runway… well.. it was made of dirt (ok.. maybe not all dirt, but mostly dirt).

Such a small plane. I'm surprised everyone's luggage fit!!

Side note: It turns out that one of the couples that was staying at MRR at the same time we were, was headed to San Pedro, on the same day, at the same time, and staying at the same resort as us!! Yeah… SMALL WORLD. They were big scuba divers and had a gajillion pounds of scuba gear! Hence my surprise that all of the luggage fit.

This was the view from my window seat.

That’s the Caribbean you sea see, along with a dirt-ish runway. We ran out of runway just as we got off the ground. That was a first!

The flight to San Pedro is relatively short (15-20 minutes) at low altitudes so it gives you a great view of the smaller Cayes off the coast of Belize.

Caulker Caye

The water was pretty (and sooo welcomed after 4 days in the jungle).

San Pedro

You also get really good views of the town as you arrive.

After purchasing 4 Belize travel books from Barnes & Nobles (no.. I didn’t think to check them out of the library first), the hardest part about planning the honeymoon was deciding on where to stay in San Pedro. We wanted to be on the beach, even though San Pedro isn’t really a beach-y place. There is too much sea grass right off the shore (which preserves the coral reef) to really swim on the beach.. but it smells wonderful and is pretty to look at (the beach that is. Not the sea grass). We wanted to know we were within walking distance of food food food activities, but not be smack dab in the middle of town. We also wanted the place to be clean and safe (another reason to stay a little bit out of town). We didn’t want to go all-inclusive in San Pedro because we had heard about all the fantastic eating to be had (and man.. it was better than good….more on that later), and we wanted a resort that could book good tours for us (spend time doing, not planning). Finally, we didn’t want to spend the equivalent of a semester of tuition at UT on the place. Ok soo maybe we were a little picky about what we wanted… but it was our HONEYMOON. Cut me some slack.

I was torn between staying North of the bridge (where San Pedro ’stops’) or South of town. The deal with staying on the North end of the island is that while the resorts are newer and plusher, they’re pretty secluded. Anything north of the bridge requires a mile hike to get into town, and if you, like we turned out to be, are the type to go to town everyday, that mile is a bitch. Plus, it’s like uber hot on the island.. and sandy.

Side note: Don’t get me started on the dirt. My feet have never been so dirty in my entire life as they were the week we spent in San Pedro. I actually had to WASH my flip flops the night before we headed home, just so I would have clean shoes to wear when I got to the airport. And as soon as we got to the airport, I ran like a mad woman strolled into the bathroom to wash my feet and put on clean shoes. Yes.. I’m that OCD about clean feet. Anyway.. I’m off topic. Where was I ??? Oh yeah…

After arriving in San Pedro, we immediately hopped in a taxi and headed to our resort, Xanadu. Xanadu was our 2nd choice for resorts (our first choice being North of town and booked); however, it met all of our criteria and was well within our budget, and turned out to be way more awesome than our first choice. Oh.. and Samantha Brown from the Travel Channel stayed here on her show Passport to Latin America. I mean.. would she stay at a bad place?? (I think not… most of the places she stays are crazy-insane-have-to-sell-your-first-child-and-your-identity-expensive kinda out of a reasonable, just married couple’s budget).

So we booked a suite with a semi-ocean view (the ocean view suites were already taken.. boo! And one of them was taken by our newly made friends from MRR! GRRRR). At the time Xanadu was running a special that took 10% off your room rate with a booked ‘adventure’ package. Since we wanted to go snorkeling, fishing, etc. I booked the “Nemo” package, which included a 1/2 day of snorkeling, 1/2 of fishing anda full day of a Beach BBQ with a catamaran trip.

Xanadu Suite #15

The view from our suite. We had a lovely deck and our own private hammock.

The accommodations were lovely. Each suite is laid out like a condo, with a living room, kitchen, two bedrooms and two bathrooms and plenty of air conditioning. We had more than enough room to spread out.

The inside of the condo after 2 or 3 days -- we were already 'at home' (read: messy).

We had two beds in the suite. A queen downstairs, which you can see was used for suitcase storage, and a king bed upstairs, which is where we slept.

The resort had a lovely pool and pier. The Engineer and I would sit on the pier every night, drinking rum and coke, and watch the sunset. The pier is also where most of the tour guides would pick you up for various tours (snorkeling, fishing, etc) and one night, we caught a water taxi from the pier to go to dinner at the lovely Capricorn resort.

