A World without walls
everyday life while homeschooling overseas
Some Israeli Shequels for you to see I think it’s funny that our first day here is April Fool’s day. I actually forgot about it until dinner when the kids asked what day it was and we realized it was the first. Then they did silly jokes (“What’s that on your shoulder?” “There’s a monkey in that tree over there!”) over dinner. We ate some lovely lentil soup that I had put in the crockpot. We ate it out on our big balcony that overlooks the city. Absolutely lovely. So. It was quite nice to arrive on a holiday weekend, really. Yes, all the stores and shops are closed, but Devin managed to get out last night before sunset (on the advice of our upstairs neighbor) and grab some food that should last us until we can do some real grocery shopping. The streets are so quiet and everyone is dressed in their Sunday best! (It’s the last day of Passover, in case you were wondering about the holiday.) I was happy to have Devin home all day again. He was gone so much this past month, and he never had any weekends, so it’s been a nice break for all of us! Today we spent the morning lazing about and playing. By 10am we left to go back to the border crossing to see if we could find our lost items/bags. It’s lucky it’s only about ½ hour away! We got there, and Devin went in to find our things. He found most of our loose stuff (pots and plates and some of Claire’s stuff…that kid!! She brought EVERY little tiny purse that she owns! What do I do about that?!?!?), but there was no sign of Josh’s carryon bag. The kid is devastated. With good reason, too. In that bag was all of his favorite books (Choose Your Own Adventure, Bunnicula series, Flat Stanley series, Time Warp Trio…), his reading light that he got for his birthday, ALL of our toothpaste and toothbrushes (so sweet that he gathered those together for everyone), his camera (ouch), his scriptures and hymnbook (ouch), his pinewood derby car AND his trophy that he won from the Pinewood Derby on Friday (ouch, again), his lapel pin collection, our UNO Attack game and Phase 10… Anyway, listing it doesn’t make it feel any better. Poor kid. The WORST part is, though, that when we were getting the bags, that was the only one I picked up, and unzipped just to check and make sure it was ours. I KNOW we had it with our stuff. The only thing I can think of is that it didn’t get put onto our cart. So, either we left it curbside and someone took it, or someone saw it and thought it was theirs and took it, or…well, I Have no idea. So, so sad. We don’t get ‘reimbursed’ for lost items when going through the border crossing. *sigh* After our long search, we went to a big park here called Sacher (or Saker, as the GPS likes to call it) Park. So amazing! Jerusalem wins with the coolest parks! It is a huge park with LOTS of green space. The children’s area (slides, etc) was SO awesome! The slides are super tall and the kids just loved climbing on them! Even Devin joined in on the teeter totter! (I did, too, and I had Josh and Andrew on the other side of me, and they kept me up in the air! Silly boys!) We found an exercise park area, too, and all the kids joined in on the rowers and presses and stuff. They had such a ball! Then Peter went on the Merry-Go-Round too many times and threw up, so we had to call it a night. Ha! We came home, the kids ate ice cream, then bath time, dinner time, movie time, bed time… Today was my idea of a day off.
