Christmas With The Jefferies

Growing up, my family always slept in as long as they could on Christmas Day. When you smelt Breakfast Burritos, around 11am, it was time to get up. We would take our time eating, help clean up, etc... then finally decide, around 1-2pm that it was time to sit down and open presents. We would each take a turn and open one present at a time (There were 7 of us, so you can imagine how long this could take... ). Opening presents was usually followed by a Christmas Day movie at the theaters. This was the Hermansen tradition. The past 2 years that Rodd and I have opened our presents together at our house, Rodd has been so excited that we've opened presents EARLY! (at 8am) We are used to waking up at 6am, so we had been laying in bed trying to sleep in for some time. Given the opportunity to sleep in, we have to take advantage of it. Plus, we do not have children, so 8am on Christmas morning seems SO early to me. But I guess this is the Rodd and Ashley Jefferies tradition. :)

Santa filled our stockings! Rodd was afraid that he would know how to get in the house or know were we lived, so I had to remind him of the movie 'The Santa Claus' so that we could go to bed.

We each got a Threadless T-shirt from Santa... Wow, how does he always know what we want. It's still a mystery to me.. Rodd REALLY loved his. :)

We both look tired... you can tell. We had a late night at the Jefferies' house celebrating Christmas Eve. I don't have pictures of that right now, facebook is having a meltdown. But more soon to come!

Dominican Republic June 2008 Week 3

Confresi (Puerto Plata), Dominican Republic

With a few exceptions, this pretty much sums up our last week there in the Dominican Republic... Oh, and some of this...

We spent half a day at Ocean World. That was a lot of fun. Rodd loves dolphins... :)

The Love Birds were also fun... we even went back after we had seen the whole park because we loved them so much.

We also took a day to tour Puerto Plata. Everyone had been telling us that we had to go and ride the Telefedico, which is a lift that takes you to the top of the highest mountain in Puerto Plata and you can look down on the whole city. Very cool.
They also built a monument in Puerto Plata celebrating Dominican history. I'll have to ask Rodd and fix this part... I'm so horrible! But it was very cool.More pictures and information on this to come... :)

Dominican Republic June 2008 Week 2

Week 2: Cabarete, Rep. Dom.

The next week we took a bus ride (like our charter buses) up to Cabarete where we stayed at the Coconut Palms resort. This was a view of one of the cities we passed from the bus. Yet another reminder of how fortunate we are to live where we live and have the things that we have. Since we traveled to Cabarete on Saturday, we got up at 6am the next morning to travel to Lise to go to a ward where Rodd had a lot of member friends and baptisms. Their meeting started at 9am. This was great. We had to jump transportation like 6 times to get there. I was riding a motoconcho in my little skirt. Good times... We got there to find they had a brand new church! Yea! As modern as a new church here in the states... Wow! And they are so proud of it... So cool. There we were able to visit a couple of families.

La Familia de la Rosa
(we brought them some pictures, they were so excited...)
Gabi
Marcos y Danelis Breton

Visiting some of the families and areas where Rodd had fond memories, I was able to see a lot of what life in the Dominican Republic was like. It was so humbling to be with the people there. They were all so happy for every little thing they had, which wasn't much, and they were willing to give it all to you! At every house we stopped at we were offered more food than 5 people could eat! These people are in poverty and hardly have enough food to feed their families, yet they are welcoming people into their homes and sharing all that they have with them. Even with us Americans, who have more that they can probably even comprehend. They are such good examples of being Christlike. Here was the kitchen of one of the families that we visited.


If you are familiar with the Hispanic culture, everything is about family. On this one lot, probably about 3/4 acre (maybe), there were 5 houses and one hut for the kitchen. 5 different families share this kitchen!Then again, they are all eating together and sharing one meal, but it's amazing to see how grateful and happy they are. I also had a picture of what they were cooking on the stove, but depending on when you are reading this... I didn't want you to lose your appetite. :)

This is the inside of a typical house. Not much there but a fridge, fan, and a whole bunch of chairs. At every house that we went to, I noticed one major similarity. We sat around and talked. They are a people who truly do thrive on company. It was very relaxing and refreshing compared to our fast-paced lives here in America.

One day, we took la ruta into Sosua, a local beach town with lots of shops, a couple days enjoy local food, walk the beach, and barter for our souvenirs. I'll have to find a better picture...
I wanted to find a Dominican painting that I loved and it took me forever to find one... but I finally did!

