Part Two: Joe's Mission

Punta Cana felt like a dream. It was 2 degrees in Toronto when we landed. Gross. And what's more gross is that our flight to DC the next day was at 6 in the morning. Here we are at 4:30am. My Hilda-hair is still wet from my shower the night before. So tired. Dominican, where did you go? It seriously felt like a distant memory wafting away into the frozen abyss of the Toronto sunrise.  I don't care how lovely the sunrise was.  I never want to wake up that early again.


Thankfully we were able to get some much needed sleep on the plane.  We had a lot of driving around ahead of us.  If we had a week here, we would have done all the museums and sites and such, but we only had two and a half days.  So, I told Joe this was HIS trip.  His mission.  He chooses where he would like to go so if that meant seeing families from his mission or driving around old areas, then so be it.  And that is exactly what we did.  We started with the DC Temple.  It is huge.  And beautiful.  We checked out the visitor's centre and inside they had a new picture gallery of the Saviour.  They were incredible!  I felt the Spirit so strongly in that room.  It just made the Saviour seem a lot more real and personal.  Thank you Liz Lemon Swindel.  We then walked around the temple grounds.  It was brisk, but it was lovely and Joe and I had some good chats.  I kind of love that man.  (And yes, I am wearing the same shirt in every picture.  It was my only clean-ish one!).
We then drove through a pass in the Appellations overlooking some really beautiful scenery. We listened to an audio book called, "Dad is Fat" by Jim Gaffagan and laughed our brains out. We had some good Spiritual conversations. And we enjoyed the view.  We might have even held hands. Pretty sure I hadn't realized how loved Joe was until I met the two families I did out here. Joe served most of his mission in Virginia, so we visited first with Tony and Patty LaCava and their boys, Cody (left) and Hunter (right).  Joe seemed to have a real impact on them and it was really neat for me as his wife to see what others from his missionary days thought of him.  Joe baptized Tony.
We spent the next day visiting Charles Ray and Mary Stanley and their family. Joe wanted to surprise them so he told Mary that he was sending her a package and it would be coming today. His way of trying to get her to stick around the house. Well, when we got there we saw Charles Ray working in the garden. I swear to you, when we went up to talk with him I could not understand a word. If you have ever watched Water Boy, he is the hick-farmer. I loved it. He had the kindest eyes. The whole time I kept thinking, "I have met Daryl's dad from the Walking Dead." Hick. Ville.  Mary and I became fast friends.  I think she would be fast friends with anyone because her heart is so big.  She kept a photo album of her favourite missionaries over the years and Joe was in half of the pictures.  She certainly had stories to tell.  What this visit did for me was made me realize what a fantastic missionary Joe was.  This trip was honestly really special for me.  He really got to know the people in the area and loved them.  Pretty sure that's called Christ-like love.

This is where I say I wish we had more time.  I wish we could have walked around and visited more of Joe's areas and checked out some museums and actually did a temple session.  But I am glad we did what we did.  Next time we will do it all.  We have already promised Mary a return visit, so it's as good as set in stone!  I also promised Mary that I would write a song about my experience in Virginia.  I think I will call it "Daryl."  Good Bye Virginia!

Master Joe

Joe is officially a Master.  No more darn school.  Maybe he will now be home for dinner most nights?  I wonder if I'll even get sick of him from time to time because we spend so much time together.  Wouldn't that be nice?  Well, we got a taste of that last week when we went to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic for a five day all-inclusive and then 2.5 days in DC to revisit Joe's mission---all to celebrate his graduation and our upcoming 10 year anniversary.  I honestly wondered, "Are we going to still love each other after spending all this time with each other?  No breaks from each other.  And no kids.  What will we talk about?  Will Joe still like me?  It's been a while...."  Well, it was the best trip ever.  A much needed trip.  Thank you Colette for handling the chickens so we could remember what it is like to flirt again.  Five days was the perfect amount of time, and any time I found myself missing the kids a little, a quick Skype-call around dinner time would remedy all that.  "Granny, I don't want to eat this.  Ellie stuck her tongue out at me!  I spilled my juice everywhere.  It's MY turn to talk on the phone!  Whine.  Whine.  Whine."  I love you too.  BYE!  No cooking.  No cleaning.  No laundry.  No responsibilities.  Yes.  It was a nice trip.



We stayed at the "Memories Splash" resort and loved it.  We wanted to make sure that it was all about the relaxation.  No schedule.  Nowhere to be.  So there was a lot of reading and laying out on the beach with an icy drink.  Getting too hot?  Let's take a dip!  I think my most favourite place to be was the splash park, ...which kind of surprised me.  It was so fun!  Totally felt like a little kid going down all the slides.  Was I embarrassed?  Not one bit.



