Italy Trip

We recently went to Italy for a family vacation and had a great time! Our first stop was the Colosseum in Rome. We stayed in an apartment that was only a five minute walk from the Colosseum and the kids loved that!

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Albuquerque 2016

In the middle of our trip to the States we went to Albuquerque. The 1 hour plane ride from Denver to Albuquerque was so easy compared to the 24 hours of total travel time from the Middle East. Plus we had gotten through jet lag and felt much more rested.

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Colorado 2016

We took a trip to the States in February/March and it was so good to be able to see our family! The big reason that we went was to introduce Eve to her extended family. She had been able to meet Tim's mom & sister when they came to help after her birth. She had also gotten to meet Jeni's mom when they met up in Germany. But there were many more people that she hadn't had the chance to meet yet.

We had a good time traveling with the five of us! Joseph and Faith are super easy to travel with. Between all of us, we can share the responsibility of Eve. Of course we were so glad when we finally arrived!

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Sri Lanka

Sometimes we get the chance to travel to interesting places. Tim is a manager at the institute he works at and they recently went away on a managers retreat. The kids and I got to tag along. The three managers had planning meetings for some of the time. We got some down time and some fun time! We're glad we got to go to Sri Lanka.

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Seeing Grandma in Germany

The last week of September, Eve and I took a little trip to Germany. We went to meet up with my mom, who came from the States. We had a wonderful week just hanging out together. It was such a nice time for Grandma and Eve to meet and get to know each other.

We had such a nice time taking things slowly because we had to stop frequently to care for Eve. This time was such a gift for all three of us. Such treasured memories!

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Kuwait

We had only been home a couple of weeks when we packed up again for a quick trip to Kuwait. Tim is one of 3 managers at the institute where he works. They decided to have a planning retreat for the managers. It was a time of mapping out this year at the office. It was also a time of reviewing last year's business and celebrating how much God has blessed the institute!

The kids and I went along for the ride! I haven't had a role at the institute because my responsibilities are at home. Homeschooling takes a lot of my focus and I am glad to be teaching my children.

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Santorini Island

After Athens we were excited to go to the island called Santorini! We were excited about the beautiful views and some relaxing on the beach. In order to get there we took an 8 hour long ferry ride. We packed up our baggage and headed to the port.

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Traveling through Athens

We were really excited leading up to our trip to Santorini! There were two parts to our trip, one was close to Athens and the other part was on an island called Santorini. This post is about the first part.

Our flight was at 4:00am, so that meant we had to be at the airport by 2:00am. That was brutal, but we were so excited it didn't matter too much. We slept as much as we could on the plane. We were excited when we looked out the window and saw the Islands! Beautiful!

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Chris Tomlin Concert for my birthday!

Every year in March I have another birthday and this year I am feeling so old! Sometimes it feels like just yesterday that I was in college. But hanging out with college students makes me realize how old I really am!

Early in March I learned that Chris Tomlin was coming to the Middle East and I wanted this concert to be my birthday present! All of the details worked out for us to drive through Saudi to be able to be at this concert on March 20th!

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Mount Nebo

On Friday we went to Mount Nebo. It was one of the things on our list of things we wanted to do. Mount Nebo is where Moses died. After he died Joshua took over leadership and led God's people into the promised land. 

Before we got there we talked with the kids about what we were going to see. We explained that Moses wasn't allowed to enter the promised land because of an instance of disobedience. Numbers 20:12 But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.” 

It was a good opportunity to talk with our kids about how Jesus was the only perfect person who ever lived. We also talked about God's grace in allowing Moses to see the land that his descendants would inherit.  

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Ramadan in Jordan

Ramadan started around July 9th in Jordan. It's been different to experience Ramadan here. Somehow it feels more festive.

There are, of course, some similarities to what we've experienced in the past years for Ramadan.

Many businesses are closed during the day...mostly restaurants. There are more restaurants open here than I've ever seen. They have to be creative, though, they don't appear to be open from the outside...you just have to know that they're open. Some of the drive throughs are open too.

It's really an important time for families to be together like it is in the gulf.

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Our second place in Jordan

We moved to a different apartment for the last three weeks that we're in Jordan and we're enjoying it! The view from our window is amazing!!

It's a busy part of town. We like the busyness around us and being able to walk in our neighborhood is fun! It's really close to the famous 1st circle.

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Jerash & The Dead Sea

We have a few things on our list of things to do and see while we're here in Jordan. The Dead Sea was on the top of the list, but we ended up going to Jerash first because there was a festival going on there.

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First week in Jordan

We've been in Jordan for a little more than a week now. It's been an eventful and fun week of figuring out our way around town.

The driving here is pretty crazy. It seems that there aren't any lanes and people are free to push into your space at any time! Tim is good at adapting, though. He's a great driver!

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A trip through Saudi

On Thursday and Friday we drove through Saudi Arabia to get to Jordan. We drove for two days, a total of 18 hours of driving. We were exhausted once we got here.

We weren't the only ones with the idea to travel north for the summer. There were many Saudis with the same idea. We thought we had packed our car pretty full, but then we saw many cars like this one, full inside and bags stacked on top too!

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NYE in Dubai

For Christmas, Tim and I gave each other a trip to Dubai for New Years Eve! I have been wanting to be there for NYE for a long time. It was good timing for us to get away, so we jumped at the opportunity.

This year, Dubai was boasting about their fireworks display from the Burj Khalifa, tallest building in the world. That made us excited!

We really enjoyed spending time together without the kids. They stayed at Keith & Carie's house. Even though Faith just got stitches, I knew she was in good hands with Carie, a former nurse.

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Jordan

Last weekend I (Jeni) took a quick trip to Jordan! I was gone for three days and it was a nice get-away!

Jordan is still the Middle East, but it has a different feel than the Gulf. Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Palestine are all considered a part of the Levant Region of the Middle East.

The plane ride was a little less than 3 hours long. It is amazing how relaxing it is to travel without kids! I enjoyed reading and journaling on the trip!

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Trip to Dubai

Last weekend we took a trip to Dubai! It was a nice time get-away! We flew there with our friend Melissa. She spent her time on the beach, relaxing and soaking in the sun. We, on the other hand, went to the malls and found lots of fun things to do! We went on separate vacations together. That's something, I thought I'd never say.

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Layover

I started to feel more at home as soon as I looked out of the plane window and saw sand! Before getting home, though, I had a long layover in another country.

I was so blessed to be able to catch up with some friends that we hadn't been able to see in about 6 months! 

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Trip to Kyrgyzstan

Last week week I took a trip all by myself to a homeschool conference. There aren't a lot of opportunities like this over here, so I was excited!

This conference was scheduled to be in Kyrgyzstan. I had heard the name of this country, but I didn't know where it was. I started looking up airlines that fly to Bishkek and decided to go with FlyDubai.

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