It's 8:20 pm on Monday, June 27th. The Shaheens are almost finished with their 5 day pre-Dominican vacation. I am blogging and Jodi is packing. She never likes me to help because I usually get in the way. We are in the Holiday Inn Express Hotel in Miami near the airport. Wyman is sleeping. Grace is playing on my phone on the bed (she took a nap through dinner at Tony Roma's). I finally have the opportunity to take a few minutes and retrace our steps from the past 5 days. It has been a great ride literally and figuratively.
Last Thursday, we set off from Duluth, Georgia (our home for 10 years) to Boca Chica, Dominican Republic (our new home). Along the way, (as Becky Cardwell says) "we made some memories." Our first stop on Thursday was to visit our great friends Keith and Sheree Mobley and Dave and Kim Rowland in Blackshear, Georgia. If you do not know how we became friends with those families you must read earlier posts from the winter and spring time. The Mobley's and Rowland's have taken us in as family at a time this past fall/winter that we all needed some love. Thursday night was no different than any other time we have spent with them. We hugged a lot, ate a lot, laughed a lot and even shed a few tears. That's what I call time well spent with family/friends. We will get to see the Mobleys and Hunter Rowland (Dave and Kim's son) in the DR in a few weeks and that is so exciting.
Friday morning, after some great coffee at the Mobley's house, we set sail for Orlando, Florida in order to surprise Wyman and Grace with Sea World and The Magic Kingdom. The bigger and better surprise came in the form of the Emerich family. Bill, Jennifer, Lindsey and Noah Emerich are probably what you would call our best friends. That is saying something when you figure that we just met them last summer time on a trip to the Dominican. Since then, we have formed an amazing relationship with them and they are Grace and Wyman's surrogate Uncle/Aunts. There is never a moment that we do not enjoy with them and plenty of moments that we are belly laughing. They met us at Sea World on Friday afternoon and we spent some great time with killer whales, sharks, turtles, penguins and polar bears. The rides were fun too. That was an appetizer for Saturday and the amazing time spent at the Magic Kingdom. The look on Wyman and Grace's faces when they saw Cinderella's castle, Mickey and Minnie, Tinker Bell and of course Goofy. Wyman was a champ on all the rides. He even went on Thunder and Splash Mountain with Mommy and Daddy. I think I was 16 before I went on a roller coaster. The highlight of the day happened at 11pm at night when they did the lights parade down main street. That even made me smile, clap and scream for Mickey. Again, it was time well spent with family.
Sunday we had to say good bye to our great friends, but of course we will see them in two weeks too. That made the good byes bearable. Once again, we left somewhere special in order to go somewhere special. At 1pm Sunday, my good friend and former Wesleyan player Tony Plagman played for the Lakeland Flying Tigers (High A ball) in the Florida State League. It was pretty cool to see him our there on the field playing professional baseball. The highlight of the day came at the end of the top of the first inning when Tony flipped the final out ball into the stands to me to give to Wyman. That will be a moment we will never forget (even though it felt like 150 degrees out there). After the game, Tony came with us to a restaurant in downtown Lakeland (very nice) and we had the chance to talk baseball and reminise about old times. God has blessed me with such awesome young men to coach and I hope every one of them realize that I love them and appreciate the time that they give me over the phone or dinner. After dinner we said good bye toTony and he said he would try really hard to take a trip to the DR in October or November. That would be great! We made it to Miami in 3 hours from Lakeland. The best moment of the ride came when Jodi read me a few chapters from the book, "The Dream Giver." What a great book. I highly recommend it. It helped us to think about how we got to this point and why we feel called to be in the DR. God is good! Amen.
Monday was a restful and quiet day for us. No friends or family were with us today in Miami and that was probably a good thing for us. We needed a little bit of alone time together. We ate breakfast at the hotel, watched cartoons, and went to a see the movie Cars 2. The most fun part might have been watching Wyman and Grace take down a whole huge-sized popcorn. Neither one of them ended up with a belly ache...a nice blessing for mommy and daddy. The best moment of the day came to us when we brought our car to the transport company. We are sending our Kia Rondo to the DR and the transporter is just a few miles away from our hotel and the airport. We had the opportunity to meet Angel Gonzalez, the President of the company. After talking with him for 30 minutes or so trying to get all the paper work taken care of, we realized that we might have to pay $50 or $60 in taxi fees for the rest of the day (movie was at a mall 5 miles away). At that moment, Angel stepped up big time and some how got his towing service to agree to pick up the car at the hotel Tuesday morning so that we could save money and have convenience. Without sounding too corny, he was an "Angel" sent from above. It would have been really tough dealing with a taxi from the transport company to the movies to dinner and then to the hotel. Especially when Grace was sleeping during the last two stops.
Friends and family, tomorrow is a new beginning in our lives. The last 10 years have been amazing for us. The wonderful stories with friends and family are countless and it would take 10 books to write them all. Please know that we love all of you, will be praying each day for you, and look forward to the day we see you again.
...in all these things we are more than conquerers through Him that loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Pauls Letter to the Romans 8:37-39
