The Borregos and Petersons (the roomies and their new roomies) 

Taylor-ites 

Happy Anniversary!

Happy Anniversary to:
Rod and Linda Gerig
Brent and Sara Gerig
(August 6)
:)

Rod and Linda 

Brent and Sara 

Our Van Before We Said Goodbye 

Ode to Our Van

Last week we sold our van. While this is a very happy thing, I am still a little attached to it, so I feel I must give it some kind of farewell. This is my "Ode to Our Van:"

We bought the van before I could drive
So blue, and metal, and new
But what this van would become and how much it would mean
I didn't have a clue

My mom used the van to drive her to work

And we used it for road trips galore

And then one fateful day, my mom had a jeep

And she didn’t need the van anymore

I turned 16 years old and I needed to work

So to get around I drove the van

It took me to places I wanted to go

And on wonderful dates with my man

I took it to Taylor my sophomore year

And it served me very well

From road trips, to visits, student teaching, and more

But there is still one thing to tell

My junior year I visited Dan

And we drove to Wheaton together

And to my happy surprise he proposed! (in the van)

(Due to the very cold weather)

It served us well in our marriage bliss

And it became my graduation gift

But we left it at home when we went far away

And my parents cared for it without being miffed.

This summer we knew we must say good-bye

For sell it we had to do

So we put the van up for sale

And bid it “Au Dieu.”

So now the van is gone for good

And for the new owners I trust

It will be as great a van for them

As it was for us.

A busy weekend

Last weekend we kept ourselves busy. :) Saturday morning I made Pastalon (one of my favorite Dominican dishes- similar to Lasagna, but with sweet platanos instead of noodles and no tomatoes). For lunch Devon, Daniel, the pastalon, and I went to an international picnic (through our church). We enjoyed very good food and met a few people. We also had fun tossing around a frisbee. In the afternoon Daniel and I did some window washing; later we picked up Devon and headed to Poor Boys for some gyros (yummy). We took dinner to Jon Lin's house (another high school friend) and there hung out with Ross, Phil, and Angie (Phil's wife). Later we went to Devon's to swim and play cards. It was so good to see high school friends and awesome to think that we can still hang out with them. It's a blessing to know that those friendships have lasted throughout the years.
On Sunday we went to church, cleaned more windows, and then hung out with the Peterson's to celebrate Daniel's dad's birthday, which included watching Pirates of the Caribbean and going out to dinner. I must admit, I was disappointed with the second pirates movie. I felt like that were trying to do too much- too many hidden subplots, too many bringing back of random old characters, and too many antagonists. Yes, the special effects were cool, and the acting was good, but it takes more than that to make a decent movie. It made me dislike almost all of the characters and the ending seemed "forced" (why did everyone suddenly get emotional about finding Jack? However, I still think there's hope though, depending on how the next movie goes- it could easily redeem it. My favorite aspect of the movie, was the part with Will and his dad, which tied into the last movie nicely and actually had character development. Well, there you have it. That's my very un-professional opinion. :) Tell me what you guys think. You do not have to be blogger users to comment. Thanks!

Highschool Friends 

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday, Daniel! (Isn't he a hottie?)

We're back!

Here is the email we sent out. If you're not on our email list and want to be, please let us know!

Dear Friends and Family,

Our previous year in the Dominican Republic filled us with an abundance of joys, excitement, and trials. From gorgeous waterfalls, to the 2-week span without running water, it was certainly quite different from the Midwest. We returned to Wheaton on June 17 and are staying with the Gerigs (Teresa’s parents). We have both been blessed with jobs this summer. Teresa is a permanent substitute at Krejci Academy (the special needs school where her mom works), and Daniel is doing temp office work and writing sales training guides for the company where his dad works. We spent our first two weekends celebrating friends’ weddings. We are glad now to have more time with our families for a few weeks before ending our summer break with two more weddings.

We will be returning to the Dominican Republic for another year or more in August. Thankfully our jobs both end with a couple of weeks left for packing and preparing. Teresa will continue to teach 4^th grade, and Daniel will be teaching 6-10^th grade science and 9-10^th grade Bible. We are looking forward to returning to our apartment, our cat, and our students. We leave August 10^th and start school August 22.

