Technical Difficulties

As you will notice below, I've got lots of blog titles with no text underneath!! This is because I created lots of blog entries and scheduled them to post automatically, thinking that I would go in and add the text and pics as I had time before the post date. Well, wouldn't you know that within 24 hours of doing that, we began to have internet problems! Right now, I'm using a bit of office time to keep you in the know....but please keep checking back. I will fill in everything once we get back up and running!!!!

A Visit from Memommy and Grandma Barb

At the end of our moving week, we had visitors arrive!! My mom and Barb Lehman (who is like a 2nd mom to me) came to visit and to celebrate Mia's 1st birthday with us (that's another blog post). Thankfully, I had lots of help with Mia during our moving week, so everything was set up, put away, and ready for visitors - including the guest room - EXCEPT for the dreaded kitchen! For some reason, this is my least favorite room in the house to organize and keep up with...it's SO overwhelming! Mom & Barb graciously put on their work gloves and washed cabinets and dishes and got everything set up SO nicely! Thanks! I had hoped to venture out with them and show them lots of the "sights" around La Vega, but it rained the ENTIRE week they were here! I couldn't believe it! We did manage to venture into the barrio one day, and we all came back sopping wet and muddy, but we had a great time visiting some of our friends there. Mom & Barb made play-doh for the kids of several families, and we personally took it to them and played with them. Of course, the highlight for all of us was the time that Mom & Barb got to spend with Mia Grace. She LOVES her Memommy! Mia fulfilled her role well, was quite the ham, and got lots of loving (and baths) that week!! Luis & I were treated to a date night with at-home babysitters (a rarity, for sure), so we enjoyed a nice meal at TGI Fridays (that's the upscale restaurant which is "close" by) and time together to chat. :-) Barb also graciously spent many of her hours here painting our old apartment, so that we wouldn't have to pay someone to do that. All in all, it was a WONDERFUL week that went by WAY too fast! I loved having my own mommy close by. You're a great mom, mom! Thanks for putting taking such good care of me when I was little....changing my diapers and feeding me and putting up with my strong-willed personality (and all the other things that I'll appreciate more and more as I have to do them for Mia!). I love you so much!! :-)

Moving Time

Back in December, another apartment in our building came available for rent. We told the landlord that we were interested in it because it is about twice the size of the one we've been living in. We never heard anything back, so we thought it wasn't going to be an option. We had continued to pray about it because I REALLY wanted to move. I finally said, "Okay, Lord. If this is what you have for us, then open the door. If not, then close it." The next day, at the end of January, the landlord stopped us on our way to work and said, "Just wanted to let you know that the apartment is available if you want it. You have two days to decide." Well, we felt like this was God saying, "The door is open." so we took advantage of it. We had less than a week to move, which was a bit overwhelming to me since my mother was practically on her way for a visit and then we had a 3-day kid's camp on the heels of it (another post for those fun events). Several friends of ours joined in, and we were moved within three days. It was amazing! We are loving the bigger space. Mia started walking the day we started moving, and so she loves having the ability to roam a bit more. Some of the perks include an extra bathroom, a bigger master bedroom with a bathroom, a larger living room area, and a balcony with a great view. Oh, and a MUCH bigger kitchen!!!! Below are some pictures I took as the first boxes were being brought up. I haven't had a chance to take any since we got settled in, so it looks pretty empty in these pics. We are so grateful to God for providing this new place for us!

Happy Birthday, Nana!

I have taken the liberty of interrupting the scheduled Rodriguez family updates for a very important announcement! Today is my Nana's birthday!!! I'm not allowed to tell her age, but I will tell you some things about her. She is unbelievably sweet and hospitable, and she loves to have people visit with her at her house...especially her family! When I was 12, we moved into a house just two doors down from Nana, so I was able to see her a lot. Some of my fondest childhood memories involve sitting out on her back porch hulling pecans and shucking corn with her (can you tell I grew up in the South???). Nana loves babies and children and has always doted on her grandchildren. Now that we are all older, we love to go over on Saturday mornings with our own kids and visit Nana. She always welcomes us with coffee and food.....fresh-baked muffins or coffee cake and sometimes an all out breakfast complete with eggs, bacon, and biscuits! And then she plays with our kids while we relax and enjoy the meal!! Mia has really enjoyed spending time with Nana during our visits to the states. Now you may be wondering how Nana has the energy to keep up with all of these grandchildren and great-grandchildren....well, she gets up and goes to the gym every morning to work out!! Yes, that's right...my Nana goes to Curves every morning and gets her exercise on! The most important thing about Nana, though, is that she loves the Lord with all of her heart, soul, mind, and strength. She has passed this amazing heritage down to her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren over the years, and there is no greater gift she could have given us. Thank you, Nana, for being an amazing grandmother, for loving us, and for sharing Christ with us in all that you say and do! You are a blessing to our family! Happy birthday to you! We love you very much!!

