Wow it’s late… It’s almost 1:30 Pacific, which means 5:30 Dominican! In any event, all went fairly well yesterday and today (or Saturday and Sunday for clarification).

We got in just before midnight, got a car and drove to her house. We talked for a while and then headed to bed. We got up earlier than we should have this morning – and Tara was even up and at it before me. Well, actually, I was showered and dressed and she may have just rolled out of bed, but I think she was up for a while before then as well. Not that it really matters, but I was expecting her to sleep until 11 or so, and not be up at 8 or 9.

Church went well. It was kind of weird introducing myself as a visitor and friend of the Caldwell’s. Church was good. I enjoyed it. Tara and her father, Craig, both shared their testimonies. I was thinking about getting up there, but I couldn’t collect my thoughts into something worthwhile to share. Maybe it would have been good just to share my testimony, but maybe I’ll have another opportunity to later. Dinner was good, but we forgot to start the turkey before leaving for church. LeAnne remembered right as we were starting sacrament (last hour), so that meant that we got to hang out with Tara a bit longer.

In any event, I think I need to get to bed myself.

Today has been pretty uneventful. We tried to go parasailing again, but the boat was broken or something and they kept delaying it. We finally decided a bit after 11 (we got there at 9:15) that we needed to get ready to leave the resort and to cancel the plans. This also meant that we didn’t do any other water stuff and pretty much just spent the morning sitting on the beach waiting, which is what we are doing now. We are all packed up and waiting for our transfer to the airport so we can start the long journey home.

Another day down. In some ways I’m getting about ready to get out of this place. Today was still good, but it seemed like we had our fair share of problems or letdowns today.

We went on the marinarium trip this morning. It was pretty amazing. We took a bus down the coast a bit and then boarded a party boat to go out snorkeling with some fish. After we did that for about half an hour, we went and swam with sharks and sting rays! They were in cages, but we were in the cages with them! I wish I had pictures from that. I think I will have to invest in a waterproof camera/housing before my next trip anywhere like this. It was just amazing to be that close. Again, we probably had too many people in a confined space, but it was all good. After we finished there, they drove us down the coast and let us play in the water while the party really started. They tried to get the whole boat dancing and doing stuff. Somehow or another I even managed to get up there! I was happy that Tara finally got her chance to go dancing even if it wasn’t very long lived.

Our parasailing trip was cancelled this afternoon because of the rain, but we were able to get it rescheduled for tomorrow morning. We also didn’t get to do the catamaran, but we’ll also try to get that in tomorrow before leaving. I wish we had another week to do more things and experience some of the real DR, but at the same time I am getting tired of some of the same things everyday. Breakfast and lunch is getting boring with the same buffets over and over again and as Tara pointed out, declining drinks constantly is also getting old.

Because of the rain we ended up hanging out inside for a while, then went to get lunch and see what else we could do. We were going to go on a Segway ride down the beach, but we managed to get to the lobby a few minutes after they had left. I guess everything doesn’t run on island time! We ended up getting a board game, stratego, and played oustide the pool. It was the first game Tara and I have played where she didn’t win! I managed somehow to capture her flag three times before she gave up. She was even making up the rules as we were going, changing them with each game trying to get it so she could win and had no luck.

I had almost forgotten about the EV farewell dinner tonight, but Tara remembered. i was glad that we were already dressed up from eating at Vento as everyone else apparently got a memo that this was a more formal event. I’m glad we ended up bringing semi-formal clothes as we would have been restricted from some of the events possibly without them. Tara thought it would be best for us to eat some stuff at the EV dinner so that we weren’t sitting there like watching the others eat. I was really stuffed after finishing off our meals and desserts. I have a feeling I will be hungry in the morning after all this food. We sat through some presentations and then they had a comedian get on stage. We watched for a while, but then the jokes got off the track of where we would have liked them to be so we decided to leave.

Man, I should be sleeping instead of staying up all night writing … I’ll end with this quote that was presented at the EV dinner tonight. I believe they said it was an African proverb. “If you wish to go quickly, go alone. If you wish to go far, go together.” … (Holy cow… I’ve spent over an hour typing! I seriously need to get to sleep!)

Wow! Another amazing day in paradise. We had another awesome day.

We started out at 7:30 this morning with breakfast before hitting the bus for the speed boats shortly after 8. We went through all the paperwork and “training” before getting on board a boat to our boats. Tara and I ended up getting one that wouldn’t idle and kept cutting the engine, so we finally got that swapped out for a new one before getting too far. We drove down to a landing quite a way down the beach where we then spent some time snorkeling. The fish were amazing here and the water was much cleaner, but we had too many people in such a small space that it was hard to get around. I forced Tara to drive on the way back and she was having an awesome time. She had a huge smile on her face and was screaming every time we caught some air. It started raining as we were getting ready to come back and got pretty heavy. It was so heavy and we were going fast enough that the drops would hurt as they hit you horizontally. I had to give Tara my sunglasses so she could see!

We came back and sat at the beach for a while. Tara tried to nap while I got some scripture reading in. Before we knew it, our time was up for pedal boats. We went out and did that for about 45 mins before it started to rain again and we came in. We dried off – and it stopped raining – and then went to Naos for lunch. We then headed back to do a catamaran, but they said it was cancelled because of no wind. Instead we went out in a kayak and got pretty far out in the water.

