Welcome to the Best Family “Mission Trip” to Roatan, Honduras. I am mostly blogging the trip to keep a travel journal for myself and the boys and so I can always refer back to it when I want to see where we stayed, ate etc. When I booked this trip in January and I would tell people we were going to Honduras for Christmas, invariably I would get the question, “Are you going on a mission trip?” So to answer that, no, not the kind of mission trip that really good people go on. We are on a “mission” to change up the scenery this Christmas and to spend time together in the warmth. Roatan is an island 30 miles off the coast of the mainland of Honduras. We will be fighting the cruise ship crowds as opposed to feeding the poor. This trip is about the four of us celebrating each other and remembering DB, pretty sure he would whole heartedly approve. So if you are reading this, I will try to post daily. I think my biggest challenge will be waking the boys up to leave by 5 am on Saturday morning! Matt will just be going to bed at that time 🙂

The Journey Begins…

The title above says so much in just three words. Sure it means that we are in flight from Dallas to Roatan right now but as I look at my three boys sitting together in the aisle across from me, it means so much more. See we have travelled with the boys since they were infants, Cancun, California, Florida, etc. We have been to amazing places in Europe and have countless memories we can look back on and smile. Obviously this trip, there is one big empty space where DB belongs. As I was pondering how empty it feels without him, I looked across the aisle and saw Dan as big as life today in the boys. Jake ordering a club soda (an obsession he shared with his Dad), Nick reading and highlighting his book just like Dan and Matt engaging the four beautiful Estee Lauder models walking through the airport. So really, he lives on in these amazing boys we created together

So to backtrack a little and purely for my friend Kelly’s enjoyment, let me tell you about last night when we picked Jake up at the airport. First off, he almost missed his flight but lucky for him, he didn’t. Well his flight was a commuter flight where they give you a red tag and take your bag from you right before getting on the plane due to no overhead space. No problem as you pick it up when you deplane. Except Jake’s bag wasn’t there. They told him it probably was at baggage claim, so I met him there. Well no bag at baggage claim either. Well no big deal, Jake can just wear the other boys clothes for the trip. ” At least you have your passport” I said. “No Mom it is in the pocket of my carry on.” WTF!!??????!! Definitely not my child😲 Well after I googled a picture of the luggage for the baggage agent to look for it and about an hour later, it was recovered. So much for my biggest worry being of getting Matt out of bed!!! I have since taken a picture of each of our bags in case this happens again and I am the holder of the passports😁

We have arrived!!! Ok so I wrote the other part on the plane but we arrived safely, went through an interesting customs and then we were picked up and taken to grocery store then to the house. The place is amazing!! Better than the pictures! I am sad it was dark getting here but will make the morning that much better. We have already made dinner and now we are relaxing with some wine. We have a tour of the island scheduled for tomorrow so I will post good pics from that. I just wanted to let Nana and Pop Pop know we are here safe and sound😊 Heading out to the pool in the rain!!. I am sorry, I have been on the struggle bus trying to do this blog! Lucky for me I have an IT guy Matty B!

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Holes in the Floor of Heaven

So if you have ever heard the Country song “Holes in the Floor of Heaven” the next lines are: “cause there’s holes in the floor of Heaven,
“And his tears are pouring down.
“That’s how you know he’s watching,
“Wishing he could be here now.
“An’ sometimes if you’re lonely,
“Just remember he can see.
“There’s holes in the floor of Heaven
“And he’s watching over you and me.”

Well I did change the “she” to a he for our purposes but Ole Danny Boy is letting it rip up there. 😭😊We knew the early part of our week would include rain and that is definitely the case but it is good sleeping weather. I slept with my door open last night to hear the ocean… Well woke up with a leaf in my bed (which I guess is better than a critter) because I never shut the screen! Oh well it was a great sleep. We sat out last night and did a lot of star gazing which Matty and I saw a shooting star. It wasnt long before we saw it that I had told the story of seeing them on our honeymoon and Dan telling me shooting stars reminded him of his Grandma Johnson. Like Matt said “Well I know what I will be doing every night for the rest of the trip”. Just sitting out there listening to Kenny Chesney and drinking wine… I said to Matt “How lucky are we?” which actually caused quite a bit of laughter as most would say we are not lucky. I guess fortunate is more the word. Fortunate to have each other and an AMAZING support system! Well we are getting ready to tour the island in the rain which should be nothing short of an adventure with the roads but here are some pics. One is my shower which could house a small army.

