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.