Beach to Boost Spirits

We hit the beach on Saturday in Guayacanes. We went to Playa Esmeralda All Roses which is about 45minutes away. We paid about $30 per adult and $15 for Adeline to spend the day, which included lunch and national drinks (aka rum drinks & Presidente beer). It was a great boost to my spirits after spending the first week in August with family or friends here. I feel like my parents were here forever ago and it was just at the beginning of this month! A day in the sun with clear water and beautiful palm trees was a great reminder that living here "ain't that bad" :) Darton can now say "I want that" or "I don't want that" and is jabbering all the time. If I don't get Adeline in swimming lessons, I think Darton will be the first one to swim. He loves the water.

My kids LOVE LOVE LOVE to dance. Here they are in action. We usually turn up the music once a day to jam out. If you click on the pic it will blow it up so you can see Darton's face. I love that expression. And is it just me or does my daughter look like she's doing a cheerleader dance move...maybe it's in the blood :)

My boys

Quite the poser Litte Miss is becoming...

Can I Walk the Walk or Just Talk the Talk?

I am ending my study of Luke and one of the questions about Peter's 3 denials of Jesus took me back to Luke 12:4-9 which I found encouragment in today. It would be great to think that I would be able to recall these verses if ever put in the same position at Peter. But I know, that I too am weak.


And I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after He has killed, has power to cast into hell; yes, I say to you, fear Him! Are not five sparrows sold for two copper coins? An not one of them is forgotten before God. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. Also I say to you, whoever ocnfesses Me before men, him the Son of Man also will confess before the angels of God. But he who denies Me before men will be denied before the angels of God.


What I find incredible is that there are people in history, Christian martyrs, who took these verses to heart when they were being burned at the stake or drowned with their hands tied for their faith in God.

Adeline's Big Day

Adeline woke up to a wonderful day today. First, we got to keep a friends chihuahua. It was more fun than I expected and the kids loved Nikita! Second, today was her first day of school!All smiles for her first day and standing on her ballerina toes.

Tio (Uncle) Denny and Adeline. Denny & Cynthia run the school in the bottom part of their home. It is for age 2 to grade 4 and was established in 1977. something must have gotten onto the lens when this picture was takenShe is now officially nervous b/c what you can't see in the picture is 3 SCREAMING/CRYING boys in the classroom behind the door. The "please don't leave, mom" worried face. She fussed for a little bit but was giving the teacher BIG hugs when she left. There is a boy in her class whose parents work with the US Embassy, but all the others are Spanish speakers. Darton & Sarah LOVED Nikita too. Nikita wasn't too sure about them though. Aaaahhhh, sweet Darton lovin'

Adeline cried BIG crocodile tears when we took Nikita to the pet hotel to stay the week.

On a Dominican lifestyle note: I went to La Casa de Conductor today because I took the paint off of a guys bumper and broke a headlight when he ran into me. Finding the place was the most challenging part of the ordeal, but this place has got all its stuff organized. The procedure here is to immediately or soon after your vehicle accident go to La Casa de Condutor to file a report. After the report is filed you go to your insurance company. I'm doing that tomorrow.

An officer with some English background helped me through the process for the times I didn't understand the other officer. They were quite confused that I had 2 first names (Julia Ann) and only 1 last name (Geer). This is completely backwards to the Spanish culture. The funny moment came when the English speaking officer asked me "Do you like your name?"

"Well, sir, yes I do now that I think about it. There's nothing to not like...or at least I thought there wasn't until you implied with your question that my name is funny!" LOL

Adeline's 3rd Birthday Party

Here is Adeline's bday invitation that my sister-in-law Jenny made. She did a brillant job! I wrote "Join us in the trees as Adeline turns 3!" for the invite. The plan was to have the party in the Botanical Gardens. Rains prevented that and so 30 people came over here to celebrate at the last minute! I just told myslef to be okay with the craziness and we made it through just fine.

The ladybug cupcakes I made. I used a regular size muffin and a mini-muffin to make each ladybug. I put black icing in a ziplock and cut a small hole in the corner to squeeze out the lines and dots. After I made the icing....

I attempted to organize a game with the spoons and eggs that my Aunt Jana bought aa present for Adeline. Didn't go so well since there were kids under the age of 2 playing. Oh well, we just ate icecream instead!

Notice Adeline in the above picture in the cute tutu...unfortunately she had an accident with all of the excitement, but Mama had made just as cute of an outift which she has on in the picture below. Here we are singing Happy Bday to the pouty 3yr old. She fell asleep in the car on the way to the Botanical Gardens and woke up on the return trip. I'm sure many of you can testify how they aren't always the most cheerful when they get up.

