Rainy DR

I have visited my blog several times over the past month in hopes that by looking at the page, creativity would swarm my mind with ideas of what to share with you. Clearly I have had no luck as there is nothing new since Jan. 11th.
The last two weeks in January we hosted a team from Hume Lake, which is a Christian camp up in the mountains of California, about two hours from Fresno. It was great to see the leaders again, we spent some time at our favorite restraunt, the ribs place as we call it, catching up and hearing about their lives. The outreach went well with no real glitches. Really the only thing that didn't cooperate well was the weather, it's been quite rainy here since we got back from Christmas holiday... kind of feels like Seattle weather... only warmer.

Since that team left Josh and I have spent a lot of time working from home where our schedule is pretty flexible. We have several different projects we're working on which makes it fun... we like variety.

For our 7 year wedding anniversary we decided to do something a little different and went to IKEA in Santo Domingo where we walked through empty handed... we had hoped to find a few things for the baby, but it was still fun to walk through something so American. Afterward we had lunch at one of our favorite American restaurants here, TGIFridays.

For Valentines Day, we spent all morning in the doctors clinic for our 24 week check-up. Following the appointment, our doctor personally took us through the maternity ward where we saw all our options for pre-delivery rooms and post-delivery rooms. It's so great to know where we are suppose to go and (more or less) what we can expect. Our doctor will for sure deliver the baby and his wife is the pedriatrician. He has said on several occasions that she speaks English really well, which for me is a huge relief since I'm sure after having delivered a baby, speaking in English will make it so much easier on my brain! I don't know that I mentioned this on here yet, but we're having a girl and we're naming her Julia Marcella Mathews. She is doing well, but the sonogramist found that there is extra fluid. They measured it yesterday and when we go back next month, he will do so again to see if it's increasing in volume or staying the same. If it increases then he said there is something to worry about. Since it's out of my control, I'm trying to not worry about it, and trust that God has this little girl in His hands and He will take care of her.

After spending all morning in the clinic/hospital we had a very American lunch at McDonald's... don't judge... I hadn't been off the mountain in over a month and needed some good ol' fashioned American burgers.

For dinner that night we made, together, Chicken Cordon Blue which turned out really yummy and drank Martinelli's Apple Cider, which I had a friend pick up from the only store that sells it... membership required. It turned out to be quite a fun day!

At the end of this month two friends, who are former semester students, are coming down to visit for a week. We're really excited to see them again and catch up.  

Quick snapshot taken of a few of us staff that happened to be standing around at the Hume Lake team banquet.

The Cross Night event that I lead with our two-week outreach teams. I get to play piano and sing... definitely my favorite event!

Baby Girl Julia at 23 weeks

Josh and Wally... our other kiddo... Lucy wouldn't stay for the picture