The ocean view and Xanadu beach (taken from the pool area)

The Xanadu pier

The sunsets here were A.M.A.Z.I.N.G

The view of Xanadu from the pier

Shortly after arriving at Xanadu, the Engineer and I decided to head out for lunch at a nearby resort (that’s the one catch about Xanadu… no restaurant on site). The resort was about .5 miles away, and the walk was flat, but it was insanely hot. It was decided then and there that the wife (myself) was tired of walking in the heat and “wouldn’t it be wicked cool to rent the primary mode of transportation for the island??” Being a good husband, he agreed and we got..

Punchy -- the Golf Cart

A Freakin GOLF CART!! (OK.. we didn’t call the golf cart “punchy”, I just totally made that up, however, I think that “punchy” is an awesome name for the golf cart)

How cool is that!?!??! Please ignore the boxes on the back of our cart. I took this picture after we had a made a run to the beverage distributors for some Coke Lite [Diet Coke], Beliken Beer, and bottled water.

The only vehicles that are permited on the island are for the police and taxis. Everyone else drives either a motor-scooter or a golf cart.

Hummer H2 golf cart.

This was the Engineer’s favorite cart on the island. I was more into the pink cart behind it.

We can easily say that the golf cart (which cost us about $250 for the week) was the best unplanned investment we made for the entire honeymoon. The walk to town, even though it was only a mile, really would have been too much for the amount of time we spent in town, and it allowed us to plan meals at restaurants further out on the island than we would have normally ventured. We drove that thing around until the very last day and only had to put less than a gallon of gas in it when we turned it in.

I find that in various stages of my life there is always a funny story to be told about a golf cart, and why, my dear readers, should this time be any different?

So.. funny story about the golf cart….

The last night we were in San Pedro, I made reservations for us to have dinner at this super swanky restaurant not far from our resort (the restaurant at Victoria House). We drove the cart, parked it in visitor parking and went in to have dinner.

Dinner at Victoria House. Look at how lovely (and tan) we are. Such a cute couple....

After dinner, the Engineer decided he wanted to drive the cart back to Xanadu (naturally, I had driven to dinner), only we couldn’t get the cart to move. He put the cart in reverse and it wouldn’t go anywhere. So we did what any rationaly 28-year-old couple would do…. we pushed the cart back from the parking spot and then put the cart in ‘forward’. Yeah… so the car started to go in reverse! ??? It won’t go in reverse when you put it in ‘reverse’ but it will go in reverse when you put it in ‘forward’ ??? It’s at this time the Engineer is getting irritated, and not wanting to ruin a good night, I suggest that I push the cart forward and then he quickly put it in gear and we’ll see it if that will make it go forward (I know.. so right now you’re thinking “WTF???”, but to my defense, I was thinking about how when you can’t get your car started, you can put a car in neutral and roll it down a hill and ‘cold start’ it.. or at least that’s what I’d seen on TV).

So here I go… in my cute sundress, pushing the cart…. and then I yell to the boy to put it in gear, which he does, and then he slams on the gas, and what happens?? The golf cart immediately throws itself into reverse and I have to duck and dive to avoid being run over. We end up having to call a taxi to drive us the mile back to our resort. I’m all freaked out because I had read a news story about this couple and was paranoid about us being put in jail for a problem with the cart that wasn’t our fault. Luckily, Stacey at the front desk was very awesome, apologized for the cart issue, and gave us a discount on the rental for the inconvenience. Everyone good laugh about it. Sure, at the time it wasn’t funny. However, that next morning… the prior evenings events were hysterical.

We can’t speak highly enough about our experience at Xanadu. The staff was fantastic and if given the chance, we will definitely stay at the resort again (and I’m not just saying this because they gave us a discount when the golf cart got ‘punchy’ <– see the name totally works!). They met our every need, from reserving our golf cart, to scheduling all of our tours, to making dinner suggestions and reservations for us. Stacey even recommended an fantastic spa for me to try out while we were there (it was awesome!!). You can read more about Xanadu on TravelAdvisor.com .

Alright.. enough for today (OMG this post is forever long).

I’ll try to get the next honeymoon posts up soon. Up next for honeymoon talk: San Pedro – The Town, Our water adventures tours (or ‘After 12 years of swimming lessons and countless water excursions.. who knew Stephanie could get seasick??’), and San Pedro restaurant reviews.