Nate's Honduran friends

I couldn't leave this out of the blog. While we were in Honduras, Nate took great pleasure in finding little 4 legged friends. Please note that these animals were all found on separate occaions and I didn't have enough room to post all of the animals that he found cause for some reason, I can't figure out how to post more than 4 pictures at a time. If anyone knows how, I would love a lesson. I'm clueless! Anyway, notice how small the gecco next to m&m is! It was a tiny little baby. He loved all the animals. I, on the other hand, was happy just to be the photographer! Also. I'm a little worried about what kind of animals are going to be coming in and out of our house when we have kids. SCARY!!

Mangrove Tour

One of the last things we did on the trip was the Magrove Tree Tour. A Magrove tree is a water tree with intertwining roots and braches. Back in the 1600's they cut out canals within the Mangrove trees and used them to take their boats through the canals for protection from pirates. Because of the tunnels, they could take different routes through the island, rather than around the island and get the pirates from behind. They are so thick that they also offer protection from hurricanes. In the picture above is our captian, Emiril. He was really funny. The video below is a little snippet of what the tour was like.

Here we are, enjoying the tour.

This is us on the last night of our trip on the beach by our hotel. We were sad to leave. The trip was AMAZING and Nate did a fantastic job of planning it and carrying it through. It exceeded my expectations beyond what I could have ever imagined. If you ever have the opportunity to go to Honduras, DO IT! It's such a beautiful place.

Roatan continued

I know, I know, I have waited far too long to update the blog. But because of church being cancelled for the temple dedication, I have some time to catch up on everything! I still want to finish up on Roatan, so here we go. One of the days that we were there, we rented some scooters for the day. It was only $1/hr!! So we rented them for 24 hours and we had so much fun. The island is 15 miles long and 3 miles wide, so we spent the entire day driving all over the island. It was so beautiful to see the views and very interesting to see the little village. We also went to the place where the cruise ships come in and see all the shopping over there. By the end of the day we smelled like exhaust and had sore backsides, but it was so amazing! We loved it. Below is just Nate and the open road!

As we mentioned before, some of Nate's friends were down there at the same time as us. We did some stuff together and some stuff apart. Here we are at a place called The View. It's a spot were you can see the ocean on either side if the island. Here we are with Carter, Ben, Nate Goodrich, me and Nate Fawcett.

One day when we were on the beach, we encountered a pick pocket. Luckily, I got a picture for evidence. This little boy ran up to Nate (I was walking behind him at the time). He grabbed the strap on his backpack to help himself catch up and immediately started unzipping all of the pockets and rummaging through them to see what he could get. Instead of defending the backpack, I decided to take some pictures. He didn't seem like much of threat. I was pretty sure we could out run him if he got away with some loot. After getting some pictures, I told him he better stop. Oddly enough, he didn't seem to care that I caught him. He rattled something off in some sort of Creole language and off he went. We thought it was pretty funny.

Roatan=Paradise

After we were done with all the crazy fun of Copan, we boarded our bus and then a ferry to Roatan...a Caribbean Island paradise full of adventure! First things first, the beach! We spent alot of time on the isalnd at the beach and let me tell you, it was beautiful. The first morning, it was a complete downpour, so when it cleared up and we got to the beach it was kind of cloudy and the water was choppy(as you see in the picture below). But all the other days, the sky was completely clear and the water was totally still. We spent alot of time at the beach. Unfortunately, the only pictures we have in our snorkel gear are on the underwater camera. When we have more time, we'll scan those into the computer and post them. All I can say is that I have never had snorkeling like this. The water was so clear and there were so many different types of fish! It was beautiful. Roatan has the second largest barrier reef in the world next to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, so I'm sure you can imagine how awesome it was. We went snorkeling almost every morning.

The area around this rock was about 40 ft deep and on one day when it was still water, we snorkeled around it and it was SO cool to see the reef out there with amazing fish.

One day when I was laying on the beach, Nate did some exploring. I was very surpised when he showed up next to my towel with a black iguana. He was thrilled, as you can see in the picture above. We need to do a post about all the animals on the trip. Being the animal lover that he is, it pretty much made his day when he would catch something. And trust me, there were a lot of things to catch!! So as I was taking his picture with the iguana, this funny little man showed up with a hat and put in on his head and posed for the picture with him. It was hilarious. Also, the iguana scratched up his arm pretty good, but of course he didn't seem to mind.

Here we are at the beach, just loving our life. Last night, we showed our pictures to my family and my niece, Megan asked me why we live at the beach. I got a good laugh out of it. I guess she didn't catch the fact that we were on vacation. I wish we lived in Roatan!

THE BEST PART ABOUT OUR VACATION!!!!!

This post highlights what was my favorite part of the trip. Although, I must admit I never thought I would say that. We did a zipline tour in the mountains near Copan and I seriously think that no one should leave this existance before doing a zipline!!! The guide put us(Nate, me and his friends) in the truck and drove and drove and drove up a mountain until I didn't think he could drive anymore, and then he kept driving! YIKES!! I was getting very nervous about how high it would be. In fact, I couldn't even eat that day in anticipation of what was to come. I thought it would be horrible and scary, but I was SO wrong. It was GREAT!!! Once at the top of the mountain, they put us in a harness and connected us to the first zipline. It was a fifteen zipline tour. We went from one platform to another. One zipline was a kilometer long and about 200 feet high. The views were breathtaking and beautiful. We could see everything. At the end of each leg, there was a guide to catch us and make sure we were safe. In this picture you can see him wating for me.

Nate's expression in this picture pretty much sums up how we felt about the tour. He did it last time he was visiting and told me we just HAD to do it. I'm so glad we did.

I like this picture because it show how pretty it was! Everything was so green.

Here we are waiting for our turn in our gear. We were loving life.

A visit to the Mayan Ruins

One of the most interesting things we did on our vacation was go the Mayan Ruins in Copan. At this point, we met up with some of Nate's friends that were down there at the same time. We hired a tour guide and it was very informative. Unfortunately, we don't have pictures of them from the ruins. Maybe in another post. The ruins are just outside the city and they are said to be the 'Paris' of the Mayan cities. In this first picture is the Heiroglyphic staircase. This picture does not do the size of this thing justice. It is enormous. Each little stone in the staricase is individually engraved. They are in the process of restoring it and so it's covered by a canvas to protect it from the elements.

Here is our tour guide, Antonio. He was very knowledgable and also very funny. He actually gave a tour to Spener W Kimball about 20 years ago. When he told us that, we knew that we wanted him as our tour guide. He's not LDS, but he has read the Book of Mormon. He knew everything there was to know about the history, the ruins, the Mayan culture. Here he is with what he says is his brother because they have the same teeth. Only 2 on the bottom with a big space in the middle. He was a crack up.

This area is actually an arena where they played sports.

Just an arial veiw of some of the ruins. All in all, the place was a lot bigger than I expected it to be and it was amazing to think of what into building all of this so long ago! Definately a must see if you're going to Central Ameica.

Some intersting things at the Ruins

On our way into the ruins, they have a spot that has a bunch of parrots that were so pretty! I loved their bright colors and thought this was a cool picture.

Our tour guide showed us this Ceiba tree. It was such an amazing tree! These little spiny things grow out of the tree and then fall off. He said the tree produces cotton that apparantly isn't used for anything.

Here is a close up picture of what the spiny things look like.