time flies when you aren't eating hummus

Well, we've been back in the States for about five months and there are still boxes stacked in the garage waiting to be unpacked. Heavy sigh. The kids are pretty much readjusted to life here except that Dante still asks to go to the sand dunes. I must say the grocery shopping is infinitely easier here although now I never know for sure if the mouthwash is kosher or not. I don't have a final reflection on our relocation. It's hard to summarize a year's worth of experiences and memories into a quick blurb. That said -- I'm really glad we went.

Anyhow, the summer flew by. Alejandro starts preschool next week already. He's really excited especially since they'll be speaking english! Too much has happened to give a true update without taking forever and a day and being that I'm inherently lazy when it comes to spending time on the computer -- I'm just posting a bunch of pictures with captions.

I never remember Mom playing swords with us when we were little...

Dante is finally potty trained! Woohoo!

They still love dress up no matter what country we live in..

Alejandro loves an excuse to wear his "fancy clothes." (This was a cousins' wedding in AZ.)

Dante is so trouble. When he's not putting on my makeup, he's filling the bathroom drawers with water, attempting to flush entire rolls of toilet paper, unstuffing the couch cushions, rearranging furniture to climb on the counters, turning on the garden hose to squirt whatever he can , adding random spices while we are baking brownies, and bringing bugs into the house. It's okay because he calls me "Honey" and tells me he loves me as soon as he gets caught.

A little love between Alejandro and his "Father" (they still won't call him Papa or Dad -- it's always Father.)

Don Quixote de la Mancha (I'm not kidding -- that's who they like to pretend to be. Although Dante says "Don Quixote de la Caca" just to be trouble.)

Obviously not NM!! How I miss the greenery in Ohio (oh yeah, and the family too!)

Dante finally has the attention span for crafts so now I have two of them begging to make things.

Alfonso took the boys camping last weekend. They loved burning marshmallows!

Poor Dante has started having nightmares as of late. We get midnight visits to chase rattlesnakes out of his bed and reports of being eaten by bears.

Reunion with The El Paso Cousins (plus Abuelita)

Reunion with the Ohio cousins (more blond hair, more blue eyes, a lot less spanish dialogue)

Alfonso and I snuck away by ourselves to Arches National Park in Utah.

Anyhow, I'll try to keep the blog updated a bit better now that we are (almost) settled in but no promises.

Love always,

Debi

before, after and in between

Right before we left Albuquerque at the beginning of our travels...
A year later, in Arizona, post our trip to Oregon, prior to our journey to Israel...

Ready to return older, wiser, and toilet trained... (Well, Dante's working on the last one.)

jordan

I'd read that Jordan was the safest country in the Middle East for Westerns and very hospitable but I thought that was just relative to the countries that wanted us dead. I was unprepared for how kind and welcoming the Jordanians are. At the border crossing, Alfonso was joking with one of the guards that his reddish brown liquid in a small glass with no handles was Scotch. He got a puzzled look at first as Muslims don't drink alcohol and didn't catch the reference but the guard graciously insisted Alfonso have his tea (which was so saturated with sugar that it began to recrystallize on my teeth when I took a sip.) All day long, people were playing with the kids. The vendors would chat and joke even though we weren't looking to buy. Their English was much better than Israelis'.
In the Arab parts of Israel, generally there is an air of suspicion or distrust (on both sides.) I always feel out of place and uneasy. In Jordan, people were smiling and seemed very happy. It was a really positive experience and I'm glad we went. That said -- when I say "people in Jordan" I'm referring to the males we encountered. The only females (excluding other tourists) we saw were ones we passed on the drive who were hanging laundry or chasing after goats. (I'm assuming they were women buried under clothes, scarves and veils with slits for their eyes.) Although no one treated me any differently (as the sole female member of our entourage.)

Petra, an ancient city carved into rock by the Nabateans, is one of the New Seven Wonders of the World. Despite weather reports that it would be 60 deg, there was snow on the ground from the previous day. We piled on all the clothes we had brought for the kids but they were still cold.

Our guide stood where the priest would have stood to perform marriages to be blessed by their god (which was represented by a block carved in the wall across from us.) The bride and groom usually didn't have kids yet strapped to their backs.

The gorge, called the Siq, was created by an earthquake and leads into the city.

The Treasury is one of the more intricate carvings. The little pock holes on either side were carved for foot holes so that people could climb up and chip away the faces of the statues during the icon destruction during the eight century.

