spring break

So it is spring break here. We opted to stay around here and work on house projects. So I thought I'd post some pictures of our recent trip to the Dominican Republic. Or heaven on earth, as I like to call it.

This is what we are experiencing now with the kids.



The view at Las Galeras beach

Our first meal on the beach. i loved how they served the fish whole--it reminded me of Portugal.

Watching them make queso fresco. The cheese was delicious, I just had to not think about the rough conditions it was made in and then I was fine.

The closest church was in Nagua, an hour and 50 minutes away. We didn't have the address of the church so we just headed to Nagua and hoped we could find it. Once we got there we had no idea where to go, so when we saw a guy in a white shirt and tie riding a motorcycle we asked where a mormon church was. "I'm Mormon," he said, "I'll take you there." And with that miracle we followed him through the winding streets straight to the chapel. And we were so glad we did. It was one of the highlights of the trip, hearing the testimonies of the members there and realizing once again how blessed we are to have the gospel of Jesus Christ in our lives, and how it is the same all over the world.

Sunday must be laundry day in the Dominican. The people are lucky if they have a small washing machine and no one has dryers, so this view was everywhere as we drove to and from church.

I plan to frame my "laundry" pictures and put them in my laundry room. Then when I feel like complaining about all of the laundry I do, I'll remember to count my blessings. Because really my washing machine and dryer do most of the work.

This is the view from the condo. You can't really see but i am sitting on a chair reading a book, enjoying the beautiful ocean. Such peace and beauty. I've really got to live by an ocean someday.

This was an area where they do cliff diving. Tyler thinks since he has good life insurance that he can dive off of 500 foot cliffs into crashing waves below and I should be okay with it. Lucky for me the water was too rough the day we visited or he would have dived. Yikes!

This is the view looking down on the "stairs" to the water below

Tyler on the diving cliff. I am taking the picture from an open-air restaurant built on the edge of the neighboring cliff. A family from Holland built the restaurant and live and work in the dominican now. We were seriously considering options of how we could stay and live there too.
We came back to the restaurant later and had dinner. You can't see the view, but it was breathtaking. When we were getting ready to leave the owner hung a hammock in the restaurant so he could tuck his son in for bed. What a sweet life!

Walking along the rocks by the condo

I love the boats on the beach. I think the fishermen are really brave to go out in the ocean in these little boats. Notice the huge cruise ship in the background.

It is a sure sign of a dangerous animal if they have to saw the horns off. Beware of cow.

Coco, our friend and worker at the Condo. I wish you could see that he has a machete on his lap as he rides his motorcycle. The machete goes everyone with him.

This is a cave Coco took us to explore. It is behind his house on the hillside. His father-in-law has prayer meetings here, hence the need for the benches.

The inside of the cave was amazing. It was really dark, but the flash on the camera lit up the whole place. The only downside was the bats that were swooping around. I had a bad image in my mind of a bat swooping down and getting caught in my hair. Luckily we escaped with no bat attacks. Whew!

Us in the cave

These were some of the houses on Coco's property. i don't know how many families lived on this piece of land. When we went to visit there must have been 15 people there, some playing baseball, others cleaning, cooking and sweeping the dirt walkways and taking care of the kids running around. The Dominican is a land of contrast. People would live in the rudest of shelters, with no running water or indoor plumbing but have a TV and cable.

This was a really nice motorcycle. Most of them are pretty basic and run down looking, so I guess that is why this one got a fancy garage to park in.

Playa Madama. This beach was snorkel-heaven. The coral was so colorful and the fish were everywhere. Brightly colored electric blue fish, striped yellow, even a flat fish that blended into the ocean floor and swam like a sting-ray. We could have stayed all day at this beach. It was a rocky drive up to it, and then a 1/2 hour hike to get there, but well worth it.

This was on the hike out from Playa Madama. Do you like Tyler's pink camoflauge backpack? Cute. (Okay, it's really mine, but he carried it for me. What a gentleman). Actually the hike through the underbrush was a bit scary at times and I found myself thinking through emergency scenarios in my mind as I hiked. What if Tyler fell and broke his leg? How would I get him out of the forest and back to the car? And where would I go for medical treatment from there? Do you ever do that? I think when I'm nervous I try to think through every possible bad situation so I can be prepared so i won't be as scared. The best plan I came up with was to use our towels and a few fallen branches and lash together a stretcher and drag him out. When I told Tyler about my plan later he said I should just leave him there, go get help and come back. I thought about that, but knew with my sense of direction if I left him there I'd never find him again. And since I created the perfect plan nothing happened. Whew!

The condo

Tyler with Coco. Coco is such a great person and saved us a few times. When we first arrived at the condo at 2am, we discovered that we brought the wrong key and couldn't get in. Once again I was planning what I would do (sleep on the beach, etc.), when Tyler called Coco to see if he could come and let us in. Tyler's phone died 5 seconds after he got Coco on the line. Luckily it was enough for Coco to hear "keys don't work" and he and his girlfriend arrived on his motorcycle 10 minutes later and saved the day.

It was such a fantastic trip--a huge thank you to my mom for coming out to watch the kids and to my in-laws for sharing their condo.