We will be sending out a newsletter shortly, so please reply with your address if you’d like to receive the letter. As always, you can see more details, posts, and pictures on our blog at http://dtpeterson29.blogspot.com . Feel free to write us back (pretty please?)!

God bless you all!

Daniel & Teresa Peterson

Reminiscing our wedding day 

Petersons and Stryckers 

Crazy boys... 

There goes the veil! 

A very windy day!! 

The Bridal Party 

Paul and Elizabeth Stycker :) 

Brent and Sara in their house 

Daniel driving and eating applesauce ;) 

Taylor Ringers 

Liz and Nathan Brooks! :) 

Weddings and More

Well, we've passed the first two weekends back in the States by going to weddings. One was two Taylor friends’ wedding (Liz and Nathan Brooks), and one was two Notre Dame friends’ (Daniel's best man-Paul and Elizabeth) wedding. We had a great time at both and enjoyed seeing friends. On our way to the first one, and back, we stayed with Brent and Sara in their new house in Upland. They are renting a house on a farm that has kittens and an adorable dog. The day after the wedding- Sunday, after church, we went canoeing. It was a lot of fun. J It was so good to be with our brother and sister-in-law! Last week was another busy week of work, Spanish class, being with people, etc. After the wedding this past weekend we drove home late Saturday night, and spent Sunday with my family- as we have not spent time with my dad since the first day we got back two weeks ago (he’s been away on two business trips). For the Fourth of July we are spending the morning with my parents and the evening with Daniel’s parents.

Another note- if anyone is interested in buying a mini-van (1998 Ford Windstar), please let us know. :)

Long Time, No Post

Sorry about the absence of postage. ;) The end of school was quite crazy and occupied much of our time and energy. Let's see how should I summarize it? Here are the highlights:



-Crazy suicidal ants that keep climbing in our teapot that we only put water in to boil- we have to rinse it out each morning.
-2 weeks with no water. Not very fun.
-Making Dominican chicken, taught by a junior high student. Couldn't buy a live chicken, but it had the neck, legs, and skin still on it.
-We bought a ceiling fan. Yay!
-Teresa discovered the multi picture feature on the camera and took over 200 pictures of the cat.
-Last real week of school.
-4th Grade field trip horseback riding and swimming.

-Finals, lots of grading, lots of work.
-Last day of school: the firetruck comes and hoses us down after a soccer game of junior high students vs. teachers.
--Hiking Magote in record time (for us)!
-One last beach trip to Sosua.
-Daniel fluke sickness - Teresa wonderful, loving, caring wife - Daniel better
-Packing and getting ready to leave.
-Bus to Santo Domingo, taxi to Boca Chica, go to Carribean beach for day and stay overnight.
-Leave the next day (Saturday )for Chicago. Horrible layover in Fort Lauderdale; never fly into it if you have to do customs. Arrive at night.
-Spend Father's day with both sets of parents and Teresa's grandparents.
-Start work Monday.
-And here we are. :)
-Mass email to be arriving soon, pictures to be posted soon.

Many thanks

Thanks to Dominican elections, we had a very long weekend… We had Mon-Wed off from school and needed to work only 4 hours at the school during that time.  Then there was some major concern for safety on Thursday after the elections, so school was canceled at 10am.  There turned out to be no problems, but supposedly there were threats of rioting and even personal threats if a certain party won.  That party didn't win the contested offices, so there were no problems and we had a long time to relax on Thursday.  Going back in time, Monday we had dinner and played games with some missionaries from Kid's Alive. Tuesday we had a picnic with some JCS staff out at a field and had a great time in the hot sun.  We even got to play some Ultimate for the first time since last summer! 

Thanks to Dominican engineering, we have not had running water since a week ago Thursday (9 days and counting).  Needless to say our trashcan of water was quickly emptied.  It's been very stressful not being able to clean as much as we'd like (dishes, the house, or ourselves).  Thankfully the Chases who live nearby have a well rather than city water, so we have been able to shower over there and fill our 5-gallon jug to have some water around.  We've had to be creative in using water for multiple things before letting it go down the drain (e.g. dishes and then flushing the toilet).  Last night I could hear water running and filling peoples' tanks below us, but it never made it up to the 2^nd floor L.  Supposedly the cause was a bunch of sand in the intake pipes that they've had to disconnect and clean out.

