Christmas 2014

Spending Christmas in Colorado with family was special because all of Tim's family and most of my family was in town. We spent Christmas Eve with the Saltzmans and Christmas Day with the Baldwins.

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Family Fun in Albuquerque (Nov & Dec)

November and December flew by with a lot of fun activities!

On November 21st we celebrated 5 years since Faith joined our family. I blogged about it here.

A few days later Tim's sister, Karla, and her family came to Albuquerque for the week of Thanksgiving! It's always fun to see the cousins enjoying each other and getting to spend some quality time as families!

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more fall

We've been enjoying the States. Here are some pictures to catch up on part of October and part of November.
We're starting to miss our life in the Middle East. We missed an important time for our friends, which was hard for us. But, we're glad to be here in America for a little bit.
We're looking forward to the holidays in the States, which have such a different feel than in the Middle East!

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We're in New Mexico!

Maybe you have wondered where we are and what we're doing. I thought I'd take a few minutes and share what we've been up to.

We are spending this fall semester in America! We're in New Mexico, where we're eating lots of green chili! We've been here for about a month and a half. It's been a crazy fun time catching up with family! 

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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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Father's Day 2014

Father's Day is something that we always look forward to in June! Joseph and Faith are so blessed to have Tim as their father! They woke up and right away started telling him "Happy Father's Day!"

Before going bowling, which is our Father's Day tradition, we went to dinner. Tim chose IHOP for dinner! It's fairly new here and it's always special to have a new American restaurant!

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Garga'oon 2014

Every year, 2 weeks before Ramadan, there's an event called "Garga'oon." Each house has candy and the kids go house to house to get some! They say "Nasifa Hallawah" when they come to the door.

Our kids get it mixed up with Halloween, but we think it's very different. For Halloween they get dressed up as characters or something else, but for Garga'oon the boys wear button up shirts and the girls wear traditional dresses. Here's a picture of Joseph and Faith dressed and ready with their Garga'oon bags.

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Village Funerals

I've been to four funerals in the last two months. It's probably the hardest thing I've done. It's heartbreaking to watch a family mourn the loss of a loved one. The way that they mourn here is different than the way we do in the States.

When someone dies they don't embalm the body. They bury the body within 3 days and sometimes even within the first day. They don't use a coffin, but simply put the body into the ground. I don't know all of the customs, but I do know that they lay the body facing Mecca and I'm not sure why.

This picture is of the cemetery behind the mosque in our village where several burials have happened recently.

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Easter Party

In the past few years we have had an Easter party  for our Arab friends. This year we were excited to do it again! Every party is different and this one definitely took some unexpected turns. My friends in the village suggested that we have it somewhere other than my house so that more people could come. The search for a different place was a headache, to say the least. In the end, we decided to have it in one of the vacant houses in our compound and it turned out to be a good choice!

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Mother's Day 2014

This year Mother's Day was really special! Tim had a fun idea to go make some pottery together. We got to help a potter make cups on the spinning wheel. It's a fun memory!

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Swimming Fun

We have had a few different swimming experiences lately that have been fun!

May 1st was Labor Day here and Tim was off of work! We decided to take a boat out to an island for some beach time. It's funny to think that we went from one island to another island for beach time, but there's not great beaches for swimming on the main island.

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Easter 2014

As Easter approached, we were excited to celebrate our risen Lord! Tim taught us the hymn, Christ Arose, and we enjoyed singing it together.

It is such a blessing to be able to enjoy the good news of the gospel together as a family. We are all so grateful for what Christ did on the cross and the power displayed in his resurrection! There's nothing more important in our lives!

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April with Arabs

I'm not sure how, but April ended up being a particularly busy month. It was really good and I'm thankful to look back and recognize that God blessed us in so many ways!

I had so many opportunities to be with my friends in the village this month. It seemed like I was leaving the house wearing my hijab (head covering) a lot. I ended up going to several weddings and even a funeral.

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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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Christmas Reading

Last year we hosted a Christmas Reading in January for the ladies in the village and we were excited to do it again this year! Many of my Arab friends had expressed that they were looking forward to this event again!

Just like last year, we had to wait until their mourning time was finished until we could have a celebration. Last year several of my friends from the village came to my house, but I have gotten acquainted with many more since then.

I decided to invite everyone I could think of including their children, their sisters, and their mothers. I've been to many readings in the village and I've seen how they can pack into a place. Even still, I was nervous that either too many people would come or that nobody would come. It's not real easy to get a clear answer from people if they're coming or not. Usually they just say "Inshallah," which means "If God wills it."

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Visiting Arabs w/ Tim's Parents

When our Arab friends heard that Tim's parents were coming they were excited to meet them! It was good for Tim's parents to get to experience Arab hospitality and meet some friends in our village.

The first half of their time here was still mourning time for our friends in the village. So, they came with us experience the mourning. When we go to a mourning service we need to dress respectfully and the ladies have to cover our heads.

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Christmas 2013

Christmas was extra special this year with Nammy & Papa around! The kids loved showing them where they put the ornaments on the Jesse tree!

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Family time w/ Tim's Parents

When Tim's parents mentioned that they wanted to come visit us in 2013 we told them that Christmas time would be a great time! For one thing the weather isn't hot then. For another thing Christmas feels so different over here and it's a harder time to be without family. So, it was decided and the flights were booked! We couldn't wait for them to arrive!!

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