Going to club...

On our way to club in Pinar Quemado we set a record for how many people we could fit in our car...10 people and a guitar in our Rav 4!

A good move...

Getting rid of the pink!!!!!
Jake, talking to our dear friends Chris and Kristen!
Yikes, everything is pink in the bathrooms too. I guess we can't paint the toilet...

Jake and I recently moved after living in our other house for only a few months. We had been wanting to move to a house that was more accessible to our neighbors and that would allow us more opportunities to get to know people in the community. We really liked where we had been living, but the owners of the house had built a rather large wall around the house and we really felt like we weren't living very much like Dominicans.

So, this brings us to our new house. It is very close to our old house, on the Avenida, which is a nicely paved road that leads to the Confluencia, the convergence of two rivers. We live close to a Pharmacy called Farmacia Cristo Rey, which literally means, Christ is King Pharmacy. In our neighborhood there are a lot of colmados (like 7-11), beauty shops, and people walking or riding their motos (motorcycles). It is a very lively area of town with music almost always playing and of course a lot of kids too! We are excited for this change and are learning to embrace all of the loud noises and smells.

Before we moved in, we decided to paint the house, which has helped a lot! Also, we have found a lot of cucarachas, lizards, ants and mosquitoes, but we are slowly getting rid of them and showing them that they are not welcome to live in our cupboards or showers anymore. The house has a backyard that is really nice with an old rusty swingset which I wanted removed, but apparently it is still good, says the owner. Our next door neighbor's kids who climb the trees asked to come and play on it, so I guess it was good to keep it.

Thank you!

We are so blessed to have people send us some much needed and missed items! It is amazing what a difference it makes to have some treats from home! Some of our favorites are natural peanut butter, almonds, and movies. Thank you especially to both of our wonderful parents as well as our church in Eugene for sending us these items (especially Pastor Scott and his men's group)!

You are all so wonderful and we really appreciate the thought, time and money that went into these packages!

Love,

Jake and Kyla