Have a good Godmas :)

Merry Christmas, sorry we haven't blogged in forever. Although we are in the Christmas season and a Christmas would be more than appropriate, but we aren't really in to the whole stereotypicalness (sound it out) of life. So a blog on the animals is our life would be more surprising don't you think?

1) Chiquita

age: 2 (years)

gender: F

species: Mutt

notes: We call her Kita

2) Turtle

age: 1

gender: F?

species: Red eared slider.

Notes: Turtle is a turtle

3) Spice

age: ?

gender: F

species: Rabbit of some sort

Notes: Pregnant

4) Children (Spice)

Age: 1 month

Genders: all

Species: Same as Spice

Notes: There are 11

5) Gertie

Age: ?

Gender: F

Species: Laying hen?

Notes: Gift from Phil. Has laid us 3 eggs of which were promptly eaten.

6) Flo

Age: 1 year-ish

Gender: F

Species: Goat..

Notes: She is pregnant

7) Yem

Age: 8 days

Gender: M

Species: Goat

Notes: You pronounce Y as a J. This guy has a long story behind him.

Those are the animal that live on our yard and in our house, and no we don't own a farm :)

HAVE A GOOD GODMAS!!!

Napa

When our Grandma and Grandpa came out we did all sorts of fun things but first I will tell you why the title is so. "Napa" is the combining of Nan and Papa which is what we call them so when Ethan first saw them and he didn't want to just say one (so no feelings are hurt) he yelled "NAPA!!!!"
After we got their luggage all in the truck (still is the Tortuga) we headed off to the all-inclusive resort Breezes- where there is golfing,btennis, soccer, badminton, ping-pong, Foosball, tons of pools, a climbing wall, hockey (one of those fake ice things), all you can eat buffets, even a trapeze, and of course the ocean. We were very excited if you can guess and we hurriedly tried as much as we could everyday resulting in being totally wiped out by 6'oclock (no, that was not when we went to bed) We had so much food that we didn't eat for a few days after. After 3 nights at Breezes we packed up and headed back up the mountain to home sweet home Jarabacoa. Afterward we headed off again, much to our classmates disgust and hate, this time to Las Terranes. Surfing and chilling is about all we did, oh ya... and eating. It was a lot of fun. The picture is of Las terranas at Playa Bonita. Thats all for now :)

Betcha didn't know that...

Things that I betcha didn't know that...(or you might know but I'm saying them anyway)
-Me and Drew are playing in the praise band now (drums and guitar)
-Toilet paper doesn't go in the toilet...
-Look both ways before you cross the street EVEN on one-ways.
-They speak SPANISH here (for those who thought they spoke "that weird language")
-We live in a house...not a tent...
-I like it when you comment on our posts...
-They don't have Halloween here.
-1.5inches=the average sized cockroach in our house.
-Ethan has a nameless turtle.
-Robbers are smart here.... They poison your dog before they rob your house. (not to us)
-Parents start Christmas shopping in October.
That's all for now!

Pico "Duaite"