And tomorrow, we start not only a new unit, but a whole new experience exploring the Holy Land! :)
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We made it to Israel! It IS different from Jordan—I don’t know why I’m surprised, since every city is different from another, but I’m still a little shocked for some reason. It’s very beautiful! We have an apartment on the third floor, which, while it’s sad not to have the ‘yard’ (ha ha ha ha—or should I say sidewalk?), I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE having a view and sunshine spilling in the windows in the day!! It’s glorious and beautiful! We have a large balcony and we can stand out and look over the city and watch the birds flying over all the trees and buildings, and it’s a beautiful thing. Feels like I can breathe! The apartment itself is rather small, but it’s better than a hotel and without all of our junk, we fit rather nicely. We’re gearing up for some good times exploring and learning in Jerusalem! How was our trip here, you might ask? Oh my. I felt like I had been beaten up and left for dead by the time we got through the border crossing. The Jordan side was quick and simple. We got through all the checkpoints, no problem. It wasn’t busy, the guards were nice, and we just drove right through. The Israel side, however, has issues. I had heard that it was tough and frustrating. I had heard that they often made you take all your luggage out of your car and separated you from each other, but I had NO IDEA what we were getting ourselves into. I really wish someone would have sat me down and explained what was going to happen at the border so I could have been more prepared. I would have done things MUCH differently. Let me expound a little. Since we’re going to be here for 5 weeks, and we have 4 kids and we Homeschool, it’s important to have, well, a pretty decent amount of stuff. We have to have our books and some project stuff for school—even though I DID keep it to a bare minimum. It’s important to have the printer and laptops, and since we knew they were only giving us a welcome kit for one (they were VERY adamant about that—not a lot of friendly customer service at the consulate here…) we knew we’d need blankets, pillows, some kitchen supplies (a big cooking pot, plates, bowls, silverware, and my crockpot since I KNOW that most days we’ll be gone all afternoon). Now, those of you whom have crossed over the King Hussein/Allenby bridge border crossing into Israel are probably cringing at my list. Along with those things, of course, we have all the clothes. Plus, we let the kids pack their own bags full of their favorite things so that they would have some of the comforts of home since we’d be away for a fairly substantial length of time. We packed everything in the car and it was a little tight, but it fit perfectly, and we were off. We dropped of The Birds (still no names) to some friends, and we drove to the border. Well, we didn’t exactly drive to the border. Devin, for some reason, didn’t know that the border had 2 names but it was the same thing. He just tried to find the border on the GPS, and it took us to the baptism site by the Dead Sea. Doh. In my defense, I did say “Look, there’s the King Hussein Bridge, isn’t that where we’re going?” and he said, “No, it’s the Allenby Bridge.” For future reference—it’s the same thing. So, we had to make a U-turn and get to the road, but we made it. As I said before, the Jordan side was easy. Then came the fun part. We get to the first Israeli checkpoint and the guy comes out and takes our passports and car info and tells us to wait. So, we wait. Wait #1. About ½ hour later, he tells us that the wife and kids are going to be taken by taxi to the terminal (‘terminal’ is a word that instills fear and loathing in my heart—just thought I’d mention that), along with all our bags. Devin would stay with the car while it was being inspected. Ok, I sort of expected this, so it wasn’t too big of a deal. However, as we unpacked the car and tossed everything into the back of the ‘taxi’ (a big van), the driver was laughing, telling us that he’d worked there for 7 years and had NEVER seen anyone with so much luggage come over the border. That should have sent up some warning flags right there. Well, we stuffed that van full, then the kids and I were off to the terminal while Devin got to sit back and wait. The driver stopped and we started to unload onto this island between a car dropoff and bus dropoff area. Some of the security guys came over to help, and I’m sure they were making all sorts of comments to each other. Grateful I don’t speak Arabic well, not Hebrew. After we pulled all our junk out of the van, the guys started to