Kali+Les Wedding Film from Kyle Stott on Vimeo.

Now that I’m back from my honeymoon I can finally tell you about our amazing wedding! We had a beautiful wedding Saturday, August 21, 2010. Hawkview Ranch, the facility we train out of, was generous enough to host our special day. All of our students and friends came together to make the event possible.

Instead of having a groom’s dinner, we had a groom’s breakfast. Les’ family treated all of our guests to the most perfect breakfast at McKay Cottage, my favorite breakfast place in Bend. We had a huge table with something like 25 of us all sitting together. It was at 9am and already a nice temperature out. There were delicious fresh scones and traditional breakfast dishes with the Cottage’s special coffee drinks.  We had everyone introduce themselves and give us a one-line piece of advice. They were all great, especially Erica’s – “Uuh, umm, ya, I am, uh, sixteen, sooooo, I don’t really know anything!” I was thinking, “Ha, you probably know what we all have forgotten!” I also really liked a few other’s. The best man said, “Make pretty babies,” (good to know we have his blessing, eh?). My dad said, “Don’t forget that how to love can be learned.” The MOH said, “Never got to bed angry.” Les’ stepdad said, “Do one thing for yourself every day.” Les’ cousin-in-law, Brent, said, “Say ‘I love you’ every day,” and Brent’s wife, Katie, said “Just keep doing what you’re doing!”  I can’t believe how many of the pieces of advice I can remember! Apparently I was really focused that day, lol.

After breakfast I went to have my hair done and Stephanie, the friend I have known the longest and joint MOH, drove me out to the ranch. It was wonderful to arrive and see all the girls dressed up – it made it real! I walked into the ranch owner’s house and 9 pony girls and Gina, one of our instructors, appeared on the stairs. I felt like Mr. Von Trap when he whistles and all the kids line up in the Sound of Music! We had decided ahead of time that the girls would all do their hair in rag curls. They looked outstanding and their positive energy really made everything exciting. The house was filled with giggling.

The weather was wild that day and made getting ready very complicated! The ponies were quite up because of the wind and inclement storm. We were supposed to have rehearsal at 11, then at 1:30, and finally had it at about 3. The girls were running in and out of the house grooming ponies, shining ponies, moving ponies around, and exercising ponies when the ponies got too overwhelmed by all the grooming, shining, and moving! I was very proud to see how knowledgeable they all were about what to do to get ready, especially having to get themselves ready as well. They were very cute running all around in dresses and cowboy boots. The ponies looked amazing. They were clean and sparkly. We got stick on crystals for them and Peanut looked especially grand. Katelynn, one of our 13 year old girls, had gone way out of her way to arrange meetings for the girls to decide on a walking order and to make sure everyone had supplies to make decorations for the ponies. She even downloaded the walking music so they could practice! Seriously – how cool are these kids?! The moms were amazing too. I don’t dare start listing all the things they did because I would be writing for days…

Right up until 4:45, we were very uncertain about whether or not we were going to be able to have the ceremony outdoors. Last minute, the groomsmen moved the reception tables into the coverall arena so we could have the ceremony outside and then send the guests inside after the reception so they would be at least somewhat warm. I walked around trying to answer questions, wearing a bandana because apparently the groom isn’t supposed to see the bride “in all her splendor” before the wedding. The bandana kept Les from seeing my hair, which, thankfully, became looser in the wind. My hair stylist, who is also named Kaylea (kay-lee), and who happened to be getting married one week after me, used a ton of hair spray to make sure the curls could handle the outdoors. I was relieved that between the bandana and the wind it loosened up some and didn’t take its job of being curly quite so seriously!

While everyone else was working hard outdoors, my mom and my 3 bridesmaids were working hard indoors. When they helped me into my dress, it felt like it took 30 minutes to do all the buttons! The buttons ran the length of my back and then some. I have no idea how they got them all buttoned. I had what, to me, was the best dress ever. You’ll see it in the photos

The flowers were my one “bad luck thing” that got all the bad luck out of the way. The gal I had doing my flowers failed to tell me that her sister had had a baby and she went out of town. So, after calling and emailing to check on my flowers for days with no response, I finally sent a text. I received a message back that read: “This is Faith’s assistant. Didn’t you know? Faith’s sister had a baby and she’s out of town. She’s not going to be able to do your flowers.” Gah! 2 days before the wedding! So I called another flower shop saying, “Before you tell me you’re really busy and hang up, let me tell you my story!!!” Fortunately, the woman was able to make bouquets with stargazer lilies (which I love) and blue hydrangeas, which kind of worked with our colors (our colors were purple and gold). So, in the end, I had a bouquet, the 3 bridesmaids had bouquets, my grandma had a corsage, the pony girls each had a carnation, and we did Salvia in galvanized buckets on the tables, so we were good!

