Heidi

Adeline and I finished Heidi today. The following is the last paragraph of the book which I think nicely summarizes an idea that was continually communicated throughout the last half of the book.

"At last the grandmother said: 'Heidi, read me a hymn of praise! It seems to me that I ought to do nothing but praise and glorify our Lord God, for all that He has in His mercy granted us, His poor children.'"

It is refreshing to read a book that gives credit where credit is due. Johanni Spyri even touches on the idea of the Holy Spirit without naming it.

"The good God see and hears everything,...He wakens quicly in that person the little watchman that God has placed in everybody at his birth, and that is allowed to sleep until that person has done somthing wrong."

It's a clever way of describing the Holy Spirit to a child. Although Heidi wasn't my favorite book, it is one that I think Adeline should read once she gets older and understands more of the lessons threaded throughout the book (responsibilities, manners, religion). If you have a daughter, I encourage you to pick it up for a reading.

Blog into Book

My sister-in-law shared a site with me that you can use to turn your blog into a photo book -
http://www.blurb.com/create/book/blogbook

Very handy!

The hit toy in our house with Adeline right now is the LeapFrog Phonics Radio. She is memorizing letter sounds without even knowing it!
http://www.expotv.com/LeapFrog-Phonics-Radio/2Z-gia

Night Out

Scotty and I enjoyed a night out last night at the International Woman's Club Gala. Events start late here, which works out for us because we can put the kids to bed at 8p and leave the house abound 8:30p and still be early for an event! A friend's 17yr old son stayed here at the house and ended up just staying the night. I talked to his mom today and she said Tyler felt comfortable here (we had only met him on Friday night) and enjoyed time away from his family. I think we can arrange for Tyler to have more nights away from his family :)

Tyler's family is here with International Mission Board through the Southern Baptist Convention. God orchestrated me meeting Dana, the mom, at an allergy appointment back in February.

As you can see the Gala attire was dressy (cocktail). This is the dress I wore for my brother's wedding, but had it cut off this week for the Gala. Scotty's outfit is ironically what he also wore for my brother's wedding.

It was a wonderful night! So wonderful in fact that I woke up this morning still wishing I was at the party. Tonight I got in an awful mood and couldn't figure out why. Duh! I was coming off of the high of the time lat night with my hubby and just thinking about how tomorrow starts the regular routine again with him at the mine. There was a silent auction last night and Scotty suprised me by buying a beautiful necklace with larimar, amber, pearls, and coral. I wore on the dance floor and EVEYRONE stopped us and said "You are the lucky one who got the necklace!" I smiled and gave all the credit to my hubby. Here is the designer's blogsite http://www.dominiquecalderonj.blogspot.com/. To get in a better mood tonight, Scotty suggested I put on the necklace....it worked ;).

Adeline woke up before Scotty and I did from our naps. Scotty found her playing in the sugar and leftover coffee. She had also finished the bottle of NervoHeel (a homeopathic calming pill). Drawn on herself with a pen, destroyed her closet, and rearranged her clothes in the dresser drawers. The most striking/disappointing thing was that she had NO REMORSE!

The biggest news of the weekend......DARTON TOOK HIS FIRST STEPS!

Readings

Adeline & I are 3/4 of the way through Heidi, and it has taken me that long to really enjoy the book. Johanna Spyri's writing style is hard to read smoothly and when you're reading aloud that becomes very frustrating. About 3/4 of the way through the author works in the Biblical story of the Prodigal Son as it relates to the Grandfather. The Grandfather at hearing the story read by Heidi then turns his heart toward God. Black Beauty also had tidbits of biblical teachings, but this part in Heidi was much more "in your face" so to speak. I assume though that if a reader has no Biblical knowledge then this story would just be a "nice" story without its full depth as it relates to Christ and the sinner.
Heidi is also about ignorance in a child. I think Spyri teaches the reader that a child is a blank slate, but once taught, the child will respond properly. Uh oh, I'm enjoying this analyzing too much...I'll stop for your sake!

I am working through a Life Change Series of the book of Luke. I have grown up in church, passionately followed Christ, and put my hope and trust in Him. As I have grown older though, I have encountered people who have specific opinions about who Jesus is and what He did. People will even say "it says in the Bible" when really they don't know or have misinterpreted a teaching. At times I look at them and think "that sure doesn't sound right" but I can't support a defense with scripture. I know basic truths about Christ, but it's time that I dig deeper about this Man that I call Saviour. A year ago I did a study in Elko on the book of John. At first I had no desire, but God worked through my dedication to the study and began to show me who Jesus is. In the book of John, Jesus is emphasized as God' Son. I've been hungry to study more about Jesus, which prompted me to get the Luke study as well as Carol Ruvolo's God With Us. I say all of this to give you background about the lesson I learned today about Jesus.