leave and come back with giant black trash bags. I imagined it was because it’s easier to put all your stuff on a cart if it’s bagged than in a blob of a pile. So naïve. After most of our stuff was bagged, they started hauling away the carts bogged down with our stuff (think the ‘smart carts’ that you use at airports). We had like 5 of them. I wanted to take a picture, but the guys standing around with machine guns may not have liked that, so I didn’t. He he he. So, I’m standing off to the side of this big wad of people walking through the terminal, the guys took our passports to put the baggage stickers on them and I’m still not realizing what’s going on. Eventually, as I’m standing there and the kids are asking me what’s going on (don’t ask me that again—I just don’t know!!!!), I look over and it dawns on me that they’re taking the luggage—ALL the luggage—and running it through the belts like when you drop off your checked bags at the airport. Everything we brought with us is going to go through the machines and I have to go through passport control (lots of times) before I can get to the bags. This was not what I had anticipated. I think I expected to be dropped off, then stand and wait for Devin to come so we could load the car back up. I had no idea that I was going to have to be the one putting all our stuff through the belts while trying to keep the kids from running people over with their suitcases or being run over by busses. We stood and waited for about 45 minutes (after the 45 minutes of ‘packing’ our things up to ready them for processing), so I looked over our ‘necessities’ and wondered if I’d ever see any of it again! Ha! Most of our stuff was packed in pathetic excuses for trashbags that I knew would rip apart first chance. I felt very lost, confused, and completely out of control of this situation. All I could do was hug my kids as they wandered past and tell them that I had no idea how long this was going to take, nor what was going to happen…just pray! The guys finally brought our passports back and started to put the big long white stickers (just like baggage claim!) on ALL of our stuff (they said we had 40 pieces! Take that! We win!) and they turned me around and told me to go to the first passport control. Then, they said that was it. No, it wasn’t. I went to the first passport control (some very nice people let me go to the front of the line), then we walked through another big room where we had to go through security (just like the airport—except they didn’t make us take off our shoes. I don’t think I would have anyway, that floor was NASTY!!!) and another passport control. Here, we had to take a bathroom break. That always makes me nervous when I’m by myself, as we have to separate and all the little boys are by themselves. I’m grateful Josh is getting older and more responsible. He was a great help to me! At this point, we wandered into yet another room that said passport control. Good grief!! How many passport controls are there? (I think the total came to 4…just inside this one building…altogether, though, I believe there were 10 or 11 from the first Jordanian checkpoint to the last Israeli checkpoint. Good gravy.) I wasn’t sure which one to go to, since most everything was written in Hebrew and Arabic. While I can sort of make out Arabic script, I still don’t know what it actually means. Finally, someone waved me over and we stood in another control line. The lady was quite nice, actually, which was a breath of fresh air. She actually smiled at the kids and didn’t glare at Andrew when he held up his dinosaur pillowpet and roared at her. He he. She gave us our passport stamps (well, sort of. We got DIP id papers in our passports instead of stamps because we’re going to be here for so long and on specific orders.) and we were ushered through another line. We got into another room, and it was full of people sitting on chairs. Were we supposed to sit on chairs, too? We wandered around the back for a bit, then finally decided to just push our way through to the front and ask someone. We found another passport checkpoint and I asked her if this was where we were to find our luggage. She said, “Give me your passports.” There was no friendly smile on that face. Ok, then. However, it WAS where our luggage was, so we were ok. Some signs in English might be nice there. I saw more than one foreign lady in tears here at this point. Seriously. I’m SOOOO glad that I had anticipated the worst—even though it was MUCH worse than even I had anticipated—still, I was ready for bad things to happen, so I didn’t break down and cry or feel despair. I’m grateful for that. I was able to stay strong and keep track of the kids—and they were