Welcome to Amman!

Our new home is Amman, Jordan. While Jeff and I have both been to the Middle East before, this was our first time in Jordan. Unfortunately, our house wasn't ready yet, so the embassy put us in an apartment hotel. We got a very nice two bedroom apartment with a full buffet breakfast spread in the main hotel included, so it definitely could have been worse, but after being homeless for several months, it was a little rough. Still, we knew we would be moving into a second floor apartment with no view, so we decided to enjoy the high floor and big balcony while we had it.

Our hotel was also closer to the older, downtown area of Amman than where we were going to live, so I went on Viator and booked us a driver/guide for the day to take us to the most famous parts of Amman. We started with the King Abdullah I Mosque which was built in the 1980s. I knew that we would need to dress modestly, but they also gave me and Vivian full robes to wear. Jeff said it made us look like Jedis, but I was mostly worried about tripping on the stairs, because it was a very long robe. Vivian, of course, was fine.

It wasn't prayer time, so the mosque itself was empty, and we could look around inside.

There's actually an Eastern Orthodox church right across the street. Jordan has quite a sizeable Christian population. 

The gift shop had a lot of lovely things, and the sales lady tried to get us to buy a scarf for Elena.

There are some well preserved Roman ruins in Jordan as well. We started with the smaller Roman amphitheater.

We had it pretty much to ourselves, so the girls had fun playing with the acoustics. 

Then, we went to the big Roman amphitheater. It's good we started with the small one, so we could fully appreciate the scale of the big one.

Jeff and the girls climbed all the way to the top. I stayed at the bottom and took pictures of them, but it was hard to capture both them and the scale of the amphitheater.

Amman is full of hills, so our driver took us to one with a good look out spot for a picture of the big amphitheater from above.

There are seven major hills in Amman, and our final stop for the day was on one of them, The Amman Citadel. It's a really interesting archeological site, with artifacts from the Bronze Age, the Romans, and Umayyad Dynasty. Clearly, everyone like to be up high looking over the rest of the city.

We started with the most iconic part, the ruins of the Temple of Hercules. Elena was thrilled by this, because she has been on a Disney Hercules kick lately.

Jeff had fun with photography.

It was very hot in the sun though, so the rest of us looked for spots in the shade.

We had gotten a specialist guide to take us around, and he was a character. He knew all kinds of things about the history of the area, but he also had some strong opinions on present day culture and politics. It was a great introduction to living in Jordan.

He said that a lot of people mistake one building on the hill for a mosque because of its domed roof, but it's actually a palace.

The dome is even more impressive on the inside, and there are still lots of carvings in the walls.

By that point, Elena was pretty much done.

We got one more family picture though.

We took some time to look around the archeological museum. They had lots of interesting things. The organization was somewhat haphazard, but the air conditioning was lovely. We finished by giving Hercules a virtual fist bump. This is what's left of his statue.

While summer is not the ideal time to do this kind of sight seeing, I'm glad we took advantage of the opportunity we had. After a couple weeks, we were able to move into our actual apartment, and it was good to feel like we had gotten to know our new home a bit.

Transition Summer in the U.S.

This is the second time we've had a summer between posts, and, just like last time, it was hectic and stressful. The problem is having a limited amount of time to wrap up everything from the previous post, and then get everything in line for the next post. The government's inefficiency and glacial pace does not help matters. So, the best thing to do is try to focus on family time and relaxing where we can. For Vivian and Elena that meant spending time with their cousins.

Our first stop of the summer was my family's house where my parents, sister, niece and nephew made us feel welcome. This is our second summer coming to the new house, and it's starting to feel more familiar to the girls, which is really important to me, because I want them to have an anchor in all our moving around. Jeff had quite a bit of work stuff he had to do, but the girls and I got to spend a lot of time playing around with the twins. Of course, the irony was, they were always super excited to see Jeff, and ended up saying his name before any of the rest of ours. Still, they knew that the girls were there to play, and Vivi was really good at luring them in.

It was great to have time just relaxing together.

And we got to teach them one of our favorite new card games, Skyjo.

We also made it down to Florida. Elena needed to check on her flamingo pupils.

She did take a break though to help Grandma make birthday cakes.

We enjoyed the fabulous, al fresco dining.

And we got over to what seems to have become our traditional mini golf place.

After the quick trip to Florida, Jeff had to go into work, which meant that we got money towards housing, so we got an Airbnb, with a pool of course, although my favorite part was the big sunroom where I could sit and have my coffee and look out at the trees.

Jeff dutifully cleaned the leaves and bugs out of the pool though, so that we could enjoy it and have friends over. 

My friend Dawn came from New Orleans and stayed with us most of the time we were there, which was fantastic. We were also able to have our D&D friends over for a day of gaming, also tons of fun, but one of the sweetest uses of the place was that the twins got their first pool experience. 

They came a couple times and were not really sold on this giant bathtub thing. Maybe next summer we can convince them, but it was still great to watch their experimental splashing.

Elena had mixed feelings about having yet another place to stay, so she spent quite a bit of the time at my family's house, but, overall, it was a nice space for us, and I was happy we were able to host our friends and family there.

Another important part of spending the summer in the U.S. is our food checklist. Vivian has a literal checklist that she makes, but we don't always take pictures, so I'll just hit some of the highlights.

We got back from Florida and into our AirBnB house late in the afternoon, and we were lucky to find a yummy neighborhood Mexican place. We have not been able to find quality Mexican food outside of the U.S..

Another hard thing to find is good barbecue, so a stop at Famous Dave's was in order. The girls got a big kick out of the fact that the kids menu becomes a pig hat.

And, of course, a delicacy found only in Virginia, Grandpa's cookies!

You just have to keep an eye on Vivian or she'll lick the spoon without authorization.

For Vivi's sweet 16 she demanded a series of her favorite foods, so we went to IHOP for breakfast,

and Red Lobster for lunch. (She insisted on making this face.)

Then, she finished it off with tea and the traditional Anderson birthday cake.

For Jeff's birthday, food also took center stage. We have discovered that we love the crab dip at the place down the street from my family's house, so that was one of his birthday wishes.

He also got his own birthday cake, because we had already eaten the one from Vivi's birthday.

Vivian's other birthday wish was to ride rollercoasters with her friend. We couldn't make it happen on her actual birthday, but we did get her and her friend down to King's Dominion, and they spent the day riding roller coasters. I love that they had so much fun doing that.

I felt like after spending the day at King's Dominion with Viv, Elena deserved a day for her too. She started by stealing my phone. 

I told her we could go to a movie, and she picked Inside Out 2, which she really likes. Then, we got our nails done.

There's a Ben and Jerry's around the corner from the movie theater, so she finished off her special day with ice cream.

Then, she went back to the house and changed into her new favorite cat PJs. They were on sale at Target, and it has turned out to be a win, because it's super soft and makes her happy.

All too soon though, it was time to leave. We gathered up all our suitcases once again. It took two cars to get us to the airport. I'm so grateful to all the support we get from family to make the summers really special for the girls.