While in Cabarete, our resort had it's own private beach (which we practically had all to ourselves because the Americans never leave the resorts here). Down at the beach there was a little Grill where you could order food... I ordered what was called seafood salad one day. Rodd took a bite of shrimp and I asked him what he thought. "It tastes dirty." This was the day we realized that we would never order seafood again. They don't clean anything... :) To this day Rodd still teases me about ordering 'Sea Turd Salad'. (It's the plate in the middle)

I think seeing the animals around was really hard for me... they are so skinny! :( At this beach grill is where we met our little pet friend. We named him Manchi. Our friend Bolivar in the capital is pretty bilingual, so it's fun for him to be able to practice his english with us. His family had a dog named manchi. When he was translating it for us, he translated it as 'stains'. (HA!) It's supposed to be 'spot'. I got such a kick out of that. I told Rodd that if and when we get a dog that his name was going to be Manchi. We fed him the rest of our seafood salad and he played with us the rest of the day.

This is a kitty we found at the beach at Sosua when we were shopping. SO CUTE! Probably the most nourished animal I had seen yet. I'm a real sucker for animals, cats and dogs especially. We stayed at the Coconut Palms Resort and had a lot of fun there, especially with a beach all to ourselves!

No air conditioning... but we did have a fan! The chirping of the bugs at night was so loud I could hardly sleep! but we were right by the ocean... We never used our kitchen here... but having our own fridge was nice. Very Americanized. :)

Return to the Dominican Republic June 2008

Week 1: Santo Domingo, Republica Dominicana

We finally made it back to the Dominican Republic! We went in June so it was kind of an anniversary celebration. We were there for three weeks! Wow, so much fun. I look back and can't believe that it's been 4 months since we've been home! We spent the first week in the capital at the MTC on the temple grounds. So awesome! We were able to attend the temple a lot and do a lot a sight-seeing and such.

My Grandma was able to come with us the first week while we were in the capital and also had a great time! Wow, she's a trooper. She kept up with us the whole week! I'm really glad that she was able and willing to come on such adventure with us. We had a blast with her.

Here we are riding in one of their public source of transportation: La Ruta! They are all totally ghetto sedans just driving in circles (routes), but it was nice because it was so cheap! You can't see her, but there is actually another girl to my left... they usually fit 4 in the back and 2 in the front passenger seat... seating 7(including the driver...)! And with a big guy like Rodd there with us in the back... I've practically got this girl on my lap. It was quite the experience.

We met up with one of Rodd's friends, Bolivar Compress there as many times as we possible could! We were able to catch a ride with a member and meet them for church on Sunday. His sweet wife made us probably my favorite Dominican dinner we had our whole trip! It was a feast! Grandma really hit it off with Bolivar. They talked the whole time like old friends.

This is a Colmado. These little stores are on every street corner (atleast) and are run locally.

While on our tour of the capital, we had seen dozens of limpia botas (shoe shiners). At the end of our tour, this was the one that convinced Rodd to get his shoes cleaned. He was the only one with the right stuff to do white shoes, plus he followed us on our tour for nearly an hour for one customer! His name is Alex. We paid him with some lunch. Their Dominican Specialty: La Bandera (Chicken, Rice, Beans). We really enjoyed his company. We tried to ask him about school. He said he went in the evening (after he had done a days work), but I'm not sure he really even went to school. Here are some Dominican students.

We got a chance to go to The Museum of Natural History: The Dominican Man. We learned a lot of interesting things about the history of the culture and 'the real story' of Columbus coming... Plus it was fun for Grandma to see some typical houses and such, since she would be missing out on the real stuff.

We wandered off one night searching for some of Rodd's favorite Dominican food, one specifically was Chimichuris (it's comparable to a hamburger, but apparently so much better. :) ) We stumbled on this little stand selling empanadas and juice. It was so packed. It was right by a college and inbetween classes it was the place to eat, I guess. We got some empanadas and some juge de melon con chino (cantelope and mandarin juice). It was our favorite meal in the capital. We ate there 3 times.

We learned a lot about the country's history and it was also so interesting to see the difference in the lifestyle of the people there from the other parts of the country. They are living quite well in comparison. A person with a good job there is making about 90 pesos per hour (that's about 3 dollars). We really loved spending time at the capital and exporing places where Rodd was less familiar.