We decided since we were only staying five days that we would treat ourselves to two excursions.  Our first was dune-buggying.  We got to drive around and see a bit of the dominican real-life, which broke my heart a little because every one is so poor and their living conditions are awful, ...but somehow, everyone we met seemed to be so happy and friendly.  I wondered how much of that was "these tourists give us money so smile" or "I truly am happy living a simple life."  I am sure it is a bit of both.  We kept driving by little kids who were standing there just waiting to give us high fives.  Pretty sure they are used to seeing the same dune-buggies driving by every single day at the same time.  The kids were definitely purely happy.  And purely cute.  We drove to a way nicer beach than our resort and played around for a bit.  First time in a long time I felt flirty and fun.  We then drove to a cave with fresh (and cold) water to dive into.  Well, no colder than Wizard Lake.  Plus, it was clear.  So, that was a perk.  It was also really dark, because, well, it was a cave.  And Joe kept swimming into these dark crevices saying, "I touched the butt" (from "Finding Nemo"), and all I could think of was, "...and he was never seen again...."  But I told myself that if I was going to be adventurous and go on these excursions, I was going to go ALL out with my adventurousness, ...so I followed him around, eeking as I went.  We were not eaten by large fish, nor sucked down into the darkest parts of the cave.  Victory.  It was actually super invigorating doing something that was a little out of my comfort zone.  Thank you Joe for touching the butt.



Zoe may or may not get her curls from me.  I just need to be living in utter humidity in order to keep them around.


Our second excursion was swimming with sting-rays and sharks and more snorkelling.  We took a pirate ship to the middle of the ocean where there was a fenced-in area.  Kind of like two very large swimming pools.  In the first, we got to touch the sting-rays (they removed their stingers).  More than that.  He had our group line up and had the sting ray rub up against our chests and face.  It was icky and super neat at the same time.  Reminded me of getting my braces off.  Slimy.

In the second pool we put on our snorkelling gear and swam with the sharks.  They weren't man-eating sharks, and as long as we didn't try to touch them we would supposedly be just fine.  Well, oh my heck, at one point there were 5 sharks swimming right underneath me and it took all I had in me not to under-water-scream!  Very, very cool.  Our third stop was further down in the middle of the ocean, no fences, just snorkelling in the open ocean.  I love snorkelling.  I will say, however, that after snorkelling in Cozumel and Xel-Ha in Mexico, no other place will ever compare.  It was still fun though.

Pretty sure I gained a zillion pounds over those five days.  Buffets and 5-course dinners will do that to you.  I don't even care.  It was worth it.  I didn't even bother getting my body "swimsuit ready" beforehand because I planned on porking out.    
We had so much fun reconnecting. I quickly remembered why we married each other. We are both hilarious, of course.  We laughed a lot.  Got the most sleep we've had in years.  And we ate whatever we wanted.  Also, I allowed myself to let loose after four years of no Diet Coke and splurged.  (I am still de-toxing after 5 days of head aches.  Boo.  Worth it).  The people of Dominican were really friendly and it helped that I got a few comments throughout the day of how "beautiful" I looked.  Pretty sure they just wanted a tip, but it felt good nonetheless.  "You've had four kids?  No.  I don't believe it.  You are too young!"  Please.  Keep going.

I think I have determined from this trip that sunshine, the ocean, endless food that you don't have to make or clean up, a maid, a good book, no schedule or responsibilities and an awesome and funny husband is true happiness.
 

The Airport

Yesterday was rough.  I knew this day was coming for a long time and I've been looking forward to it.  The day that Granny comes and takes the kids back to Alberta with her while Joe and I finish up packing/school and then go on a lovely trip.  Three actually.  Punta Cana, Domincan Republic.  DC.  And then a road trip across the country back home.  I didn't get much of a chance to slow down before the airport, but thankfully Joe and I got to hang out with the kids past security and see them all off at the gate.  I was doing all right actually until they called for pre-boarding.  That was us.  It was time to give them each a hug and say good bye.  Pretty sure I made it as dramatic as possible.  It's only just over two weeks of separation.  But I still manged to have a good cry like someone was dying.  Tried not to do it so the kids could see, but Noah caught a glimpse and started crying too, which set me off even more.  Dang it, I am so bad with these sorts of things.  But as soon as they boarded the plane Joe held my hand and said, "Wanna go on a date?"  Haha!  A GREAT reminder that there are definite perks to this arrangement.  I also woke up this morning at 8:45am.  And laid there like a lazy-bones till 9:30.  Sleeping in is also one of those great perks.  I am trying to count my blessings whilest the kiddos are gone.  For example, I also got to go on a run and even spent time on my hair afterwards.  I took a long shower and shaved my legs without a child knocking on the bathroom door.  I finally booked a massage that was a gift for my birthday---from last year.  I get to indulge and use it tomorrow.  Thanks Joe!  I also did about a week's-worth of packing in ONE day.  But I am not going to lie.  Once the sun went down, I got really lonely.  I am trying to enjoy this time as I have "freedom" and time away from my kids, but I miss them a lot.  I have a feeling that Punta Cana will help me with my Debbie-Downer-ness, but for now it's pretty rough.  Anywho, after a few failed tries, I was able to get ahold of them on Facetime and we had a good visit.  Totally lifted my Spirits.  It was right during the chaos of dinner time, so I got to remember what I do NOT miss one bit.  Making dinner.  And then listening to my kids whine as I make them eat it.  Ha!
 
My next post will be of our adventures over the next few weeks.  Weeeeeee!  It just doesn't seem real yet.  But I am sure once my feet touch the sand and I'm hanging out in my bathing suit all day with an icy drink in my hand while someone serves me delicious food that I didn't have to make, nor do I have to clean it up, ...it will feel pretty darn real.  Thank you Colette---or Wonderwoman, as some might call her---with all my heart!