Our first days of 2012 in the D.R.

Normally I enjoy the flying experience; the airports, the fun American treats that can be found in there, and flying with Josh while making him play silly games with me. However, our flying from the D.R. to Seattle this year was the worst time flying we’d ever had, therefore making me feel a little suspicious about what we were about to endure at the hands of Delta. We have not had any good experience with Delta thus far, but flying back with them was the only reasonable choice as American Airlines wanted 24 hours to get us home whereas Delta could fly us back in 10 hours.

Walking to the baggage drop-off in Seattle, my nerves were pinging, and Josh’s stomach was full of butterflies as we were hoping and praying they wouldn’t invent some new fee we’d have to pay or make us go stand in the long line at the common counter because they didn’t like the tickets that we’d printed off the internet. To our surprise however, everything checked out just fine! And away we went! Baggage drop-off… check! Security… check! Bathroom… check! Our last Starbucks double-chocolate chip frappuccino… check! Bathroom again… check! 10:00pm plane departs… check!

We were on an incredible plane, great leg space, great reclining seats, personal monitor with several great movie options, free plane treats, and they offered beverages more than once! We were so elated with this wonderful turn-around that we couldn’t sleep. We both watched two movies and slept the final 30 minutes of the flight as we descended into New York. When we landed we looked at each other with a start, and at least I was wondering if I had made the right choice not to sleep… I was SO tired!

We disembarked the plane at 6:00am New York time and staggered to our next gate where we waited about 30 minutes while watching birds fly around the terminal. Josh dozed in and out of sleep while I stared blankly at the desk waiting to board the plane so that I could sleep. Finally we boarded and were off yet again, but this time our next stop would be home! We slept the whole flight making us feel a little more alert as our plan was to stay awake the remainder of the day… 9 hours to go.

Our director and his wife picked us up from the airport and drove us home. We found it nice and orderly, all but one thing… the electricity was off. After reading a somewhat confusing note from Raul, our friend who house/dog sat for us, regarding the electricity, all four of us set off to try and fix whatever had happened. Luckily, just a switch had been pulled, so all was okay. However, over the course of the day, we began to find little things out of place or missing, locked doors in the house, and an extra lawn mower in our back yard. So we got the house back in order and all was well, and what’s missing is easily replaced.

I set off for town while Josh was playing basketball to buy some groceries because our house was bare… just condiments in the fridge. As I pulled into town I could tell immediately that it was a holiday therefore the chances of me being able to change money into pesos was not very likely. People covered the streets without regard for cars or motos. I slowly moved through the crowds praying that something was open. Well, I was right, no money exchange places open but I had 1400 pesos ($35.00) and figured that was enough to get us through the rest of the day. I was able to find one grocery store that was open and the fruit market too!

The rest of the day is really just a blur. Josh and I ended up going to bed at 8:30pm which felt wonderful! And we didn’t get out of bed until 9:55am the following the morning, when our fan turned off, meaning that our inverter (battery operating generator) wasn’t on. We thought that we had fixed that yesterday when we arrived home, but apparently not! So I set off to the inverter unit to see what was up, and apparently it had been switched off. So we got that all set. Next we wanted to get showered up and ready for the day, however, for some reason, the instant hot water heater wasn’t working. Well, it was late in the morning, and we had just showered yesterday late afternoon, so we weren’t going to worry about that at the current moment. So on we went with our day, exchanging money, going to the bank, paying bills and buying groceries. Shortly afterward, we took off for staff meeting where we got to see Lowell, our former director who was in for just the day. After staff meeting we had dinner with our current director, Lowell, and the visitor that he brought, the Green College President. We got home around 10:15pm from dinner and thought if we read perhaps we might get sleepy, because at this point, we weren’t. Well, 12:30am came around and we weren’t very tired, but we just decided to try and sleep.

7:30am Wednesday: both of our alarms go off. Time to get up and go to the lab clinic in town for blood work, etc., and down to Santiago for my doctor appointment. Well, I did not want to get out of bed, but Josh being the great man that his is, continued to nicely remind me that it was time, so 8:00am, I finally rolled out to find that oh yeah, we can’t shower because we never got that fixed. So we tried messing around with a few things on the heater but with no success. We decided to just take the propane tanks in and get them filled hoping that this would magically produce results. Once we got back, still nothing. Well, the day was getting on and I needed to get the lab work done so that I could eat breakfast, so we ran out and did that only to come home and smell our house full of propane gas. We walked around the back of the house to see that the gas was spraying out of the tank! We shut if off but it was still spraying out! We had never encountered this before and so immediately started making phone calls to see what to do… well no one knew what to do! Our friend William, who works for the base, came over about 30 minutes later and explained that the guy who filled it had over filled it and the tank was just releasing the extra pressure. So he fixed it. Great! And we got ahold of the handy-man who after lunch, came and fixed our hot water heater, some expensive rubber piece had torn.

So now here we are, 3:00pm, Josh is heading off to play basketball, and I am going to go to town yet again to try and finish paying our bills… sometimes it takes 30-60 minutes in one place! We think that our house is finally in order, all things working, praise the Lord! And now off I go!