Southside Elementary & Junior High

I spent today (the first day of Clean Air Week) at Southside Elementary & Junior High in Lebanon, TN teaching approximately 900 K-8th grade students about air quality! They were super kids and made it a lot of fun. I'm feeling it now though! I'm tired and my feet are aching! I did seven presentations in a row!! I don't know how teachers do it all day! This was my first time going into the schools for my new job, but hopefully not the last. Here are some pictures from today!

Those are 4th graders who are taller than me!

I had the most fun with the little ones. These were 1st & 2nd graders who were acting out the levels of the Air Quality Index for me.

Becky's Latest Creation

Since I haven't posted in a little while, I thought I would show our five faithful readers what I made our niece for her birthday. Abby turned two last week! We weren't able to go to the party this weekend because I had to work the Nashville Earth Day Festival. We heard they had lots of fun though.

Marta gave me the idea last year, but I ended up making the rag doll instead. I painted the stool and her name and used rub-on decals for the birds and flowers. Then I sprayed it with a clear coat to seal it all.

Here's a picture of Abby playing with Uncle Jeff in February. He was teaching her how to dump all 64 Crayons onto the floor at once... hence the guilty looks from both of them!

Even before Dave Ramsey, there was...

Old Pictures Discovered!

Jan, my second cousin once removed (?) from Blacksburg, sent this picture that I had never seen, but thought it was neat! Can you tell who it is?

The one on the left is me and my great-grandmother, Gram. On the right is my grandmother, great-grandmother, my mom, and me... four generations in 1977, I'm guessing! It looks like I was a redhead, but I wasn't. I guess the picture coloring was a little weird.

Mom doesn't know the occasion for all of us to be together, but did recognize that its at mom & dad's house.

Cruise Days 5, 6, & 7

Day Five of the cruise took us to Cozumel, Mexico. As usual, here's the first thing we saw!

We were "excusioned" out by this point and I had been to Cozumel before, so we opted to explore on our own. There were shops right across from the port (and in every direction from there), so we did a little shopping and then hopped back on the boat. We did see a Starbucks with a thatched roof though!

Day Six was at sea! That night at dinner we saw something off in the distance and quickly realized they were oil rigs in the Gulf. This was the best picture we took. It was storming a little so the boat was a little unsteady and it was hard to get a clear picture.

Day Seven we got back to New Orleans around seven in the morning. Jeff and I opted for the express checkout earlier than everyone else because we had an 8 hour drive ahead of us to get home. We got off the boat when they called for express people at 8am and were through customs and pulling out of the parking garage by 8:30am!

It was so much fun and we are very thankful to the Taylor's for booking the trip!

Day 4: Belize

Day four we landed in Belize City, Belize. As always, we walked to the top deck of the ship before breakfast to take a picture of the port, but this is what we saw! I knew we'd have to tender to the port, but I thought we'd be closer than this! You can just barely make out land in the distance!

We signed up to do the "Land Rover 4x4 Jungle Adventure" for our excursion of the day. So after a ride on a boat named "Big Mamma" to get to the port we met up with our tour group and boarded the "Jungle Bus" seen below! We drove about an hour to get to the base camp. The first part of the drive was through Belize City. It was interesting to see the "expensive" part of town with rundown houses and bars on the windows. Once we got out into the jungle, we rode the bus straight up hills on very muddy dirt roads. It was a little crazy.

Here's a little video of our ride up the hills! Not much to see, but it shows you how bumpy it was!

Once we got to the base camp, we strapped on head lamps, sprayed ourselves with bug spray and grabbed a bottle of water before we headed out on our rain forest hike and cave exploring. It was VERY hot in the jungle and the caves. The trails were very muddy and slick. It was pretty interesting though.

After the hike, we loaded up in a few Land Rovers to go off-roading!! There was one guy that was on the tour by himself, so we told him to join us. Turns out he's from Clarksville, TN!! That's only about 45 minutes from Nashville! It's a small world! He was a good driver (he's an EMT and drove ambulances!) so he drove the whole time for us.

So here's a video of the Land Rover behind us coming up the hill of mud! I couldn't video us doing it because I was hanging on for dear life. Jeff and Ernie were in the cab with seat belts and I was sitting in the back on a bench with only a bar to hold onto. Right before we left our tour guide Giovanni jumped in with us, so he put his leg next to mine so I had something else to brace myself against! His is the other voice you'll hear on the video.

We drove the Land Rovers to a beautiful plantation-type setting where they fed us a typical Belizean meal... red beans and rice and stewed chicken. It was very good. Just a little weird to eat chicken with very large chickens running around at our feet. After lunch we got on a boat and took the river back to the port. I loved how much we were able to travel by boats on the excursions. A really great way to get around!

Belize was a lot of fun. We walked around the shops a little at the port and then got on a tender boat back to the ship. That night we ate at Cagney's, the steakhouse on the ship. It was SO good! A great way to end a fun day!

Cruise Day 3: Guatemala... Part Two

After we left Ak'Tenamit, we got back on the boat and traveled to Livingston. Livingston is a Garifuna town in Guatemala. In this picture below the garifuna are cleaning and salting fish. The white things you see in the foreground are fish fillets that are being dried on the docks.

When we got off of the boat we went straight into a resort/hotel where they served us some lunch. It was a mix of various things... chicken, fresh fruit (lots of watermelon!), and snacks. We also got to have something you have to pay for on the ship... COKE & DIET COKE! So nice to have a free one even if it was pretty warm! Of course, in most places outside the US, Diet Coke is called Coke Light.

Then we were treated to a performance by some locals!

After our performance, our guide gave us about 15-20 minutes to walk around the town of Livingston before we had to head back. Below is a picture of the top of the hill in the town looking back out toward the water. We really didn't get to see a lot of Livingston unfortunately.

So that ended our day in Guatemala. Before we returned from the ship, we hit a big building they have at the port where locals can sell their wares. We didn't buy anything in there, but there was lots to see. If you are ever on this particular cruise, spend all of your money in Santo Tomas de Castilla, Guatemala! You'll think you'll want to save your money for Belize, but there's nothing really there to buy! Learn from our mistakes!!

Next post... Off-roading in Belize!!