Glimpse into our life - practice

I believe that most of you know that Eddy has a gift for music.  He self-taught himself to play the piano and he also sings.  He serves at our church on the worship team.  He also plays the guitar and percussion (on the keyboard).  A large part of my time at home is spent listening to Eddy practice.  I love how passionate he is about worship and I love listening to him play.  He usually sets up on the kitchen table but since Jenny and I were hanging out in there, he came up with this set up today:

He was so focused, he didn't even notice me taking his picture.

Sitting in a rocking chair, piano on the hamper, computer on the floor.  Whatever works right?  Love him.

Glimpse into our Life - phones

This is the cell phone that Eddy and I share:

I bet you didn't even know they still made phones like this.

This beauty is pay-as-you-go.  We "buy minutes" when we run out so that we can make phone calls.  Its features include texting capabilities and an awesome multi-colored font when dialing phone numbers.

My lack of modern phone technology, has led to me asking my friends and family in the states ridiculous questions such as "Do you have a cell phone?" or "Do you have minutes?", which usually leads to them patiently explaining to me (with the voice usually reserved for when speaking to small children) that yes, they do, in fact, have a cell phone, and they don't "buy minutes".  Embarrassing.

Eddy had a second phone for a while, but it never worked very well and finally broke completely a few weeks ago, so for the most part, yes, this has been our phone.

That is, until today.  I present to you my very first smart phone:

Isn't it beautiful?

Now I just need to figure out how to use it.  

Glimpse into our life - Sobrinas

This is a picture of me with our three sobrinas (nieces).  They are my loves.  My life would not be the same without them and I consider myself to be truly blessed to be their tia (aunt).  On the left is Jenny.  On the right is Adriana and Adrianys.  Adriana and Adrianys are sisters.  For the full year before Eddy and I got married I lived with Adriana, Adrianys and their mom (Eddy's sister, Guillermina).  They are a huge part of my life.

 In May the girls, and their mom, moved to New York to be with their dad.  Their family had been working very hard for years to get their visas for them to be able to move the states to live with him.  We celebrated that their family is reunited, but we miss them terribly.  They call us a couple times a week to talk one the phone and catch up.  Here is a picture of them at the airport, ready to go.

There is probably nobody that misses those girls more than Jenny.  Jenny and Adrianys were born days apart and the three girls are the best of friends.  (Jenny's mom is Eddy's other sister, Gloria.)  The girls lived right down the street from us, but Jenny and her mom live farther away so we have to be more intentional about spending time with her.  Jenny comes over to our house about a once week to visit us.  We bake together and play Jenga and hang out with Eddy.  She also comes to church with us most Sundays and participates in the activities that the church has for the kids.  We love her dearly and are so thankful to have her in our lives.

Glimpse into our life - Roadside Stands

One thing I love about living in the Dominican Republic is the ease at which you can purchase everyday items.  From neighborhood colmados, to roadside stands, to people selling items at stoplights.

Within a block of our house there are four colmados open.  These colmados are small stands or stores that sell a variety of things that you can buy in small quantities.  For example, I could go down to the colmado and buy two eggs, three plantains, a bottle of water, and just enough laundry detergent for two loads of laundry. That would be a completely normal colmado purchase.  Within a mile of our house there are also several roadside food stands that sell fried chicken, empanadas, pizza, etc.

At most busy intersections throughout the city, there are vendors selling a variety of items on the street.  Things we have bought at intersections: bottles of water, cds, phone cards, windshield wipers, phone chargers, educational posters for the school, avocados.  The people walk between the cars when they stop and you buy what you want right through your window.

One of my favorite kinds of roadside stands are the flower stands.  Along the normal routes that we take, there are four different flower stands of various sizes where we will sometimes stop to buy flowers.  These flowers are fresh and beautiful and cheap.  What I love the most is the variety of tropical flowers available, most of which I had never seen before moving here and don't even know the names of.  I love having fresh flowers in the house and I love giving flowers as gifts as well.

My mom calls these "bird of paradise" flowers.  There is a large variety of this type of flower.  You can see a few of the different kinds in the last picture.

I like the ones in the back that look like honeycombs.  I think they are really cool.

So many cool flowers to choose from.  :)

Glimpses into our life - First day of school

Hi All,

I've been thinking and praying a lot about this blog of mine that I have been ignoring for several months and neglected for far longer.  For a while I was considering shutting it down, but as I thought about it, I realized that it is such a great tool for connecting with all of you.

We have such an amazing group of friends and family and supporters in the states.  We love when some of you have a chance to come visit and get to see firsthand our life down here in the DR and we love catching up with you all when we are in the states and telling you stories about our lives.  I realize that most of you reading this have no idea what our day-to-day lives are like.  You don't know what its like to live in a barrio in the Dominican Republic, but in talking with some of you, you seem to be really interested to know.

I would love to start writing on here again someday about some of the deep stuff.  To share my continued testimony with you and talk about the heavy stuff and the way that God is moving and working in our lives.  But for now, what I really want to do is just reconnect with you all and start sharing our lives with you.

So what I've decided to do is start a new series of blog posts called "glimpses into our life".  A few times a week, I will post a few pictures with a short post explaining the most recent "glimpse" into our life.  Each post will focus on one small aspect of our life; from what our home looks like, to the struggles of doing laundry in the Dominican Republic, to our church activities, to Eddy's family, to why we are afraid of mosquito bites, and the list will go on.

To start us off today, the first "glimpse into our life" is an easy one.  This Tuesday was: THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL.  This is the fifth school year that I will be present for here at Pathway to Jesus School (and, I think, the ninth or tenth for Eddy.)  Luckily the school has started off very smoothly (with very little crying at the preschool side).  Here are a couple of pictures.

Cafeteria at the elementary building

some of the big kids

KINDER - 4 year olds

PARVULO - 2 year olds

MATERNAL - 3 year olds