Cheese or Belize?

So.  Ben's friend, Nick, with whom he has a bromance, is going with his adorable wife, Kathleen, to Belize in April, and they invited us to come along.  Nick's been there before and really loves it.

We actually still have about a zillion sky miles (there are some silver linings to the whole Ben-in-China-for-ten-months-without-us experience), and hotels are ridiculously cheap down there. 

 (It looks like a horrible place to be, right?) :)

Then a guy at work was like, "If you want, you can use your sky miles and stay at my condo on the beach in Grand Cayman for free."  And then another guy at work was like, "If you want, you can use your sky miles and stay at my house in Jamaica for free."

Gulp.  Mother may I?

So we've talked it over and decided that we're going to save up to go to...one of those places.  (Feel free to tell us in the comments any experiences you've had in any of these three locations or what you vote for.)

We discussed that, in order to save up what we'll need for food, possible hotel costs, and entertainment, we'll have to really be strict with our grocery budget for the next couple of months.  Not one penny over.  No trips to Michael's or trips to Los Albertos to get a burrito for me.

Which is hard for me.

So last week, as a result of eating cheese quesadillas for dinner for a couple of nights, and as a result of poor planning on my part, we ran out of cheese on Tuesday.  We shop on Saturdays.  I was like, crap.  How are we going to survive until Saturday without cheese??  I mean, we have four children.  Children and cheese are like...The Lone Ranger and Tonto.  Like Nutella and bananas.  Like Batman and Robin.

So I called Ben.  "Bennnnnn, we're out of cheese.  Can I please, please, please go get some?"

"Yikes, hon, you know how much cheese costs.  And we've already hit our budget for this week."

"I know.  But it's cheese, Ben.  Children and cheese are like..."

"Dawson and his creek?"

"Yes."

"Well, do you want cheese, or do you want to go to Belize??"

"You're killing me, smalls."

So we went without cheese until Saturday.  But only because we had plenty of bread, peanut butter, and clementines.  Those are other staples for children.

But it was hard for me.

I complained to my sis, Lex, via text.

Me:  Because we want to go to BELIZE, we can't get CHEESE.

Lex:  Feeding your family is probably a higher priority than travel!  Haha!

Me:  I know.

Lex:  I would say until buying cheese isn't a budgetary worry, no Belize.  No CHEESE, no BELIZE.

See, the thing is, I want BOTH cheese AND Belize.

Therein lies the problem.

When I get grumpy about giving up certain things for a dream vacation, I think, "Is it worth it?"  But then I see pictures like this...

...and talk to my hairdresser about it (she's been there a few times and adores it)....I think, okay.  I think I can give up the proverbial cheese for Belize for the next two months.  There will be sacrifices, but then there will be...