Full Island Tour

Well on this wet day we took a seven hour tour of the island. First off, fun facts… Roatan has the second largest barrier reef in the world. Called the mesoamerica reef so this place is huge for scuba diving. It is 37 miles long and a little over 4 miles wide. The topography changes throughout the island but somewhat mountainous and definitely very green. Well big bonus for us was that there were no cruise ships in Port so no lines anywhere we stopped. We went to see the sloths, monkeys and macaws which was awesome because no one else was there so we got to hold them for awhile. I definitely want to take a monkey home (oh I forgot I am already bringing home three😅). They would just jump from person to person and hang onto you with their tail.

So we also did a boat tour and went through the mangroves where the Mayans used to hide from the pirates. It was peaceful and beautiful and then it started to pour. Thank goodness it is warm as we were soaked!

Sorry, I think after doing all this, I may have just figured out how to make pics smaller but too bad I am not fixing it. So a good day for us in the books, I think more rain potential for tomorrow than it looks pretty great after that.

Christmas??? What is that?

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So day 3 of our trip and we have no idea what time of year it is… Maybe that is because a drink called a Monkey Lala that is the island drink of Roatan. For those who have been to Cancun, picture a Banana Monkey that actually has alcohol in it. Well I will admit, we “sampled” a few of them. The bar we went to was so simple and cool and food was great, called Las Rocas and was right on the beach. So today was our last day of crap weather but we enjoyed it. Last night we played Euchre, blackjack and 31 and maybe a little Karaoke as well. Also played Euchre at the bar tonight, no one was dressed in anything more than what you would wear running. Love the simplicity of the place. So we sit down to dinner and a stray cat comes up to the table, there are stray animals all over and the people take care of them. Well next thing I know, it is sitting in Matt’s lap. Well he is allergic to cats but did not seem to mind. The damn cat kept hitting me with its paw when my food came. I am NOT a cat person. Well Matt decided to put food on my lap so the damn thing kept hanging around me and eating off my lap. Then the granola losers next to me tried to make me feel bad when I said I am not a cat person. “Oh that is OK, we actually love ALL animals” was their reply. Those of you that know my foul mouth know that it took a lot for me to not say anything. So the highlight of our night was that we had Dixie come in to cook for us. She also came out to enjoy the sunset and taught some dance moves. So the main music on the island is country of all things, it stems from not being able to get anything else than music coming from Houston. We introduced her to Eric Church. She then introduced us to other island music. Food was fantastic and nice to just be able to chill at home. Ok well I will add some pics from today as I am going to bed early tonight!!

I just want to say if North Korea takes you people out on Christmas day, you will no longer question why we went to Honduras for Christmas.

Merry Christmas Eve from Roatan

Hola!! Feliz Navidad! Well the sun came out in full force for us today and we soaked up every bit of it. Well some started at 6:45 am (me) then the boys around noon. Walked down to West End for some Creole chicken which is a restaurant that has been on the island forever and food was delicious. The boys enjoyed playing with the dogs the most. Two of them followed us quite a way when we walked home. Here is pic from lunch

So as I read a book this morning this is the view to the right of the deck

Well when we got home from lunch there was a little water sports in the pool, they may get older but I have been watching this same show for 20 years

Walked to get some more Monkey La Las and checked out more of west Bay. Now we have a Euchre tourney so I got to go. To all my Campbell fam, I miss you guys and thinking of you all as I know you are having a blast!

Made it through our second Christmas…

Well Merry Christmas to all. Been quite a day as we were scuba diving for Christmas. Gotta say, if you are going to scuba dive, this is definitely the place as the water is so blue it actually looks fake. The visibility was 100 feet and it was incredible. We went with Clearwater Dive shop and I can’t say enough about them, the property manager here works with them a lot and got us in and we loved it. This was my third time, as my first was on honeymoon and we took Jake and his roommate Reese about 4 years ago. So had very cool experience today, I was up first around 6:45 am (I know you are all shocked the boys were not up before me😊but I was reading, also not a surprise, and a hummingbird came right up to me. I will admit it scare the shit out of me at first but did it five more times. Also the macaws (the birds on top of our heads) fly around here in the morning and they are beautiful and also loud as hell. So after we went scuba diving took quick showers (which may have been first ones Matt and Nick have taken) and headed back for Monkey La Las. They also had Christmas dinner which was far better than our popcorn, cold nachos and stale pretzel that we ate at the movie theater last Christmas. We toasted to ourselves and to DB and to making it through our second Christmas. I don’t know how we would have done it this year without all the support we have received. Alright now that the boys are trying to bring the stray cats inside, I will post pics and get a handle on these boys😳Also I will say that the sunsets here are like the gift that keeps giving. One pic you will think is fake but it looked like this in real time too.