We ran a little late (of course, it’s “us”) and the wedding procession started at about 5:15 instead of 5. The ceremony was set up in one of the pastures with a view of the mountains. It began my brother, Cory Vanagas, playing acoustic guitar. Cory learned Pachabell’s Canon and Hear Comes the Bride specifically for our wedding so we had wonderful music for the whole ceremony. The PonyPros were radiant leading ponies down the aisle. The girls were wearing dresses of all different colors, cowgirl boots, and halos – head pieces with tulle, stars, and streamers. The pony geldings sported bowties the girls made themselves to match their dresses and the pony mares wore tiaras and tulle. All the ponies sparkled with glitter and stick-on rhinestones

Little Zoey, age 9, led the group. When Wallie balked at the site of the pergola decorations blowing in the wind, Maddie took the lead. Afterwards, a friend remarked that he was very impressed at how Zoey handled Wallie’s nerves, and how Maddie jumped right in to help. He said that he was surprised that kids could be so composed with an audience and not become nervous when the pony became nervous. I told him that I was so glad that he could see that because that is what PonyPros is all about – teaching kids to train ponies. Ponies take physical, mental, and emotional balance. To excel, you have to be a self-directed learner with a vision and the self-confidence and emotional fitness to pursue it. I think all of our kids have that, but of course I am biased!

The girls walked down the aisle past the 80 adults and 20 kids in attendance. The PonyPros were Maddie & Peanut, Zoey C. & Wallie, Zoe V. & Frank, Katelynn & Quick Draw, Kae & Sam, Morgan & Blue, Elizabeth & Caron, Eden & CuteZilla (Zilla, can you believe it?! She’s a much better now!), Gina & Penny, then, at the very end, Emma & Thistle, with my little sister, LuLu, riding. The older girls did a really good job keeping thing moving calmly forward. It was only LuLu’s second time ever on a pony and she is only 2 years and 1 month old. Her mom walked right next to her but LuLu did an amazing job balancing on her own on such a wild and crazy day! She was in a purple corduroy dress with horses on it and a little cowgirl hat. I suspect we have another pony-lover on the way up

After the PonyPros procession, the bridesmaids and groomsmen made their entrance. We have such amazing friends…5 were friends from high school and one bridesmaid was Les’ 1/2 sister, Erica, who is also a wonderful friend. While the bridesmaids and groomsmen were getting situated, Maddie and Zoey ran back and carried my train for me while my dad walked me down the aisle. Maddie and Zoey looked very fancy in dresses that their nanny helped them to pick out at a hispanic dress shop. The dresses were the perfect color to match the intensity of the sky, which was periwinkle, purple, and white, just like our decorations.

Wearing platform shoes to help keep my dress off the ground was quite a trick! Not only do I not normally wear heels, but, in fact, I normally wear negative heel shoes. I’m glad I didn’t try to practice ahead of time or I might have nixed the shoes all together! I made it down the aisle relying on my dad’s arm some and glad Maddie and Zoey had control of the dress! My veil was blowing in the wind behind me and I was so glad we went with finger tip length and not long. As it was, it felt like a long mane, with one always having ponies on the mind

Somewhere in there all the girls had found their seats on haybales. My mom had wrapped the haybales with white sheets and tied them with bows. It was such a nice touch. Really made the wedding feel home-y. I doubt many brides feel like everything is that perfect when they get to the altar, but I felt like so many of the people who are important to me had had a role in the ceremony and made it special. I really felt like the day brought together the best parts of my life for all to experience. It felt like 10 Christmases, New Years, Easters, Halloween’s and birthdays all rolled into one!

The ceremony it self made me laugh. Ryan, of course, brought his unique goofiness to his speaking parts. We had the 3 bridesmaids and 3 groomsmen alternate speaking. We had given them copies of the script to read over a head of time, but the script we set at the altar had a surprise – at the very end, we had written in a section for changing our last name. I have grown tired over the years of hardly being able to pronounce my own last name and Les’ last name isnt very exciting, so we decided to opt for taking a new last name. We picked “Kiger,” jokingly because Les’ horse, Koa (aka “The Big Bear”) is head of family, but more truthfully because we like how the word sounds and Kiger Mustangs are smart, kind, playful, and athletic, all things that we value. Our friends were surprised to find themselves reading the new lines but recovered well.

