Visiting Jerash

Today we visited the ancient city of Jerash.  I've been before on a field trip, but didn't get to do much exploring and Bill and the kids hadn't been yet.  It's only about 45 minutes from our flat and we really wanted to get out and check out some of Jordan's sites over our 4 day weekend!

We got up early hoping to make the chariot races at 10, but apparently they aren't doing them again until Feb.  We will have to plan a return trip to see them! 

One of my favorite things about our girls is they don't complain about having to hike around and look at ancient ruins. We always have a map or guide to look at, so Hai enjoys telling us what everything is and which direction we should go next.  Charlee, well, she just likes running around and climbing on all the rocks :)  This earned her a goose egg on her forehead after a fall today, but it only slowed her down for a few minutes.  Whenever we enter the ruins, Charlee gets really excited and tells us it's a castle! Hai joins in and it's fun to watch their imaginations run wild. 

Because of my attempts to eat healthy, we just happened to have carrots in our bag when we saw a local with his horse, so he gave the girls a free ride.  We of course tipped him.  When we were in the south stadium, we ran into some locals playing drums and a bagpipe.  Because we were Americans, they played us Yankee Doodle ;)  They even let Charlee beat on the drum. Afterwards, a guy followed us around for a bit telling us where he should take our picture.  We knew he would want a tip, but that's okay, we enjoyed getting some family pics. 

Here are a few pics from the day...

 

Snow days in Amman

So we've had 4 days off work and probably a week's worth of delays so far because of winter weather. We're not complaining! It was nice to get a vacation immediately following our vacation ;)

Winter weather is much different here-- nearly everything shuts down. We spent much of the time indoors, but when the real snow came we of course got out and enjoyed it! Note to self-- bring cold weather gear back with us next trip home!

 

 

 

 

 

Hailee is 9!!

Can't believe our baby girl is 9! We had a great time celebrating!  The morning started with waking her up with a happy birthday song, followed by a #9 pancake. Then it was off to school. 

After school we had a small party at the apartment. Hailee invited her best friend, here in Amman Juweirya (sp?) and her neighbor friend, Donna. We also had some of the friends from work she's made a connection with over, and of course our awesome landlord.

We had spaghetti, her favorite, and cupcakes and ice cream.  Then the presents.. which we were so excited to give her! Hai's 'big gift' was a folded piece of paper inside a purse.  She's always wanted to go to New York, so her gift is we are stopping there on our way home in June! She was ecstatic. In addition to the sites, we are hoping to maybe see a Broadway play and of course take her to American Girl :)  The girl's got the travel gene, so she loved her gift. More memories to be made!

Some of our favorite sites in Italy

-Some of our favorite sites--

St. Peter's Basillica/Vatican

VERY close to our B&B so we visited several times :)

 

Piazza Navona (in addition to the sites they had a really fun Christmas baazar)

 

 

Piazza Del Popolo and Piazzale Flaminio

 

Colosseum/Roman Forum/Pantheon

 

The Mouth of Truth (Bocca della Verita)

As the belief from the Middle Ages goes, if you tell a lie, your hand will be bitten off! 

 

 

Trevi Fountain

One of our favorites!! We visited twice! Tradition is if you throw money into the fountain you are guaranteed a return trip to Rome... sounds good to me! :)