The Business Plan

This week, the Changes in Latitudes house hunting tour takes us to Belize where we will choose between two beautiful beach houses. In previous installments, we've looked at houses in Grand Cayman, Cozumel and Honduras. In voting so far, the Cozumel compound is still the choice for the future home of the combined Tiki and Dale and Carol families (as well as others who may decide to join us when we go.) However, the houses in Belize are up to the challenge of taking on the Cozumel compound. As always, vote for your favorite in the comments.

The first entry is a Beachfront Villa on Ambergris Caye. It has four bedrooms and three baths in 9,000 square feet. It also includes a pier, a viewing tower, and two boats. With only four bedrooms, you might think this house is not big enough for our large, growing family. As I've said before, I will happily sleep on the viewing tower, in the boat slip, directly on the beach, or up a coconut tree if I can wake up to that view every day.

At $3.75 million, the Beachfront Villa may be at the top of our price range but I have a plan. Since there are boats included in the price of the house, we will just start a snorkeling expedition company. We can take cruise ship passengers out to the reef, let them splash around in the water for a bit, feed them some cheap Margaritas on the way back to shore, and charge them $100 bucks a head for the trip. The Tiki Gal and Carol would make great hostesses because they are "people persons" while Dale and I could drive the boats and haul the snorkeling gear around. As our little snorkeling company expands, we could add a restaurant and bar at the pier. Dale could then provide the musical entertainment in the bar while I mix drinks and we could turn the snorkeling trips over to our children who would be happy to be a part of the family business (that was sarcasm for those of you who don't know our children.) The Tiki Gal and Carol would not be helping much anymore because they would now be spending most of their time in local politics. Or course, it would all end badly when a guest on a snorkeling expedition has one too many Margaritas on the trip back to the pier, rents a moped, and is then involved in a horrible accident involving an iguana and the police chief's overweight mother-in-law. The snorkeling operation and bar would be shut down in response to the public outcry and the girls would be forced to resign from their positions as Mayor and Ambassador to Mexico. Dale and I would end up playing Jimmy Buffett songs on a street corner with a tip jar at our feet while the girls make the rounds on the local talk shows. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

The second house up for consideration is a four bedroom, three bathroom home of 5,000 square feet with a one bed, one bath guest house. It also has a pier but, thankfully, it doesn't come with boats (after the trouble we got into with the last house with boats, we should avoid them at all times.) It is also much cheaper than the other house at just $1.6 million. We wouldn't need to go into any crazy business ventures to... wait, what is that I see in the garage... bicycles, snorkeling gear and a kayak are included. We could take guests on a bicycle tour of the island and then on a small snorkeling trip off the pier while renting the kayak out for trips around the lagoon. As long as we don't get too ambitious this time, it might work. We definitely will not be serving Margaritas to the guests... unless they are Little Girl Margaritas. I think we might be back in business!

Again, vote for your favorite in the comments. Also, if you have any business plans that will keep me off the streets and the Tiki Gal off of Oprah, I would appreciate those as well.

Last weekend, Carol brought over a "borrowed" cocktail recipe. It is called the Malibu Sunset and the recipe follows.

Malibu Sunset

Color: It looks like a sunset.

Ingredients: 3 oz. orange juice, 3 oz. pineapple juice, 2 oz. coconut rum, cranberry juice

Instructions: Shake orange juice, pineapple juice and coconut rum and pour into a hurricane glass over ice. Top with cranberry juice.