serious troopers. They stayed by me almost the whole time, and I only had 2 break downs! Hooray! Success! Anyway, we got to the luggage area, and that place was a free-for-all. Oh my. One of the security guys attached himself to us and helped us SO much. We had to wander up and down all the belts looking for stuff. We found the big bags fairly quickly, then we had to find all the trashbags full of stuff…then there was all the random stuff that fell out of the trash bags: books, laundry soap, barbies, pillows, blankets, plates… The best was the laundry soap (yes, I brought laundry soap—and in my defense, I’m glad I did because we have some serious laundry issues today, and everything’s closed because it’s Passover here) because someone somewhere decided to open it, and not quite close it…and there was laundry soap ALL over the floor! You could see people slipping all the time. Doh. We had quite a few issues with liquids. Much of our cleaners and things that we brought were left half open and pouring out by the time we found them. Our veggie wash is totally empty, and we had just refilled it before we left. Ah, well. Spoils of war, I guess. Finding all the bags was a real feat, let me tell you! The big kids were very helpful, finding bags and dragging them over. Andrew just followed me around, and Peter tried to follow me around, but he got pushed around a lot (there were a LOT of people there, and most of them were NOT nice—lots of ladies kept pushing my kids over. I was NOT pleased! My mother bear instincts kept trying to take over and I wanted to push them back and ask them how they liked it, but I didn’t…) so he was in tears. I ended up carrying him around with me while I searched through the bags—climbing over bags and bars and platforms to get everything that was ours. I’m glad I’m in pretty good shape! Ha! FINALLY, Devin walked in (the back way), but he had to go back through all the passport controls and get his passport ‘stamped’. We finally found everything, and stood off to the side waiting for Devin to return so we could get out. Once we left the building, we had to push our carts all through this mass of people—especially these ladies who had these giant containers of water just hanging out all over the place at random. I couldn’t see where I was going, so I was just going through to follow Devin and avoid hitting people, when I rammed into a pile of water containers. The lady glared at me, so I yelled back at her telling her that Hello! I can’t see! Get your water out of my way! I don’t think she understood me, but she huffily moved her water out of my way. Whatever. Stupid water jugs. Josh tried to avoid all the water jugs, too, and ended up toppling his whole cart over into a ditch. Everyone stood around and watched him struggle. All these men standing around just watching. I ran over and helped him pick stuff up—so all these men stood around watching a woman and a child work to pick up a whole bunch of heavy bags. These are real men, let me tell you. Grr. Who does that?? We finally packed everything in the car, and drove away feeling like we’d honestly just survived a war. We were all exhausted. All told, we spent over 3 hours at the crossing. Oh my. We were able to find our house quickly and easily. I saw the Dome of the Rock as we drove over a hill. So cool! We got here and unpacked and realized that we’re missing a few things. So, we have to go back to that terminal and see if it’s still there. I sure hope so. One of the bags is Josh’s—full of his fun things like books and stuff. So, that’s our story. I wish I would have known all of this beforehand. I would have packed differently. Very differently. But, at least now I’m more prepared for future crossings. The first time is always the worst, right? Maybe not. Regardless, I’m just happy to be here and plan to make the most of our stay! Oh, and by the way, Happy Easter from Jerusalem! J Devin is FINALLY home. Hooray! Yesterday, the President came through Jordan, said hello, flew down to Petra, said hello, and flew back to the US. So, I took advantage of the fact that Devin was still down in a hotel room in Petra with not much to do, and my housekeeper was free, and I took off and drove down to Petra! Yes, I went all by myself. I have now driven to Petra by myself. I drove by myself with four kids, too, this week. It's a pretty long drive--and the Desert Highway can get a little monotonous--but I didn't mind! I enjoyed passing all those big trucks. On the way down yesterday, the wind was blowing like CRAZY! Whew! It was very exciting. But, I made it down to Devin in time for dinner (a lovely buffet at the hotel) and a visit to the sauna (oh, man, how I've missed the sauna!!).