Good News! Mission Accomplished...

I finally tracked down some Amish Friendship Bread! (Thanks Nancy!) My good friend from our ward, Orva, had a start that no one wanted! Can you believe that? Wow, Blogs get things done.

Let me know if you are interested in a start in about a week! It's the yummiest bread... and you basically choose what flavor to make it. Plus it's so easy and just takes a couple of minutes of attention everyday. But you have to be patient for 10 days to make it. But it's so wonderful... That just made my day! What a great start to this November. :)

The Hunt for the Perfect Halloween Costume

I have my voting sticker on! I actually wore my costume to work and to the last day of early voting! It was a lot of fun.

We had decided last week on Rodd's half birthday that we were going to be a grandma and grandpa for Halloween, thanks to the D.I. That night I got a gray curly hair wig. We went to D.I. on Thursday to pick out our costumes between Cory Mon's concert and Weekly Basketball. It was so much fun!

Well, initially we had gone with the idea in mind that we were just going to be a grandma and grandpa... Until we started picking out his clothes and said, "This is something my dad would wear." Wow. That's when the light bulb went on. This is what he came up with.

It was a lot of fun for us, unfortunately the family didn't get to see it, so we knew we had to take a lot of pictures. I had already picked out my costume when we had decided on this, but I think it works for a Nancy-Pants. But I will admit, Rodd's version of Kent is a little scary! Some of these pictures look just like him, I can hardly believe it, especially from a distance. We took this picture especially for the siblings... Rodd knew you would appreciate it. :)

All in all, we did have a great Halloween. We ordered some Chinese and read our book in between trick-or-treaters. I heard a advertisement on the radio for Smith's Marketplace that gave me the idea to put out a bowl of potatoes for the kids to take and see their reaction, then someone else swoops in with a bowl of candy and saves the day. It sounded fun so we busted out the potatoes. Pretty funny, most kids wouldn't have it... they looked at me like, 'okay, joke's over. Where's my candy.' We had a lot of Hispanic kids with their moms come by. We actually have a lot of Hispanics in our neighborhood, plus there is an apartment complex at the end of our street. With one bunch of hispanic kids that came by, Rodd pulled out the potatoes and the candy and said, "Here you go! But you can only choose one..." They laughed. All of the girls took candy, but three of the boys took potatoes! One of the kids turned to his mom and said, "Look Mom! Papas Fritas!" We asked him if he was serious and he said, "Yeah! I have plenty of candy!" What???? Just another reason why we love the hispanic culture.

We hope that everyone had a fun Halloween!
Fun and relaxing for us... :)

Ward Chili Cook Off and Glenn Beck Show

I had seen a sign up for the Ward Chili Cook-Off come around in Primary and noticed that no one had yet signed up to bring chili... So I signed up thinking that, like our last ward, they were going to need chili. Last year we were one of 4 pots of chili for the whole ward... yeah. So I signed up to bring a recipe that we got from our good friends, the Mecham's. There must have been 30 pots of chili there! Good for our ward! They are so supportive of ward activities. There is usually a really good turn out... the more the merrier. :)

Well, our chili didn't get an award, but it was one of the few to completely finished! That's good enough for me... ( Thanks Audrey!)

Here are some of our wonderful Judges... :)

We didn't get to dress up because we were going straight to UVU after the dinner, but we did get a couple of pictures.

Rodd won tickets to the Glenn Beck Show from KNRS Talk Radio on his 1/2 birthday for tonight. We went there after filling ourselves with Chili. We did miss out on the trunk-or-treat though. So many sweet costumes in our ward... we even had some girls go as Nacho Libre. We really loved hearing Glenn Beck talk. He's pretty awesome. We went to hear him speak at the Freedom Festival on the 4th of July at the Marriott Center and loved him there too. It was definitely a fun treat. I'm just glad Rodd wanted me to come with him! He's a sweetheart.

Glenn Beck's conversion story, "An Unlikely Mormon" is such a cool story, you can actually see bits of it here.

Life has gotten so busy and so crazy that it seems like we're always going straight from one thing to another until we crash til the morning and do it all over again! Crazy... but we're getting to do a lot of fun stuff and we're enjoying life. That's what it's about, right?