The Dominican Republic: Day 2

The next morning, the missionaries, Kathy and Joe, took us to their church. This one was in English.

There’s the church. It started raining while we were there, so the ride home in the truck was very wet!

After church and lunch, we drove to their health center to sort all of the supplies everyone brought. The kids at our church’s VBS brought in tons of supplies for us to take. We brought so many suitcases!

When we got back to the hotel, we met as a team and planned out what songs we were going to sing at the villages we were going to visit during the week. We even put together a puppet show of the Zacchaeus story!

One of the songs we did was the Psalm 3:5-6 song I learned in VBS years ago. Thanks, Mrs. W! :)

After dinner, I went on a walk on the beach with Annie, one of the girls on the team. She’s the one in the yellow shirt in the photo. We got to know each other and had a few laughs. Then Joel, Annie, her sister Katie, Nin, and I sat by the pool and talked some more. I am so glad that there were girls my age on the trip! We became fast friends.

The Dominican Republic: Day 1

The post you’ve all been waiting for! Well, maybe you were happy with the video, but here’s the details anyway.

On the bus! Look at us in our matching T-shirts. Spiffy.

We met the rest of our team in the airport, and then hopped on the plane!

It was so cool flying over the beautiful country of the Dominican Republic.

We were picked up in this truck and enjoyed a bumpy ride to our hotel!

We had not expected to have such nice accommodations!  It was great to be able to have a vacation here too when we weren’t working.

The beach was beautiful, and we had a ton of fun swimming and snorkeling in the ocean.

Our team was great! There were a total of 13 of us. Here’s mom with Nin and Kim. Nin is from Florida, and Kim is from Canada.

When we all arrived at the hotel, we had a meeting with the missionaries we were there to help, and we found out what to expect for the week. We took a swim in the ocean and then just hung out. It was a nice relaxing day to help us get settled in.

New Jersey

Please read the above title in a Jersey accent. It makes it sooo much cooler.
Anyhoo, one of the many trips we made this past summer was up to New Jersey to visit the family of one of Dad’s coworkers. They’re a great family and a lot of fun! They’ve got five boys, so it does get kind of stinky, but it’s fun! (; We stayed a whole week, and on one of the days we went to Ocean City and hung out at the beach with four of their five boys.

Dad didn’t come because he had to work, but he would have hated the crowd. He’s more of a mountain guy anyway.

For lunch, we got one of these huge pizzas!

If you eat the entire thing in record time, you win 25o free pizzas! The current record is 11 minutes!

No thank you. I’ll leave that to the pros. …Are there professional pizza eaters?

We found a space on the crowded beach, and set up our umbrella as quickly as we could, because the sand was so hot!

The water was extremely cold, so Joel buried himself in sand. A logical solution.

Yes, I know my sunglasses are crooked. But isn’t that a great picture? :)

Here’s the whole group, minus mom. (From left to right) In the back: Me, Josh, David; Middle: Silas, Joel, Isaac; and Stephen’s in the front.

After we finished on the beach, we got some saltwater taffy from the boardwalk, and free samples of fudge!

Mom also got to visit a friend from college while we were in New Jersey!

Mr. and Mrs. A took us on a very uphill hike to a rock looking over the Delaware River. The kind of rock that freaks moms out. It had a great view though!


Look! Everyone survived!

There’s our lovely hosts, Mr. and Mrs. A!

More freaking-out-Mom stuff…

Of course we couldn’t leave without shooting their guns…

My first time! I wasn’t too bad at it, if I do say so myself…



Dad was good at it too! He shot a clay pigeon in the air, and ended with that.
We had a great time in New Jersey with the A’s! Hopefully we can see them again soon; maybe here in TN!