Instead of having readings in our ceremony, we had 3 couples who we admire speak. We asked them to speak about something they saw in us that they thought would make us successful as a married couple. It was really great to be able to put these 6 busy people on the spot and hear their thoughts. Seeing as how it was my wedding day I figured I could ask for what I wanted, haha. The first to speak were Henry and Sandy, our college art history and painting teachers, respectively. Next were Neil and Teri. Neil was our college English lit teacher and we got him back into horses about two years ago. Neil’s wife, Teri, owns a used bookstore downtown and is just a really genuine, cool lady. Lastly were David and Kelly, our acupuncturists/herbalists. David treats us and Kelly treats my mom and brother. Kelly and David had written something where they alternated lines, which was very cute, and ended with a Thoreau quote, which I thought was awesome since Henry and Neil used to team teach some together and Thoreau came up often. We know what we like

After the ceremony, we did the receiving line and got to say hello to all the people we thought we would have time to talk to but didn’t (which was pretty much everyone!) I had to stand on a linen table cloth in the arena so as not to get my dress dirty (hurrumph) but at least had somewhere warmer for everyone to go. The weather made for amazing photos… It was our favorite kind of light, the light we based our theme around, in fact. So, it is only fair that the wedding itself would end up having crazy weather.

Our friends were amazing about making the photos special. It seemed to take forever, but the Giant (our 6’11 friend) added goofiness to the photos by pretending to propose and other charming stunts. We did a shoe photo with all the girls (something like 15 of us total with the PonyPros and bridesmaids). The colors in the photo are awesome – just about every color in the rainbow as we had hoped

We did the cake cutting and eating back in the arena. Few people there I think truly knew how important the cake was to us. We had been engaged for 3.5 years and people were always asking us when we were getting married. Our answer, for the last 3 years, had been “when we can eat cake.” Since we had gotten sick in Colorado, we couldn’t eat any sweeteners or any starches, so cake was fully out of the question. We have only just recovered enough to eat gluten-free carob cake, so that is what we had. It was amazing.

By the end of the day I was completely exhausted, as I think was everyone else! We left on our honeymoon 3 days later. It was the best wedding and honeymoon I could ever imagine. Ten million thank-you’s to everyone who was involved!!!!!

Today Les and I took Emma, Katelynn, and Morgan on a long trail ride at Tumalo Reservoir. We started and finished with a deep water crossing – halfway up little BlueMan’s back! And we got to picnic half way. The ponies munched on bunch grass and tried to convince us that tortilla chips and oranges were really delicious and acceptable pony food. We did a little trotting and a little jumping, one steep hill down and one steep hill up. No one fell off, though two ponies did lay down with riders when they spotted some particularly nice sand. Oh ponies… Always good for a laugh

All 3 girls are age 13. Emma has been in horses for about 8 months. Morgan and Katelynn have been in horses for about 2 years but have only been riding for 6 months.

Emma rode Sam. This was Sam’s 3rd ever haul out trail ride and first one with a youth rider. He surprised us by being very calm, and almost poky! Sam is Kali’s trick pony and is usually pretty up. Kali recently paired Emma with Sam so Emma would put her creative, athletic energy to good use instead of daydreaming and cowboying

Katelynn rode QuickDraw. This was Q’s second ever haul out trail ride and first one with a youth. It is a miracle that Q is now feeling better. He has severe back problems and and was unrideable for the last year. It is thanks to Katelynn’s work and Les’ trimming that Q was able to come on this trip. He kepts us all entertained with ridiculous shenanigans revolving around his trying to keep his girlfriends, Ilo and Koa, away from Sam. He is a big goof.

Morgan rode BlueMan. This was Blue’s first ever haul-out trail ride and his 5th trail ride total! Blue was a superstar. He did well just about anywhere in the group, but took the lead when we were trotting. He has that Welsh cart trot where he can really move. Nice to get out and give him somewhere to go!

Emma said this adventure was more fun than spotlighting at the Parelli tour stop. Katelynn and Morgan said it was close, but maybe not quite as good. We’re all in agreement – it was fun!