Christ came of a humble birth; one that was announced to a people (sheperds) that were classed with prostitutes. He came to call the sinners and to rebuke the experts. He was not concerned with the comforts of this world and trusted that God would provide (He literally had no place to lay his head). He came to serve and not to be the guest of honor. He became poor, from the richest state there is, so that we may become rich. My opinion: He did not come with a crown so that we could relate to Him and not follow Him because of His status. Many would have come in vain to follow Jesus if he came with status. They would have wanted to be known as Jesus's friend or follower just as we today want to be friend with the rich or highly esteemed.
Praise God for His perfect and sovereign plan in sending His only Son!

More Bumps & Some Dirt

Bumped "knoggins" don't just happen to boys! Adeline went flying down the ramp in the parking garage on a toy car and ran smack into the gate. This knot was at least 2x the size last night than it is here in the picture. This picture was taken this morning. There is some miracle cream that the Dominicans have for bumps that really keeps down the swelling. I contribute the fast healing of Adeline's goose egg and Darton's head to it. Don't know if there is anything like it in the States b/c I never had to look for it!

After our morning run I let the kids play in the park. The water soon turned to mud and this was the result...it was much better in person. He was so filthy that I had to take his clothes off to put him in the stroller! It was in his neck creases and crusted in his nose. I love messy times when there is no pressure to be clean.

Don't have any plans for the wkend to leave SD. On Saturday night Scott and I are getting all dressed up for a gala! We won't even leave the house until 8:30p. (nightlife starts exceptionally late here) A friend's son is coming over to chill while the kids sleep.

The Trials of Having a Son

We had our first emergency room experience this morning. I put Darton in the Prado and shut the door, but not completely, while I was getting the stoller out of the storage closet. Darton thought banging on the window would be fun, but since I didn't have the door completely shut he came out head first onto the concrete. Within the minute I was a hystarical mess because I thought his head was dented in (come to find out it probably was). After making a couple of phonecalls though the tears, we got into the car and drove to the hospital. By the time we arrived he had drank a bottle and had stopped crying. We waited maybe 10minutes to see a doctor who told us if there was no vomiting or rolling of the yes, then he's fine. Praise God! I had expected xrays and more. We left without even having to pay...don't have that one figured out.

Because I was so hysterical, Scotty assumed the worst. I feel the worst for him since he couldn't be here and see that his little boy was fine. He had even scheduled to leave the mine within an hour and half after I called him. I reassured him that he didn't have to come home.

The best part of this experience is that we were forced to find the hospital and think through who we would call in an emergency. Barrick personel found out very quickly that I was taking Darton to the hospital and called me to make sure he was okay.

This is an angle where you can see his raised bruise.

Here you can see his concrete burn.

Beach & Church

Thursday night 3 ladies from Santiago that came down for the singles conference that our church hosted this weekend stayed with us. It was a short stay. They arrived aroudn 11p on Thursday and left Friday morning around 9:30a. We then went to the aquarium with Anastasia & Hartleigh and Rosalynn, Owen & Isabelle. Late Friday afternoon two ladies that I met at the pool came over for a chat. I plan on meeting one of the ladies, Olivia, with her 16mth old daughter this week at the pool.

After last weekend in the coutnry, we were ready for the beach. We went to Playa Andres (the beach where I let both of my kids almost drown) which is only 30 minutes from us with Nick, Rosalynn, Owen & Isabelle. They are from Australia and Nick works with Scott at Barrick. It was a very overcast day, so the pictures don't look too pretty. The clouds broke about an hour before we left. Clouds didn't keep Mommy from getting red ;)

After church today, friends came over for lunch. Brad Nelson, a pastor from John Piper's church in Minnesota, preached both morning and night services. I can't effectively describe to you what it is like to hear a sermon in your native tongue after living in a foreign country. You really begin to thirst for hearing English in a church service. We have great translators at church, but getting to understand the words coming out of the pastor's mouth without a middleman is a special treat :).


During church tonight Adeline began participating in singing. She bellowed out the words she was hearing and praised God with raised hands. I was a very proud momma! Scotty was sacrificing and dealing with Darton in the entryway since he refuses to stop crying in nursery. We trade places every other Sunday with taking Darton upstairs during the preaching. Since we have wireless earphones for the translation, we can still hear the sermon upstairs.


A sidenote: During the Sunday School hour while I am here with Darton sleeping I have started listening to a series by Sinclair Ferguson on the Apostle's Creed from http://www.firstprescolumbia.org/. It has been a huge blessing!


Darton stood on his own tonight without holding on to anything and attempted to take a step!

Easter

We made it through our first Easter outside of the States ;). Darton was very proud of his shaker egg in his basket that says Cristo Vive (Christ lives). There is a very nice Christian bookstore within walking distance from our house that I found some goodies for the Easter baskets.