This morning, a few of Devin's colleagues wanted to go to Little Petra. Devin had already visited, but I hadn't, so we all went to see it! So fun!!! :) If anyone out there who reads this ever makes a trip to Petra, make SURE you don't miss Little Petra! It's not well marked, but if you know about it, you can ask the guards at the entrance to the regular Petra. You get to drive a ways around Petra on the other side and see all kinds of amazing things! It's a beautiful drive. Then, you get to the Little Petra and aside from it being free (hooray!), it's pretty cool. The rocks are pretty, and there are LOTS of little caves and rooms and stairways to explore. Yes, it's small (hence the name 'Little'), but I still felt it was worth it. If you have kids and you're thinking of a visit to Petra, I think this would be their highlight. I wish I would have taken mine when we went down! I'm sure, though, that we'll have plenty of more opportunities to visit that site. We enjoyed some fun exploring and climbing. On our way out, we stopped by the vendors (hey, sometimes you just gotta help 'em out and buy a scarf! Ha!) and Devin got a local headcovering thing, and I got a couple of scarves. They even all took turns showing me how to put it on in different ways! :) They all laugBy the time they finished with me, I looked like a Bedouin woman! :) They offered Devin 200 camels for me, but thankfully he didn't take it. :D The drive home was much happier this time, as I got to take Devin home with me! :) We stopped off at a little shop outside the ruins of a big castle (Ash Shubak) and got lunch: oranges, bananas, dates, and some YUMMY cookie things (sesame seeds, coconut, nuts, all held together by honey--divine!) and munched all the way home while listening first to a Twilight Zone radio drama (ha ha ha) and then Sting. Lovely. We dressed ourselves up as Bedouins and knocked on our door when we got home. It was fun to see the kids' faces! :) Good times. It's nice to be home again--and even better to have Devin home with us! Next up: Jerusalem. Luckily, though, we get to go with him on this adventure. We're already looking up activities and things to do while we're there--I'm sure we won't be bored! Time to get myself into a good habit of updating, as I'm thinking we're going to have LOTS and LOTS to share in the next month and a half!!!! :) (Hopefully I'll get some pictures off of Devin's phone and his co-worker's camera--I'll post them later if I do. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring mine. Ooops.) One of the classes in co-op this semester: Jordanian History. For one class, this awesome teacher had the kids all come dressed up as Bedouins. They learned about their traditions, music, living quarters, and foods. The kids LOVED it! They built a tent using the living room table, danced to music, had a traditional tea party, and ate some traditional foods! This is what kids never forget! In one of the Frog and Toad books, there's a little story about Frog hearing his father say that spring was right around the corner. He tells Toad all about how he went searching around corners to see if he could find Spring. So, today, we went on a search for Spring. Did we find it?? Did we ever!! Trees in blossom; Flowers in bloom; Green, green grass; A light rain; A lovely breeze... Spring!! We had such a nice time! It was the best of both worlds: Devin loves to drive around and get lost in order to explore. I like to explore, but I like to know where I'm going. So, we used the gps most of the time just for reference and just drove around and found what we could. We tried to find some parks, but they were locked up, so we had a picnic on the side of a mountain! It was so pretty! Some of the kids and I climbed down the embankment to pick some wild flowers. We ate our lunch in the car--our lunch consisted of fruits and veggies that we had bought while driving around! We had fresh strawberries, huge, sweet oranges, ripe, red apples, and tiny, sweet bananas! It was SO yummy! And I need to learn some more Arabic so I can communicate better with the side-of-the-road fruit and veggie guys. They don't speak ANY English. At all! Ha! After we traveled around and looked at all the flowering trees (it was like looking at Christmas lights on Christmas Eve!), we started to head home. We went to see if the largest Christmas tree in the middle East was still up, and it was!! So, we got to see it in daylight...and it still looked just as totally awesome as ever! The star was even still up on the top...and looked like it was bound to topple off at any second! After we saw the Christmas tree (and played tag all around it), we continued on our meandering way home. The GPS took us on some seriously cool backroads to get around and we really loved it! We ended up in the city of Al Fuhais (we initially were headed to the city of As Salt), and stopped off at