On the Trail

White Christmas was nice. It has now been a week since the departure of our now classified trip and inevitable(?) return to Canada. It has been rilly intense. Family, snow, cold (it's the wind that sux), friends, parties, food, no plans, etc and now I am startiong ont he campaign to find a career. I am looking forward to it, maybe old Haldane may help yet. I am making a list of contacts, people I have known and people I have heard of... everyone rilly. is it worth the stress? Nope. I'll get a job, it's the house that I want to get sooner than later. That requires the income. I tell you though, starting again is a very exciting thing to do. think about it. trying to get something new, meet new people, impress new people, new friends, a new route to work, seeing new homes and stopping at new lights. I am excited to do it. I did not think it was going to happen so quickly though. I was focussed on March. So now instead of thinking about what could have been with that path, I now wonder what March in The Peg will be, three months into our New Life. Just got to hang in there, we're almost somewhere.

Still here !

Well, we are. But not for long. It's coming up fast that we are headed home. A home. Wow.

But the last few days here have been fantastic. Every day we have raced out to the beach, and every night we have sat watching the stars. It's been completly perfect if you ask me. This is a great way to 'end' our trip.

Today for sure it has really hit me. I turned to Chris and said " are we really leaving THIS to go back to Canada" ? I know we are, and I still feel like it's a great decision, but REALLY??

Well, today at the beach the boys were floating around catching some sun. Kicking the ball around on the sand. We all got a bit more colour. Chris found a few star-fish and some flounders. We went on a little boat trip with a couple who live here 3 months of the year. They are from Edmonton.

I don't have many exciting things to write. This last week has been pure relaxation and 'vacation' style lazyness. But I have started to make my famous 'LISTS'. Argh. Lists. I love to hate them. I love to love them. I need them. Lists.

Blah, blah, blahh. I love you all. We miss you all. We will see you in 4 sleeps. (Winnipeg at least, Edmonton's a few more).


Ciao

Having Fun again....

Tuesday night was a great night. It turns out there is a meteor shower here for the next week, and we're here right in the middle of it. We went out around 8pm and sat on the beach. It was so dark and so quiet. All we heard was the waves breaking on the shore. Perfect. We saw a few shooting stars, meteors, etc. It made me so happy to be sitting out there with just the millions upon millions of stars. I remember doing that during the summer with my dad. "Confirmed" Yes, there were a few. The stars seemed to go on all the way to the horizon, it was so beautiful.

Wednesday was the first day in a long while where we were all feeling good AND it wasn't raining. So what did we do, Raced to the beach and jumped into the Ocean. We had a blast, got a bit more colour and had a fantastic family day. I think we spent the majority of the day on the beach and in the sea. We wanted to hit 'de tatched' restaurant for Lobster, but they are closed on Wednesdays. We're going tomorrow. For now, we're eating some pasta and sauce, and are about to head off to the beach yet again to check out the stars. Can't wait.

So many things to do..... and it's raining.

So, we have only 9 days left in Paradise before the cold cold snow hit's our tanned faces. The four of us feel like we're stuck. Stuck with so many things to do, and really not doing anything.... O.K. that's not entirely true. The last few days have been hectic. We've felt a little couped up in the house with the frequent but short rain storms, but have used the time to look for a new house in the Peg. There are some fantastic places that we are looking forward to seeing soon. We're thinking about shopping (ok, that may just be me), but there is a lot to buy.... Besides the house, we'll need furniture and clothes, a nice big t.v. Lots of clothes because we didn't keep much, besides what we brought, and even that has been widdled down to the bare minimum. I'm not too sure how our new bathing suits and shorts will help keep us warm....we'll need mittens, boots, jackets, and more. Socks too. Humm. I hope my VISA's ready.....

I'm not sure what we will do in the next few days. The ocean is a little ruff right now for swimming, and we really want to get in there before it's too late. At time's we've even wondered why we waited to fly out on the 19th... Things happen for a reason. Sometimes you don't know the reason until later, but there's always a reason.

So many things to do. Relax in the sun. Get a bit more of a tan. Pack. Shop. Look for a house. Find a realtor. Get jobs. See family. And more I'm sure. We really can't wait to get to Canada. This has been a fantastic experience, and we're ready for the next one. But now, we just need to find something to do until we leave......

What's new now...