More commonly known as Pico Duarte but we add Campisino twist. Last monday we started another Pico trip. This time though we went with our school. Doulos. Just in case you thought we died or something I'll tell you right now that it was actually quite fun. Rounds apon rounds of rummy. (Thats a card game in case you didn't know :) We had to carry all of our stuff on our backs this time (except food) but you got used to the backpacks really fast. We started on monday, we got to school at a normal time and left at around ten to La Cienaga. Once we got there we unloaded and sat around for a bit while we waited for the guides. When they got there we started on the path to Los Tablones were we stayed for the day. That night we made chinese stirfry for supper. That night we learned that Caleb had to turn around and go home due to his asthma. The next morning he and Mrs.Kyla who is newly pregnent went back to La Cienaga. We had Carrot cake and pineapple for breakfast which was pretty good because Brodie (me) was on kitchen cleanup that day and carrot cake and pineaple doesn't make too bad of a mess. Tuesday morning we started towards La Comparticion which was about 7 fun filled hours of walking away. On the way we saw a tarantula which I thought was pretty neat indeed. I told the other kids but the response I was givin was a dry "cool" as they kept walking. I now know that tarantulas are "cool...." When we got to La Compartacion (which I may remind you was after 7 hours of walking) we found out that the guides "didnt have a key to any of the casetas,"and that we would have to stay in the "barn." That didn't go over. There was a "slight" bit of arguing, bribing, and other...things. Finally we just told them to try their keys. "Strangely" they opened all of the casetas. One. By. One. Well that was all fine and dandy. We put our bags in our nice caseta and did stuff. Stuff as in Rummy! Ya! Mafia, Silent football, Ladron , 2-3, and many more fun games like truth-or-dare and the all time favorite...SHARADES!!! Ya...I know... we're nerds. Later that day we ate some form of supper which I don't quite remember. The next day was the peak assent. We stayed back with Mrs. Wallace in the slow group because since we've done it before we thought we could help out in the back. We pushed girls up the hill. You see, the group of girls in our class weren't very fun to have on the trip. they were a bunch of whiners (no offense) No fun. When we got to the top there wasn't really a view because of the clouds, so a bunch of people including us two decided to climb pelona. (Duaite's sister mountain) There we saw Noahs Ark. This "ark" im refering to is a giant caseta sitting in between the two mountains. This caseta is the size of a soccer field. (no joke) When we got to the top of pelona it was kinda eery. Theres a broken shack and this tower that you can climb and when you reach the top you are at the actual highest point in the caribean. But according to the philosophy that Uncle Terry read about the earths oceans and tidal pull and the earths curve...blah...blah...blah. Its really scary up there, the wood steps up to the top of the tower aren't attached and every step you take shakes the entire structure. We didn't stay long. On our way down it poured. So being the smarties we are, we ran down the mountain to get there faster resulting in many falls and almost falls all the way until we got there. Once we got there (while it was still raining) we (the four that ran down) hurried down to the freezing cold river to wash off before we got too warm. I (Drew) didn't quite feel like jumping in right away but I didn't feel like jumping in when I was warmer so I dove in. (Actually it wasn't that deep so it was more of wade and then a fall) It was like being electrified. I don't think I ever do it again. Or atleast not until next pico ;) Once we got back to the camp we put our wet close around the fire and went inside to play (back to those games) and eventually sleep. The next day we should have been going to the Valley of Tetero but it was raing to much so it was canceled and we stayed at Comparticion. In the morning as we went to the campfire for breakfast we saw a pair of shoes but the fire, burnt, lucky not ours, unluckily one on of the girls, luckily one of our friends camp shoes were basically hiking shoes so he lent those. Next was the hardest test for a Domincan: 2hours of silence! It was for reminising about how the trip was. I (Drew) wrote a letter to a person who helped me when we were climb La Pelona and after that just jotted down some things about the bible verse. I learned later that one of the Dominicans couldn't keep quiet and was throwing stones at people... The next day should have been our second last but because we didn't go to the valley we were going to go home that day. So the girls left 2 hours early and us guys stayed and cleaned up camp. Once done, we left at a fair pace and caught up to the girls at Aguita Fria (which was about 1 hour from Comparticion) We questioned why they were still there and they said they were making good time and had been there for 15 minutes!! (Thats terrible if you haven't done the math already) So now the boys wanted to see how fast we could get to the bottom. So we ran. No we sprinted. We got to the bottom three hours earlier then the girls and 2 hours earlier then the 10th and 11th graders who had gone on pico 2 weeks ago. (Skips 3hours) Once everyone was there we all ate rice and beans with chicken that was made by the guides wife to celebrate and took the guagua home!!!!!!!!!

Thursday of the air-born frog

You see, just a few days ago mom got a toaster. We rarely use it because the bread they sell here is soo thick. On Thursday, Dad was going to put bread in the toaster, but when he pushed the button to make the bread go down...A sticky frog went shooting out of the toaster! We chased the frog outside,but it got away!

