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.