New Year's Eve, Three Kings Day, and our 10th Anniversary!

Well, since I last blogged, it has been non-stop parties here at NPH. A couple days after Christmas, a new mall in the capital (AgoraMall) came here and gave gifts (mainly shoes) to all of the kids. This is a connection that Madelon made a few months back and her and I met with the mall a couple times to get things set up. They did a giving tree type thing where customers picked a kid to Christmas shop for! The kids were all quite happy with their new footgear! A big pat on the back to Madelon for making that happen :)

Next came New Year’s Eve! We started off the evening with a yummy supper. Then there was a magic show, followed by our finals of the dance competition (San Miguel won!) and finally, we had a massive bonfire out in front of the volunteer house. That was a lot of fun! We all roasted marshmallows and then at midnight, we went around giving hugs and wishing everyone well! All of the kids except for the baby house stayed up until midnight!

After New Years, I spent the next couple days sick in bed with a variety of things…fever, bronchitis, lice, ringworm :( It seems Christmas and all of the events really took a toll on my health, so maybe it was a blessing in disguise: a chance to just rest for a couple days...

Not for long though, because soon came Saturday! On the 5^th, we had a huge group of visitors from Playa Nueva Romana, a nearby resort, and they brought along with them Jatnna Tavarez, a famous Dominican TV announcer. So the day started with a program in the multiusos followed by lunch in the park. Then they essentially brought a fair to us…they brought no less than 5 different blow-up bouncy castles along with a cotton candy stand, slushie stand, popcorn stand, you name it. The kids bounced around for hours and a good time was had by all!

That day was only topped by Sunday, which happened to be Three Kings Day as well as our 10^th Anniversary! Three Kings Day is traditionally the main gift-giving day of the Christmas holidays here in the DR, so once again we spent hours preparing, sorting, and organizing the donations so that each kid got a bag full of fun gifts on their special day. Here, I really want to thank Becca Kummer and the Klem family who took an Adopt-a-Family project to a new level this year by doing Adopt-an-Orphanage. They sent all sorts of gifts to the orphanage earlier in the month to each of the 225 kids. It made such a difference and the kids were so happy with everything! We can't thank them enough! The day started out with a nice mass at 10:00am which was followed by a program and lunch in the multiusos. Then at 2:00pm, we passed out gifts in the park and ate cake! I spent the rest of the day with my girls in Santa Ana painting nails, doing crafts, and letting the girls show off all their cool new presents!

Lastly, we’ve had a lot of visitors on site this week. Katherine Harig brought a group of 14 from Chicago who have all been really great to get to know. They have been SOOOO good with the kids and were also kind enough to bring tons of Three Kings Day gifts for the kids. There are also a lot of sponsors in the group who have all come back to visit their godkids again. I just love seeing those interactions between godparents and godchildren when they visit…those visits mean SO much to ours kids! And to top off everything, the Chicago group took all of us volunteers out to supper on Saturday night. Thanks a bunch!! We also have a college group visiting from Boston…they just arrived this weekend so I’m looking forward to getting to know them!

Finally, I get my own visitors tomorrow when my sisters and Becca come to take on the DR, round 2! I seriously CAN NOT WAIT! It only gets better when my mom and dad and best friend Abby show up on the 16^th! So it’s going to be an amazing couple weeks. We’ll be getting in a good mix of hanging out with the kids and then I’ll take a couple days off and we’ll hit up the beach. Also, we're doing another big anniversary celebration on the 19th, so they will all get to be here for that. I am soooooooo excited!