Our vacation to the DR

Were back!!! We had a blast! It was definitely the trip of a lifetime. There is just too many pictures, and too many things to write about, so here are just a few.

First off we stopped in Dallas to see Auntie Jenna, Daxy poo and Uncle Chris! I can't even begin to tell you how much I miss my sister. I was so happy when I got to see them and hold my lil' Daxy Pax again, and chump his little chunky legs!!!

Daxon is almost as big as Spencer! There is about an 8 month difference between the two, and Dax is catching up to Spence! He is going to be one tall kid! His hands were twice the size of Spencer's!
Chris and Jenna made the boys these cute chalkboards with their names on them, and a bag full of goodies for the plane! They LOVED it!

Noah and Spence did great on the plane! I had a entire diaper bag filled with things to keep them occupied (and drugged) thankgoodness I didn't have to resort to drugs! Grandma bought them lots of stickers and games for the long ride, THANK YOU! They were content to sit and watch movies, read books and stick stickers everywhere. I was so proud of them! It was a long plane ride, and they were troppers! Spencer kept looking at whoever was sitting behind us and saying "HI! Hi hi hi hi hi!!!" Thankfully the people behind us would say hi back.

Oh how I miss the fruit...
It was soooo much better there! At every meal we just had massive amounts of fresh yummy fruit!! I was in heaven!

Our resort had the BEST food!

We took a couple days and rented a car to see some of the people Nick taught on his mission. It was a HUGE shock for me! It took some time for me to get over the culture shock. Before we went I called up the travel place at Kaiser to see what we needed to get before we left the country. They suggested we all take malaria medication. So I called up their pediatrician who just so happend to have traveled to the DR 3 times! After we weighed the risk of side affects their doctor and I decided not to take it. He told us we didn't need to worry about that unless we were going deep into the jungle in the middle of nowhere.
So the first night we got there I saw a swarm of mosquitoes and started crying...
I had to give myself a little pep talk and think how important this trip was for Nick, (he went on his mission here and is obsessed, and when I say obsessed, I mean OBSESSED with the place.) and try to keep my feelings and comments to myself, and know that he would never put his family in danger.I had a hard time with some of the places he took us outside of the resort.
It took me a couple days to put the insect spray and purell down, and just relax. After I did that, we had a better trip. :)

You can't see it in the picture, but next to the "live" goats, there was at least 15 skinned ones hanging from a little shack.

Happy to take pictures from MY CAR!

We pulled onto the side of this little neighborhood and Nick got out of the car to see if this person was home or not. He locked the doors when he got out. Right after he walked away at least 10 little kids, (some of them were naked) surounded our car.They were really cute, they kept knocking on the window trying to get me to roll it down. They kept pointing to my hair and wanting to touch it.
Some of them were trying to watch the movie Noah was watching. I told him later that night that those kids didn't have very many movies or toys and they were very excited to see one! He could not believe that their mom's and dad's wouldn't give them toys. I told him they didn't have very much money. He responded with, "Well then tell them to go to the bank!"
When we got home, we got a bag and asked him what he thought about giving away some of his toys to the kids that didn't have any. I've tried this mulitple times before to get rid of the massive amount of toys in our house, but he never thought it was a good idea. This time however, he thought about it for a few minutes and decided on his own that it would be a "good choice" to make.
I was so proud of him! Most of the toys he picked were Spencer's, but there was a few toys in that bag that I knew were hard for him to let go. We are very proud of him!

This is the gorgeous view from our room! Oh how I miss this place!

And here is Spencer's favorite spot. We had a huge shower with a window viewing the ocean! He loved to go in there and sit.

Noah and Spencer were the life of the town! Everywhere we went the Dominicans would, oooh and ahhh over there little faces and blonde hair. All the workers at the resort would come up to them and say " Hi eSpenca, hi Noa!" Noah of course would give them a dirty look, and maybe throw in a karate chop move, and Spencer would smile and say, "HIII!"
One of Nick's baptisms was so amazed at how blonde Spencer's hair is. She kept saying, "He has gold on his head!"

Our beautiful room!

I had to take a picture of this poor horse! You can't really see it here, but he was sooo skinny! His legs were shaking and he had nasty foam around his mouth! I was so mad! If I could speak spanish I would have ripped a new one to that retard taking care of him! He was giving rides to all the tourists and totally oblivious to his horse. Nick brought up the argument (Nick bringing up an argument? Shocking!) that maybe he was too poor to feed his horse enough food.
All I have to say is, I saw lots of grass that he could let him eat, and if he could find the means to buy himself a coke, then I'd bet he could find a way to give that poor horse some water! UGH! It was disgusting!

Statue of Christopher Columbus, in the colonial city

Noah, standing in front of the 1st church in the new world

Noah was scared of the iguana.

The boys were such beach bums! Noah kept saying he wanted to swim all the way out to sea!
Spencer loves the water and really has no fear whatsoever! All he wanted me to do was let go of him, he didn't care about the waves, or choking. He would run into the water and sink to the bottom with a smile on his face, if I let him.

The water was a beautiful turquoise color!

The kids never got sunburned on our trip. I would put mounds of sun screen on their little bodies every hour and I swear Noah must have some Mexican in him or something! That kid got so dark!

Noah was attached to his blue blankie and his teddy while we were traveling. That kid doesn't adjust to change well... it took him a couple days to get used to everything.

We had the best time and came away from our vacation relaxed, grateful and very happy! It was so amazing to see all the people who's lives are blessed by the lord because my husband served and taught them.
We are so blessed to live where we are. I'm glad we were able to expose our children to another world, and thankful that Noah came back with an appreciation for the things (toys) that he has. :)
We grew closer together as a family and are truly grateful for the things that make us happy in this life, our family, our marrige, our time together and our God!