Happy Mother’s Day to all the great mommies out there! I spent today kind of relaxing and taking care of some errands that I needed to take care of around the ship. This evening was spent serving the mother’s aboard the ship at a special dinner. I was one of about 10 volunteers who plated food and served it along with drinks and of course some cake! I got to taste a little bit of the cake and it was great! Yum-O. It was nice to be able to have the mommies aboard feel special and like they were pampered for at least a little while. This evening I watched the most gorgeous sunset. Actually it is the first one that I’ve seen since arriving on board. It was absolutely gorgeous. I got so many pictures. As the sun went through its many stages/placements of setting, I snapped away. Some pics show the brightest white light contrasting with the blue water and others show beautiful amber streaks as the sun reflected through the clouds. It was absolutely stunning….further letting me know that God loves us and shows us that he does in so many ways. I’m thankful that I was able to feel his love today. After the sunset, I headed down to work and Aaron and I took off to play at the hotel for the first time in a couple weeks. We were so busy in Dominican Republic and we have been busy here so far, so it was nice to be able to go down and do our thing for the patients and (new) staff. They all enjoyed it and so did we.

Yesterday was another great day. We played again at the Heritage Quay shopping center…and again… NO we didn’t get to shop. Boo again for that. But I’ll get to shop pretty soon when we get some liberty. Woo hoo! We started our journey yesterday shortly after lunch. I took a nap on our 48 minute ride to shore. It was great. We arrived and of course did the obligatory set up. We did get to have another snack at Cheers. So that was nice. Not as many people showed up for the gig as they had the previous day, but it was awesome anyhow. The leadership from the ship was there and they stayed the whole time. They must have liked us. I met so many nice people at the performance. Unlike the first day, many locals were out and totally dug our music…SCORE again. I got some pics with a lot of the folks that were in attendance so I will call them my ‘souvenirs’ since I am unable to get any real ones. We tore down after the show and headed back to the boat landing zone. While I was enjoying my lemon ice cream on a fresh baked waffle cone, I saw the biggest rat and roach I think I have ever seen in my life!!! I think I was almost on the verge of running when I saw them…ewww. Also there was the strangest man riding around on his bike. If you have ever seen Friday, you know how it just wasn’t right that Debo rode around on his bike at night? That was kinda like this guy. He was very odd and looked like at any moment, he might start some static. We all just kept our distance and kept our eyes on him. He ended up not pulling any fast ones, but one can never be too cautious!

Another funny/weird thing that happened was when we headed to the multicultural center to get our gear that was locked up. While I was sitting in our van, I noticed a cute little boy, probably 4, standing outside of our van that was to take us to Heritage Quay. Well he looked like he was talking to one of our trombonists. So I thought ‘ooo good photo op’. NOT! I get up there to try to talk to him and ask what his name was and the little guy tries to get into the van with us. I said ‘no no’ to him and he kept trying to get in. I picked him up and set him back on the ground. He wasn’t taking No for an answer. We eventually had to call one of our security folks over. Now where the mom was, we had no idea. Finally our driver went in tried to find the mother. Well he didn’t find her, but he did find the grandma. She was inside the building, probably being seen by one of the docs. Who lets a child way out of their sight like that? SHeesh!

Well I’m headed up to try to get some laundry done. Tomorrow I’m headed out with some volunteers and the Chaplains staff to do some community clean up stuff. It will be my first, but I hope it won’t be my last.

Thanks for stopping by…
Keisha