Dominican Republic Trip #2....Day 1

The following 10 or so posts will be directly from my journal that I wrote while in the Dominican Republic for Cams and my 2nd Parent/Child trip.  Thank you to EVERYONE for your support whether it be through prayer or financial support.  We couldn't have made the trip without YOU!

We are planning a third trip this summer.  Only this time, Jake wants to go.  Jake will be the age that Cam was when he went on the first trip.  Great time to start!  Cam isn't sure if he will go this year or not....he is still thinking and praying about it.

Here we go.....

July 27th, 2012....Friday

Today has been a great day.  We woke up at 8 am, got dressed, ready and ate breakfast and were off to the airport by 9:30.  Just Jeff took Cam and I and Jake stayed home with MaKenna and Major.  They were sad to see us go.  The flight to Chicago was VERY bumpy and a tad bit scary.  Yet again it was  just a little puddle jumper.  In Chicago we had just enough time to grab a lunch before we got on a flight to Miami.  There are 22 of us, so thats a lot of people to herd.  The flight to Miami was almost 3 hours and a MUCH bigger plane.  It was a fairly smooth flight.  In Miami, yet again, we had just enough time to grab a very late dinner before we were off for Santo Domingo.  The flight to Santo Domingo was very smooth.  Cam and I enjoyed watching the lights of the little islands go by.  Once we were in Santo Domingo we had to go through customs and find our luggage.  It was almost midnight before we got it all.  Miguel is sick so he didn't meet us at the airport.  Our driver found us and we loaded our luggage on the mini-bus.

One thing I forgot to mention was all the teams in Miami either coming home from the Carribean on missions trips or going to the Carribean on missions trips like Haiti or Jamaica.  I also was excited about all the people that kept asking us where we were going and why.  It opened up conversations about Jesus.

Once we were on the bus, we had about a 25 minute drive to the Mercure Hotel where we stayed last year on our last night.  We got to the hotel around 1:30am.  Cam and I took showers and were in bed by 2, but the nightlife in santo Domingo is SO lively, neither of us fell asleep until after 2:30 even though we were exhausted.  There was loud music, loud people, sirens, dogs and car horns which were the most annoying.  We survived the night though and our last warm shower for 9 days.