Mommy Daughter Day in Lovely Hopkins

My beautiful girl turned sixteen last week. Holy crap! How did that happen?! She has really turned out quite lovely. She's incredibly brilliant and talented and kind and thoughtful. I really couldn't be more proud of her. You can check her out @sophieharling to see her art and read her fan fiction.

What she really wanted for her birthday was to have a day with her mama with no other kids. Isn't that sweet?!

And she wanted to get a tattoo. We planned on going to Placencia, but the tattoo artist there got sick, so we decided to go to Hopkins instead. It was so awesome that we have decided to move there.

It's a lovely community. Driving up almost reminded me of going to some South Carolina beaches because there's intercostal waterway between the savannah and the sea. I'm one of those crazy people that really loves the smell of the swamps. To me it is the smell of life. I wish we had taken a picture of it.

The village is predominately Garifuna. The Garifuna people escaped from the islands off the coast of northern South and southern Central America. They came to Belize as free black people, though there were still slaves in Belize at the time. The culture is very vibrant and friendly with rich traditions and amazing food. Everyone was so kind and helpful.

There's even a really awesome park.

This was her first tattoo, so she was a bit nervous.

This artist is so kind and gentle though. He put her quite at ease and did a beautiful job. The shop was incredibly clean and neatly furnished. It's really rare to find a place that clean here.

His wife and baby were there too! Isn't he adoable?! Babies and children are a part of life here and are welcome almost everywhere.

Meanwhile, Daddy is hard at work.

Look at what a beautiful job he did! Sophie designed the tattoo, and he executed perfectly.

Then we had a lovely lunch together! The food was fabulous, and the view was amazing! Most of the coast of Belize is mangroves, which are also amazing, beautiful, and really beneficial, but the sandy beaches are also nice, and Hopkins has some of the nicest on the mainland.

There are actually a lot of excellent restaurants in Hopkins, and the quality of food there is above and beyond much of the rest of the country. If you make it down, contact me! We'll have a Belikin together! Be sure to go over to @sophieharling and tell her Happy Birthday!