After the kayak we decided to call it quits for the day. We made dinner reservations at Passion, but they weren’t able to get us in until 9:45, so we had some free time. We each showered and Tara got dressed up for tonight. We then decided to go out and take some pictures of the resort since we hadn’t really used our cameras yet. We met Nathaniel and Erica while we were out and about, but that was all we’ve seen of them all day. After our picture taking expedition, we still had time to spare so I decided we should continue with our 20 question game Tara started back on Tuesday.

I can’t believe our week is almost over. We’ve got the marinarium tomorrow, are going parasailing tomorrow afternoon and are hoping to get another chance on the catamaran. We’ll see what else the new day brings, but it will be here before I know it, so I need to get to sleep.

Well, we finally made it here. We have been so busy, I haven’t had a chance to write, let alone barely look at my email. I guess I should start back at the beginning and try to be quick since it is 12:30 and we need to be eating breakfast at 7:30!

Monday morning was crazy, trying to get things packed and last minute things done. We made it to the bank and got the authorizations signed so that Bouse and Batch are ready to go if I never return from the DR. Long Beach airport is amazing. It’s like old school Ontario. There is nothing there. It is basically a building with a couple modulars added on to serve as waiting rooms before letting people out to the planes by staircase.

The flight to SLC went well, we even got in a bit ahead of schedule after leaving a few minutes late. Unfortunately, Enterprise was out of cars so I had to go stand in line at Budget. I still need to get Enterprise to pay for the difference in price as I had reserved a car. In any event, they gave me a Ford Mustang and I was finally on my way.

The flight from SLC to NY was practically empty. It was full of about the 11 of us A-teamers and a few others. We basically each had a row to ourselves to sleep in, but I couldn’t get much sleep. We got to JFK quite a bit early, but it just meant we had more time to sit there before catching our next flight. The funny part as we came to find out was that it was the same plane we had just come in on. I don’t understand how Delta leaves their planes on the ground for that long. JetBlue and Southwest would never stand for that! We didn’t even have seats reserved on the plane as it was completely fully, but we somehow managed to get two seats next to each other. Tara was able to get some more sleep while I tried without success.

The DR is really green. The airport is funny. It has room for probably three large jets and has no real services. It’s basically a shack. We had a bunch of guys offering to take us to our hotel, but I was leery of anyone that didn’t say Bosch. Once we got through them we found the Bosch people with big signs directing us to a bus waiting for everyone from the flight. We saw Nathaniel’s plane land as we were clearing customs.

Unfortunately, our rooms were at opposite ends of the resort which was crazy. We started trying to talk to people about switching the rooms and finally got them to give us two rooms that were not in the same building but at least on the same side of the resort. When I was going back to my room towards the end of the night though, I found other people in that room and learned that something didn’t work out and I was back in my room across the resort. (Actually, it’s Tara’s room for the record, but we switched and I gave her the 3505 room.) I spent time with the front desk trying to make something happen, but they said they were completely full and to try back in the morning.

This morning I tried and got the runaround. We finally ended up talking with the people from Carleson Marketing and they were able to get me in the room next door to Tara. It’s not the adjoining room, but it’s way better than being on the other end of the resort. Further, I’m typing this from there, so we haven’t gotten kicked out yet.

As for what we’ve been doing other than chasing down rooms, there has been lots of walking, little sleeping and lots of sun. Tuesday we went down to the beach and played in the water for a while. There is tons of seaweed everywhere which is rather annoying and the water is incredibly salty. We explored the resort and ate dinner. Tara and I only stopped at the Bosch get together after dinner as we were ready to move on. We had just spent well over an hour eating dinner and talking.

This morning we got started with breakfast and then went out to figure out what it was we were going to do all day. We signed up to do snorkeling, pedal boats and the catamaran. We were able to get on standby for a snorkeling excursion within an hour so we came back, changed and then went to the beach to sit for a while. Snorkeling was amazing. The whole snorkel thing is kind of annoying, but it was cool to just float on the water and see what was going on beneath us. We watched the olympics for a bit, had lunch and before we knew it we were headed back to activities for an hour in a pedal boat. It was cool just to sit out on the ocean and be bounced around while sitting there and taking in the view and talking. We went and hung out in the various pools, climbed an iceberg (in one of the pools) and then decided to call it a day.

After showering, we played card games for a while and then headed to the Bosch dinner party. It was really just a dinner gathering, but it worked out well. We sat with Nathaniel and Erica and were joined by two other couples. One of them is from PA while the other is from San Berndanio or thereabouts I believe. We had a good time talking and I got some tips from the local guy. He also said that since we’ve made it over five years we should be good to keep going! That was nice to hear, especially as I am trying to figure out where I am headed. Later in our conversation, he asked how long Tara and I had been married. Tara immediately jumped in that we weren’t married and were just friends. He replied, “Not yet!” We talked till 11:30 when we finally decided we needed to head out. The party was supposed to end at 10 and I didn’t think we were going to make it that long, so I’d say it was a success.

We need to make dinner reservations for tomorrow night at one of the nicer restaurants and also get out the camera and start taking some pictures. I need to get to sleep as it is now 1 in the morning!