Date Night

Caroline and I have all sorts of things going on lately:

1. 3 months straight of teams starts in May
2. The MF Site starts within a month
3. 3 day staff retreat this week
4. We just had an honorary firefighters dinners
5. We have a new roommate


Instead I'm going to talk about making ice cream and leave you in suspense on these other things.

Caroline and I have been having date nights ever since we got married. Some of our best ones have been:
1. Barnes and Noble photo scavenger hunt
2. Toys R Us to play with toys
3. Hide and seek (except that Caroline is afraid of the dark)
4. Fondue

When we first arrived here we substituted date night for apart night so we could get to know people here, but now we're back to date nights again. Our options are more limited here in Jarabacoa and creativity is neither of our strong points so date night has often meant movie night.

Insert ice cream making. I wish I could explain accurately what the ice cream is like here. It's more sugary but less creamy. It's different and not as good in my opinion. This crisis was solved a couple weeks ago when we learned that the base has an ice cream maker.

So Saturday night we made cookies and cream ice cream. You mix lots of cream with sugar and egg yolks, then mix it up in a container surrounded by salty ice for an hour. I thought ours turned out great.

Since it went so well, we decided to make a list of things we want to learn how to do. Here's our Top 25...If you try any of them and have some pointers let us know. Also: www.leeners.com has also sorts of kits for some of these things.

1. Make ice cream
2. Make bread
3. Sew
4. Write a rap song on Fruity Loops
5. Make cheese
6. Skywatch
7. Create a good DVD
8. Cut hair
9. Paint a work of art
10. Build a good campfire
11. Teach Booper to do tricks
12. Kill a chicken and eat it
13. Cook Dominican
14. Go fishing
15. Parallel park
16. Navigate with a map and compass
17. Build simple furniture
18. Eat with chopsticks
19. Photography
20. Garden
21. Dry fruit and meat
22. Make soda
23. Birdwatch
24. Make yogurt
25. Knit