Today was our third day at Alli’s Surf Camp in Cabarete. It is just a little ways off the road and has a small lagoon around it to separate it some from neighboring apartments. The camp is beautifully decorated, fun, and home-y. It seems like every inch is accented with bright colors and little painted details, and you know how Les and I like bright colors! There are several different buildings, all with a few rooms each. Lots of ferns, palms, and other plants, plus wi-fi around the pool, and a great private restaurant with a palm frond roof and picnic table seating. Everyone gets together for meals.

All the campers here are amazingly friendly. Everyone is very mellow, upbeat, and casually conversive. Most are close to our age, too, which is a rare treat. I hadn’t really expected the surfer image to be a reality, but it is, in the best of ways (not the airhead surfer image!). The people here are bright but non-pretentious. We met a guy from Brighton, England who walks around in short pink boardshorts with yellow giraffes on them. He’s about Les’ age. If you looked at him, you would think, “Probably a server at a restaurant who saves up all winter then blows it all on travel.” Nope, he’s a doctor. Has been a general practitioner for 2 years. When he gets back from the Caribbean, he is entering 10 weeks of boot camp the next day because he wants to provide medical care Iraq. He also said he thinks it will be “interesting medicine”!

The camp, which is somewhere in between a hostel and a hotel, seems to be run by one administrator, two maids, and a couple handymen. It seems to attract travelers who are in the DR for 3 weeks or more, some of them at the surf camp for the entire time. So, the people get to know each other well. There is a Norwegian family here who is staying for 3 months at the camp. They have a 4 year old son and an 8 month old daughter. I’ve never seen the kids tantrum or cry. Makes me want to know more about this surfer lifestyle! The dad works with computers like Les. The mom looks like a model but is super down to earth. She said they have traveled quite a lot with the kids and love it. It reminded Les of how he traveled for a year with his grandparents from age 5-6. They took him around in a motorhome to all the cool military bases on the West Coast because they were free to stay at (Les’ grandpa was a POW in WW2 and escaped all 3 times). Les has lots of fond memories from his year of travels and successfully entered first grade, skipping kindergarten, after his  adventure with Grammy and Grampy.

Interestingly enough, almost everyone here at the camp seems to know about Oregon. We met a couple here where the girl is from Israel and the guy is from Colombia. They were in Oregon a couple months ago visiting the gal’s brother and actually stayed in Sunriver. We also happen to be staying below a couple from Eugene. They study Chemistry and Physics at the U of O. They read a lot of the same books as we do, including Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, but we got to tell them about Malcolm Gladwell’s talk about Spaghetti on Ted.com. The couple are never seen without two 6-week old puppies on the road. The puppies seem to be the typical Dominican stray breed – somewhat like Italian Greyhounds with a little more fur and mass. The Eugene couple, Leslie and Mason, called the airport and are taking Mata and Plata home with them. The will be giving them to the Mason’s mom, who has acreage in Pendelton. It’s a wonderful thing to do, and I think has added a lot to their vacation, not to mention to the vacations of the kids here at the camp. The puppies hang out by the pool and wrestle all day. Yesterday evening, we watched some Ted Talks by the pool with the puppies sleeping on our laps and I found myself thinking, “Now this is luxury!” Of course to each his own…

This morning we got up again to go surfing. There is a shuttle from the camp to the surf beach. It is basically an elongated pick up truck but they’ve put a few wooden benches in the back to give us all something to sit on. It seems quite risky riding in the back of a truck on the Dominican highway for 10 minutes there and 10 back. There is so much honking and zooming but I think I finally figured out the honking…

If it is a car that honks, it means, “I’m passing you. Don’t do anything stupid.” A longer honk expresses annoyance at another car or moto; a medium length honk is directed at pedestrians and, at a busy time of day, seems to mock them for walking; a short honk says, “This vehicle takes passengers for $.30 cents, you’d be crazy not to go for it!” It was really enlightening to see how ridiculous people can make cues, like honking, by over using them. Because each person honks at you as they go past, all it does is fluster you and teach you to ignore the honk. Back home, people only honk if there is danger… To me, that makes so much sense then honking all the time! I’ll be making some horse training metaphors about the honking later…

All the honking and traffic noise made Les and I realize how very lucky we are to lead such quiet lives. We can go to the barn when the insidious lawn mowers, leaf blowers, and weed wackers start in the Parks, and come home from the barn when the wind starts. We are also very lucky to get to shop at Whole Foods, which is such a better shopping experience than most stores. Ours is especially quiet, too. We’ve been to a few in Portland and California that are less so. Les and I have decided that future travel should include more places like Cinque Terra in Italy and Jeanene’s finca. Lucky for us, we are forming lots of great connections with horse-lovers over seas and that should enable us to get the local’s recommendations on travel

