Good-byes and Thank You's

We are home. We are jet-lagged and sore, but we are home. It feels nice to be home, but at the same time the goodbyes were very hard. We just finished the trip of a lifetime! And we are so grateful to my parents for allowing it to happen! We are also very grateful to Mike and Debbie and Hannah and Brad and Martin who "took care" of everything at the house :) It is a reassuring feeling to know people have your back. We finish our adventure off now with a living room full of suitcases to unpack, a husband very sleepy in bed and a question on both of our minds.....where to next? :)

Love you all, thanks for reading

b.

Today we did Petra and Wadi Rum.

Both were unreal.

Hard to grasp.

Petra is the city carved out of stone, Wadi Rum is a "Grand Canyon" like desert

We are tired, so tired and sunburned.

But it was amazing, so amazing.

Today we floated in the dead sea, I can scratch another thing off my "25 things to do while I am 25" list. It was so salty, the water felt thick. Its a very weird feeling floating and not being able to sink. You literally are not able to sink, Stu and I went deep and if we tried to stand up, you are still floating, just bobbing in the sea. We than coated ourselves with mud, or Stu coated himself, and I coated my arms :) We will include pictures, and when it looks like Stuart is holding a large rock, its actually salt. Any "rock" in the sea is actually large chunks of salt, it was crazy!

mission: to find a camel

status: completed

Jerusalem again

Jerusalem

Stuart and I conquered Jerusalem. Like seriously, we are backpacking maniacs and we just did so much stuff in 24 hours. It is just after 2pm and we have seen everything you could think of. The old city of jerusalem, the mount of olives, the garden of Gethsemane (where Judas betrayed Jesus), walked the via dolorosa (where Jesus walked with the cross on his back to Calvary), golgotha (where He was crucified), the Garden Tomb (where Jesus was buried), Zedakias Cave, the Church of the Sepulchre, Dome of the Rock, the Wailing Wall and so much more. It was amazing! The best was probably the Garden Tomb, we happened to be there at the same time as a group from Nigeria so they were all singing and dancing which really added to the experience. I can only include 5 photos here, so one will be of Stu and I outside Jesus' tomb, one will be me placing prayers into the wailing wall, two will be Stu at the garden of Gethsemane and one of the dome of the Rock. Our feet hurt so we are relaxing at the hotel, eating some Israeli candy, than heading out later for supper.

we are in israel

we sucessfully passed a million checkpoints armed with machine guns and are now checked into our hotel.

we are leaving momentarily to explore the old city of Jerusalem, will include photos of view from our hotel.

all is well.

Today: Mount Nebo

"Then Moses climbed Mount Nebo from the plains of Moab to the top of Pisgah, across from Jericho. There the LORD showed him the whole land—from Gilead to Dan, 2 all of Naphtali, the territory of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the western sea, 3 the Negev and the whole region from the Valley of Jericho, the City of Palms, as far as Zoar. 4 Then the LORD said to him, "This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when I said, 'I will give it to your descendants.' I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it." - Deuteronomy 34

Tomorrow: Backpacks and a ride across the border into Palestine

its hard to believe how fast time flies, and how soon we will be home. i want to stay forever, but also want to be at home. i heard from our house sitter brad today, and all is well at home, apparently our cat doesnt miss us as much as we imagined, Hannah and Debbie are making sure she is well loved. Stu and I are going to expand this adventure a little bit, put on some backpacks and venture into Israel. We spent the last few days exploring around here. The girls and I went to a princess party one night while the boys hung on their own. Went to a Childrens Museum that was amazingly awesome! Really hands on, and I think Levi and Stu might have had more fun than the kids! We than went to the King's car museum and saw billions of dollars worth of old cars, trucks and motorcycles, again I think the boys enjoyed that quite a lot. Tomorrow we head to the dead sea to float in some salt. Due to the number of us, Stu rented a car, and has gotten really good at honking and driving in the Middle East!