Nana (in the middle) with her 4 children

Nana in the floor playing with her great-grandson, Aiden.

Nana holding her great-grandson, Benjamin.

Nana (2nd from the left) with her 2 sisters and her great-aunt, Gladys

Citizenship

I've been pursuing my Dominican citizenship since July of last year, as it is a prerequisite to applying for Luis's US visa. In order to apply from the Dominican Republic, I have to show legal residency or citizenship here. Otherwise, I would have to move to the states and follow the paperwork process there (apart from Luis), which takes between 2-3 years. For us, it wasn't an option to be separated for so long, so we were left with pursuing things from the DR side. Getting residency is normally the first step before citizenship, but by Dominican law, I have a right (as a foreign woman married to a Dominican man) to pursue citizenship directly. This is what we opted to do and on January 15th, 2009, I was sworn in as a Dominican citizen. It was a very simple ceremony with approximately 60 people of original American, Venezuelan, Puerto Rican, Ecuadorian, Chinese, Taiwanese, and Korean descent. A man gave a short speech about what it means to be Dominican and how we are now responsible to follow all the laws here. Then he read a statement to which we all simultaneously raised our right hands and said, "Yes. For God and for our country." Everyone started to clap and that was it...I became a Dominican in those few seconds. They gave me a lovely flag lapel pin, which I wear proudly on my backpack (ironically, a backpack is a dead giveaway here of being a tourist). Mia, of course, was the hit of the day, and she wowed everyone in the judicial offices with her personality and charm. We have discovered that Mia can get us just about anything that we want, so she accompanies us on many of our paperwork journies. Below is a lovely pic of our family taken after the swearing in. Notice our President's picture in the background (Leonel Fernandez). Many people have asked if I had to give up my US citizenship in order to do this. No, I did not. Because I married into another country, I am able to retain my US citizenship in conjunction with my Dominican citizenship. This is what is known as "dual citizenship."

Luis's Health

On January 1st, while Mia & I were still stateside, I received a phone call from Luis that he was in the hospital because he had a seizure. It was a little disconcerting, as I wasn't sure all of the details and everything. Thankfully, he was at his parent's house for a visit when it happened and they were able to get him to a nearby clinic for evaluation. He spent two days in the hospital, and got out just in time to come and pick us up at the airport. After asking lots of questions to his doctor at the one-week checkup, we decided to get a second opinion. We are so grateful that some friends in the capital were able to recommend a wonderful neurologist to us. Dr. Cabrera is a sweet Christian man that is extremely knowledgeable in his field...in fact, he is touted to be the number one neurologist in the country! He spent a long time with us at our first consultation and scheduled more tests to be run the following week...an MRI and a sleep/video EEG. The EEG came back normal, but the MRI showed scar tissue on the hippo campus of Luis's right temporal lobe. This is the most common cause of epilepsy, and Dr. Cabrera feels certain that it is the cause of Luis's seizure. Although he doesn't believe that Luis is epileptic, he does believe that without medication, Luis would be likely to continue having seizures. So....Luis is on seizure medication for the next two years!! If he has no seizures within those two years, then he can come off of the meds. We are so thankful that it wasn't anything more serious. Please continue to pray for Luis during this time and for our family. For the next three months, Luis will be unable to work as his body adjusts to the medication and we wait to see if it is effective in stopping the seizures. We will keep you posted as anything develops.

Update Time!!!

Ok, so it's been a while since I've written. It feels like my life has been in tornado mode since Mia & I got back from the states at the beginning of January. I'm going to take the next week or however long it takes and do a post a day with the highlights of what has been happening with us over the last two months. I don't really know how many readers I had before I took this little hiatus, but I hope you're still checking in with us! :-)