Umm Qais

I also got to visit Umm Qais, the second largest roman city in Jordan.

The views here are amazing.

Dina and Al

The boys never miss an opportunity for some impromptu entertainment.

Umm Qais, is right on the northwest tip of Jordan. You can see into Palestine and Golan Heights of Syria.

Jerash

We all got to visit Jerash for the first time. It's the largest Roman city in Jordan.

The entrance to the city.

This is the main street of Jerash. The grooves from the chariots are still there.
Jimmy, Jace, James, Alex, Me and Dina.

Me and lil' Brudder.

The group couldn't fight the beat of the bagpipes and drums and had to dance their hearts out!

Roman soldiers still reenact twice a day.

Our new (really disinterested) friend.

He must have said something wrong.

Visitors!

My brother, Alex, along with his friends and fiance came to visit us in Jordan for a week!
It was so nice to have familiar faces around.

Aaron and I took them out to Blue Fig for dinner.

Jace, Me, Aaron

James, Annie, Alex and Jimmy

My delicious dinner.

We had such a good time showing them around.

More to Come

We haven't fallen off the face of the earth.

We had a visit from My little brother, Alex, and his friends. We were busy entertaining and running around the entire time.

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We will post pictures soon!

Life in Jordan

Since our time here is coming to a close I thought I'd post some of our day to day. Although we do get out to travel, the pictures we've posted aren't a super accurate portrait of what our lives our like here in Jordan.
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Here are some of the things we do Amman but they aren't all that accurate either cause you don't take pictures of yourself sitting in class or hanging around the house {which is what we do most of}.

We try to go out once or twice a week. This is our favorite restaurant, Blue Fig.

Game night. Everyone else gets as sick of hanging around as we do so they are always willing to come over and play games with us.

Fighting with our washing machine, Kelvin.
{this is actually what I do a lot.}

Spending time with Gil and Jerry Cook, the district president and his wife. They have been so good to us and have really been our parents away from home.

More with the Cooks and our roommates, Brooke and Max.

Out with our Jordanian friends Dina and Ramez, at Eight.

Jordanian Wedding

We were so lucky to be involved with a friend's wedding here in Jordan. Weddings here are so huge! Days and days of festivities.

Here we are a the pre-wedding party a few days before the wedding.
Aaron, Ramez (the groom), Randa (the bride), Me, Dina

I did hair and make-up for the wedding party for 4 1/2 hours before any of the real wedding stuff even started.

Here the families have a traditional ceremony to "seal the deal" of the wedding, and pass the bride from her father's home to the home of her family.

The bride drove to the wedding with her siblings and the "mini-bride". The mini bride wears the same dress as the bride and is in charge of holding her train.

Everyone who was at the house then follows the bride to the wedding in a parade of honking cars and flashing lights.

The bride and groom walk down the isle together.

The bride's family in the receiving line after the ceremony.

Touch-ups at the Four Seasons.

The reception at Canvas restaurant.

Mingling.

About 12:30 the reception turned into a dance party. I hear it went until 4 am!
It was so much fun but, after 13+ hours I was wiped out!

More Petra

Has anyone seen a view?

Oh, there it is.

Namaste.

The High Place of Sacrifice

Once the heat stroke started to set in, I took off.
Aaron stayed and hiked up to the high place of sacrifice.

Aaron, as a sacrifice.

The ancient people of Petra, decided to worship God in the form of a cube. They are everywhere!

The Monastery

The Monastery was so big with just a little hole actually carved out.

Brian, Me, Aaron

These pictures make it look so much smaller than it really is.

Aaron was brave enough to climb to the top, even though it said no climbing. I'm one of the specks below.

This picture puts it all into perspective. It looks likes a little dot on top in a picture of the whole structure but it is way bigger than Aaron.

Trail to the Monastery

I was warned ahead of time, "Ride a donkey, not a camel, to the monastery." So that's just what I did. BEST six dinar I've ever spent.

There is said to be over 1,000 stairs.

I was riding a new mule that was yet to be named. I asked the owner if I could name him. I named him Leila, my Arabic name. Since mules can't reproduce anyway, I figured it wouldn't matter if he was a little gender-confused.

Aaron's donkey.

Views from the top.