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As part of their traditional summer schedule, our youth group sends students to FITS and Great Escape (which Amber and I attended back in 2008) as well as brings high schoolers on a week long mission trip. Previously, groups have gone to Tijuana and El Florido, Mexico, as well as Puerto Rico, but this year one of our leaders, Jessica Andes, used a contact she had with a college friend at Kids Alive to take ten students, 5 boys and 5 girls, to the Dominican Republic.

We traveled all day Saturday to get to Montallano (near Puerto Plata), where we were staying, and on Sunday we went to a Spanish speaking church in town. In the afternoon, we went to the beach as a nice rest before all the hard work the rest of the week at the Park Care Center in Caraballo.

Monday we split into teams that pulled wood off the hardened concrete supports in a block wall, pulled nails out of the wood to be reused, put the muddy black dirt back into the ditch dug to hold the wall upright, and moved rubble down into an area that was to become the pigpen.

Tuesday morning started off with the same jobs of moving rubble and dirt until we were told to drop what we were doing and bring all the shovels and pickaxes down to the river because a large container truck needed to get across to deliver playground equipment. When it had first arrived, early in the morning before we got there, it had gotten stuck trying to go up the steep incline where the road comes back up out of the water, so Brian (the Team Leader at Kids Alive) and two men and a boy from Carabello used our pickaxes to make the road flat enough for it to come across.

There are 94 pictures on the Kids Alive Flicker of our group and the shipping container, and you can see us all standing around watching them pickax. We felt kind of helpless then, but the hard work was still to come when we unpacked the completely full container into the cafeteria before having a late lunch and then heading to a different part of the river to swim, as a nice surprise break. The pictures show the different types of supplies that came with the playground equipment (which we found in the very back): desks, chairs, whiteboards, medical supplies, school supplies, and full backpacks.

If the truck hadn’t arrived, we had been expecting to work with concrete on Tuesday, but since we stopped work after we had finished with the container we went to work on concrete the next morning. The boys used the wheelbarrows to make a pile of 15 loads of gravel, 15 loads of sand, and 15 ninety-pound-bags of cement, which they helped one of the workers, Sandy, mix. While they did all the shoveling to make the pile, the girls sorted a bunch of the supplies from the container, and moved the medicine, hygiene products, backpacks, and food into some of the classrooms. When we finished, we took a short break, until we felt guilty, and went to help the boys with the concrete.

Because we were pouring a staircase on Wednesday, we needed to put the concrete into buckets, which were then lifted and poured by the boys and the workers. It was a very messy job, and our shoes and pants got very dirty, though our shirts stayed slightly cleaner.

Thursday morning three people got to help build the far end of the block wall, and the rest of us tied scrap pieces of re-bar into a rough grid for the foundation of the pigpen. When we were done tying the re-bar, everyone worked to shovel 20 loads of everything for more concrete, before we stopped for lunch. Sandy mixed the pile while we ate and played with kids for a little while. When we came back we began loading wheelbarrows and taking them along the winding, downhill path to the pigpen. Finishing that job took the rest of the day, but it was nearly the end of the hard work.

Friday morning one group pulled more nails from the wood we had used on the staircase, while another group sorted the wood with no nails in it, and I helped Jessica carry 100 concrete blocks to finish building the wall that had been left unfinished so we could unload the truck over it. Before lunch, we had an hour or two to play with the school kids in the yard, who were then given bags of food and sent home. Just before we headed back to the house, we moved all the backpacks again, into a van that would be taking them to Haiti.

That evening we took a trip to a different beach, which was much less crowded, for worship songs and some snacks. We stayed up a little extra late that night because our flight was in the afternoon so we had all morning to clean up, pack up, and rest up.

The plane only took us back to Miami, where Dad and another father picked us up so we could avoid an overnight layover. Our van made it back to church at exactly 11:30 PM, but the other vehicle stopped for gas, so they got in at midnight.

Even with all the hard work and not so much time to play with kids (though we probably rested a lot more than we realized), I had a lot of fun trying new things, like eating sugar cane, tying re-bar, riding in the back of a pick-up, and learning new things, like how to mix concrete, play frisbee baseball, and say “beautiful” in Spanish. We learned to live without many of our modern conveniences: no air conditioning, hot water, TV, cell phones, or internet, though we did have mice, ants, and lizards. We saw how well equipped the house we were staying in was by Dominican Standards: bars, glass, and screens in the windows, electricity (most of the time) and fans in the house, running water and purified water to drink. The Haitians living on one side of the village, were significantly less well off than the Dominicans right across the river, and we were told that living in the DR was a big step up than on the other side of the island, even before the earthquake. Still, all the people we came in contact with were proud of what they had, even while desiring better lives for themselves. We would ask little children what they liked to do and they would say, “play, learn, and work”. The trouble down there is a shortage of available occupations for the workforce and obstacles preventing higher education that would open more job opportunities. I am glad I had a chance to experience this adventure and get to know the people I shared it with. My memories of the Dominican Republic will stay with me for a long time.