Also books we have been reading, Brodie= The Sight by David Clement-Davies,
Me=ISLAND by Gordon Korman.
So yeah, just catching up.
Ethan

Retreat and Our Retreat

This last week has really reached us emotionally. It is called Retreat, and it is a week where the students of Escuela Caribe lose the rules and structure of daily life and start worshipping (singing songs), talking with the guest speaker about life, and just havin fun by playing games. We were only allowed to come for the FULL days on Wednesday and Saturday but on all of the days we stayed for the evening section of it were the guest speaker stands and talks and tries to help the students. This Retreat was about Changing Your Label. At the start of the Retreat we had atleast 3 atheists and lots of non (or not quite) believers but on the last day it all changed. The last service is just a morning one but instead of the speaker preaching the students go up and say what they have liked or what touched them the most. It started of with a few just saying that they can now forgive various people (sorry if you were one of those people and it seems like i kinda made it like that is not a big deal it is) but then it suddenly went quiet as one of the atheists went up. He cleared his throat looking for words... And said he believed!!! And just before (like 2 days ago) One of the others did! Once he sat down many, many people began to stand up saying that they having been praying for the two athiests and either now there faith is stronger or they now believe too!!! It gets better! After the service the recently-believer-once-atheist got together with the last athiest and started preaching to him, even though he just became a follower of christ himself!! As they are in the bathroom talking, fellow students are crying and talking with staff talking about how changing this week has been. Eventually, after helping a few students we packup and get ready to go on OUR retreat.... Cabarette.. What a sunday!!!
So we pickup Terry (because Jill and the girls are already there) and head down the twisty mountain roads to our hotel on the beach. We get there around 4'oclock, grabbed something to eat and played in the waves in the quickly dimishing light. Once it was too hard to see or we got too tired (I don't remember which) we headed inside and watched tv and talked. (first time watching tv in a LONG time) The next day mom and dad went to the store and got breakfast while we played in the pool or with Hazel and after they got back we ate and Terry, me, and Brodie got in T's car and drove to the surfing beach. We were out there for 2 hours and after catching a couple of waves and catching a ton of sun. We drove back to the hotel and played with the others in the pool. Finally we played a grueling (because of the intense sun) game of tennis, we packed up and headed home.

Blog Shmog go chew on a log.,ethan

Those were the seven harsh words I saw in a e-mail today.

You see,uncle Frank has not posted in a loooooooooooooonnnnnnnng time so I keep on telling him to blog (Grandpa, if your reading this tell him to chew on a log!).
Oh yeah,if you run into him tell him to show you the lobster and you'll see something cool.
So there...
Ethan :)

Hey(new cuz)

Hey Terry and Jill had a baby,so we got a new cuz. Her name is Luna.Luna means moon. Ya so go to Mom and Dad's blog if you are interested:)

Rain

It's been raining. Every day at 2:30 it starts to rain. Then the power goes on and off. Ya. Lots of rain. Also the poll thats set up is going to close in 21 hours and so far there have only been 8 votes. Oh. Ya, Mom and Dad left to Puerto Plata for two days two days ago because...I dont know, so Terry and Jill lived with us for two days. Ya thats what is going on :)

Hey school

This is our second week of school now and I am sitting in school right now so I got to make it quick before someone finds me. Just saying that we are in school.

Scratch

Scratch the "miss the XBOX thing" we don't have a TV. :'(

The-miss-it-game

Today at lunch we were playing The-miss-it-game. Ethan started us off with a random "I miss slushies" Well that was a very random thing for him to do, but it is a thing to base a blog off. Oh and another random thing, can everyone who reads the blog comment? Oh and one more thing, we are going to add some polls. Please vote.
Back to the things me miss.
-family
-friends
-slushies
-people
-ENGLISH
-permanent electricity
-family
-friends
-school (go figure)
-friends...
-snow(NOT)
-tap water
-X-box
-librarys
-The stuff we do with friends
-non-salty -lakes


Wait. The list is not actually what we miss. What we miss is actually is the top two. The rest is just not that important. That's the truth.

