Belizean Giveaway!

So today is not Friday. I am aware of that. This post was originally supposed to go up on Friday. Today is Monday. Which comes after Friday. Oooops! Let’s just say life got a wee bit busy so better late than never, right?

I’m still going to finish the Belize series slowly but surely. It’s a lot of pictures folks and those pictures take a while to to load.

Anyways, while in Belize (pronounced Bay-lease) I did some shopping. Not super amounts of shopping because in Patchakan there is absolutely no where to shop and when we went into Corozal it was mainly to get groceries. When we went to the zoo and the resort we did stop at a craft/art store and I picked up some fun things including earrings.

I fell in love with these ones:

I’m thinking I’m becoming the crazy lady who likes bird earrings. I already have a pair of parrot earrings that I love to wear. When I wear them to school I feel kind of like Mrs. Frizzle from the Magic School Bus. 🙂

And because I like to blog and like you people, I got an extra pair!

So this wonderful Belizean giveaway includes:

– a pair of toucan earrings (so that you can be a crazy mrs. frizzle like me)
– belizean heat hot sauce (extremely hot!)

– a belize map sticker (so that you can learn all about belize)

– a super cute hand woven journal (to record your dreams about where you want to go!)

You have 4 ways to enter, each one counting as one entry. Leave a separate comment for each one.
1. Tell me where in the world you would absolutely love to go for 2 weeks.
2. Follow/Subscribe to Just Julie.
3. Post about this giveaway on Facebook
4. Tweet about it (@julie_schmoolie is giving away cool things from belize! be sure to enter! http://bit.ly/fiq2oT)

You have until this Friday at midnight to enter. The winner will be announced on Saturday and then I will ship it on out! Happy entering!

Day to Day in Belize

After getting there and settling in for a couple days I stopped at one point and realized that I felt like I was right where God wanted me to be. I was living life. With a dear friend. In a beautiful place. And enjoying some refreshment! What a great time it was!

Here’s my bed in Amber’s house, complete with Mr. Bear hanging out. (He loves traveling to foreign countries just as much as I do!) The pink cover is a sarong that I got when I went to Belize with my church as a senior in high school. It was fun to bring it back to its place of origin!

Here’s Amber hard at work while giving me a face about taking a picture. I told her the peeps here wanted to see her in action!

The sky over one of the village houses at night. It stormed really bad this night but the rain sounded so cool on Amber’s tin roof!

Patchakan means “behind the savannah” in Spanish. This is the savannah:

My first Friday we took the little bus (called the Tzuhl bus) into the closest town, Corozal. Corozal is right on the Corozal bay and is about 8 miles from Patchakan. But with the bumpy roads and many stops the ride takes about 25 minutes. We had lunch at a fun place, RD’s. I got a Sprite and Amber got a Pineapple Fanta. I quickly learned that Pineapple Fanta is the best drink ever and from then on that’s what I got when we went out to eat!

Amber in the Corozal Town Square

Bananagrams!

Amber and her friend Patty

That’s all for today! Don’t forget to come back Friday and enter the giveaway!

 

Off to Belize

For those of you who don’t know I recently got back from 2 weeks in Belize! My friend Amber, is a missionary there. She works at a clinic as a Pharmacist. I decided to save up and use some of my long track out to visit her.

Best. Decision. Ever.

During this week I’m going to be publishing lots of posts about my trip including my pictures and anecdotes of how blonde I am.

On FRIDAY, that’s right this FRIDAY I will be hosting a GIVEAWAY of Belizean items! That’s right my dear blog friends, I thought of you. I specifically bought some things just to give away to you! So I hope you enjoy the posts and don’t forget to come back on Friday and enter to win!

It all started early one Tuesday morning. I had to get up at 3:30am. What a early way to start track out! Usually the first day of track out equals sleeping in extremely late!

This view was extremely worth it though! This was the view of the Mexican coast as I landed in Cancun.

After lugging my two large bags through customs in the airport all by myself (people probably thought I was high maintenance) I walked out to be greeted by the warm Mexican air.

Then I saw Amber!! I ran over to her and her friend Patty and gave her a BIG hug! It was so fun to be reunited with this dear friend whom I hadn’t seen since October!

