you betta belize it

ok, here comes the much anticipated post about bryan's trip to belize. first of all, he had a ton of fun. they left early saturday morning (about 1:30am). they didn't actually arrive at their hotel until about 4:00pm. they rested and hung out the rest of the day.




early sunday morning bryan, brian tidwell, and joe field went on a scuba trip. they left at 6:00am. after a 2 hour boat ride, they arrived at 'the blue hole'. the blue hole is a massive hole about 1000 feet across. according to national geographic, 'the hole is the opening to what was a dry cave system during the ice age. when the ice melted and the sea level rose, the caves were flooded, creating what is now a magnet for intrepid divers. today the blue hole is famed for its sponges, barracuda, corals, angelfish—and a school of sharks often seen patrolling the hole’s edge.'


the dive at the blue hole was a 130' dive. their deepest dive of the day. they were down for 8 minutes. bryan said he saw 'no less than 8 sharks' at their safety stop about 15 feet from the surface.

after their dive at the blue hole, they continued on to half moon caye where they dove at lighthouse reef atoll (just off half moon caye) and ate lunch. their second and third dives were mostly to view plant life and fish.


on monday and tuesday they worked all day in the clinic.


on wednesday, they worked half day and then moved locations from san pedro, to caye caulker.


they worked thursday in the clinic there, and then played the rest of the day. friday, they traveled to guatemala to see the ruins at tikal. they stayed there saturday and sunday before arriving home late sunday night.









here is an article about the ayuda trip published in the san pedro sun, a local newspaper in belize.

san pedro sun article

bryan had a blast and we are glad he got to visit. we give credit to nathan pfister for taking most of the scenic pictures in this post.

click here to see all pictures nathan took on the trip

birthdays, daddy comes home, and jaxson comes to play

yesterday was a day filled with birthdays. happy birthday to nana, aurora, and alix.






last night i picked bryan up from the airport at 12:45am. wow, that was late! we got home at about 1:30am and during the drive home, he told me all about his trip. it sounded like a lot of fun! i am going to give full details soon.

today we watched jaxson while his mommy, alison, went to work at nik's school. grace and jax had a ton of fun playing together. they watched a movie, played with toys, played with playdoh, ate lunch, colored, played some more and then went outside to play. while they were playing outside, they kept going over to this hole in our wall. they would peek inside and jax would say, 'a bug! ahhhh!' and then gracie would look inside and then she would scream and run away.



they ran back and forth for about a half hour. then sometimes, me and raegs would run with them. grace would look at me and say, 'come on, mom! vamonos!' i tell you, the things she learns from dora. just yesterday, we were talking and i said, 'hola, soy mommy.' and she looked at me and said, 'hola, soy gracie.' it was sooooo funny. we cracked up. anyway, her and jaxson had a ton of fun today and i'm sure she can't wait to play with him again.



and a side note.... congrats to aaron, who took first in discus at his track meet on saturday. despite a small stomach bug, he still managed to perform well and even has a new pr for discus - 164'. go a-dawg!

gracie helps papa vacuum

we sure have been having fun here in missouri. i guess that would be the reason for our few and far between posts. on monday, nana took off work and we hung out, just the girls. then, grace, raegs, and i were on our own for tuesday. wednesday and thursday we ate lunch with nana at the middle school and grace loved to look at the fish tank. unfortunately, nana killed most of the fish while she was in charge of the tank. oops! it must run in the family since i have managed to kill all of our fish too. on wednesday after we got back from lunch with nana, papa said he needed to fix some bricks on the steps going to the front door. gracie decided that she wanted to help. papa showed her how to use the vacuum. quite an accomplishment considering we have to give her fair warning before we vacuum at home. well, the pictures are very cute of her helping papa.

raegs just played in the grass and tried to eat rocks, leaves, and grass. yuk! we had to keep a close eye on her. then, today, we went out to lunch with caroline and tracy. it was quite fun. afterwards, we met at the schaefer house to pick up some things for aunt pam (or, according to grace, 'auntie ham'). while we were there, grace, nana, and raegs went and sat in the car with buddy boy (caroline's dog). while they were in the car, grace said, 'look, buddy has a tail!' nana said, 'who else has a tail?' grace said, 'raegan has a tail.' nana said, 'no, raegan doesn't have a tail...' and went on to list a ton of animals that have tails... 'cows have tails, giraffes have tails, pigs have tails'... and then grace pipes in with this little gem... 'and the macaw has a really long beak!' it was hilarious. she always keeps us laughing. well, now we are preparing for our trip home. we will miss our family here, but bryan will be coming back from belize on sunday night. we can't wait to see him!