Well, our blog has been a bit quiet the last few days. The reason is mostly that we are all still sick, well the boys are better but Chris and I still have a bit to go. It's sad really, now that we have decided to come back to Canada we're stuck in the house not getting the chance to explore and enjoy our last 11 days. Wow, 11 days. There are still many things to do here, but I'm not sure what we will end up doing. Sitting on the beach sounds like a nice way to relax (and spruce up our tan for the cold white winter). There is a ton of great snorkelling to do here, but the boys just can't do it yet. The Belize Zoo is suppose to be fantastic, but that just sounds silly to do here....... We're thinking of doing a tour or two. Not sure. It really is hard to get up and go when you're not 100%, but that's just what we have to do. Not just because of our short time left, but because the boys are not sick and they have the energy of 10 kids (it seems) we just have to get them out to do things. I need to get some more fantastic pictures. This could be our last HUGE 'vacation' in a long time. We need to live it up.

I hate being sick. It's almost a week now since it's hit us, so it should be over soon. The only good thing I can think of about being sick is that we've all lost some weight, and can now eat 3 or 4 helpings of Christmas dinner with little or no effect! Gotta look of the bright side Right?

See you all soon, We can't wait. We've missed you all too too much.

Beware the Baobabs

I suppose we did it to ourselves. We planned it and we did it... as is becoming our cliche, it's not a big deal because it was always a 'part of the plan when certain conditions were met'. And they ended up being met yesterday in pure concrete conversation with my wife and kids. It's a good thing we did it when we did because it seems returning to Canada was on the mind more than we thought. 'Children Beware the Baobabs!' (on a side, if anyone has not read The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Expury, i recommend you do it, if my opinion has any weight. Minou introduced that book to me in 1997 (?) in a rough time and it has turned into a very important part of my life and now my family's) If you do not take care of them when they are young they will grow too big to manage properly. What I mean by that is if Tamara and I hadn't finally discussed our desires then us and/or the boys cold have ended up in a place that would have been more difficult to respond from. We could have become resentful to each other for example, or maybe become poisoned to travel forever, or worse!!! Right now, I still have gypsy in me, but you know wanting to stay in one place is something I want to embrace.

How did this come to a point then? Well, as Tamara mentioned, she had been considering this for a while now but it never was acute enough to rilly talk about. That's female nature. As it was guy nature to all of a sudden drop the bomb one fine morning after a good morning. I woke up early tortured in my mind by the 'what the heck did I do to my family?' So because I had the option I left the house and went for a swim in the ocean. I spent about a half hour floating and swimming back and forth thinking about leaving, staying, returning, seeing someplace else, etc, but I had to always end up at the same place, it doesn't make sense anymore to my family. That was our turning point since we began this quest. The boys wanted Canada, Tamara wanted a home again and all that goes with it, and I didn't have the feeling this was going to work anymore, and obviously, I'm not a tyrant. There was the fact that we did not spend as much time as we should have in locations and we travelled too much. That turned off the boys for sure. They HATED moving around so much, and to be honest, looking at everything and wondering what was expendable, was getting tiring. I knew it was getting bad when I considered the boys as well. Ok, ok, kidding, but you guys with kids know what I'm talking about. We could have (should have?) stayed longer in Montezuma, and Monteverde but decided against it. Why? I am sure that one day in the future Tamara and I will be sitting in our comfortable Winnipeg home and we'll talk about this trip.

What else was there then? Well, I still wanted to go to Mexico, because you never know! But, since the return was almost 100% inevitable, the Ukrainian practical side came out and I realised it was just a big expense for minimal return and that money would be better served buying appliances for a new home than on a warm trip. So after deciding this in my head, where would we go?

Yeah, rilly., where? Finishing the plan in BC was tough because prices are ridiculous for just a lot in Nelson area. Edmonton is still there and we will visit, but i guess we did give it a try already didn't we? 2.5 years and it wasn't exactly as we wanted. East sounds good and has potential, but of all places Winnipeg sounded better. Old friends (hopefully I am welcomed back with the family even though in my youth I have not been the greatest advocate of The Peg- I would like to stress that was in my youth when I was drunk for about 8 years), there was familiarity for me, homes are still affordable, there is sales tax (but not for the boys, yay!), it is a new place to try out, and among many other reasons, the boys' only Gido is there. So now we begin the chapter in our lives in Winnipeg.

