Back to the DR!

Well I am officially back in the Dominican Republic, and it feels like I never left. The past two days have been filled with warm welcome embraces from kids, parents, and friends and I am overwhelmed with the emotion that comes along with reunions. My Mom is here for a week with me, and I am proud and excited to introduce her to everybody. When I first saw some of the kids, they asked me - is that your Mother over there?
Our trip began with 12 hours of travelling, which included spending the night in the Montreal airport - (not so fun) - and as tired as I was when I arrived here Sunday morning, after absolutely NO sleep, I was on a Dominican high and had a second wind. Liz came to pick us up at the airport with three of the boys - Domingo, Eddie, and Andy. Andy's mother Sonja works for Liz, and when we arrived at her house, Sonja had cooked us a Dominican feast. She is an amazing cook, and Mom had a real taste of Dominican style food and cooking.
We spent some more time just visiting, and hanging out with Liz, Sonja and the boys. Later on we drove them home, and headed to drop off Sonja. We stopped at Maria Hernandez's house fist, where we are having our Christmas party. She has this amazing Christmas display set up, extremely elaborate, and stunning. She has daily school groups going through her home to view it.
When we dropped Sonja off, she invited us in to her house. I wanted to show my Mom around a bit, and when we got out of the car I saw a group of girls running towards me. They were so excited, as was I. They all gave me hugs, and when I introduced them to my Mom they started hugging her too. The kids here are so welcoming and amazing. As I was hugging all the girls, all of a sudden, one of the cutest little boys ever, Yohandi who is Sonja's son, came running out of nowhere and gave me the tightest, warmest hug ever.
We had a little visit at Sonja's house, and then left to go shopping at La Sirena for some groceries. One thing I love about being in the Dominican is the fact that everything is so laid back, and I decided that I wanted ice-cream for dinner. So we stopped and ate an early dinner snack of ice-cream...yummy!!!
When we got home we just relaxed and visited with Liz. We went to bed early, since I haden't slept in over two days.