a couple of fruit stands with a bakery in between! The bakery was so fun! They had the guys in the back making the dough and the bread and a HUGE brick oven that they cooked everything in! They let the kids go back and watch them cook, and handed out big chunks of bread to them to eat while they watched. So fun! :) As we were heading home, everyone started screaming that they had to go to the bathroom. I suppose this was to be expected since we'd eaten a TON of fruit all day long! As we were heading out of Al Fuhais, I saw the big mosque that's right next to the Children's Museum, so we went there to use the bathrooms...and to play some more, of course! Peter always has to fix the car! :) All in all, it was a wonderfully marvelous day. We left the Children's museum and went to sweifieh to find some yummy food at a Shawerma stand and enjoyed that on a picnic blanket in our living room while we watched a movie on the big screen! This was the perfect day, really. We enjoyed some very happy family time, and enjoyed one last day with Devin before he had to leave for training. Thankfully, the training is short, but still....I'm glad we got in a really good day. :) When you stop at a stop light here, you know that invariably, someone is going to try to sell you something. As soon as the light turns red, these guys (sometimes girls--but usually guys--the girls are usually just begging) will walk around all the waiting cars and try to get you to buy whatever it is they happen to have that day. They often have flowers, gum, or other random trinkets. Today, there was this guy walking around selling glasses with the funny noses/mustaches. Nothing new, really, until he blew through the mouthpiece and made the party blowers blow out of both sides! I laughed SO HARD! I had to roll down the window and use up my loose change to get a bunch for the kids to wear in the car. We giggled a lot. It was worth it for the car ride, since it gave them something new to do while we waited in a lot of traffic. So silly. I was really surprised the first day we had snow. Imagine my surprise when we had a SECOND day of snow!! We even ended up with a good 6 inches on the ground! The kids loved it--and even though we are definitely NOT equipped for it anymore, they insisted on playing in it as much as possible. It was so pretty, but made driving not so fun. They closed the embassy and pretty much every store in the city (sort of like Washington D.C. in the snow), which made our planned outings impossible. Sad. But, we enjoyed some quiet family time at home. Most of these pictures were taken last night. It was so quiet and peaceful with a light blanket of snow! What do we do during a snow day stuck inside? Play basketball, of course! :) Love these guys!!!
Happy Birthday To You!! Or lack thereof... We had all sorts of plans for the day, but they sort of revolved around good weather and clear roads. It poured all day Monday, all night Monday night, all day yesterday, all night last night...talk about some SERIOUS flooding!!!! And well, I'll get to the weather in a minute... We didn't get the clear roads, so we stayed home all day. Peter didn't seem to mind too much, though. We made a YUMMY coconut cake with cream cheese frosting and fresh strawberries! (yes, I ate it--I made it with coconut flour and maple syrup and instead of wheat and sugar, and it was FABULOUS!!!!! Have I ever mentioned I have celiacs?) Our lunch consisted of fresh bread, salami, cheese and vegetarian cherry jello (Devin said it tasted just like asparagus), steak and onions and cabbage (that part was for me...)! Peter requested pasta for dinner (surprise, surprise) so we had pasta, hamburger, sliced cheese and chocolate milk. He's a minimalist. :) Heavy, Heavy Hang Over Your Poor Head! His favorite gift of the birthday? A box of 5 matchbox cars from grandma!!! They were a HUGE hit and the boys spent the next few HOURS driving them around the living room! :) It even trumped the remote controlled Lightning McQueen car that Claire and I found at a local toy shop (so not really McQueen--a knock-off--but still, it LOOKS like him....but I suppose it's not surprising since I totally forgot to get batteries, so it really wasn't overly useful since it wouldn't 'go')! He was so excited to be the star for the day! He watched 'The League of Incredible Vegetables' (Veggie Tales), played legos and cars with Andrew and Josh, played outside in the 'snow', took a really long bubble bath, ate LOTS of food, watched 'Despicable Me' on the big screen, and generally had an all-around great day. Hopefully it won't be snowing on Saturday so we can go to a fun place to play with a few of his little buddies and celebrate his birthday with some friends. Nasty Slushy Mess! Oh, did I mention that it was snowing? Yes. ALL DAY!!! It's super slushy nasty stuff, and we have this seriously heavy icy accumulation on our back 