I suspect the surf beach here is one of the best places available to learn to surf. The water is only waist deep. Yesterday we had perfect conditions. The waves were about 3-4ft high. Today, they were too small – more like 2 feet – but we learned that it actually is possible to surf on a 2 foot wave! I had no idea. My perception of surfing was very far off from reality. I thought it would be very difficult and that you would have to crash hard and often to learn. Nope. We both got up on the first try and rode pretty much all the way in. I also thought there was only one break available to surf at each section of beach. At least at this beach, there can be some people further out surfing huge waves (to me, 8ft is beyond comprehension!) with us about 70ft closer to shore on the same line surfing little tiny waves. To teach us how to catch the wave, the teacher held the board while a wave came, told us to start paddling, then gave us a push, and we stood up. I was glad we had snowboarding experience because I think that helped some. What helped even more, though, was yoga! You basically go from Low Cobra to Warrior 2, but with your legs relaxed and shoulders opened forward. I felt like I had good balance for getting up because of all the Vinyasa flows at Asmi, haha. By the end of today, I rode switch foot once and turned on one wave, and Les did front side and back side body verials, and rode switch. It’s really fun to watch Les learn new things because he’s really creative and uninhibited. It’s nice that surfing was so much less work than I expected. Seems like a hobby we can ride for awhile.

After surfing, we came back to the room, scarfed some raisins and almonds, and zonked out. Then we ate some rice and beans and went into town. Oddly enough, hardly anything here is any cheaper than at home. Lower-end clothes are $20-$40, rice is $1.50/lb, an apple is $.70, cell phone $60/mo, internet $60/mo… Both groceries and goods are average prices. I don’t know how the Dominicans do it…I wonder if housing is less expensive or what? Minimum wage is only $.60 cents per hour, or $200/mo. We were told that the main reason there are many large families is that parents try to have enough kids that at least one will be intelligent enough to go out into the world and make enough money to support the family. Aye yie yie.

In town, we found a gift for Gina to thank her for running our program while we were gone (hope you like it, Gina!) and some awesome candles for my mom. The candle wax sits inside a coconut and the coconut makes a candle and stand in one. Cool recycling! We also dropped some of our clothes off to be washed at a place that does laundry by the pound. They hung up our clothes bag to be weighed and we’ll pick all 11lbs of it up tomorrow freshly washed.

Tonight our friend, Luis, is going to meet us in town. We have no idea what we are doing. Between calling from Skype to a cell phone and trying to communicate in half English, half Spanish, all we could manage was see you at Janet’s Super Market at  7pm. Ha. 7 seems early for dancing and late for dinner.

Did I mention it gets dark here at 7? Yea, totally dark. It’s quite different. The days and nights are almost even. It gets light at about 7am. I asked Luis what the Dominicans do all night with so much dark time and it not really being safe to be out walking or riding a moto… Some Dominicans have only 3 hours of electricity per day and the lucky ones only have 17 hours unless they can afford huge batteries or a generator. There is electricity in the morning, some at noon, then some around 3, some from around 5-8pm, and I’m told some around 1am. In some ways I think it is good! Reduces waste of electricity and exposure to electromagnetic fields. The reason for the on/off thing here, though, is that the area is run on power from an oil-fired powerplant in Puerto Plata, and oil is expensive. Yikes. We saw the plant. Not pretty. Roland said they are doing some with coal now, which is awful too. I hope solar becomes more popular… (If you want to hear my wind power tirade, just ask) Luis says the Dominicans watch tv until 8 then do nothing. He said most sleep about 8 hours, but that would only be 10:30-6:30. There’s a whole 2.5 hours in there every night where there would be no electricity and it would be dark.

Tomorrow morning we are surfing and then begin our 27 hour journey home. Lots of LOOOONG layovers. TGF FB  (thank goodness for Facebook) We’ll also be watching a few movies and reading some more Wayne Dyer and Terry Pratchett.

We’ve now been at La Finca Tremoulet (our friend Jeanene’s Tremoulet’s estate) for eight days. I’m not entirely sure what a finca is but I think it might mean something like property?

