Pat on the Back and Slap in the Face

I have been trying to be more frugal with grocery shopping and not just buying the product because it's what I'm familiar with (p.s. I'm mainly having to do this because I overshot my budget with the last trip to the States!!). I was a very frugal shopper in Elko, but moving to another country has undone every restraint that I had taught myself when grocery shopping. Today I had my first success. I stopped a shopper in the aisle and asked what chocolate powder is "dominican" to use to make chocolate milk. She pointed out the cocoa that was only $40ish pesos (under $1.50US). Next to this product was cocoa powder you use for baking. I had already put the $160RD ($4US) Hershey's cocoa powder in my basket. The dominican product was only $45RD (under$1.50US). So you can do the math and figure out which one is the smarter buy. We'll see if the quality decreases with the price. Pat on the back.
But the frugal shopping went downhill fast when I saw the promo with buying Presidente (the national beer). On the promo table were three gifts with purchases (bottle opener, bottle koozie, pack of 2 Presidente glasses). I called Scott and he wanted 4 glasses. I wanted a koozie. So our "wants" lead to me buying the max purchase of 3 6packs. From what I had gathered from the promo lady, all I needed to do was buy a six pack and then recieve a gift. Buy 3 6packs, Get 3 gifts. All right! I even called Rosalyn to let her in on the deal since she had just said this past wkend that she wanted some Presidente glasses. made my purchases and then took the receipt back to the promo lady who then preceeded to hand me a scratch off card!!! Buy a 6 pack, Get a scratch off card...I left with 2 bottle openers. Slap in the face!

On a side note: I had a conversation with Ana a few weeks ago about the reasons I buy food that I might not eat for more than a month later. My two reasons were that I have the money to live beyond today and that I don't enjoy going to the market every day. That conversation has made me better about eating what I've bought before buying more...which helps the monthly budget more than I expected.

Jarabacoa

This weekend we traveled to the middle of the island to enjoy the mountains of the Dominican Republic. Green, Green, and more Green. It's the place where palm tree and pine tree meet. Absolutely beautiful and a wonderful get-a-way from the city. Our children could run barefoot in the grass....it was absolutely a beautiful thing! One of those things you miss when you live in an apartment and the park across the street is covered with more trash than green grass. In fact, I woke up this morning wishing we were spending the entire week there. City noise tends to wear on you after a while.

We traveled with our friends Nick, Rosalyn, Owen & Isabel. They are such dears to travel with a family with young children and a pup! Ros & I left on Friday morning with the kids and Sarah and the men met up with us after work. It only took 2 hours to get to Mi Vista in Hatillo. Darton managed to fall three times in about three hours and the poor thing was quite red-faced as a result of it.

The first day of travel with Sarah is always the hardest. She goes absolutely crazy when she's let of the leash (or the lead as the Aussies say). I let her off to roam the hillside with the kids and off she went passing through a barbed-wire fence after the neighbors chickens. I just knew I was going to have to restock the neighbors chicken supply...no doubt a livelihood of theirs. Sarah refused to listen to any command, especially after she found a cat to chase as well. So Owen and I passed through the barbed-wire fence and I was finally able to catch Sarah in the wetness of the ground outside the neighbor's outhouse! Sarah was so intense while chasing the other animals. It was amazing to see her work and listen for any noise in the bush that might be a fun prey to play with. She'd be an excellent bird dog for Scotty to have in Nevada. In the process of chasing Sarah I was bit by small black gnats that usually don't cause much of a reaction on your skin. However, I suffered from swollen ankles and intense itching all weekend. The itching has now passed and the swelling is going down.

Enjoying the afternoon watching the kids play on the hillside.

Minus the Doritos...this is my island girl.

El comedor - where we ate our meals.

She's realized she can pose for photos. The real reason I tookt his pic was the scenery.

Salto Jimenoa.

The waterfall in the background was one used in Jarassic Park.

Pathway to the waterfall. We only walked until it was too steep to walk with little kids. Ros & Nick went with their kids though.

Pizzeria playground...these kinds of places are a rare find in the DR. We were so happy to be at a clean kid friendly restaurant.

Hear No Spanish, See No Spanish

This post is dedicated to Scott's day at work.
He participated in an all-Spanish course on team building. I was amazed he was able to do it. However he said it wasn't not hard, you just follow the crowd. One of the last challenges of the day though was to create a square with your teammates while holding onto a rope BLINDFOLDED. If only you could hear him tell this story! Since he couldn't understand the Spanish commands or see the direction his team was going he had to listen his way through the exercise to tell if people where moving forward, backward, left, or right. Can you imagine!?

Sunday Best

Aunt Trenia bought Adeline the cutest cherry dress and she wore it for the first time to church yesterday. Mama Geer made Darton's outfit for one of Scotty's brothers and now we're getting to use it! Darton is also wearing Stride Rite sandals Mama has kept "just in case." Thanks Mama!

Notice that we have now reached the age that we want to look at the camera! Yeah!

Adeline started week 2 of school and is still in love with it. She brought home lots of things that she made and talks about what she did. This weekend Adeline decided that she can now take showers! Last Fall she screamed every time we took a bath because she didn't want to get water in her face. In January or so I figured out that I could count to 10 or sing a song to calm her down while washing her hair. This calmed her down because she knew that once I got to 10 or to the end of the song that we were finished. Around April she became completely comfortable with washing her hair and more rational about the whole process. Now here we are about 7 months later taking showers!! She still wants to lay down while I use the hand held shower head to rinse the soap out, but SO WHAT! Atleast she's not screaming!

Everything has its season...biblical advice from Eccleciastes that I MUST remember in all things with my children!

Happy July 4th!

We met Rosalynn and the kids for lunch at a new and fancy Burger King/Papa John's. There is a playground area upstairs and thankfully it wasn't overrun by too many kids, so that Ros and I could relax for a moment for a chat. After BK, we took a good nap and then made an American flag in honor of July 4th. I really didn't think much of not being in the States on the 4th until tonight. The majority of Americans in the States will be enjoying fireworks tonight. It's really cool to think about so many people doing the same thing at one time. In my 27 years of life, this is the first time I won't be doing the "norm" on July 4th...just a thought that hit me with emotion without expecting it too.
We celebrated July 4th by going to the beach! There was a small sailboat competition and people from all over the world participating. The day was extremely windy. Darton's vocabulary has grown...he can now bark like a dog :)

Kissing Sarah

Since Sarah kisses Darton with licks of her tongue, Darton thinks he must do the same. This video doesn't catch the best moments. He truly sticks his tongue all the way out and gives Sarah a big lick! I laugh and cringe and know that my Little Man is just getting a stronger immune system :)

Adeline Goes Under the Water