Week #4 (I'm running out of titles :) )

So yesterday was a fun start to the day. We went to the beach at sunrise and did a workout on the beach. Christine, Bryson and myself did a workout that he made up. We started by running from one end of the beach to the other, which is maybe 1/4 of a mile. Then we did an optical course that he had set up. We started with lunges with rocks, followed by bear crawls, then jumping into and out of circles, then reverse crab walk (brought back memories from getting in trouble at HA practice...Kerr!), then lunging with rocks while twisting our abs. Then we repeated but switched things up just a little bit. After this we ran back to the other end of the beach, got some water and then swam back down the ocean to where we were then ran back to the end again. It was only about 20 minutes but a great workout and a great start to the day. Who can resist smiling when you workout on the beach at sunrise in beautiful weather and in a beautiful location!

After breakfast, I worked on the slideshow and finished up with this. The slideshow will be posted on OO's website for those interested in coming to view before coming down. It is still a very rough copy but a beginning. After that I just hung out until lunch.

After lunch, I hung out with the kids for a little bit. Two of the younger girls started to get into a little fight and I tried to break it up but should have stayed out. Jennifer, who is 4 years old, was trying to throw large rocks at Joanni and then found a 2 foot stick and tried hitting her but instead got me a few times. After that I left and went to take a siesta because these workouts and getting up early are wearing me out come midday and I had had enough of the kids at that point after getting beat up :)

At 3pm I went back to trying to take pictures of dental tools for Nancy to identify for me! :) Coco helped me because her camera was better than mine. After we finished, I sat in on the Spanish class that Bryson is teaching to Sharon and the Hopkins family. He was only on day 2 of class so it was still very basic stuff but interesting to listen to because there are a lot of Dominican words that other Spanish speakers don't use so it is good to learn these.

After class, I played left, right, center with the girls because they had asked me earlier but I was going to nap. After dinner we had free time with the kids again. Towards the end of the night I sat down with Luis Alberto and he was just talking up a storm about how him, David, and Tito (all the little boys) had killed people in the jail, etc. I only caught about 1/2 of his stories but it was cute. Then he'd throw in random comments about how one of the other boys ran into another and had the big swollen eye. He is so random sometimes but so cute. He had a ring on that had a picture of Santa Clause and I told him if he killed people Santa would not come visit him or bring toys so the count of how many he killed kept decreasing!

Today was a pretty relax day. Dr. Garcia had to go to the capitol for some meeting so I stayed here all day. We ran to the pier and back which was about 3.5 miles. It is so pretty here in the mornings with the sun coming up, the water, the mountains and all the beautiful landscape.

I went with Gabriela to the Rehab Center. She is a massage therapist in Canada so she went there today to help teach the German exchange student some massage techniques that hopefully she can use. The Rehab Center didn't know we were coming so they were a little confused and it took a while for them to figure out what was going on. The thought Gabriela wanted to learn and not that she wanted to help teach. I left to head back here to work and she said after a while they caught on and she did 4 massages and everyone gathered around to watch. There was a little language barrier and some confusion but she really enjoyed it. She is going back tomorrow afternoon and again Friday morning.

The rest of the day I spent working on an EKG course that I brought with me that I have to finish for my certification renewal by December! I was lazy today and couldn't get motivated to do much else so I worked on that for about 3 hours total.

I played some more left, right, center before dinner and then after dinner the kids had culto, their little worship service. The kids were all crazy tonight, running everywhere and acting loco but funny! Franchesca, 4 year old, with some developmental delay was going crazy, kept sticking her tongue out and running back and forth. Afterwards the older girls were sitting on us, like 3 at a time trying to knock us off the wall we were sitting on. There was something in the water apparently at dinner!

Tonight I was really wanting some chocolate and my prayers were answered when Coco, unexpectingly brought back some ice cream on her way home from a meeting. My popsicle was chocolate ice cream with a chocolate layer on the outside. It was sooooo good!

If anyone feels the need to go to the post office, we love chocolate here! :)

Anyway, tomorrow I'll start working on the curriculum again, no bateyes tomorrow either because Dr. Garcia still has a meeting in the capital. Good night!

Oh the weather is finally cooling off some. The past 2 nights I've slept with a sheet on and haven't turned the fan on that blows directly on my face. At culto outside tonight, I got a slight chill with the breeze. Woohoo! I know you all feel the opposite because you are probably freezing but I'm excited for a little cooler weather, but not 40s like there! :)

Miss you all! Love you!