OK...so in my last post, I said no promises about remembering to keep up with my blog.

So......

We had a great time with Auntie Laura and Uncle Bruno, despite the crowded house. They even brought a surprise with them....Kaedyn! 

 

Now, Uncle Doug has been here for a week and we are on our 2nd day at the beach, staying at Jaguar Reef.  This morning, Keaton fished off the dock and caught a tiny Yellow Snapper. he decided to keep it and it turned out to be a one person snack, but he was happy with it. On Sunday they are going out fishing so maybe they'll catch some more.

We also swam in the pool and Grady even swam in the hot-tub with out any floaty!

AND.....Grady lost her first tooth today!! 

Keaton's Catch - cooked in 3 minutes!



Grady's gap

We also have a Shoots Alive Expo planned where all of our suppliers, plus hopefully future ones, come and set up a table or two with their products and all our customers come and see all the products that we now sell. Our business has gone from Micro-greens and veggies to also chocolate, Gluten-free flours, oats, soap, peanut products and much more. For those who didn't know, we have also expanded to a 15 ft. box truck. God is GOOD!



 

We have another lot sold at our property, and we started to make earth block for our house! Some of them fell apart, but that showed us how to correct the composition of the blocks. We also got our pump and we got water! Saying that, the pump didn't get the water all the way up the top of the hill, but we still have to play around with the generator and some other things. Our cement pad, as before, has no more progression since the last time I posted.

SO, not too much more going on, but I'll let you know when there is.

Love to all,

Paige 

My apologies, I do love writing, but my blog has just slipped my mind the last few months.
Ok, so the boys lived through the race...that's old news.....

Ok, new news....
Auntie Laura and Uncle Bruno + girls are coming in 18 days!!
Uncle Doug booked flights to come in November and leave in January.
Nana and Papa booked to come January 11(the day that uncle Doug leaves!) to February sometime. I will try my very, very best to keep you updated with those visits, but like other times, no promises.

(NOTE: when I say 'property', I mean the one we are developing and hoping to live on, not our rented one)
Our cement pad is going to be restarted(starting with conduit-I think) on September 5th. Whew, God must have a plan for our long wait! We have 500 Tilapia fish in each(we have 2) ponds on the property and Keaton, Dad and Nery went swimming in one of them! They are way braver than I would be. We are waiting for our big water pump to be brought into the country and once we have that, we can start working on our water system for the development. yay!

Oh Yah, how could I forget.....A few weeks ago we got hit by Hurricane Earl through the night. Power went off and we(the kids) slept with Mommy and Daddy after a tree hit the roof. It was a little bit scary and I didn't get much sleep, but in all, God kept us, George and his family and the car safe.
In the morning, we went for a walk in the light rain and we had to hop logs and trees to get through the driveway. So, after about 4 hours of Daddy, George and Pastor Dave chopping trees, we got the driveway cleared, then another 4 hours to get the hydro lines cleared. 6-7 days later, we got hydro and water back.
Faye (our land-lady)and her daughter, Vicky, came in from Canada two days later and got a crew of 5-6 guys from the village in to help clean up. That took about 1 and a half weeks to get every thing cleared out and burned or hauled away.

Shoots Alive is still going well. We have expanded into about 5 places in San Pedro, on of the islands of Belize. Sales are getting a little slowER, but with God, there is no slow season. We just finished last night revamping our greenhouse, which got torn by the hurricane, so that we can grow lettuce in it. Leroy is still working with us and staying faithful.

Oh, Keaton also got......GLASSES! He looks so handsome in them.

Anyway, I think that's all,
I'll try my very best to keep this up regularly.
By for now,
Paige

Canoeing - Day 1

Well, yet another visitor has come to see us-----Tyler!!

   He has barely been here yet, and already they are paddling in the La Ruta Maya Belize River Challenge. (You can Google that if you want!) It is a 4 day canoe race from San Ignacio(Just 25 minutes away from us), all the way to Belize City(1 hour and 45 mins. away). In all, the length of river that they have to paddle is 170 miles!