Darton had no trouble blowing out Sister's candles though!Opening presentsParty favors for the girls were hair bows/clips and the boys got dart guns. I've been reading a lot on boosting the immune system and decided to stay away from candy and soda for this party. Hence, party favors weren't candy and the drinks were freshly squeezed orange juice and strawberry juice that you can buy in the supermarkets here. The family from church that both of my kids run to. Angel, the dad, is the ONLY person in the church that Darton will let hold him. Darton waves "bye" to me once Angel holds him. Gryseli, the mom, is Adeline's Sunday School teacher.

After the kids party we headed to an adult 40th bday party. We dropped both of the kids off at Denny and Cynthia's to stay the night. It's quite the empty filling in the pit of your stomach when you are returning to an empty house. Darton woke up in the middle of the night and refused to go to sleep for 1 1/2hrs! Denny said the only thing that made him not cry was to walk around the house with a flashlight. They were overly gracious to take both of the kids for the whole night! They said that it is very popular in the DR to call up friends and ask if your kids can stay the night. Wow! I'm not overly anxious to repeat it again though.

The 40th bday party....wow! There were 6 Barrick couples. One of the couples hosted a 4 course meal that was exquisite! It was so good that my husband is still talking about it today! Julie, the bday girl, said that at the previous mine they were at dinner parties were popular b/c you were stuck in the middle of nowhere in a mining compound were you worked, played, did everything with the same group of people. Since you didn't have a restaurant to go to, you created one on your own.

My Daughter is 3!!!

Adeline turned 3! Here she is on her birthday in the dress Mama (Scott's mom) made for her. It has TX bluebonnets on it! Notice the princess shoes. They were one of three pairs given to her by her friend Hartleigh for her bday. This is how she went to church, too!

We got her a balance bike for her bday. Notice it doesn't have pedals. You can Google "balance bike" to see what it's all about. On Saturday night we celebrate Zoe's 3rd bday at Happy Land. The kids had a blast!

Pretty sure Darton wouldn't have been allowed on half of the rides he enjoyed that night if we were in the States. :) Nerve wracking but SO MUCH FUN!Click on this pic to blow it up to see the kids' expression of pure enjoyment. Sorry the pic is blurry. This ride went up and down as it went in circles. Safe for a 16mth old...not so much. Fun...YES!Riding the train with the bday girl. No joke, the train was the one ride they wouldn't let Darton go on! LOL!

Mariah gave Adeline dress up items and smell goods.

Hartleigh, as mentioned above, gave Adeline Princess shoes. I'm sure the people in the apartment below us are loving us now...click clack click clack.
Yes, there really is that much height difference b/tw these two, but only a months difference in age.

Hartleigh is getting a baby sister this Fall, one of 9 or 10 women I know due this Fall!!

Mariah's Trip

My father-in-law informed me of a distant relative today who has Batten disease, a very rare and degenerative disease. The following sites give you more information. There are videos on both sites, but the video on the first site listed is incredibly moving.

www.jacobsprayer.org

&

http://www.wzzm13.com/news/news_story.aspx?storyid=112526&catid=14

We said good-bye to Mariah today, a girlfriend from Texas. Not easy. We enjoyed the city together while discovering the shops with Jimmy Choo shoes and many more designers I had no clue about. Shoes from $700 that looked like something from Target ;) and dresses from $2000. It was fun to look. Saturday we went to Playa Andres and Sunday afternoon Mariah and I left for a night to the north coast. We spent the night at La Catalina (http://www.lacatalina.com/) and admist the storm got a 2 hour window in the sun on the beach before heading home on Monday. She got to experience blackouts in our house, no computer or phone usage for most of the weekend even when we did have lights, and a short blackout in the grocery store. She's Dominican now!

Darton Talking

Darton's vocabulary is growing vocally and through sign language. Ana taught him how to say gato (cat) last week. He also clicks his tongue to tell you what a caballo (horse) says. He responds to the questions "Como se dice un gato/caballo?" (What does a cat/horse say?).

My mom noted that he truly responds to Ana's Spanish more so than Adeline can/does. We hope that will change for Adeline this Fall after we put her in all-Spanish school 2-3 times a week (it's our friends' Denny & Cynthia's school that is a 10minute walk from our house). AAAAHHHH!!!! My daughter is going to be in the care of someone else for a good chunk of the week!!! I'm still very anxious about this, hence the exclamation marks. Ok, so 2-3 days equals out to about 8-12 hours...so that doesn't sound too bad.

5th Anniversary

Scotty and I celebrated our 5th anniversary this past weekend.
Here's our track record: Met in '02, Married in '04, Babies in '06 & '08. Makes you think something big needs to happen in 2010, huh?

We spent the most wonderful night at Casa Colonial in Puerta Plata. We aren't lovers of the all-inclusive resorts (hence he took me to a VRBO [vacation rental by owner] to the Bahamas for our honeymoon), but we also knew we wanted a nice, romantic getaway without staying in a house or apartment. Scotty stumbled across SLH (Small Luxury Hotels) and found 3 here in the DR, Casa Colonial being one of them. We drove about 3 hours to get there. The pool and 4 hot tubs were located on the 3rd floor overlooking the ocean.