Thanks to Dominican climate it's been very, very hot.  We've broken 90 degrees a couple times this week and are frequently above 80 percent humidity.  We are incredibly thankful we bought a fan last weekend (we only had a desk fan before) because this week would have been unbearable. 

Thanks to the Internet, my grad classes are starting to move along.  It's neat corresponding with professors and students through online discussion forums… while there's no face-to-face, it's still very interactive.

Thanks to time flying by, we only have 3 more weeks of school, the last of which is all half-days for final exams.  This also means we'll be coming back to the States only 4 weeks from today!

 

Please continue to pray for our school next year. We still don't have a director, and space issues could be very severe.  Unless some alternative becomes available (ideally moving the Jr/Sr High to another location or somehow building more this summer), we're going to be very, very cramped.  That on top of the lack of water has made it very hard to keep positive attitudes.

 

Please pray that we are able to finish this year well and give God the glory during these last  weeks!

Teresa and her mom. 

Daniel and his mom 

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all of you mothers out there.
We'd also like to thank our mothers for their love and care for us. Thank you! :)

Another Week

This last week was a little less busy… oh wait, no. As usual we had our Tuesday night dinner and Wednesday night Bible study. On Thursday we had a family over for dinner. They’re from Valparaiso, IN and are working with Kid’s Alive here in Jarabacoa. They have an 8^th grade daughter and 4^th grade son, so Teresa and I have both of their kids. It was a lot of fun and it gave us a good chance to talk with the kids and parents in an entirely non-school environment. Friday night we had dinner at Leah’s (her famous chicken fajita pizza). Saturday we worked around the house and did lesson planning type stuff and just generally got stuff done. Then Saturday night we had dinner at a student’s family’s house (They also have one in each of our classes) and they served us sancocho, the Dominican special meal of throwing every kind of meat and starch imaginable into a rich chicken broth and serving it over rice… absolutely delicious.

(This is Teresa now)

We had anticipated having a relaxing Sunday, maybe visiting a waterfall. However, it was interrupted before it began. I awoke at around 4:30 with terrible stomach pains. That turned into hours of my body cleaning itself out in every possible way (I won’t go into descriptions). By the time it was done, it had ridded itself of everything in my digestive tract- I couldn’t even keep water in my body. Eventually, later in the morning I was able to drink a few sips of water without losing it. That progressed to Gatorade and I even had a few bites of jello and toast before the day was through. We’re not sure if I has stomach poisoning, virus, etc? but a few other JCS teachers also had it this week, and another one had something similar a few weeks ago. All in all, it was not a pleasant experience. But I slept all day and Daniel took great care of me. I praise God for a loving and serving husband. In addition, a woman who from our church stopped in to check on me and give some advice (she is a doctor who goes to our church). It’s so good to know that God is looking after us- even in a foreign country (the thought of going to the doctors here made me a little nervous- they would have given me lots of medicine, etc.) I am also thankful for the timing- I only had to miss one day of school (Monday). Monday was better, but I still couldn’t get up without feeling sick, so I sat on the couch and entertained myself with Veggie Tales, McGyver, and even a little grading. I at some crackers and a banana and by dinnertime I ate some chicken pot-pie Daniel made me. He came home during his breaks through out the day to check in on me.J Tuesday was better and I went back to school, but I was still exhausted and not very hungry. Daniel continued to be a huge help.

Wednesday I woke up and felt completely different- I was myself again! That evening Daniel and I celebrated his accomplishments with fajitas: teacher of the month, and starting grad school on Monday! I am so proud of him!!!

I really enjoyed the rest of the week with my students. Daniel had a good rest of the week too. On Thursday the school board treated all the employees at the school to pizza. It was yummy.J

Friday we relaxed, played games with Leah and Regan, and watched a movie (well, Daniel worked on grad school stuff at home during the movie). So, although the week started crazily, it ended up being very relaxing. J

Please pray for us as we finish up the year, write finals, pack, find a place for our kitty to stay, find a job for Daniel, and start raising support money.

us finishing the race 

huddled around dinner 

View from our campsite 

Teresa and girls from Santo Domingo at the lock-in 

Field Day Ballgame