1 year gone.

With a fast year behind us and only one year left, it's kinda sad. We love it here, it's so....fun. Awesome language, beautiful country, nice people, cool culture. So the question is where are we going to be one year from now. Oh wow, just thought up something, how about we won't tell you what we plan on doing, but...lol that's mean but why not? There will be a poll where you guys think we will be in a year and after a certain amount of time the polls will reveal the answer of where we will live in one year. Anyway we are pretty sure this next year will be fast/fun except for one thing.. Manabao... (read that post for more details)
Another good thing about this year is that this school year we have a bonus. We start off the year with a one whole satisfaction guarantied friend.(lucky us) He is American and speaks English (go figures) so we can speak the same language and not have to explain the more complicated words. He plays baseball so Brodie will have him after school not me. I will still do soccer the whole year which I still love its just hard. Anyway since the school year now ended for Escuala Caribe some of our friends (students and staff) are leaving... :( But then I guess we will make new ones and have them over! My fondness of deep posts is not here and probably never will so this next part will be very difficult. (Here we go!*Mario voice*) This last year in the DR has changed our family dramatically and we will never be the same. We are now graced with incredible knowledge that no many people are lucky enough to have. We been changed in the way we think, live and breath. We are affected physically, mentally,...aly,etc. That was the deep part. Happy New Year!(for us) :)

Sorry

We might post later but we havn't yet so if you want to know whats up go www.bobandcarrie.blogspot.com ya so there! (sorry)

Week 1 of Vacation

Our first week of family vacation and we are already off, our mission? To explore the south-side of the island. So we packed up and got ready to go, Ethan and Dad went and got a few things from the store and we finished the stuff at the house. Everything was all done and we were getting in the vehicle when Ethan and Dad arrived and Ethan jumped off of the wrong side of the scooter and burned his leg bad. We call burns like that a "Dominican Tattoo". We didn't know it was that bad so we just said "its FINE let's go" but as we continued to drive out of town the blister grew worse and worse until it was bigger than a golf ball and PUFFY, it was gross.

Anyway, when we got to Bani (pronounced Bah NEE) (which was a checkpoint and a 4 hour drive from our house) we stopped and took a break at Burger King, (which is only in the BIG cities here) had a Whopper Adventuero (which completely filled us) and headed of to Las Salenas (dumb idea) for there is a serious lack of accommodations. After not being able to find anything after a few hours we headed back to Bani in search of a place to rest our heads. What we found was HOTEL GLAMOURS and it was awesome. No it wasn't, vehicles parked outside, motorcycles parked in the lobby which was in between rooms. After bringing all the stuff in, sleeping, and bringing all the stuff out we decided to continue along the south coast to Barrahona. As we continued on our long drive the scenery turned from lush to deserty until it was completely dry and there was cacti everywhere and no more green shrubs. When we arrived we found a nice hotel, checked in and went to find a few fun beaches! We found lots, oh and by the way the south coast is basically all polished pebble beaches which sound and look really cool as the waves come in. We stayed in Barrahona for 4 days. On Thursday we went to lago enriquillo the largest lake on the island. The we saw one crocodilian and like a trillionish iguanas. On Friday we went home. Friday was an odd day. We wanted to stay in Santo Domingo for the night so when we got there we looked for hotels. We couldn't really find any cheap ones so we decided to go to Quisqullana(I don't think that's spelt right.) This place looks like it used to be a hospital and no one is ever there. (I wonder why.) But when we got there it was full so we went home. End of adventures right? No. When we stopped at a gas station we called our house sitters to tell them that we were coming back early but when we called them they informed us that we had been robbed the previous night but they didn't think much was stolen. When we got home we checked for stolen stuff etc. List of stolen stuff; house sitters camera, Dads wedding ring, and two cellphones. The robbers could have taken more but it looks like they wanted money (dumb robbers, why rob poor people?) it also sounds like our neighbor kinda scared them off. Our dog Chiquitta is a nice dog. She doesn't bite people, but she likes to bark. Our neighbor Bob came out and told the dog to shutup and he also saw a car parked in front of our house but he didn't think very much about the car. Then he went to bed. We think that Bob yelling scared them off. That was week one of vacation.

