A Little More About Us...

Seriously, one of the strangest feelings is meeting a someone for the very first time and them knowing strangely detailed information about our personal life. That happens on a fairly regular basis since I forget sometimes that our blog is linked up with the Solid Rock website. 

Unfortunately for them, most of my posts are disjointed personal, and usually un-original, thoughts about life- with a fair number of pictures that serve as an attempt to distract from my word-vomit. But today, realizing that this will most likely be read by lots of weird and wonderful people whom I have yet to meet, I thought I'd avoid the introspective mumbo-jumbo and try to do a little better job of introducing ourselves...

Let's begin with Dan...

Awww! Super cute, right??

Dan is originally from Simsbury, CT. He has a wonderful family- His mom (Ruth) and father (Gary) along with an older sister and two older half-brothers, which makes him very much the baby of the family :)

Dan struggled with the idea of faith and God during his teenage years, but has a pretty cool story of how he gave his life to Jesus on the way back from a court hearing about some mis deeds... you can ask him about it if you'd like to know more. Since then, he's never looked back. He also has a better story than me about the day he knew he was going to be a missionary... Pretty much, Dan's just an interesting guy with an interesting perspective on life. It's one of the many reasons that I love him.

He bounced around to several different colleges and tried out even more majors, but ended up (strangely) in Anderson, IN studying philosophy and Christian ministry. It was in Anderson that he heard about an organization called "Youthworks" and decided to become "Work Projects Staff" during the summer of 2007. 

This is Dan in Juarez, Mexico with a family that he built an extra room for in his 'free time'. 

Youthworks also happens to be responsible for the fact that Dan and I meet. I think this picture sums up how I felt about Dan that first summer... don't worry, I came around eventually...

Other interesting things about Dan...

He LOVES baseball- the Red Sox to be specific...

He has always wanted to be a pirate...

He loves taking naps with Diego...

...and has a new-found love for snorkeling and spear fishing since we've moved to the DR.

Sit down with Dan for two minutes and I guarantee you that there will be no small-talk involved. He is a say-it-how-it-is, lets-talk-about-stuff-that-matters-without-worrying-who-we-might-offend kind of guy. He will also never pass up an opportunity for a board game or a bowl or chips and salsa. Things you might not guess about him are the fact that he's really an awesome cook and a great gardener! 

Alright, that's all the time I have for today, I'll guess there'll have to be a second edition!

If you are reading this and you are one of the weird and wonderful people I have yet to meet- tell me about yourself! 

Have you come to the DR with Solid Rock before? Do you have a trip scheduled for the coming year? How did you hear about Solid Rock? Or what have your times here meant to you? 

I'm excited to get to know you too!