The north beach is very wendy. It's a great beach for water sports.

All dressed up for our anniversary dinner. We were one of a handful of couples there, so we felt like we had the whole palce to ourselves. After dinner we sat in the lobby and read while listening to a pianist, then we made our way outside and had a drink under the stars. You can see that the grounds were decked with candles. We headed back to our room after half an hour or so to find that the hotel staff had covered our room with rose petals and candles, including the bathtub. Every penny is well worth is for this place.

This is the CC beach at Playa Dorado. Yes, I'm wearing a bikini...it was an anniversary trip! We were beginning to doubt if we could find a place in the DR where EVERYTHING worked (i.e. air, toilet, water, no cockroaches) and the staff was more than willing to serve you. Well we found it!

The drive to and from Puerta Plata isn't pleasant. It's a very well traveled 2 lane road through the mountains and well traveled means getting stuck behind one slow car or semi truck after another and playing the passing game. On our way home, as soon as we hit the Duarte (which is a major highway and would be compared to a U.S. interstate) there were 4 groups of professional bikers taking up both lanes and shoulders. As soon as you pushed your way through one group, there was another and another. We have NEVER experienced such a frustrating time. Can you imagine fighting bicyclists, their helpers in vehicles, traffic cops on motors that aren't directing traffic but part of the problem, and the rest of traffic fighting for every inch of highway shoulder to shoulder. Complete chaos!

As we entered into town we slowed down for traffic and Scotty looked in the rearview mirror to see "MACK" in his view. It was a Mack semi within an inch of rearending us. The semi pushed his way passed us and Scotty made the smart decision not to fight him for the road because we then went on to witness him weaving in and out of traffic going full speed like a BMW roadster. Scotty looked at me and said "I wish he would crash and burn." I looked disapprovingly at him and he said, "Ok, I wish he wouldn't burn, just run into a pole." We turned our heads back to the highway and there the semi went....flipped on his side into the ditch knocking out a power line and splitting his trailer wide open! Sparks started to fly as the swinging power lines were touching.

There are only a few times that you will catch a Dominican running and one of those times is to an accident to see what happened [Dominicans will agree with me on this one]. From what we could see the semi was the only vehicle involved and the man was being pulled from the front window that had busted out. You can imagine the guilt Scotty had to deal with after he said that, and he acknowledged it as well. (I do have his permission to write the story.)

I read Boost Your Child's Immune System by Lucy Burney that my girlfriend let me borrow and it a GREAT read for mom's who aren't familiar with the in's and out's of the immune sytem and how to give your child a diet to help not hinder his system. It is helpful with the common cold and allergies. Half of the book is recipes from 6mths to 18yrs.

On the way home we listened to more of Vision Forum's Mega Conference History of the World part A.D. Wow! What a great investment this CD series is. Where has the Church been during the development of societies and countries? Who has played major roles in Christianity throughout history? There is so much information about the Christian church in the A.D. series alone! This CD series is a MUST for the Christian home. We are way underinformed about our Christian heritage.

Week with Grandmommie and Gdad

This isn't us, just wanted you to see the scenery. The mountains run alongside the coastline.

Mom and Dad are celebrating 30years of marriage this year! Thank you to both parents for giving us such a great heritage.

We stayed in Rio San Juan at an all-inclusive resort Monday-Thursday. RSJ is on the north coast and we drove through the mountains for about 3 hours to get there. The resort was great, but the sandflies were awful! Mom can testify that those nasty bugers make you miserable!Notice Adeline has her arm around Grandmommie for this picture..she's getting into the "posing" stage. The pool that the kids wanted to spend their time in as opposed to the beach.

We stopped on the way home to see a beautiful waterfall. It was quite the steep walk with two little ones and sandals. But we made it and Dad walked about halfway down and took the pictures for us.

Adeline has come out of her shell full force! It was hilarious watching her socialize with adults and kids in the pool. She had no desire to play with me, but would go up to a couple wading in the water and start up a conversation. She'd soon return to get a ball from me to play with the strangers. My mouth hit the floor when she marched up to stand beside the aerobics director to excercise and mimic her moves. Of course the crowd got a big kick out of it.

On our way home we wrote down the names of places to look at on the internet to see if they would be a place to stay whent he Geer family comes at New Years. One was Balaji Palace and the other was Villa Bianca. This is just the tip of the iceberg folks...it's absolutely incredible that people have the kind of money to stay in these places. I had no idea what I had stumbled upon until we looked on the internet. There are places here that cost $20,000US a night!

But writing down names of places you see on the road and then searching for them on the internet can be very dangerous! One of the names of places I wrote down ended up being a nude beach hotel. It was quite an experience sitting at the computer with my parents when the web page with nude people popped up!