Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens,
Brown paper packages tied up with strings, These are a few of my favorite things…
This past week has been filled with a few of my favorite things: family from far away, sun streaming through palm trees, and rest in tranquility.
Family from far away: Our home is a vacation spot for most, so I feel like we see people a lot. Even if they are new friends we meet on teams, it seems like there are people visiting often! However, this past week and next week we have a very special visitor, my brother. For the past 3.5 years Trent has been serving in the US Air Force and due to job assignments he has been unable to travel outside of the US except for military related placements. I found out I was pregnant with Braegan when Trent was in basic training and it wasn’t until she was a month and a half that he got to meet her for the first time. The two of them share a special bond even though their experiences together have been few. Trent and Jeff have a lot in common from adventurous spirits to fishing and good food. They spent two mornings spearfishing, bring in a few lion fish, a couple parrot fish and a grouper. We enjoyed them on our last night for dinner.
Sun streaming through palm trees: I’ve shared about my rooftop at the house in previous blogs. It is where I go for my quiet time throughout the week. I enjoy being in the sun, plus internet signal isn’t great up there, and it allows me to have time to pray and journal. I have a favorite place in the Dominican apart from my roof top and that is Las Terrenas. Jeff, Braegan and I have had the opportunity to visit there 4 times this year, and each time we go, it gets a little better. There are a lot of Europeans there; however, there is still Dominican feel. There are frequent power outages and limited internet access which makes it easy to get away from the distractions of life.
Rest in tranquility: In San Juan it seems like there is always some sort of noise (cars, motos, dogs, people, etc). We live off of the main Avenida, so there is always traffic. I’m not complaining, we are very used to it, and it actually lulls Braegan to sleep:) But when we have the opportunity to step away, we realize just how loud our life really is. This last week the house we rented was about a mile from the beach/main road, so it was very tranquil. The only wild life we heard outside were cows out back around 4:00 pm each day and frogs in the evenings.
We have a few more weeks of groups before a break at the end of November. Braegan is continuing to enjoy school and each day she drops a few more spanish phrases our way. In other news, we have our appointment to renew our residency on Tuesday, November 3 in Santo Domingo. It seems that we have provided all of the proper paperwork, but prayers for the process as we proceed forward are appreciated. We are working with a new lawyer for this step, and that has made things a lot simpler too. Stay tuned…