Some Bedouins welcomed us into their cave to warm ourselves by the fire. Although they had goods to sell, there wasn't pressure to buy like in Jerusalem. The man's family had been living in the caves there for the last 250 years. He said kings, presidents and celebrities all come to see Petra and would visit his cave. He didn't buy Alfonso's claim to be from the States and insisted he was Israeli or at least a Jewish American. He seemed satisfied with the Mexican heritage story. There may have been a contributing factor that our Israeli friend was with us who looks distinctly Jewish (who sat very quietly during this exchange.)

Dante was more interested in the donkeys, horses and camels than in some holes carved into rocks. Go figure!

Alejandro went on a photo strike half way through the trip. Not just refusing to smile, refusing to show his face.

Heading out of Jordan, one of the guards scooped up Alejandro and just as quickly, Alejandro swiped the guy's hat and put it on his own head amidst the laughter of all the other guards.

We stopped at the aquarium in Eilat. Alejandro climbed into the shark and pretended to be eaten alive. But then he couldn't climb out and really started to panic. Poor guy! This pic is from when it was still fun and games.

The park had a really cool under water observatory 100 meters from the shore. There's a bridge that leads out to sea, then a staircase descends down into the midst of coral reef with a huge assortment of colorful fish. The kids just wanted to go to the playground.

What happens when you throw a white towel into the Red Sea?

It gets wet!

Love always,

Debi

jerusalem

A quiet day in the Old City of Jerusalem (it's normally much more crowded)
Dante (after a really bad haircut) outside the city wall with the Citadel in the background.

Alfonso and his mother at the Citadel

Just inside the Jaffa Gate. There is one road that makes a loop inside the walls of the city. Otherwise, most of the streets are for foot traffic only.

The Western Wall which is the remnants from the outer wall surrounding the Second Temple destroyed in 70 AD. There is a small dividing wall between the brown tables and the white umbrella. Men pray on the left, the women squeeze in on the itty bitty section on the right.

Some Arab girls getting out of school in the Old City

Alfonso on a section of the Via Dolorosa

Another typical street in the Old City

The entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher -- From street level, you can't see the Dome on top (just a side view of a crucifix.) The building isn't stand alone and there are absolutely no signs indicating what it is so it looks like just about everything else in the Old City.

Inside the church...

Picture with one of the soldiers (whose commander ordered him to smile.)

Jerusalem's religion hat trick. Between our heads is the Western Wall, the gold dome is the Dome of the Rock where the Muslims believe Muhammad ascended into heaven on a winged horse with the angel Gabriel, and the grey dome between my head and the gold dome slightly back is the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

Alfonso and I at the Shrine of the Book, the building at the Israel Museum that houses the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Alfonso would love to live in Jerusalem. I was happy I had the opportunity to go and see it (once.)

home again, home again, jiggety jig

We survived the flight back to Israel and got the kids adjusted easier. It's funny going back to the States and seeing the little things that the kids have grown accustomed to as "normal." Alejandro wanted to know why mass was in English, couldn't understand why my dad was pumping his own gas and had aboslutely no clue what a quarter (the coin) was.
With our impending departure, we headed back to sight seeing. This past weekend, we went to Tel Ashkelon which was one of the five ancient Philistine cities. Like the rest of Israel, it was conquered and ruled by various cultures (Canaanite, Philistine, Phoenician, Persian, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Islamic and Crusader all took turns at occupation) leaving a hodgepodge of ruins.
The old Canaanite city gate.

Dante trucking through the remains of the Roman basilica.

Isis is on the left, Nike on the right, Dante in the middle.

"By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea..."

Ashquleon is right on the coast if you haven't figured that out yet..

More ruins, more photo ops...

Alejandro hanging out by the remains of the city wall.

It rained the previous week bringing the desert to life.

Many Israelis have never bothered coming to this national park, and the ones that have only come for barbecues and don't bother checking out the ruins. There are literally hundreds of picnic tables in the park. They totally take everything in their backyard for granted. (While I've never been to the soap box derby or football hall of fame, there's a big difference between checking out a bust of Isis vs a bust of OJ!)

The next day, we went to Bet Gemal where there is a monastery as well as a separate group of nuns that live in a silent community and support themselves by making pottery, tile mosaics, sculptures and paintings. We forgot the camera but I'm going to have to pass on writing a thousand words worthy of the picture we missed taking. Sorry.

I still promised Alfonso a posting with pics from Jerusalem. (His favorite place. Mine -- not so much.) I'll try to get that done before we bail.

Love always,

Debi