Found in Canada?

Just a question? Do you get your Coke looking like that in Canada? In the fine print it clearly shows us that this new logo is symbolizing deliciousness and happiness. That's good, right? This is indeed Chinese.

Pico Duarte

That is the name of the tallest mountain in the Carribean (or West Indies). At approximately 10000 ft above sea level it is known to snow at the peak during its winter months. We climbed that!!!

Day:1 Monday

It was hard to believe at first that we would even attempt that ... But we did.... With some staff and students from Escuela Caribe we packed our bags and camelbacks and headed west to a small town called La Cienaga where we would start hiking. Once we got there we went to a house-looking building which was the guides houses where we got some mulos (you can figure that word out) and started hiking. We hiked out of town to the lodge at the trail head and just went on walking. 2 hours later BASECAMP yay! Basecamp is the first of 3 camps. Two cabins, outhouses, fire pit, and a river. At this point I am very frustrated, not with the hiking or anything to do with good ol'duarte. It's my inability to describe to you anything at all. The fun. The beauty. Anything. Anyway, for the night we split into groups. Girls in the cabin, guys in the tent. There were a total of five guys. Me, Drew, Terry, Dad, and B-wall. (B-wall= Brian, Mr Wall, Fireman, Dry Wall, he is a counselor for the school.)(oh ya, one more name, Ethan calls him
"Crazy Bald Man") The tent flooded.(the tent has a name, it's called the man tent.)

Day 2: Tuesday

After waking up at 6:00 sopping and having nothing dry we packed up the stuff, loaded the mulos, and had breakfast.(Which was like a trail mix bar) At this point we split up into more little groups, the slow group, medium (who were referred to as mediocre) and the Fast Group. All of the Friesens were in the fast group so we left last and prepared the mulos and packed the tents,and set off. I am not going to explain the hiking much for this day other than it was 8 hours of a LOT of up hill and near the 3 hour point it started to rain which really dampened our spirits.(sorry couldn't help it) When we finally reached the next check point: Peak Camp we set out the tents to dry from the previous night and crashed until the rest of the groups appeared, once they got there we set up the rest of the stuff, had supper and sat around the campfire talking about the hike today and the one coming tomorrow.

Day 3: Wednesday

3:45 AM (lol)
A select group of experianced hikers wake up and layer up. Jacket, sweatshirt, t-shirt, bandanna, headlight, pants, shorts, rain pants, double socks. Sounds like winter, don't it? Hike two hours up. Our guide Tigua rode a mule and showed us the path up the mountain. After 100 minutes of climbing. (no joke) we can see the top of pico duarte. Me (Brodie) and ******* (some names may have been changed in the making of this blog strictly for for legal purposes) reached the top after around twenty minutes more of hiking at around that angle ---> / , slapped the statue of Duarte and curled up in our sleeping bags. After watching the beautiful sun rise of course.

3 HOURS AND A GOOD NAP LATER...

The rest of the pack arrived bringing water and breakfast. Oh wait. No breakfast. Then we turned around and went back. The rest of the day was uneventful except at the end of the day when every one was just in bed, my dad was putting a tarp up. It was dark and he couldn't see. He took Terry knife and stabbed it into the tarp. Except it didn't hit tarp. The knife was sticking through his hand. (Pause. How are your mental images doing? What are you picturing right now? Do you want me just to get on with it and learn how everything ends up all happily-ever-after?) The knife caught on the big piece of his hand bellow his thumb, slashed across his wrist and came out of his palm. There was a lot of blood. We were way out on a mountain with no needle and thread to stitch him up so they just neosporind it (NOTE; to neosporin is no a verb) put a bandage on and we all went to bed. While they where bandaging it no one thought it went through his hand. But it did.