We’ve been teaching Luis, the horse manager, a little about clicker training. He knows the Parelli games very, very well and is very gentle and natural. The Tremoulet’s have several rescue Dominican horses. A couple have odd gaits because they are gaited mixes, with a little bit of a lot of different breeds, I am told. They are a bit bitter about having some amount of trouble with the active NH games because of their gait issues. Les and I taught Luis how to use clicker training to make everything more enjoyable for them.

Luis took us on a very cool ride the other day. We had to cross 3 rivers. One of the rivers was almost deep enough that the horses had to swim but the horses just waded out and stood there enjoying the water. It was clearly the best part of the ride for them. We sat with our heels up on the horse’s rumps so we wouldn’t get our shoes soaked. Things take awhile to dry here because it is so humid! During the ride, we saw Cocoa trees, avocado trees, mango trees, banana trees, plantain trees, and a bunch of other fruit trees that we are not familiar with. We tried one that Luis was calling little lemons. They are about the size of a Robin’s egg and have a big pit. I guess the Dominicans eat them for snacks because there really isn’t much fruit. You just suck on the pit and spit them out. It kind of tasted like peach, but looked more like a lemon on the outside.

Luis and Les have so much in common it’s strange. Luis does yoga, is a computer programer and horse trainer, reads lots of motivational books, and likes to mountain bike. He even has a dog with a disposition similar to Tovi’s. And, he rides a horse that is built like Koa with a little bit of a Roman nose, little legs, and big belly…

We have had 3 undesirable encounters with spiders in our house… All 3 have been at least the size of a Daddy Long Legs. One had very long legs and was very fast. One had a medium sized body and, after we built a chute with furniture, Les was able to squash it with a mop (normally we aren’t spider-killers but this one was scary at 11pm!). The third had a body the size of a small cockroach and short legs, and was very slow. After seeing it had hair on its legs, we called Luis. It was a Tarantula! Luis said it not dangerous as long as we didn’t do anything to make it jump. Ha! Luis put a glass over it, scooted it outside, and poked it with a stick until it was dead. Yikes and ick! I could do without ever seeing one of those again. We were told their bite is deadly.

Yesterday we rode bikes to the river and taught Luis to play a game with a clicker. In the game, one person is the “learner” and another person tries to use clicker training to get the “learner” to do something like spin around in a circle. It was cool to be able to use the clicker to communicate so much without words. Luis, Les, and I get along quite well with a mix of half English/half Spanish words in a sentence, but I think it would have been very difficult to explain the rules of just about any game… This one, since it is a non-verbal game anyway, Luis was able to understand after one example. It was the first time Les and I have got to play the game next to a river, so that added a fun twist. We were on a mini island made of pebbles so we had to contend with uneven ground and sensitive feet. That’s part of what makes the game fun – guessing what the animal is more likely or less likely to do given the environment.

It has been nice to have the break from work to spend some time thinking about what we need to have better sustained balance in our lives. It’s funny because Les and I have both noticed things that the other person has been saying for a long time but we’re really only “hearing” now. For example, Les always talks about backpacking and we’ve only ever gone backpacking one time in the 8.5 years we’ve been together. Finally I understood that he not only wants to go backpacking but wants to do more things that are like backpacking, ie., things that are calm, take all day, use a lot of energy, are casually social, involve new locations, and allow a person to exercise without running around a whole bunch. Ha. Can’t believe it took me that long to realize that that’s what he was saying. I thought he just wanted to put on a backpack and trounce around in the woods for miles once a summer. Understanding what the backpacking is about makes it so we can actually integrate more of that into what we do regularly, but who would ordinarily have time to think about what backpacking is about?

We’ve been eating a lot of different foods here. It is much easier to push the diet here because if you eat something not good, you are not as miserable because of the distractions of being someplace new. We’ve been eating more rice, lentils, potatoes, beans, etc. We actually made yogurt from the milk of one of Jeanene’s cows yesterday! We were very careful about the directions on the packet because they were in French. We kept a close eye on the yogurt with the thermometer. We are happy with the result, and it was a unique experience. My hope would be that we will have developed some new tolerance for foods by the time we come home. Les knows a place where we can order cheese making supplies and we are planning to make our own goat cheese with milk we get from a lady at the barn.

