End of October ... Already??!!

I cannot believe it is the end of October. What happened to July through September? The months are absolutely flying by. We hardly notice the passage of time because the weather never changes. Each day blends into the next as does each week ... month .. the year will be over before we are ready I'm sure. Anyway, here are the month end pics and stories for October:

Our first critter visit of the month was this green head snake. He was just hangin' out on our deck and moved to the palm tree when we all crowded around to see him. Don't you love the smile?

Can you find the frog in this picture? I think our eyes become trained after a while. When we first got here, I'd never have noticed this guy!

So we're hanging out at the Mayflower park with our friends Todd and Ashli and we were trying to sneak up on the resident crocodile. All of a sudden, this amazing, loud, end of the world type noise comes out of the bush. It was a howler monkey and he was MAD!! I wasn't, though, I got a great picture of him howling!

Chad, Dyan and Noah came to visit this month. Noah is the only person I've ever seen who had absolutely no problems getting into a hammock. Even the first time. Whenever he wandered off we could find him hanging (literally) on the beach.

It has been a month for lizards. We have seen at least one almost every day all month long. The male iguanas are orange right now trying to attract the ladies.

The other seriously important event of the month was Brynn's 15th birthday. (yes, I said 15) I am darn proud of her cake so I'm including a picture of it. Try and figure out how I did it without food coloring!! Go Sens!!

These next three pictures are my favorites for the month. The one is of the Sitee River, one is of the mayan ruins at Cahal Peche and the other is of the full moon over the Sea.

Lodge at Chaa Creek

Well, our first visitors have come and gone. From all accounts, a good time was had. The high point of the visit, for me, was the weekend we spent at the lodge at Chaa Creek. It is a lovely resort in the mountains - quite different from our beach resort. When she found out we were going, Kori exclaimed "I'm so excited I get to go to a resort!!" After we quit laughing, we explained to her that she LIVES at a resort. It turned out to be a marvelous experience. Driving down the Western Highway looking for signs we drove right past the turn off before someone noticed the small sign half hidden behind some other signage on the road. Then we drove down, what could be described as a 'country hick' type dirt road. It did not look like a promising beginning. At the end of the road, you find yourself in the parking lot for paradise. The reception desk is outside under a palapa. We were led to our cabanas and told about the free hikes included with our rooms and also the optional hikes and tours we could sign up for. We had three cabanas so Brynn and Kori had their own and so did Chad's family. Each cabana had two beds (and Chad's and ours had a third daybed) a bathroom with a huge shower and a door leading to a fully walled and private outdoor shower. Noah was especially impressed to be able to shower outside. (he's 5) That night we signed up for a night hike to look for nocturnal nature stuff. We each had a head lamp and we followed the guide for about a 1 km hike through forest and field. In the dark, the night critter's eyes glow and that's how you find them. The first thing we saw was before we even left the yard. A red eyed tree frog! I had been hoping to see one while we were here but didn't think I'd get the chance. I was thrilled. Then we continued on and it started to pour! The guide gave us the option of going back or finding shelter but we convinced him we wouldn't melt and continued on. The freakiest thing we discovered was that there must be about ten million wolf spiders living in every square inch of the forest. Wolf spiders have a very impressive name but really they are just little brown spiders - not even on this arachnophobe's radar. Our head lamps attracted lots of bugs and the bugs buzzing around our heads attracted lots of insect eating bats which flew a constant pattern above our heads. All the rest of the animals seemed to have taken cover from the drenching rain further in the jungle. We did scare up an opossum, which I was grateful for because Brynn and Kori had plans to leave food out in their cabana to bait the possums. Now they didn't have to and we were spared the chaos when the food attracted not only possums but whatever else was hungry out there. It was a fun hike and we were all happy to get 'home' and out of our dripping wet clothes. The next morning, we had signed up for a birding hike at 6:30 am. It seemed like a good idea at 4 in the afternoon! Luckily Alfred is more awake at 6:00 am than I am and luckily the bat decided to sleep in the 'cave' of Alfred's shoe instead of mine. I didn't even think to shake my shoe out before I put it on! The poor little bat that got shook out of Alfred's shoe looked some put out as he crawled off to find friendlier accommodation. Luckily birding can be done from under shelter with the aid of scopes and binoculars, as we had the same guide and the same weather as the night before. It was fun, though, and we saw many colorful birds including green parrots and toucans. I am now in total agreement with Kori - I loved staying in the resort!