Day 4: Thursday

So after having are second dry sleep we packed up feeling refreshed and ready to go. At 7 o'clockish we started our 6 hour trek downward. Pause: When I say downward I mean almost straight down. We didn't take the same way we went up that would have been easier, we took a route that would lead us to a valley full of green grass and wild horses. It looked awesome, we could see it from the 1 hour point, and the next, and the next, and the next. ( It was kind of depressing) It was also very dry... Like desert dry, burned trees were everywhere, we asked around and almost immediately found our answer, a forest fire was started a few years back and had ravaged the whole entire section here. The weird thing was that the valley was fine... Once we got there we went for a dip in the river, unpacked the stuff, and waited for the others. That night the guides played us some Dominican music and some people danced while others just talked and chilled out along the sides.

Day 5: Friday

Free day Friday. Wake up at 7 do some swimming, eat breakfast and chill. Later in the day we got to ride horses. Riding horses is really fun. There was one pony, two horses, (one horse was black and we called him demon-spawn or something because he liked to bite, kick ,and just not listen. The other horse was white.) and three mules. Warning: saddles are not fully attached. This makes galloping rather difficult, and caused a few people to fall off. Later we played a game of soccer. In the rain. On a pasture. If you can put those together you would find that they equal a muddy cow pie minefield. Very stinky. Very dirty. To add to that it was tackle soccer. Use your imagination. Afterwards we decided to take a bath. The part of the river we went to was really cool. (multi meaning) It was a very short swim. At night time the cows swarmed. The cows in the valley are crazy. They eat anything (including our tent.) one walked into the kitchen and crapped all over the shelves. My dad got a picture. Again more of the same singing and dancing.

Day 6: Saturday

The journey home. Now that everyone is fully refreshed and happy to start the trip home the packing was fast and we all got on the trail by 8:00. (woke up at 7) And they looked like it was going to be perfect: warm with a slight breeze, dry clothes, happy campers. Two bad things though, ANOTHER 6 hour hike and we first had to climb out of the valley to start our trip down.

6 HOURS LATER

We made it back! We went to the guide place again gave them their mulos and took the bus to Escuela Caribe where mom and E-man were waiting for us.

Ethan Jonah: The mouse is in the house....

Ethan: Well... lets just say there has been a mouse in our house lately and we have been trying to catch it by putting sticky paper all over the house.

Brodie:From the begining please.

Ethan: I just want to get to the point!

B: I don't care..just start from the beginning

E: Well, mom smelled something in the cupboard- that smelled like a rotten onion, so she told me to go and hunt down the thing that was smelling bad. So when I opened the cupboard I saw a furry object with a tail run into the plastic bags that we have the cupboard. So, I'm just yelling, "Mouse, mouse, mouse... " Well, Dad and Brodie and Drew came and started tearing the cupboard apart looking for the mouse. All of a sudden the mouse darts out of the cupboard and runs towards the balcony, and its starts hiding under the propane tank.

Brodie: It basically skids around..like a cartoon character.

Ethan: So, we are poking around the propane tank trying to get the mouse to come out. All of a sudden, the mouse darts out from underneath the propane tank and runs underneath the stove. So now when mom was making pie for Father's Day, she heard a blood-curdling scream from the stove.

Brodie: Can I inject? Like, a high pitched squeal!!! Hablador!! (liar)

Ethan: So, yeah, mom heard a squeal. The next time we cooked something, we heard another scream.

So now....today. We haven't been catching anything on the sticky paper lately, and this has been really making me mad. Today, when I was walking past one of the sticky papers, (Ethan is upside down on his head right now.." I think better when all my blood is rushing to my head." "Wait, delete that!!") I noticed that it was upside down so I decided to flip it over, but my hand got stuck to the paper. I was trying to shake off the sticky stuff by waving my hand around frantically, but what I didn't know is that my hand wasn't the only thing stuck to the paper!!! Our mouse was stuck to the paper too, and because it was taking such a wild ride, it started to SCREAM!!