'yard' (about 2-3 inches!) that the kids have been playing in all day. Sadly, we don't have the equipment to really enjoy it anymore--so the kids didn't last long enough for me to find the camera. Claire built a snowman and the boys had a snowball fight and they all came back inside sopping wet, freezing cold, and happy as clams. Whatever. The weirdest part about it, apart from the fact that it's snowing, is that there's been thunder and lightning all day, too!! What? I HAVE heard lightning once during a snow (it was in Finland, and it surprised me then, too), but it went on ALL day! As a matter of fact, it's still going on! I was reading to the kids (tangent alert: we're reading the Trumpet of the Swan--how come I've never read this book before?? It's so cute!!!) and had lightning flash through the window with a very close clap of thunder a couple of times--I even had to stop reading because it was too loud and the kids couldn't hear me! So weird... I wonder why it does that? I need to find out. No. Wait. I should get the KIDS to find out!! :D Devin went to work this morning, and by noon the embassy was closed and he 'had' to come home. The kids were ecstatic and said it was because of Peter's birthday! So, we were blessed to have Devin with us today. It's always nice to have some surprise time with him. :) I think it's funny that they close things all down when there are a few snow flurries, but I can understand it. It rarely snows here. People drive crazy even in the RAIN here--they just don't know how to do it! There is no drainage, so there are floods everywhere. Add to that some ice, and it's seriously dangerous--plus this place is one steep hill after another. I don't think are ANY flat roads at all. Claire and I went to the store this morning at about 8:30 because I was out of eggs and olive oil and thought it would be fun to get a few little treats for the birthday. On our way out, a big truck rushed past us and hit his brakes as he got to the intersection...but he didn't stop!! SKID!! That's when I knew we weren't going to go out today. And that was before the majority of the snow fell. And they don't have plows here. It's sort of like Rexburg... :D So take some crazy drivers who only know how to go really fast and then slam on their brakes, add some steep hills, then add an inch or two of slushy snow, and you have the makings of some problems. I feel so lame staying home when I know I can drive in this, but I don't trust other people, so I will follow the suggestions of others around the area and just hibernate a little. It's supposed to continue tomorrow, but then we have a few weeks of sunshine heading our way again. That will be nice! One handsome dude! Ok, so it didn't snow on Christmas day. I didn't even WANT it to snow on Christmas this year. Bah humbug? No, I don't think so. It was SO nice to have the sun shining down with the temperature at a balmy 60F/15C. Who can complain about that? THAT is a great Christmas present, if you ask me! The fact that I can still take my kids outside to the park to ride bikes and run and play without spending 4 hours getting them dressed just to have someone tell me they have to use the bathroom... GAH!!! Anyway, while our Christmas was not white, it was very merry! So much so, in fact, that I completely forgot to take pictures! How lame is that??!? I don't know what came over me. I suppose it was because it was dark on Christmas Eve/Christmas morning, but my camera has great nighttime settings... Regardless, we had a good time! We invited a lovely friend from church to spend Christmas Eve with us--she works as a contractor here and doesn't have any family around. She came and we ate a yummy Christmas Eve dinner of ham and potatoes, veggies and fruit salad and homemade rolls... AND I made my newest favorite creation: Pumpkin Pie! Yes, yes, pumpkin pie is not new... however, mine is dairy, gluten and sugar free (I even made a nut free one for Claire) and it is the BEST pumpkin pie you'll ever eat. I'm probably biased, and I wouldn't actually tell you that it's the best pie in the world if I were talking to you in person, but on paper it's ok. :D After our Eve feast, we opened our traditional Christmas Eve present (the pj's, of course), got dressed in our pj's, and went out for our traditional search for Christmas lights. Now, one might think that living in the Middle East, that would be pretty hard to come by. Luckily for us, we live in Jordan--the country with the highest population of Christians in the Middle East! AND, it just so happens that the 'Christian Quarter' (a small city called 'Al Fuhays') is just outside of Amman and not a far drive! So, off we went with our friend to help us find the way (THANK YOU Shannon! Without you, we never would have found the place!!) to see some Christmas lights! It was amazing! Almost every store was decorated (sometimes OVERLY so) with