I've been waiting my whole life for this...

We all hope our waiting skills improve with age and experience at having to wait.  The fact is, we are always waiting on something.  When you are a child, you can't wait for school break, for vacation, for your birthday, for graduation, or to grow up.  As a young adult we eagerly await marriage, our first job, our first house, our first child.  As our kids grow, start school and activities, the pace of life gets faster and faster, so much that the years seem to fly by.  And yet, we hear ourselves say, "I can't wait until the kids graduate from school, and are on their own two feet.  Then I can slow down."  We "can't wait" for retirement, so we can stop working and relax.  And in our last days on earth, as aging bodies, pain and illness encumber us, we may even long for death, when it is time, at last, for our appointment with our Creator.  When it comes right down to it,  we are all in the waiting room.  We all have an appointment with God.  What are you waiting for???

Picture a walk downtown!

We have a friend visiting from the States.  She takes great pictures.  Here are a few from our latest walk downtown...

Souvenirs anyone?

Or some bunny rabbits?

Piles of pretty bags?

Of course you must stop for lunch... falafel, pita bread, hummus, fool (beans), tomatoes,  and hot tea.  We've decided this is our favorite place to eat downtown.  All for about 2.50 a head!

Lamps?

Lanterns?

Spices?

Not sure what to call that?

                      

                Or a hubbly-bubbly pipe?

Bread is considered "Life" here.  So you don't dare throw it in the trash.  Instead people leave it out for someone else, or perhaps, for the animals.  So there's bread lying around everywhere.  Even in the Roman ruins.

Camping anyone?

Our family has had some opportunities to go camping recently.  It has helped us to enjoy yet another side of living in the Middle East.  

 




Really beautiful here!  But I wouldn't want to wander through this wilderness for 40 years...

We slept on mattresses in the little white tents and shared our meals at the Bedouin style tent in the middle.

This place actually had nice, clean, indoor bathrooms with a shower.  This is the kind of camping Mom enjoys!

Be sure to check your sleeping bag for these BEFORE you climb in..."Deathstalker" Scorpions!

The boys took another trip with some friends.  No ladies' room in this joint...

Don't you just hate it when sheep come strolling through your campsite like they own the place?

Ready for a hike...  Loving life!

Pizza Anyone?

Some pics of the kids making their own pizzas at our new favorite pizza place here.

YUM!!!

Baseball Season Begins...

 After almost a year an a half off from playing baseball, our family was really excited about the opening day of baseball season! 

I LOVED seeing the boys with their Daddy, out on the field again.  The boys both got big hits, scored lots of runs, and just enjoyed being back in the game again.

The boys played great and we all had fun!

It was fun watching E throw the heat from the mound again!  It was REALLY fun listening to the parents beside me exclaim when they saw his speed, "Man, he's cranking' it!  Who is THAT?"  That's my boy!

Some things are much the same here, as they were in the U.S., while other things are very different.  For example, there's not a baseball field in every neighborhood. In fact, there's only one in the whole city, about a 20 minute taxi ride from our house.  But once you get there, it feels like "little America", cheering for the kids alongside folks from all over the U.S..

Our team name is S'mores & More, after the restaurant that sponsors us.

And after the game you have the same tough decision, "Burgers or doughnuts?"

 But when you are playing baseball in the Middle East, it's not that uncommon to pass a herd of camels and several herds of sheep, on the way home from the field.

Clean windows

One thing that we have been amazed to see is the number of times we have seen people standing on the ledge OUTSIDE their window to clean the outside of their windows.  I can count at least 6 times we've seen this in the last 11 months.  We once had our language instructor pull the curtain on our classroom, because we could focus on nothing but the man in the building across the street, standing on the ledge outside his 5TH FLOOR WINDOW with squeegee and window cleaner in hand. 

Our friends know that we could never be accused of being "clean freaks", and that we deeply admire those with a house full of kids AND a neat house.  But we don't think we could ever risk our lives for clean windows, and it gives us pause to wonder about the mindset of the culture here.  We have observed the "inshallah" mentality, meaning "if God wills"...I will live...or I will die, so what I do doesn't really matter.  

"The Texas Grandmas"

Over the winter break we enjoyed a wonderful visit from Mema and Nana.  It was so much fun sharing our new life in the Middle East with them.  We all had a great time and took the opportunity to see a few sites with them while they were here.  

Petting a camel named, "Daisy".