Then we got on the 6.5 hour bus ride to Chetumal, which is close to Belize. It was a looooonnngg ride. They played American movies dubbed in Spanish AND the driver had his Mexican Punta music playing. I was so sick of all the noise once we got there!

We couldn’t get a bus from Cancun till 3:30pm so we didn’t make it to Chetumal until 10:30. Gary and Anita, Amber’s team leaders met us at the bus station and then we crossed the border into Belize (and went through customs again with all of my stuff) and finally made it to Patchakan at about 11:30. Needless to say I was exhausted so I fell asleep quickly!

The next couple of days were full of me relaxing, unpacking, and doing some cleaning around Amber’s house in the mornings while she was working at the clinic.

Amber got to open a package of cards from friends from church back home. She was very excited!

Amber also got a Kindle from her mom as an early birthday present. I am super jealous!

We took a bike tour around the village. Didn’t take long but it was cool to see all of the houses!

This is Sadie. Sadie is the Chambers dog but really she’ll go to anyone who loves and feeds her. That includes Amber, who is a softy for dogs! I enjoyed loving on her too!

This is Chimole. Chimole is actually a kind of black bean soup. This dog is so cute.

The sun setting in Amber’s backyard. Oh how I wish I could be there right now!

More to come tomorrow! And be sure to come back Friday for the giveaway!

 

Belize Teaser: Write The Captions Style

Hola!

Bueanas Tardes!

That’s pretty much all of my Spanish folks. I’ve spoken a lot of Spanglish the past 2 weeks and looked like a complete blond, American fool who is out of her comfort zone. Which I completely was a blonde, American fool who was out of her comfort zone.

Still am, technically. We’re in Cancun and then I’ll catch my flights back home tomorrow. So Amber and I are living up the Mexican lifestyle. Oh yeah. And by living it up I mean eating McDonald’s for lunch, laying by the pool and now watching sitcoms in English in our hotel. Yeah, real cultural things I know.

I thought I would give you all a teaser of my trip with some photos! The catch? You have to write the captions. Each picture has a number so if you want to give it a try simply leave a comment with your captions. Should be fun! (To my personal friends, be nice – that’s all I’m gonna say about that!)

#1

#2

#3

#4

That”s all for now! Be sure to leave a comment and let the fun begin!

 

dream a little dream for me

Ahh, Christmas time. Makes me want to sing the song “Christmastime is here, time for lots of cheer” But I’ll refrain and spare you all. What a wonderful time of year this really is. I’m currently enjoying a nice loooonnnng break from school. It’s been so completely refreshing. A friend asked me the other night what I’ve been doing during break and I had to think about it. Really it’s just been a little bit of this and that. I feel like I’ve just been living life, but at a normal speed, especially compared to the fast paced zoom my life usually is while I’m working. I love being able to focus on people and relationships and time with Jesus and not feel like I have to fit those things in with the humdrum and busyness of every day life. As I said before, break is refreshing.

As I’m being refreshed I feel that I am entering into a new season. God has been placing some things on my heart lately and we’re having lots of discussion. I can’t even describe in words what’s going on except for to tell you that it’s good and that our God is SO good. What a marvelous time of the year to be dreaming. I’m enjoying listening for his sweet whisper as he grows me up in him.

Annie wrote an inspiring post about dreaming the other week and the comments poured out. It’s been so neat to see people dream and dream big.

One thing in life that I have always loved is travel and adventure. I’ve dreamed of traveling somewhere ever since I came back from India and guess what????

I’m going somewhere.

In March I will be traveling to Belize to spend some incredible time with my dear friend Amber who is working as a pharmacist at a clinic there.

I am BEYOND excited.

Amber is like my home girl. We have some fun memories together and saying goodbye to her in October was crazy hard.

Rebecca & Amber

And Belize, that tiny country has always held a special place in my heart. I originally went there as a high school senior with my youth group at church. It was my first missions trip ever and I know that God used that short week to open my heart to missions. Without Belize, I don’t think I would have EVER ventured across the pond to hot, stinky, India.

Belize is beautiful! It’s a tropical paradise filled with some incredible people. And it sure doesn’t hurt that I’ll be able to enjoy some amazing sunshine and heat!

I have no clue how God will use this short time in my life, but I know he has something planned. I’m excited to travel with Him in March as he continues to show me his dreams for my life.