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| Barceló San Jose Palacio!!! |
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| and a pic at night just because I thought it was cool!! |
Friday, April 20, 2012
Venue and date are set!!!!!!!
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
SHE SAID YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
First, sorry for the relative silence of late from my Facebook page and blog. I have been trying really hard to keep a REALLY big secret.
On April 16th I flew to Costa Rica to purpose to my girlfriend Jonesí. I had bought the plane ticket and ring about a month before, and every time I sat down to write an update I was so afraid of saying something that would tip her off, that I decided to keep silent all together. It was hard enough not saying anything to her when we talked via Skype every night. Somehow I was able to keep the secret to myself (apart from a few key people). Heres how it went down:
For fear of Jone finding out through the grape vine I held off telling any of her family or friends until a week before I was gong to pop the question. I told her brother Carlos and asked for his help planning a few details. The day before (15th) I called her father to see if we could go out to lunch on the 16th so that I could ask his permission face to face. He agreed to pick me up from the airport at 5 in the morning and then go to breakfast with me, where we had a great conversation and I received his blessing. After breakfast he took me to Danilo's house (Jone's other brother) to hide out until Jone went to work. Finally after a long night of traveling and stressing out I got to relax for a bit and even managed to get some sleep in spite of all my excitement. I also was able to talk to her mother and ask her permission as well. Then in the afternoon Danilo helped me run all the errands necessary so that I could prepare the surprise of a lifetime.
So I prepared everything, flowers, dinner, wine, and a ring. And waited...It seemed like an eternity sitting there with dinner in the oven waiting for Jone to come home from work. Then finally I heard the door of the taxi shut and looked out the window to see Jone collecting some of the flowers awaiting her at the front gate (she still hadn't a clue who they were from). She entered the gate and turned to lock it behind her thinking about why her brother or mother left her flowers and why the front door to the house was open. As her back was turned to the door I stepped out and waited for her to turn back around. Upon turning around this look of absolute shock met my smile, she started to cry (still not understanding the entirety of what was about to happen). We hugged for awhile as I waited for the crying and shaking to subside. She said in that moment, ¨This is the greatest surprise ever.¨ I said, ¨It gets better, there's more.¨ ¨How could it possibly get better.¨ she said. Then I got down on one knee as she started hopping up and down and crying some more.
And then she said ¨YES!¨
On April 16th I flew to Costa Rica to purpose to my girlfriend Jonesí. I had bought the plane ticket and ring about a month before, and every time I sat down to write an update I was so afraid of saying something that would tip her off, that I decided to keep silent all together. It was hard enough not saying anything to her when we talked via Skype every night. Somehow I was able to keep the secret to myself (apart from a few key people). Heres how it went down:
For fear of Jone finding out through the grape vine I held off telling any of her family or friends until a week before I was gong to pop the question. I told her brother Carlos and asked for his help planning a few details. The day before (15th) I called her father to see if we could go out to lunch on the 16th so that I could ask his permission face to face. He agreed to pick me up from the airport at 5 in the morning and then go to breakfast with me, where we had a great conversation and I received his blessing. After breakfast he took me to Danilo's house (Jone's other brother) to hide out until Jone went to work. Finally after a long night of traveling and stressing out I got to relax for a bit and even managed to get some sleep in spite of all my excitement. I also was able to talk to her mother and ask her permission as well. Then in the afternoon Danilo helped me run all the errands necessary so that I could prepare the surprise of a lifetime.
So I prepared everything, flowers, dinner, wine, and a ring. And waited...It seemed like an eternity sitting there with dinner in the oven waiting for Jone to come home from work. Then finally I heard the door of the taxi shut and looked out the window to see Jone collecting some of the flowers awaiting her at the front gate (she still hadn't a clue who they were from). She entered the gate and turned to lock it behind her thinking about why her brother or mother left her flowers and why the front door to the house was open. As her back was turned to the door I stepped out and waited for her to turn back around. Upon turning around this look of absolute shock met my smile, she started to cry (still not understanding the entirety of what was about to happen). We hugged for awhile as I waited for the crying and shaking to subside. She said in that moment, ¨This is the greatest surprise ever.¨ I said, ¨It gets better, there's more.¨ ¨How could it possibly get better.¨ she said. Then I got down on one knee as she started hopping up and down and crying some more.
And then she said ¨YES!¨
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
THANK YOU!!!!
Here are a couple of things that your house warming gifts were able to buy.
Thanks for your generosity there will be more pics to come about the things that I have been able to purchase with your gifts. Next up a stove and a fridge!!!
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| a water dispenser with hot and cold water taps, and a little fridge at the bottom! |
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| and an LG washer that was crazy expensive and still not as big as I wanted! |
March Madness...
It is absolutely wild to me how time is just flying by!!! I have now been living here for almost 8 months!!! Absolutely crazy!!! In that 8 months a lot has happened and there is still many changes coming my way! Here is what happened in March.
I have finally started feeling confident enough in my Spanish to start helping teach classes in Sunday school. These have been a lot of fun (as soon as got over the crazy nervousness of the first time). It is great to be able to start using all the knowledge that I gained at CCU. The hard part of course is translating it all so that all the Dominicans can understand. I am slowly improving and look forward to taking more of the responsibility in this area.
I also have started teaching conversational English classes to a few guys from the church here in La Romana. This has been an eye opening experience. It has been a challenge to figure out how to teach a class when the education system here is so lacking. I'm pretty sure that one of the guys I'm teaching is illiterate. But the desire is there and hopefully will be able to offset the inability.
We had a group from Central Christian Church in St Petersburg, FL here as well. We had fun hosting VBS's and sports camps in and around the church in Higuey. It was a blast getting translating and playing with all the children that came out to these events. In all we had over 800 kids come to all of our events. As a mission we were blessed to be able to host this group, they were a huge success and blessing to us all.
Along with all of this the youth of La Romana, Ryan and I went to camp for a long weekend during Holy Week in Salcedo. It was great finally being involved in a camp again and getting a chance to see how camps work here in the DR. It was a fantastic time of games and Biblical teaching. Everyone involved from La Romana returned home exhausted and enriched!!
I have finally started feeling confident enough in my Spanish to start helping teach classes in Sunday school. These have been a lot of fun (as soon as got over the crazy nervousness of the first time). It is great to be able to start using all the knowledge that I gained at CCU. The hard part of course is translating it all so that all the Dominicans can understand. I am slowly improving and look forward to taking more of the responsibility in this area.
I also have started teaching conversational English classes to a few guys from the church here in La Romana. This has been an eye opening experience. It has been a challenge to figure out how to teach a class when the education system here is so lacking. I'm pretty sure that one of the guys I'm teaching is illiterate. But the desire is there and hopefully will be able to offset the inability.
We had a group from Central Christian Church in St Petersburg, FL here as well. We had fun hosting VBS's and sports camps in and around the church in Higuey. It was a blast getting translating and playing with all the children that came out to these events. In all we had over 800 kids come to all of our events. As a mission we were blessed to be able to host this group, they were a huge success and blessing to us all.
Along with all of this the youth of La Romana, Ryan and I went to camp for a long weekend during Holy Week in Salcedo. It was great finally being involved in a camp again and getting a chance to see how camps work here in the DR. It was a fantastic time of games and Biblical teaching. Everyone involved from La Romana returned home exhausted and enriched!!
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