Brodie: I guess we learned that the mouse was not cooked after all.

Ethan: So, I'm just yelling, "A mouse is stuck to the ..."

Brodie: Whoa, I remember this better..it sound more like, "YAAAAAAAAAHHHH"

Ethan: Giggles Well, to make a long story short, we decided to kill it

Brodie- it's not short

Ethan: We decided to kill it by whacking it on its head to make it unconscience (still on sticky paper). But what we accidently did, is that we missed it's head, and accidently hit it's stomach, making all the organs in his body bleed out his mouth..

Brodie: nose, mouth and eyes!

Ethan: So, we were thinking, what do we do with the bloody body? Here's what we decided to do. We took it outside on the driveway and piled sheets of paper on it, and along with 10 lit matches and some sticks. And we had a little bon fire. Too bad he had to end that way.

Carrie: Ok, the entire time, Bob and I were at work. We got updates via messenger. I'm not sure if I wanted to home for this or not.

Side note: yesterday our power voltage reading in our house was at 30 volts for the entire night. The lights would go on, but it was like night lights! Very weird!
FYI: There is a GIANT rhino beetle flying around my dining room right now!

Hey

No one comments!

Scooter

This is it.

A POST

Recently we got a new scooter. ---------------->

Just kidding that's the stock version of our new scooter(We will post a pic mas tarde) Also we are very happy that school is nearly out, only one week left till the service projects from Monday to Thursday. Also we are nearing the ONE_YEAR POINT or as mom likes to call it( The half way point. ) For summer holidays we plan on traveling the island.(not going back to Canada) Apparently we are entering stormy season now. It rains allot.

Terry and Jill are in the process of moving right now so we get to "store" their BBQ. FYI we haven't got around to buying one yet. That's whats going on right now, we will post that pic later.

Holidays.... Already?

Ahhhh.... Days at the beach. So relaxing and beautiful... The weather was great, (as always) no one got burnt, (which is weird) and we found a spot where coral was washed up or showing through the sand. (as seen in the picture) And all of this is to blame on the elections. Why? You ask? Because elections is loud, exciting, and especially dangerous!!!
So school was canceled. Yippee! Isn't that a good enough reason to go the beach? We thought so too. But enough about the beach, we did other things this week, Caving!!!
This caving story is one told so many times that people are starting to get tired of it but it will be told anyway. Our class is studying caves in science, and since we are studying caves, why not go caving? On Wednesday we woke at six got to school at seven and left for a three hour drive on a gua-gua(hope thats spelt right) and got to the cave by 11. This particular cave is located by a German mine. A "ten minute walk"(inside joke) to the cave and we were on our way. I will not waste my time describing this cave because quite frankly I can't. It is extremely beautiful. Repel down a slope, repel down a cliff slide down some rubble, and enter a very large dome like chamber. It was so fun! Well that is basically it. We will post some pictures of in the cave soon.

Comments work again.

I dunno why but they didn't work for a while there.

Flat Top and the River

On Friday our dad decided we didn't have to go to school because it was his day-off so we, with a group of other staff with days off, went to hike Flat Top! (us on top >>>>>)
It was pretty dangerous though because of the slippery pine needles on crumbled stone at a angle so steep, that coming down we could slide on our butts!( not kidding we actually did:)
On Sunday we decided to go to the river. We have this spot, we call it "The spot with the rock." Which is funny because are millions of rocks all over the island but all is well and at least we still understand. Well, the river was where it was it at, there was a couple of parties all over but they left eventually and we met up with Terry and Jill at the river. We roasted weenies over a fire that we made out of driftwood. then we launched ourselves down the river and bruised our feet. THE END (of our weekend)

Birthday Gifts

Soaring high above the clouds, is it a bird? Is it a plane? No! Its Drew and Brodie para-gliding!