I guess there is this gene in some little girls that when it's Easter they insist on wearing a hat! Thanks Aunt JoEllyn for the dress! Are both of my children looking at the camera???!!! Thanks Gmommie for Darton's outfit!Because we took the sucker away.....

I organized a hunt for Barrick kids at the Botanical Gardens. It went well and we had lots of fun.

Bonao

We went "camping" this weekend in the countryside. It was gorgeous! We had yet to drive through the mountains and the lush scenery and steep mountainsides were breathtaking. The place we stayed is Rancho Wendy http://www.ranchowendy.com/. We ended up in a room w/no warm water and the pipe that was the "showerhead" shot straight into the toilet since the bathroom was just one room with no separation for the shower. It was pretty funny...but we opted out of the showers since we only stayed one night. We got to bathe in a pond at the end of a waterfall instead. :)The first part of the hike we had to cross this bamboo bridge. I held my breath pretty much the whole time...especially when Darton's hat flew off and I caught it with one foot. Nerve Racking!!

Many times in the country there are pigs, goats, donkeys, horses, etc grazing or tied up to a tree. Lots of skinny horses, which I didn't take much notice to until I've been reading Black Beauty. What a sucker I am. We had no idea what the trail was like, so the guides had to carry Darton a few times. One of the things we left in Elko that we need here is our framed child carrier for hikes!I guess the years in Boyscouts gets you to the point that you can walk across an unstable bridge with a 2yr old on your hip!On Saturday we drove through the mountains. Here is a picture of a waterfall.

Can you see the mansion someone built out on a ledge?

We got out of the car and walked 100 meters to a waterfall with random PVC pipe extending from the water. Got to get your water somehow...

Once you're in the country it's hard to go back to the city of 3.5million. We enjoyed the peace and quite. We still toss around the idea of moving to the country to be closer to Scott, but I'm just too much of a people person to do that right now. I'm sure we could make friends, but I'm enjoying the English speaking friends here in the city. We'll see what the future has for us.

Darton's First Birthday

Darton turning one has been much more emotional for me than when Adeline turned one. He's till so much of a baby to me too, and I remember thinking how Adeline wasn't a baby any longer when she turned one.

Four couples that are all friends that we have met here and we consider family came to celebrate in the park with us. I cooked a good Texas meal of brisket, beans, and potato salad. Buying brisket here was a fun challenge. I took my cookbook with a picture of the cut and what the meat looks like and all the butchers looked at me clueless. God stepped in at this time and next to me there was a lady ordering meat who spoke English. But she wasn't just any lady...she was the head butcher's wife! She called her husband who knew what I was talking about and he then talked to the other butchers and the order was placed! I picked it up the following morning. Yeah for God being in control of all things!

Shopping Challenges

I found more challenges this week that come with living in a developing third world country.
I believe God is in the big things and the small things in life. One small thing He orchastrated this week was finding plastic Easter eggs. Dominicans celebrate Semana Santa (Holy Week), but there is no Easter bunny involved in their celebration. No Easter bunny means NO chocolate eggs, no jelly beans, and no Peeps (which Scotty told Adeline today are only good for watching die in the microwave anyway). I paid about $15US for 26 plastic eggs that a friend told me I could find in a birthday store. My dad had actuallypacked four bags of Easter candy in March, but when his luggage arrived a day late two of the bags were gone along with $150 of other stuff.

Good thing God led me to the bday store, because I also needed to shop for bday party supplies for Darton's 1st bday. Challenges with this store were that they did not sell wrapping paper or have helium to blow up the balloons that they sold. HELLO! I did find wrapping paper in a small upscale school supplies store, but I guess wrapping paper is so scarce here that the owner took one roll of wrapping paper and turned it into 5 rolls. Blessing from God - amongst the many Christmas wrapping paper designs there was one design made for boys! I didn't buy just one either...I've learned that once you find it buy ALL of it!

After the wrapping paper find, I walked across the street to a large pharmacy (A big buisness here is to own a pharmacy. There is one almost on every corner. When you need cough med, tylenol, etc you can call one and they will bring it to your apartment/house. When you need something like Sudafed you can buy just one pill or the whole box.). Another small thing orchastrated by God was finding deodorant without antipersperant for Scotty. I had found it at one store when we first came in September, but nothing here is carried regularly. There were 8 sticks of the Old Spice deoderant and I picked up three to buy. I then looked on the back to see that one was $241 pesos (about $7)! Thankfully we're going back to the States at the end of June, and I'll stock up at good old WallyWorld then.

