The night before we left…
I remember the excitement from our three little kids — Charlee (6) had been telling her classmates for months now about her upcoming trip to Belize (I am sure some were starting to think she was making it up), Levi (4) just wanted to see the monkeys and would not stop talking about the scorpions and sweet Mia (3) didn’t quite understand, but she could feel the anticipation. They were about to travel out of the country, something we had been preparing them for and talking about for the past year. They were ready. Six months prior to departure we took Charlee and Levi to get their passports, everyday after that waiting to hear when we could leave. Mia already had hers from a mission trip we took a couple years back.
They talked about how mommy and daddy swam with sharks and saw manatees on our visits to the 2nd largest barrier reef in the world. We had told them so many stories about our time in one of the most beautiful countries in the world and now they were about to see it for themselves!! I had tucked them into bed at their usual time of 7:30/8 and said we would be waking them up in the middle of the night to get on an airplane. Although about 11pm that night, we woke them up to tornado warnings and brought everyone downstairs to our master bedroom in the renovated basement. We all snuggled tight waiting for that 3am alarm clock.
It was May 17, 2017 Matt and I signed the contract and paid our $250 agency fee with Little Miracles, Inc. to start our adoption process… and then all five of us stepped onto the plane heading to Belize November 2, 2019 (2.5 years and tens of thousands of dollars later). Over the next 26 days, I will be posting a recap of our trip day-by-day. Matt will also be doing social media posts from his perspective. We would love for you all to follow along with us. This was all his idea and I am so grateful he suggested we do this. Still a year later, we have yet to process all that happened on our trip. Maybe this will help us do just that.
November 2, 2019
Matt and I woke up at 3am, quietly we took our showers, got dressed and then woke the three littles up. Van already loaded with our luggage from the night before, my dad pulled in our driveway close to 4am, slid into the drivers seat of our Honda and drove us to the airport. I think it was Matt who said something like we may need a couple cars to get all of us home! At 6am, we took off on Southwest and headed to Houston. I tried to pack us light knowing we were staying in Airbnb’s where most had a laundry option, but we also brought three bags for our kids we were picking up knowing they wouldn’t come with much. We carried two boosters and rented a carseat for Mia. While Mia was still rear facing at home because of how small she was, we were just lucky to get a carseat in Belize. No strollers so I relied heavily on my babywearing that month in Belize. Our trip was originally scheduled November 2-20th; however, we stayed an additional 7 days due to embassy delays. At the time, Levi and Mia were still at Hope Preschool which we just took them out for the month and Charlee was a 1st grader at Sycamore Elementary School in Collierville. We had to un-enroll her from school for the month, but the principal and her teacher were AMAZING! She had a packet of homework which I think she finished on the first plane out of town…smarty pants! We just couldn’t have them miss this life-changing trip and knew years later looking back they won’t even remember a missed month of school, but you better believe they will remember this!
After spending a long morning traveling, hanging out in airports, sleeping on planes, eating airport food, etc. we arrived at Philip S.W. Goldson International Airport Belize at around 2:15pm. Matt and I have both been to Belize enough times to know how custom works over there and although you still never know how it will go, surprisedly we made it through very quickly. As soon as you go through customs, you almost immediately exit the building to the drive up area. We crossed over and walked straight to Crystals Auto to pick up our awesome 15 passenger van! Guys, this is our dream vehicle and hopefully one day we can trade in the Boxer (our beat-up, hand-me-down church van) for this baby!
We left the parking area and drove across the street to get groceries and then drove about 5 minutes to our house where we would be spending the first week.
This is how I had set our itinerary for the day:
4:00am Leave for airport
4:30am checkin @ airport
6:00am flight-departure
2:15pm arrive in Belize
2:45pm rental car pick up
3:15pm stop at SkyMart
4:15pm arrive at Casa Del Mar
We pulled up to Casa Del Mar called the property manager, Rene (who we became great friends with that week), for the codes and got into the house very close to 5pm! I almost nailed it on the schedule. We could not have picked a better place to spend our first week in Belize. The backyard overlooked the Caribbean Sea and we had a quiet inlet to fish from. It wasn’t minutes before opening the door that the kids changed into their bathing suits and were ready for the pool. We swam so much that trip that Levi went from relying on a life jacket to being completely comfortable swimming the length of the pool without! We ate dinner, got settled, swam for a short while, watch the sun go down and went to bed. I messaged the owners at 7:41pm letting them know we had arrived and what a beautiful home they had!
That first day was full of emotions from all of us, but I was so proud of how the kids acted and almost everything was pretty seamless that day. We ended the night with no hot water, overhead lights or a fan upstairs, but we expected things like that in Belize and the next day Rene fixed it all!
This is how we all ended the day…