As usual, we attended two Halloween parties this year. Alyssa volunteered to do a post about the Chick-Fil-A party, and it fell to me to do this post. Our youth group had a party at church, which included a costume contest, and that is what I am writing about.

Alyssa has been attending youth group, even though she is in fifth grade still. Because she was not officially a middle schooler, she decided not to go all out with her costume. Her end result was a black cat with white paws.

After much thought, I decided to be a three-tone grisly bear.

I have a cloth hump, Styrofoam cup nose, pipe cleaner ears, foam claws, cloth tail and glove paws. While at the party, I held a stuffed bear that had a fish in its mouth. He was my cub.

Ashley decided not to go with the animal theme. She was a barrel shaped traffic barrier.

We got a large plastic barrel from a friend of Dad’s, cut of the top, flipped it over and cut a hole in the new top. She spray-painted orange stripes on it and added a real barricade reflector (that Dad had in college), which she rigged to flash. She wore an orange sweater, orange and black ski mask, plastic orange sunglasses and a hardhat. She wore a pair of Dad’s old work boots and his old pants.

Both she and I were trying to hide our identities. The reason for this was that we had apparently won so many times that we were no longer allowed to win… unofficially. We made sure to arrive at different times so we did not look like we were together. Also, neither of us spoke and we avoided each other during the party.

No one could tell who she was (except the youth director). The other kids followed her around, asking questions she would not answer and trying to guess her identity. The work boots threw them off but they found out she was a girl when they pulled up the ski mask and saw her hair. I was not as successful, but confused a few people for a while.

After a few games (none of which we could participate in, because of our costumes) the contest was judged. The rules of the contest were simple. The costume has to be creative, original, and homemade. There were three third places (each for different attributes) a second and a first.

I received third place for most work put into the costume, and Ashley came home with first place! The prizes were $10 of iTunes money, and $50 dollars at Walmart, respectively.

Alyssa can’t wait until next year (when she could potentially win) when she will be a– wait! It’s so secret even I don’t know! I guess you’ll just have to wait until next year!

Back in 2007 I did a post about Fish for the Fun of It. That was the second to last year I could be involved, but we went again this year for Alyssa. Fish for the Fun of It is an Orange County Parks and Recreation program. Three Saturdays in a row there is a fishing tournament at three different Orange County Parks.

The first Saturday we arrived at Barnet Park and found out favorite spot from years past, out on a little island across a board walk. As we were walking across we spied many brim, large and small, swimming about. We figured with so many fish it would be a good spot.

Over the two hours of the tournament Alyssa (the only one allowed to fish) caught four brim, each a little less than an ounce and a half. She was very excited because she caught one almost as soon as the tournament began.

The next week the tournament was at Blanchard Park. This park has a large spillway that many people like to fish off of. We arrived early enough to stake a claim on the bridge with our camping chairs.

The bridge was not quite the hot spot it had been last year, but Alyssa managed to catch another brim with no help at all.

On the down side of the spill way there were a pair of alligators. They were both six (or so) feet long. They live there and we have seen them for the past couple years.

On a side note, the fishing tournament happened to fall on Talk Like a Pirate Day.

The third park was Bear Creek, and is the closest to our house. Unfortunately Alyssa did not catch anything. After the tournament was over Alyssa allowed me to try my luck. I managed to land a brim.

As we were leaving we were told there was another family fishing event in Winter Park the next Saturday. Ashley and I were scheduled to be on a Leadership Retreat with the youth. The rest of the family went, and had a great time.

At this tournament there were no prizes and everyone (including adults) could fish. You could also keep any fish you caught. The three of them caught 8 catfish and a brim. They gave the catfish to a man who was going to eat the fish he caught.

At this tournament they found out another was to be held in Ocoee the next Saturday. It turned out to be a founder’s day event where the first fish you caught earned you a ribbon.

We snagged a spot in the shade, but we had little luck. Ashley managed to catch a lizard that was scampering over everyone, though not with a fishing pole. At the end of the day our only catch was one small brim.

It was a bit disappointing, so when we came home we decided to try in the pond two doors down from our house. We had received fishing poles in previous years and had some extra worms from the morning, so we had plenty of equipment.

We fished until it became too dark for the fish (and us) to see the bait. The total ended with four fish caught by Ashley, four by me, and three hooked by Alyssa. All were brim of many different sizes. I didn’t even know there were that many fish in our little pond!

Ashley had only been allowed to fish in the tournaments for two years before she was too old. Neither of those years was she able to catch anything, so these four fish where the first she had ever caught. They were also the biggest of the ones we caught that day.

The next Saturday we tried again in the pond. However, the leftover worms had turned to mush, so they did not make very good bait. We tried with frozen corn and that worked only a little better. The day ended with a lot of bites and only one catch.

We had fun though, so we tried again on a Saturday afternoon. The corn was working better, and I caught two more brim. Alyssa landed four, one of which was the biggest we have caught from that pond. Ashley hooked a couple, but they all got away about a foot from the bank.

We have not had an open Saturday for a while, but we plan to fish more in the future.