Los suegros

​My future in-laws (suegros) came to visit! Josh's dad, a Lutheran school principal, took advantage of GA's unique schedule of breaks, and both his mom and dad applied for passports to leave the country for the first time since their honeymoon in the Bahamas. They arrived on a Sunday afternoon and left on a Friday morning (the same day I left for - spoiler alert! - Panama), so we basically had four full days to show them our beloved island. 

Day 1: Beach Day 

I was too relaxed - and paranoid about getting sand in my phone - to take any pictures!

Day 2: Puerto Plata

Pico Isabel de Torres (the famous cable car is still undergoing maintenance, so we drove up)

It was too cloudy for much of a scenic city view, but...

Parque Central Independencia

We stopped at the Chocolala chocolate factory in Quebrada Honda on our drive home. I've done the tour numerous times but always see and learn something new. 

Cranberries (obviously not the Ocean Spray variety)! We've since located a bush bearing an abundant crop at the moment at the botanical garden we frequent. 

Raw cacao beans are PURPLE inside!

Day 3: Santiago

Our morning consisted of a visit to the seminary and riding our new-ish teleférico. As they do every Wednesday for Josh & I, the Webers graciously hosted us for a lasagna lunch. The preacher at that evening's Ash Wednesday service was top-notch ;)

Day 4: Jarabacoa

We made the beautiful drive into the mountains about for the Belarminio Ramírez e Hijos coffee factory tour: another I've done multiple times that was a new (and much improved) experience this time around. 

Coffee plants germinated in 100% sand. Seedlings progress from the "match" stage (foreground) to the "butterfly" stage before they're transplanted into 50% sand/50% soil. 

The factory composts everything it possibly can, repurposing byproducts of the production process to fuel its machines and as fertilizer on its farms. 

We got to go in the QC lab! Before an expert samples the final product, the beans are filtered through a series of screens with progressively smaller holes: from 18 mm down to 14 mm.

At scale, the same process is done by machine, which results in beans that are 10-15% defective. A team of 22 women (11 on each side) manually reduces that number to 2-3%. 

Lunch with a view and gourmet popsicles on arrival back in the city concluded our time together. Thanks be to God for these kind, Godly people that already call me family and vice-versa. We'll make it official on October 3 ;)

Until next time, blessings in Christ!