So grateful for this trip, it is just what we needed

Oh forgot about this, we were walking on the beach to dinner and something hit my leg, no big deal. Jake was behind me and he said Mom I think money came out of your purse. I’m like no, pretty sure that didn’t happen I think I just had something plastic hit me. Jake was like Mom just check. OMG my freaking purse was unzipped and my credit card was gone. I’m thinking we are screwed as we will not find it but actually when it hit my leg it bounced in the sand and we found it. Not that funny at all!

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This, will be a short post…

So today, we had a, massage therapist Lillian come to the house as my Christmas present to the boys. They all loved it and she was incredible. We then walked across the rocks to West End for dinner and Happy hour. Nick an Matt did their Karaoke at two bars. We took a water taxi home. We spread some ashes tonight at a place Called Booty Bar, we thought DB would like that. I am sorry this post is short, we took advantage of happy hour and now I am just ready for bed. Here are some pics for the night. I did not want to bore you with the incredible sunset that gets better and better so only a few pics from that

Gonna miss my mornings…

I am definitely sad to have to leave tomorrow as I enjoy my morning routine here. I can’t say I will miss the quiet of the mornings as I live by myself and so it is always quiet. What I will miss is the beauty of the water, the heat from the sun, the drone of the boat engines as they pass by, the birds in the trees, and flying overhead and my two friends that hang out with me in the morning Senor Gato and the gecko. It gets real hot by 10 am but I just finished another book and starting on a new one. Nick is my earliest riser each day but today he had to go back to bed… He is hurting a bit from last night’s activities😊. I will post again later but since I was so brief last night, thought I would add one this morning. Also, sending love from down here to any who may be reading this😍

Last Day

All good things must come to an end… So here I sit on my last morning drinking my Spark and wondering where Senor Gato has gone. He did come hang out with us last night so he is probably still sleeping. I could use a lot more caffeine that is for sure. Still can’t believe we will be on a flight from Miami during the Buckeye game, poor planning on my part😊. Ok let me recap yesterday since I did not post last night. We did spread ashes on this mermaid out in front of our place as well as in the water. After we spread them in the water the boys were horsing around in the water and it reminded me of when Dan use to throw them in the water. Here is the mermaid

Next we headed back to our favorite spot, Las Rocas, for our favorite drink, Monkey La Las, to play our favorite game, Euchre. Jake had to join us a bit late as he was super busy doing this

So we had to play 3 man Euchre for awhile.

There is nothing better than walking down the beach to go to dinner and leaving your shoes at home. I realized when we were at dinner that Nick and Matt have possibly been wearing the same shirts every night. I also know that they have showered maybe twice? Nicks shirt was Tom Olson’s and it has gotten a lot of use over the years.

Once Jake joined we got to capture our last sunset. Our favorite part is what we call “the rebound” when the sun has already set but then the color just keeps coming. It looks like God gets out his watercolor set and just goes to town

So when we started this trip, what we didn’t account for is the painful empty space we all felt. I know it may sound weird but the four of us have spent very little time over the past 14 months with just us four. We realized pretty quickly that it actually hurts a lot more when we are together as it is that much more apparent that DB is not here. We have always had very open and sometimes incredibly raw conversations since DB died and I am thankful for those as nothing gets left unsaid. We can’t afford to not talk about things, it is a rule we established a week into this journey. Last night we talked about how the ache dulled a bit over the trip and we made new memories. Thank God we made new memories of Christmas as I couldn’t take the ones from last year. I would love to say this trip helped to heal but I never use that word in this grief journey as I know we will never heal. To heal means to become sound or healthy again. The phrase “time heals all wounds” is actually a joke and one I will never utter. No, this trip is more about adapting which is “to become adjusted to new conditions”. So over the course of seven days, we have learned to adapt to a new way to be a family, one that will go on to create new memories but still holding tight to the countless precious other memories we have made over the years. I like to ask stupid questions over the week like “describe the vacation using just one word”, etc. But last night it was name 3 things you miss about Dad. Well we could name a million but overwhelming the boys miss just talking to him and his laugh and how he always made thing more fun. We left some of DB here in the physical sense but I think we also will be leaving parts of ourselves here as well. I actually couldn’t come up with the one word to describe the vacation as I couldn’t describe it correctly. I said “blissful” but just being with the boys every day and sharing in a lot of laughs just makes my heart swell, I don’t know what the word is for that. Matt said it is called “The Grinch”. So I will soak up my last bit of sun, treasure the time I spent here and add new memories to the foundation of my new life. I know I need to soak up as much sun as possible before going back to the gray of Ohio winters. Last night as we were walking to Las Rocas, Nick said “it is just so bright”, I will remember that one the days we don’t see the sun. So to all the reasons we escaped to Central America for Christmas, we were successful. In other words… MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

Best Family Mission Trip

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