{"id":4250,"date":"2013-12-22T18:59:00","date_gmt":"2013-12-22T18:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=4250"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:35:30","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:35:30","slug":"the-first-day-of-winter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=4250","title":{"rendered":"THE FIRST DAY OF WINTER…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

… is a great time to go to the beach in Haiti.\u00a0 And you can be jealous if you want, but it’s not like I haven’t invited you to come join us! (Seriously – any time.\u00a0 Come visit us.\u00a0 We’ll roll out the red carpet.)\u00a0 Put Haiti on your calendar now for next Christmas.Every once in a while,\u00a0I find myself looking\u00a0around in wonder and thinking, “Dude, I\u00a0am living\u00a0in the Caribbean!”\u00a0 As I write this, I am finishing off a piece of banana cream pie Melissa made last night and watching the living room curtains slowly inflate and then deflate with each gentle breeze.\u00a0 Our day started in this room with us giving the boys an early Christmas present – a snorkeling set.\u00a0 We had one set that was given to us by some friends before we left Indiana (shout out to Lee and Cara – we get a lot of enjoyment out of it! Thanks!) but a second set makes it possible to partner up and go exploring a bit further out from shore.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

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We headed out at about 9:00 with our pickup following the Heckman’s – today was the first time it’s worked out for us to spend\u00a0a day at the\u00a0beach with their family.\u00a0 Phil and Emily work at the Emmaus Biblical Seminary and their son Ethan is a good friend to our boys and their daughter Haylie is a good friend to our girls!Another first – We were able to take my three Haitian sons with us, too.\u00a0 Dhaloo Beach is 18 miles away\u00a0– which translates into an hour plus to drive there.\u00a0 But the pay-off is worth it.<\/p>\n\n\n

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I did NOT play around with the colors on this picture.\u00a0 The water is really this beautiful!<\/p>\n\n\n

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The Adults.<\/p>\n\n\n

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My Haitian sons and I. From left to right: Johnny, Mikenn and Ruysdael. It was Ruysdael’s first trip to any sort of beach and none of the boys had been to Dhaloo before.\u00a0 They were much more excited to be there than their photo-faces would lead you to believe!<\/p>\n\n\n

Also their first time to play pool.\u00a0 Not surprisingly, I won.<\/p>\n\n\n

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And here Johnny and Mikenn are heading out.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

\u00a0WhileRuysdael is lost in deep contemplation.<\/p>\n\n\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

A selfie with Ruysdael and Mikenn.<\/p>\n\n\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

Melissa knows how to relax.<\/p>\n\n\n

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A big part of Phil’s job at the Seminary is landscaping.\u00a0 He can’t go ANYWHERE without inspecting the local greenery!<\/p>\n\n\n

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Some local fisherman brought in some ugly fish!<\/p>\n\n\n

Several merchants were set up in the area – hoping to catch some visiting tourists spilling over from Labadee Beach next door – that’s where the Royal Caribbean cruise ships anchor for a day of jet skis, kayaks, inflatable water toys and feasting.\u00a0 Melissa and I did a bit of Christmas shopping with these artists since most of the items were quality work.<\/p>\n\n\n

My only complaint about the day was that it flew by so incredibly fast.\u00a0 Before we knew it, we were back on the water taxi and headed for the trucks.\u00a0 It was one of those days when you stop to thank God for a beautiful day and you really, really, REALLY mean it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

… is a great time to go to the beach in Haiti.\u00a0 And you can be jealous if you want, but it’s not like I haven’t invited you to come join us! (Seriously – any time.\u00a0 Come visit us.\u00a0 We’ll roll out the red carpet.)\u00a0 Put Haiti on your calendar now for next Christmas.Every once […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4251,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4250"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4272,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4250\/revisions\/4272"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}