I hope I enjoy my last few days in Belize, but being who I am, once I have a plan set, other things fall on the wayside. Right now i think, why didn't we just book tix for tomorrow since we are doing it anyways? Oh well. For whatever reason, it's probably a good idea to enjoy ourselves for the next 11 days, hopefully not being sick anymore, because reality may be that the ocean is not in our future. Who knows. I am looking forward to this move. I have not lived there since I took off to live in Calgary with Tim in the Fall of 2001. I still remember packing Poops' truck, I still remember partying at Oktopberfest the night before (well barely, in all honesty, I remember almost winning a trip to Munich? nah, probably was too loaded), I still remember what a great life I had begun in The Peg only to drop it and try to build it up again in Calgary. I was well on my way with a good job, meeting people, having fun, but I had to try Calgary. I am not worried. Winnipeg was looking good, I had a future in Calgary. Unfortunately, Calgary did not reciprocate with a decent playing field for that future. It was my favourite city though. Edmonton was a done deal! I even had a pension! So I am confident that The Peg will be kind to us as well.

We'll rent a home, buy, or stay at Mom and Dad's for the time being. I'll find a job. Tamara will start up Partylite again. Callym can go to Cadochok or playschool, Oscar will keep growing, and we'll go from there. I am upbeat for the move. I will enjoy living in The Peg again. I will look forward to The Bombers going on their cup run again in 2008, and being part of the stadium. So many different events. I am looking forward to living life again in Canada! Earth can't be wrong, right?

A white Christmas.....

Ok, so here it is.............................






We will be home for Christmas.




We are booking today or tomorrow.



We'll see the Lukie side for December Christmas, and the Scharabun side for Ukrainian Christmas.


We haven't failed in our attempt to find a new life, but it has stopped making sense to us.


All four of us.



What were we thinking..... A GREEN CHRISTMAS????????????


This has been a blast. A life changing experience. So life changing that....






wait for it....








wait for it.....









we're going to try Winnipeg as our new home in the new year............







We love you all, and we can't wait to see you all very very soon! Sooner than most all of us were thinking,

but as the song says....

I'll be home for Christmas, you can plan on me, please have snow ............

Getting use to the different currency

Not a big blog, or anything really important. Just a little diddy I guess...

In Costa Rica we paid for everything with Colones. We could get around 520000 colones for 100 US dollars. At first it was difficult to figure out what it was costing us, but after a while I figured out a good way to do it. I would move the decimal over by 3 spots and double it. So, when I found a Lacosta sweater for 19000 colones, I knew it was only 40$. (why did I not buy this!!)

Here in Belize we buy things in Belize Dollars. The exchange rate is 2 Belize dollars for every 1 US$. I'm still getting use to dividing by two instead of doubling it. Our dinner 2 nights ago cost 75$ and at first I doubled it for Costa Rica, Chris then reminded me to divide. So our dinner was only just over 35$ and not 150$!

See, math is good!

It's only time.

The peninsula is glorious. We walk in barefeet to the beach, and that is no further than the distance everyone would like to have from one end to the other of their homes.

So Callym and I might be stars! An Italian dude was here yesterday taking pics of retired people in Placencia for an article and he said he was inspired by us playing together. So we said sure go ahead take some shots, we are after all semi-retired. Thinking on that is nice too.

We have now spent nearly 8 weeks of our growing lives together 24/7. How many families do that? Well, at this moment I feel that doing all this is worth the time we spend together. A little trade-off, family time with little kids and we have no address. Travelling around together seems like the best idea right now in Life. So we'll keep on. Tamara already wrote about our plans, and I am excited for them, and can't wait, but right now I am going to walk to the grocery store for some supper. That is if I can take my butt off my patio chair... islandlife... makes me want to head to Dominica after Mexico. I wonder what will happen.

A call out for PartyLite

This is a purely selfish blog.....

If anyone out there in PartyLite Land can hear me.... please send us some Candy Cane Candles. Chris and I miss them so so much. It's bad enough that there is no snow here, but Candy Cane Candles too! Ahh. We miss PartyLite so much......

SeaSpray Hotel
c/o Tamara Lukie
Placencia Belize

Island Life

Well we are really enjoying the Island Life here in Belize. Although today is very hot with no clouds in sight and no breeze to be found, we're still hanging in there! The boys are all napping right now, another perk of Island and Vacation Life I guess... We're all a little sick today, but I think it was the food last night. Funny, it tasted sooo good last night..... Conch is what the boys and I tried. It's a little like squid or octopus, chewy, good (at least last night!)