   The team name is Shoots Alive,(our micro green and sprout business) and it consists of Tyler, Daddy, a guy from Spanish Lookout named Kevin and , of coarse, the support crew(consists of Mommy, Keaton, Grady, Nelson and I!) You can track our boys by clicking on this link.........
(http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp)
.....or check out our Shoots Alive Facebook page for updates.

   Today we were up at 5:30AM to eat some breakfast and "get outta' here" by 6:00AM. Then to San Ignacio we went. There we dropped in the boat and waited until 7:00AM when the canoes took off. Then into the car and to Mennonite beach, where we could see the boys and drop in a bag of food with: granola bars, power gels and coconut waters, for them. Then we zipped off to Iguana Creek Bridge to catch them there again and to drop off some bananas. Then we had lots of time. At Iguana Creek they were 2 miles short of halfway and there was no river access until their destination for today, Banana Bank Lodge. So we went home, did the dishes and had a snack. And, yet again, we drove of to Banana Bank Lodge. It was SUPER muddy and slippery so we pretty much slid down the hill to the river where it was PACKED with people. We waited for about 1 and 1/2 hours until Shoots Alive arrived.  Then we (Mommy and Nelson)lugged the canoe back up the hill and came home. Now we are just chilling on the couch and the boys are drinking their coffee. Nery and Marien are bringing dinner tonight, so we are just calming down and waiting for them.

   I will keep you posted(Actually, I will TRY to) on each day, but you can visit our Facebook page above to get more details.
   Love
Paige
.

Oh Me Oh My

I am Sorry!!!!
I get caught up in things and forget about my blog.
Nana and Papa had a good time and so did we. Already we have had another visitor after them so now I can't remember what we did with Nana and Papa!!!!

   Well....Our visitor was Tyler Boelens and we had a great time with him. From the 4th to the 7th he, daddy and a young friend from church did a 4 day canoe race, La Ruta Maya Belize River Challenge.(You can look that up)They did pretty well and came in 37th place out of 52 or somewhere around there. After that we went swimming, swimming, swimming....and.....swimming!
We went down with daddy on his Thursday runs and he dropped us off at the beach in Hopkins where we spent the rest of the day. It was hot and very sunny so it was a good day to go swimming.(We all have nasty sunburns to show for it!) We were all tired after a day in the salty air.

   The next day we just chilled at home because we didn't want to make our sunburns any worse. Then the next day we went to the blue hole(Inland one) and went swimming in its coooollllldddd water for a while.
Then on Saturday we went to Mountain Pine Ridge which is a big forest reserve with swimming hole and rivers that you can access for the small fee of : DRIVING ON THE BUMPY ROADS!!!We went to Rio on Pools(I think I told you about that in a different posting).Then we went to Big Rock which is where the river is a huge water fall and than a swimmable river again. Tyler did some jumping off of the 'Big Rocks'. Then we went home for supper and a beautiful sleep at 6.00 PM.

We have just dropped him of for his flight home on Monday the 14th.

Also, for school I a getting to learn how to write poems, so I decided to start a poem book that one day I may publish. Here is one of the poems........

Pictures in the Clouds

Written By: Paige J. Dietrich

I sit in the sand, water lapping my toes,

Ready to ask a question that no one knows.

What makes the clouds,

Turn into shapes?

What makes the wind,

Curl around me like snakes?

 

I see a mighty lion,

Ready to spring.

A bear standing tall,

As if on wings.

What makes the clouds,

Turn into shapes?

 

                                                          The wind is blowing strong,

Playing with my hair.

It blows along the still waves,

Shaking them awake.

What makes the wind,

Curl around me like snakes?

What makes the clouds,

Turn into shapes?

 

Well that is all.

Oh, no its not. We have hired our first employee for shoots Alive, Leroy!!!!! Woohoo!

Praise the Lord for that!

Now that's all.

Paige