uncle aaron wins men's discus at capital city relay tournament

yesterday was a day of rain, snow, and cold..... very cold. grace, raegan, nana, papa, and i went to aaron's tournament. he threw shot put first and came in second with a pr of 49' 11". for discus, he took first throwing 156' 8". his pr for discus is 161'. jefferson city high school took first at the tournament. as seen in the picture above, aaron is the small figure inside the discus cage getting ready for his first throw (click to enlarge). aaron is finishing his senior year and will soon be headed off to my alma mater, brigham young university. yippee! aaron will be a thrower for the byu track and field team. he is very excited, and so are we! despite the rain and cold, grace and raegan behaved very well. up until the end and grace said, 'i want to go home.... keep my hands warm.' we were freezing. good job, aaron!

welcome to the show me state

we have safely arrived in missouri. yesterday was a day packed with travel. we left for the airport at 5:45 in the morning. whoa, that was early. we boarded our plane at 7:25 and had a great trip. grace was excellent, she watched movies the whole time. raegs was a little difficult at first, but after i forced her to fall asleep (she was really tired), she slept the whole trip. which left me to sit and do sudoku puzzles most of the ride. we met nana at the airport (our plane was 30 minutes early... yay!) and drove home. greeted by papa, we ate dinner and relaxed. soon aaron joined us, as well as his friends, kurtis, caleb, and mandy. they wanted to hang out and meet grace and raegan, i guess. so, last night, we told grace that she needed to go to bed and nana put her in bed and said goodnight. aaron and his friends were listening to some spanish music and dancing around and stuff and nana come out of her room and met gracie, laying on the ground (halfway out the door of her room) with her head in her hands as she watched aaron and his friends. it was so cute! nana said, 'hurry, grace, we have to go to bed." and to bed she finally went.

shortly before we left for missouri, raegan was learning how to play peekaboo. you look at her and say, 'where's raegan? where's raegan?' she will cover her eyes like she is hiding and then she will move them and we say, 'there she is!' she thinks it is so funny.

easter baskets, pretty pictures, and the flu

ok, so, grace had the flu on saturday. she seemed to do fine all day sunday, though. she woke up and saw that she had her easter basket. she was very excited, even though i don't think she knows who the easter bunny is. she started to look through it and was very excited with all of her little gadgets and candy. in one of the eggs she opened, there was a mr. goodbar little candy bar. you know, it is wrapped in gold foil type paper. well, she looked at it and said, 'it's butter for my bread.' we laughed so hard. she had no idea that it was candy! she got some little hello kitty note pads with some pens and she says, (about the pens) 'this one is for my diary, and this one is for my scriptures.' she thought that the pens looked like the ones that bryan uses when he reads. we thought it was so cute. raegan just kinda sat there and banged two eggs together. her eggs were empty and she had a couple of new toys in her basket. well, we got them dressed in their matching dresses and they looked so cute that we had to take some pictures. raegan's hair is long enough to do in pig tails and bryan says, 'finally we can see her face!' he likes her hair up.


after church, i started to show signs of getting the flu myself (thus no entry last night). i was feeling sick and after dinner, i couldn't keep anything down. so, i was up half the night. at about midnight, we hear raegs coughing in her bed. low and behold, she had thrown up too! poor thing, she was feeling pretty yucky and threw up a few more times. well, her and i were up off and on all night and finally, today i think we are getting better. i still feel a little under the weather, but raegs is taking it much better than i did. she seems to be doing fine, although the doctor said no solid food until tomorrow. so, tonight and tomorrow will be spent resting and packing for our trip to missouri on wednesday (yay!). our plane leaves at 7:25 in the morning. yikes! that is pretty early!

eggs, eggs, and more eggs

well, today has been very busy. gracie woke up and was feeling pretty sick all day. she threw up several times and couldn't keep anything down. i felt very sad for her. she kept saying, 'i want to eat lunch.' over and over. however, she couldn't keep it down. poor kid. we headed out for the easter party at uncle david's at about 2:00. we arrived and helped aunt mel finish everything up and waited for the kids to arrive for the easter egg hunt. gracie was so excited, raegs was in her usual spot... my arms. finally all the kids arrived and out they went to find the eggs... ages 4 and under got the front yard, 5 and older, got the back (with the eggs hidden in more difficult places).