We got some amazing photos of Les doing yoga on the lawn here. We are hoping to do more clinics in the upcoming year. Les is particularly interested in yoga/horsemanship clinics. Clinics are nice because of the change of scenery and highly appreciative students. Since Les and I can’t go out for a drink, or really even a meal with friends because of our go-around with Candida, we have to get our entertainment from somewhere! I think we did a reasonable job last year – having horse shows in Jan, Feb, and Mar, a clinic in Apr, Parelli in May, Joseph in June, clinic in July, wedding in Aug… Next year I hope will be equally exciting. This long vacation has afforded us much time to reflect and dream!

We are having a great time on our trip. Yesterday was only the half way point. I can hardly believe it. Seems like we’ve been away an eternity!

We stayed the first 7 nights at a resort in Puerto Plata. The resort had wonderful beach beds. They were wooden four posters with a free-swinging mattress. It was only too hot for the beach 12-2 or maybe 11-3 if you weren’t getting in the water at all. The water was the perfect temperature. You could easily stay in it all day. We mostly just hung out and worked on our tans. It has been 3 years since we’ve really had full body sun, what with having been sick. It feels good to get some of the layers off.

On Wednesday we made the journey from the resort in Puerta Plata to Cabarete. We did most of the journey with a private taxi we hired from the hotel. We are now staying at a very, very nice estate in the hills. It is owned by a friend we made through ponies on Facebook. Our friend, who we only know online, is out of town. She had a neighbor named Roland pick us up after the taxi dropped us off at a cafe in town. We are staying here in the hills outside of Cabarete with the family’s servants waiting on us. They have seven! There is one for the horses, 4 for the property, and 2 for the house and kitchen. They are very friendly, a little quiet, and very courteous. The cooking is amazing. It’s strange to get up and have breakfast prepared, then to wander around doing nothing for a few hours and have lunch prepared, then to do nothing some more and have dinner. The food is so fresh, too. It is delivered from an organic farm.

The estate is 150 acres. It is about 10 minutes from down town Cabarete. It is definitely jungle up here. There are vines, plants that eat mosquitos, and everything is covered in grass. The estate grows oranges, grapefruit, clementines, pineapple, and coconuts. Nothing has to be irrigated. I’m pretty sure you could grow anything here.

The estate has 14 horses and something like 11 cows. The riding is very interesting because the ground is always wet and a bit squishy because it rains most evenings. The scenery is very nice. When you look out over the hills, they are very misty and have a lot of depth to them. Jurassic Park was filmed here and it actually looks very much like the movie. You would definitely want an indoor arena to do much with horses here, though.

We have been working with the Dominican, Luis, who works with the horses here at the estate. He is 22 and a lot of fun. He LOVES Parelli. The Dominicans are 17 out of 17 Carribean countries for education. Cuba is #1, Haiti #3, believe it or not. Because education is so limited, it seems like the Dominicans really soak up whatever they can get their hands on… They seem to love to learn. Jeanene, our friend, taught Luis about Parelli. He is very vocal about it and sincerely wants to go to the Parelli Center some day. He said he wants to be a professional dancer and a dressage trainer. The Dominicans we have met are very high on life. They are all so enthusiastic.

Many Dominicans are only paid $2000 a year, but Roland says that a person must make at the very least $6000 a year to survive. It seems that is why we see so many 18-22 year old boys working. Luis has something like 6 younger siblings. He wants to come to the US to make money to send home. Roland explained that literally 1/3 of Dominican survive on “recurso” – money Dominicans living in other countries send home. If I understood Rolan correctly, there are 1 million Dominicans in NY alone, 300,000 in Boston – 3 million in the US total, as legal immigrants. There are 2 million more spread out between Switzerland, Spain, Germany, etc, with the total DR population only being 9 million. There are huge gaps in pay here. Luis says the richest Dominicans live better than Americans, while the poor barely have 3 meals of beans and rice a day.

We are practicing a ton of Spanish with Luis. He knows about as much English as we know Spanish so it must be very funny to listen to us. When any of us talk, the sentence comes out with about half the words in Spanish and half in English. It actually works pretty well. It is a treat to get to practice.

Luis took us into a tiny town called Las Minas the other day on bikes. Saturday he took us on horseback into a little village where some Candians have a small Catholic church and pre-school. Everywhere you go the Dominicans are very friendly. The Dominican kids will say things like, “Hi! You speak English? How are you?” or “Hello! You be my friend?” We are told it is because tourists often give the kids presents, but one would hope they are also genuinely friendly

We are 3 hours ahead here. It’s nice that it won’t be a huge change coming home. In fact, when we come home, we’ll probably be getting up early enough to make a.m. yoga, which would be handy