Roatan, Honduras

Matt and I got away by ourselves from May 1st-10th to celebrate our 12 year anniversary. We had so many fun adventures in Roatan! We could never have these fun adventures if it wasn't for Grammy and Papa Gold who selflessly take over as Mom and Dad to our 4 precious babies while we are away. Thank you Mom and Dad for giving Matt and I time each year to reconnect and just have plain fun together. We love it and we love you so much. Above is our cabin on the beach. We stayed at this great little hotel called Bananarama.

The bats living on the porch of our cabin on the beach.

The main road to our hotel. We sure aren't in Oregon anymore.

The view from our cabin.

Tonya chillin' on the beach.

We stayed in West Bay which was a 45 minute walk along the beach to West End. We walked it 4 times during our trip, which turned out to be a good thing because the food in Honduras is to die for. It was required that we cross this weird foot bridge along the way. I was scared to step on some of the stairs because they were totally rusted and falling apart. Yeah, a bit nerve racking.

A cool bamboo swing we found on our way to West End.

This is Louis and his daughter Kyla. Him and his wife just happened to be the owners of our hotel and members of the LDS church. We hitched a ride with him on Sunday and got to attend church on the island. It was a cool experience.

New friends.

View of the beach.

The main road in West End and Matt in front of Native Sons, the dive shop we used.

Us on our 12th anniversary. What a smokin' hot couple:0) I love you, Matt.

The cockroach we ate lunch with one day.

We visited an Iguana Park. Normally I would not allow a picture of my legs to be shown, but an Iguana doesn't lick my ankle everyday either.

They were everywhere and they were huge.

We went to a city on water called Oak Ridge. You have to pass through if you want to see the Mangrove Tunnel. These were some of the houses along the way.

We actually saw a woman standing in her house fishing out her window. Weird.

Matt in the very funky boat that took us to the Mangroves.

The Mangrove Tunnel. It was beautiful.

We had read before we went to Roatan that bugs were a huge problem and to come armed with bug spray. We each used a whole can of Off, but it wasn't enough to stop the sand fleas from attacking Matt's back. Yikes! Luckily those bites don't itch and are gone by the next day. The mosquito's on the other hand drove us nuts.

Us on the dock at sunset.

Crab, obviously.

Crossing this cool Indiana Jones bridge at Gumbalimba Park.

Matt zip lining through the jungle. We did a canopy tour that took us on 13 different zip lines through the jungle, ending us at the beach. Very fun! Matt's face cracks me up in this picture. Is he scared or concentrating?

Monkeys in the trees watching us zip line. Very cool!

Our new friend Joshua.

I fell in love with this 5 month old monkey, Supa. He fell asleep as I rocked him like a baby. So sweet.

Us at Anthony's Key Resort, where we got to hang out with the dolphins.

We even got to swim with them. This was Gracie and her trainer.

There were about 20 dolphins swimming around with us. Matt dove down and got a long piece of sea grass to attract one of them. It was amazing to watch Matt and this dolphin interacting. Matt would try to hook the sea grass around the dolphins teeth and every time it would float away you could see the anticipation in the dolphins eyes as it waited for Matt to retrieve the grass and try again. They played this way for about 15 minutes. So fun!

One of our favorite things was diving the reef. Cool coral.

Huge fish.

Our hotel let us use the sea kayaks for no extra charge. This was the view of the island on our kayaking adventure. The water was so beautiful.

The reef was right off the beach so we spent a lot of time snorkeling. Matt loves to free dive. Last time I tried that I gulped water and choked. I think because of my training in Scuba Diving, where I can actually breathe underwater, I have forgotten the art of holding my breath. Dang.

Us on the dive boat. It hurts to put on a wet suit with a sunburn. It's also not a good idea to take two different swim suits on a trip if you're concerned about tan lines. By the way, if you do get sunburned in Honduras there is no such thing as Aloe to soothe away the sting. Instead you buy Cactus Juice.

We earned our Adventure Diver certification while in Roatan. One of our adventure dives was 115 feet down to see the Odyssey wreck. It was the first time we have jumped off a dive boat and not been able to see the ocean floor. A little eerie. It was so cool as we descended to see the outline of this ship appear. Amazing and by far one of our favorite dives.

There is a table and chairs still intact. Here's some of our dive buddies playing a hand of poker.

Matt taking a swig. He assures that it was non-alchoholic because alchohol and diving just don't mix.

Cool picture.

This is the sign for "everything is O.K.".

This is the first time we have ever seen a squid.

Tonya snorkeling through this huge school of fish. Cool!

An eagle ray.

Roatan was an amazing place and we would love to go back some day. Next time however, we will take SPF 30 and a stronger bug repellent.