lights--every other house had lights up! Some houses looked like Gingerbread houses! Some had big messages scrolling through! It was so cool! And I love that Amman (well, Jordan in general, really) is VERY hilly, so instead of just seeing the street you were driving on, all the houses/lights were in 3D going up and up and up! :) So neat! We found the site where the biggest Christmas tree in the Middle East was found (not a huge feat, really, since how many Middle Eastern countries have a large Christmas tree on display??) and got out of the car to see it. This is where I feel so devastated that I didn't have the camera! I suppose I didn't bring it because I didn't expect to get out of the car and have any lighting to take pics...a good assumption since we were all in our pj's--me in a nightgown and wearing fluffy slippers! HA! Now that would have made a good picture, right? Anyway, we saw the tree and it was so awesome on so many levels! First off, seeing a Christmas tree in the Middle East is just cool in and of itself. Then, we discovered that while the tree trunk and the tip-top of the tree itself were real, it was a sort of lodge-pole pine-esque tree, so in order to make it look more full and Christmas-y, the bottom all the way to about 3/4 the way up was a fake 'shell' of branches! Ha! There were some flood lights on the inside of the fake branches shining out. The kids kept yelling how the tree was a fake (made me think of Elf when Buddy realizes that the dept store santa is a fake...), and the top 'real' part of the tree didn't appear to have a lot of strength to support the star, so it was bending over pretty far. I didn't notice any elves ready to bungee jump down and catch it if it were to slip, so I was a little nervous! :) Tand to make matters worse, there was a sweet nativity scene up by the tree, and the kids noticed the cherub hanging from the ceiling and they kept yelling out, "Mom! Look! The Angel is NAKED!" Yes. Thanks for that. So, after seeing the fake tree and the naked angel, we loaded back up in the car and stopped at a fruit stand on the street to buy our favorite Christmas treat: Bananas! Ha! (AlFuhays is a farming town, so there are a LOT of local fruits and veggies there for super cheap!!) We got home and read Christmas stories until the kids (and our friend Shannon, too--we must be really boring readers!) all fell asleep, then Santa came and Devin and I went to sleep hoping the kids really would sleep in until 6am like they promised! :) (Although, I admit I woke up at 4 and wondered if I should just go wake everyone up...the excitement never dies!) No, I didn't let him wear the mask to church. We all got up at 6 and opened our gifts. The kids were so excited for their new clothes (they picked them out, so I hope they're excited). Josh got his little iPod Nano that he'd been wanting for so long; Claire got a pony castle and a Barbie; Andrew got a spaceship lego kit; Peter got a collapsable playland (that's one that I really should get a picture of--it's a pretty cool thing with 8 tunnels and 5 tents that all hook together...and they collapse flat so I can store them all under the couch)...I got a new watch and a dehydrator, and Devin got a sweet preparedness kit. The boys all got new suits and Claire got a pretty new dress. We spent the rest of the day watching movies and eating... That makes for a lovely Christmas Day. In the Evening, we read the Christmas story again and had another discussion about it. I felt like this year was much more balanced than Christmas has been in the past. We did lots of 'secular' activities to do with Santa and pop culture, but we spent just as much time in the Bible and learning about the life of Jesus. That makes it the best Christmas yet. Merry Christmas, Everyone! |
Who Am I?
As a Stay At Home Mom of 4 wonderful children, I have the amazing opportunity not only to home school them, but to do so in many different places! I am married to the most amazingly wonderful (and handsome) man in the whole world! Together, we seek out, every day, that Joy in the Journey that makes life exciting! Archives
November 2020
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Emily's books
by Dan Brown
I like that the plot twists and turns a lot...and it makes you think. However, I don't appreciate Dan Brown's endings in his books. I find the endings incongruent with the rest of his stories--why make it a romance for the last chapter...
by Shannon Hale
I loved this book. I'm a sucker for fairy tales/fantasy. This was so well written! I can't wait to read all the rest of her books!
by Shannon Hale
I'm reading this one again. I liked it the first time I read it. I'm still liking it for the second time around. I like all of Shannon Hales' books.
**Still lots of fun the second time around! I do like this book for a comfortable...
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