Guess what, it's true. For our B-Day (Bet you didn't know it's on March 16) we went to "Jamaca de Dios"Meaning "_______ of God"(I couldn't find the definition of jamaca anywhere because it's probably in "campasino-language" and sadly you won't even find the definition of campasino either because the word it's self is a campasino word.(campo=field, campasino=people of the fields\hillbillys.) Anyway back on track, the para-gliding "launching pad" was basically a small flat spot of land that leads to a steep decline to the valley where Jarabacoa is located. Brodie's crap above can be deleted if you want. Ok it's like this you run, get flung into the air, you sit on your backpack seat and watch the valley as it goes by. Joell my pilot(Brodie) had only three months of learning english but I understood the question he asked me. He said "Doo you wana doo some acro wit me,like de 360?" "sure" I say. Then we go left,right,left,right,left then"ready for de adrenalin"(pronounced adrenaleen) The goal of the 360 is to get the kite and you horizontal, we didn't get that far but still, have you ever rode the skymaster? Its kinda like that, you know with your skin flying behind you. Then after a lot of thermals, 360s, turns and dives next comes landing. Now landing might not sound easy but your more likely to land standing then falling on your butt then getting dragged along the ground actually the later happened to me. Came flying in and landed softly all looked good until I lost my balance and fell over... Well anyway (changes subject) after we packed up all of the gear we headed over to where they were going to pick us up.Oh ya and we had landed in this farmers field who probably didn't even know we did because we had to climb under the barb wire fence to get to the guys where we paid the guys and left. And that was our (late but very fun) birthday gift! (Don't know if you remember, Chris and Frank, but you chipped in with money from christmas!) Thanks!

More people out!

Wow, there has been more people out here than I can count! There has been Chris and Frank, Grandma and Grandpa, Derek and Shanna, and just recently our other Grandma and Grandpa! While they have been here we have been snorkling, surfing, boogieboarding, climbing waterfalls, playing in rivers, played dominican dominoes, gone exploring etc. Our Grandpa and Grandma are leaving on wednesday but other than that they have been very bearable ; ). We are hoping to have Jade come out soon (Some time in the summer holidays) and we are going to do lots of fun things with him like going to the ocean and some waterfalls. Time has gone so fast with all the people coming out. Sorry for such a straight forward post but I needed to get that post out;)

Sorry...

Haven't posted in forever. We went to Cabarete and went surfing again. While we were in Cabarete we went snorkeling. Actually we technically weren't in Cabarete we were in Sosua...anyway it was really cool, definitely not as colorful as you would hope, but still really cool. Near the beach it was just sand and rocks and a few fish but as you go out farther there are these trenches that you can swim over. In the trenches the "big" fish swim.(up to two feet long) :). You can't really stand, even if you could touch the bottom there are these giant sea anemones(larger then your head) that would poison you if you stepped on them. Some of the fish we saw included a trumpet fish, a flat fish,angel fish,and other assorted run-of-the-mill tropical fish. Also we saw huge brain coral and the "orange type" :) and....it's time to move on to...RETREAT. What? Retreat. What? RETREAT! WHAT! sorry...uh it's a semi-annual event when we do fun stuff at Escuela-Caribe (the school where Mom and Dad work). "fun stuff" being playing games, listening to a 1/2 comedian 1/2 preacher hybrid named Chris speak, and last but least the sick rock concert every day. The band being a Superchick, Casting Crowns wannabe religious-rock band called the Replacements. The band of 4 consists of; John Barben on drums, Kevin ____ on lead electric, "Mr T" on lead acoustic and the best of them all...flown in specially from Canada for this... Carrie Friesen! Ya I know...(Mr.T is my uncle) and ya well it was cool. Bye.

E.T.H.A.N News!

It's good to be nine! For my birthday we went to Kaskada Water Park! First we went to Konchy's island. It was good I guess until we went on the slides because the water was knee-deep! Than there was ALASKA. The water was freezing! Then there was the Twister. Just a plain-old water slide. After that the BLACK HOLE. You go down and everything goes black. Theres this one slide called the kamikazi witch is a slide that is basicly strait down and you reach a top speed 60km/hr. Then I got the exact present I wanted. Zoo tycoon extinct animals.