Adeline's Habits and Readings

Adeline has gotten into the habit of watching a movie or a portion of a movie every morning when she wakes up. She's gotten into a nasty habit of waking up around 6:30a, so I am more than willing to turn on the tv in order to get some time to myself to get the day started. For the longest time she watched Wallace & Gromit and then in February moved on to Aladdin (although she called it Daddy & Mommy). Scotty didn't approve of this movie choice, but thankfully it didn't become an issue because in March her choice became Alice in Wonderland. I remember not liking that movie at all as a child. Scotty watched a couple of scenes with her and pointed out that somebody had to be smoking something when they wrote that story! Her movie of choice for the last week has been The Prince of Egypt (or Moses as she calls it). We at least now get to talk about God in relation to her movie.
Adeline and my routine at nap and bedtime is to read. We finished the Chronicles of Narnia the last week in March. My favorite was the Boy and His Horse.
Since we have been regularly riding horses, I picked up Black Beauty to read to her next. It's not taking much time to get through it. I have never read this classic book, only remembered that the movie was pretty sad and dark.
Black Beauty has done WONDERS for my relationship with Sarah. It really couldn't come at a better time since she's in heat, which is probably also helping our relationship because I feel a female connection to her now. WOW! ANN FEELS SOMETHING FOR A DOG! Yes, I just said that. Anyways, I know BB is fiction, but Anne Sewell makes you feel like she really knows the ins and outs of a horse. Sewell has made me think about what Sarah feels and thinks more than I was doing. The effect has also trickled down to our horse ridings...I reached out and patted the horses face! Craziness I tell you.

Lemonada

I have never had such a refreshing lemonade until I arrived in the DR. Since what we call limes are limones (lemons) here, the Dominican drink limonada is more of a limeade. As the summer months are arriving for you in the States, make note of this refreshing drink if you don't already make it.

Ana showed me the best way to get all of the juice out of a limon. First slightly cut off both ends. Second cut the lemon/lime in half and then put one half in a citrus press.

Squeeze the juice through a strainer to catch excess pulp and seeds. We use around 8 limones for around 3 liters and add 1 1/2 to 2 cups of sugar.

Sarah All Grown Up

Our perrita has become a big dog now. At 7 mths she has gone into her first heat. I was quite helpless and ignorant as what to do, but thankfully God lined it up for me to be in contact with an American vet. There is nothing enjoyable about living in an apartment with two babies and having a dog in heat. We are now discussing getting her neutered.

Scotty had a couple of realizations this weekend:
1. The reason the kids aren't hungry at meal times is because they snack all day. They snack all day to keep them from crying all day.
2. You can't use the restroom without the kids either being at your feet or getting into trouble.

Darton's Surprise Face

Darton has picked up how to make a face that says "Wow!" or "Awe!" It's pretty cute and he does it ALL THE TIME! All the time that he isn't crying anyways. Don't let these two videos fool you. My baby boy is still a crier and thinks he needs to be in my arms 90% of the day. I didn't create him this way. If I had then I would be able to uncreate his neediness...but it's just him. It took him 5 days to get use to my mom and grandmother, so they are now witnesses to the Darton-is-not-an-easy-baby story.
He loves his Daddy now and the weekends are spent in Daddy's arms. Teeth #3-5 broke through this week after he was showing signs of teething 4 weeks ago. Now teeth #6-8are breaking through. At least now when he cries I know that he has a good reason for it.
Sorry the video quality is bad. Scott showed me tonight how to fix it.

Darton saying Darton

Ignore that I say it is 2006! We sing "Darton Scott" a lot and Darton has picked up how to say his name. He also tells Sarah, the dog, "down" and has a form of "thank you." Ana said he said "no tocar" (no touch) this week. He's much more of a talker than Adeline was at this age...but he's not getting the sign language like she was, which makes for a lot more yells from him at the dinner table when he wants something.

AKA Grapefruit

When we went to the open market last week I bought lots of unknown fruit. Ana called this fruit toronja. As it ripened I realized it was a grapefruit from it's smell. When I opened it its flesh was yellow instead of pink. I was told they have ruby grapefruits as well.

More Grocery Store Treasures

Adeline can now accomplish washing her own hands!
Claire and her two girls, Georgia & Jessica, and Julie with her two girls, Erin & Abigail, came over on Thursday night for pizza and dancing to Mama Mia. It was quite crazy and loud. Adeline didn't miss a beat among the older ones. She enjoyed performing for someone new. She wouldn't say hardly two words to Julie, but she hopped on out of her shell when we turned the music on.

I found bagels and pretzels this week! Too bad there isn't one store that has all the goodies. I only bought bagels on rare occasions in the States, but I find that I buy something just because it's familiar. I've asked other ex-pat wives, and they do the same. My friend Claire recommended these wheat cookies to me. She bought them because they are similar to a product she is used to buying in England. I owuld have never thought to buy them if she hadn't pointed them out. When you're at the grocery store, my eye looks for the familiar and skips over items like these.
A new mom and her two kids have arrived from Australia to join the husband/dad already here.
I had Roselynn and the kids, Owen & Isabelle, over late this afternoon and we went to the fairgrounds to ride horses.