grace ran out and grabbed the first egg she saw. then she sat there and opened it and wanted to eat all the candy. she couldn't eat it, of course, so i tried to encourage her to move on and get another egg... finally she got the hang of it and ended up with a full bag of eggs! she seemed to be feeling better, but just to make sure, we only let her eat crackers. no more yuckies!

a day of fun in the sun.... and other stuff too

well, today was a pretty fun day for the kiddies. once again, they woke up bright and early. 6:45 for grace. bryan was nice enough to get up with her and i got to sleep in until about 7:30 when raegan woke up. we played, had breakfast, and then put raegan down for a nap. at that time, we headed out to the pool.... well, the hot tub at least. grace was so excited! she couldn't wait to go swimming. we were trying to help her remember how to kick her legs and swim, but she hasn't remembered just yet. she would just kind of float around in the pool with her floaties on and say, 'i did it, i did it!' then, when she would float her way over to the step, she would say, 'don't worry, i got ya.' just to let us know we were safe. after about an hour, bryan decided to jump into the 'big pool'. of course, grace was right there with him. for some reason the 70 degree water didn't bother her. she would play in the pool for a while, then run up the stairs to warm up in the spa. bryan talked her into going down the slide... by herself. so she went. unfortunately, no one was there to catch her at the bottom and she got a little terrified. me, wanting to post a video for the blog, asked her to go down again. we told her that daddy would be at the bottom to catch her, but she really didn't want to go.... so i yelled out, 'go down and we'll give you a piece of candy!' oh, the things children will do for candy. so down she went!

i think she thought it was a lot more fun to have someone catch her because she kept going down. about 30 minutes later, we decided we had had enough, so we went in. funny thing is, raegan slept through it all!

the rest of the day was spent taking naps and playing with all the cousins. tomorrow we have planned another easter party. this time at uncle david's. i know grace is looking forward to it!

my first post! yippee!

ok, well, i am relatively new to the whole blogging thing, but i thought i would create this blog to record all of my daily adventures. it seems important to keep a journal and journaling is something i wish i did. hopefully, i will be able to just come to the computer and sit and let out all of my thoughts and ideas and dealings with the bryan l horspool family. first an introduction!

i am jamie suzanne horspool. born jamie suzanne clark on 27 june 1980 in albuquerque, new mexico. raised most of my life in jefferson city, missouri. went to college in provo, utah and attended brigham young university. got married (hence the bryan l horspool family), graduate college, worked as bryan finished, moved to cypress, california in july 2004 (bryan attends university of southern california school of dentistry), had a beautiful baby, grace madelyn, on 16 september 2004, played with gracie a bunch, had another beautiful baby, raegan payge, on 07 june 2006. i guess that is me... readers digest version. moving on to my sweet and sours about yesterday.

yesterday... hmmm... yesterday was a good day. well, the girlies woke up at about 6:45. yikes! what were they thinking. at about 7:15, i rolled out of bed and went in to get them up. grace was laying in her bed, just thinking, i guess. raegs was standing up in her crib waiting for me.... just smiling. when i went in, grace says, 'mom, can i get out of bed?' hmmm... what a sweet girl, i wonder why she thought she had to ask. i got raegs out and she was ever so happy to be held. we ate breakfast and played. i tried to clean up the house a little, but we had to hurry to get raegan down for a morning nap... at 11:00 we needed to be at an easter party at alison earl's. gracie was so excited. she kept saying over and over, 'we're going to an easter party with nik!' it's kind of funny that she left jaxson out of the picture considering that he is her age, but none the less, it was cute. well, off we went to the easter party. we pulled up and got the kids out and went inside to play. grace headed straight for the bounce house. she loves that thing. raegan was a little more weary about what to do, but eventually found her place.... right in mommy's arms. that silly kid wanted to hang out with me. well, after sandwiches, stickers, coloring, capri suns, easter egg hunting, and cookie decorating, we were finally ready to leave. raegs needed a nap and grace needed to be cleaned off.

moving on to thursday afternoon, bryan arrived home from school and we started our drive up to yucaipa. yuk! at 4:00. prime driving time if you love traffic. well, the drive only took us about 2 1/2 hours. at least the girls were good. except when raegs would scream, grace would start to cry. she says, 'it hurts my ears!' yikes! finally, the arrival at grandma and grandpa's house. luckily, tami was here with her kids so grace had someone to play with. the night ended well enough. bryan was able to finish his scuba test (next come his first pool dive), and everything was peaceful once the kids were asleep.

ok, well, hopefully my new goal of writing will be successful. i hope to record all of the days events with the girlies (good and not so good). now, as i sign off, i look forward to a new day of adventures!