Yesterday we walked along the sidewalk and looked in all the different stores. There are a lot here. We bought a few gifts for family, and bought our selves new xmas decorations for our sickly looking fake 3 foot tree. 3 decorations is not enough even for this tree, so the boys and I made some more out of the sea-shells we had left over. We put on the lights that we bought in Costa Rica, it's looking better, but it really needs some more....


We're still playing the Christmas music everyday (Michael Buble, Kenny Rogers, The Chipmunks, Sarah McLachlan etc... If you have a favorite, please let us know as we need some more), but it's still hard to get into it without the snow. I've heard how cold it is in both Winnipeg and Edmonton, so I hope we get over it soon. Frost bite or a sun burn? Hmmm, tough question.

Oh yes, on our walk yesterday we found the 3 biggest sea shells to date. The boys and I found 3 Conch shells near the shore. It was so cool. Callym wanted to bring them back, and I'm sure we could have. Everyone here seems to collect them and put them everywhere. But we didn't. I'm sure we'll find more.....

We're thinking of renting a car for either a few days or a week. We want to do some major exploring here, and looking at lots and homes too. I think we're a little sick of taxi's and stuff. This will give us some extra freedom to stop and go when we please. We subscribe to a publication called International Living, and this months cover story is called "Belize, Buy before the Europeans" ! It's interesting, and has a few extra sites for us to look for homes and such. Prices here are still low, but rising (faster in some areas then others) but we could expect 15000 for a decent plot up to 250000 for a home and lot near the beach. We'll be looking, and let you know.....

It's been a few weeks since we've been attacked by no-see-ums and other biting bugs. But there back! And I had almost gotten rid of all the scars from before. Ahh! That is one thing that will be hard to get use to here in the tropics. We're still taking our Malaria pills, but I'm seriously considering quitting them. They taste so horrible, and the risk here (as in Costa Rica) is pretty low, of course if you do get it, it is even more horrible than the taste. I'm still thinking tho.

We have hired a cleaning lady to come in twice a week. When we booked into the SeaSpray I was under the impression that we were part of the hotel, but we aren't. They rent out 2 homes on the side for monthly rentals because it's a better price for the holidayers. So, we're mostly on our own. Grocery shopping, sweeping, laundry, and everything else. It's kind of nice, and then again, doing everything yourself after 8 weeks of being taken care of is hard. Just things you forget need to be done.... Well, Verna comes here every Monday and Thursday just to help out. Washing the floors, doing our towels and sheets, garbages, and anything else us silly tourists have forgotten. She is very nice so far, and I can't wait until she comes back!

Skype is still being a pain for us, but we're still trying. Can't wait to see you all again on the computer and hear your voices.

Good-Bye Costa Rica, Hello Belize

A rough start to the day, our flight was at 6 30 in the morning, and we needed to be at the airport early. Getting up at 3am is hard, especially if you don't get to sleep until around midnight (that was Chris). The boys really did well, but I think it had to do with the fact that I made them go to sleep about 7pm. We had 3 different planes to get to Belize. One to El Salvador, another to Belize City, and then a small 8 person plane to Placencia. One thing I didn't know was that I booked us into business class. A nice treat! We ended up having a small snack like meal on every trip, and had nice big chairs to snuggle in. The longest flight we had was 1 hour and 20 minutes.

The view from each plane was fantastic, I really wanted to sleep, but how can you in 50 minutes? I wanted to take picutres, but I just didn't.

The boys had the best time on the tiny airplane, and I think I did too.

So, we are here, and we are in love again. This is so so very very different from Costa Rica. It feels like Island Life. There are a mix of people here, and most speak with a caribbean accent. All English. We are staying in an apartment along the longest narrowest sidewalk in the world. There are restaurants, stores, hotels and more all along here. One thing that Callym and I love is that there is sand and palm trees everywhere!

We were given a few pointers for our stay. One, Watch out for Scorpions. They aren't poisonous, but hurt a lot, and like to hide in shoes and clothes, and anywhere else dark. We haven't found any yet, but there were about 10 creepy millapedes around our floors last night before bed......

Today we have spent the entire day at the beach. The boys have tried using their goggles, and Chris found 2 star-fish and a jelly fish!

Pictures aren't working on this site again, and Skype is going in and out of service. Here are some pix, and if skype starts up again, we'll call..... (sorry we missed you last night Baba and Chocha Halia!)