A taste of my joys since arriving state-side

December 15, 2008 12:10 am
I arrived home, still sick from Egypt, after traveling, well, hmm, 2 or so days straight. Let me tell you, it was nice to lay down finally! I left the sands of Egypt on Saturday morning with temperatures probably in the 80's.I arrived home to snow and temperatures in the -20's. Yeah, that was something of a shock to my system. Still, it was good to be home. :)

December 16, 2008 12:05pm
I stopped by Petra to have lunch. That was the first time I'd seen most of my students since June. It was really fun to see them again, even for a short time.

December 17, 2008 2:45pm
I was still sick and not really feeling better, so we visited the doctor. I probably would have gotten better on my own eventually, but he gave me drugs which sped up the process a bit.

December 19, 2008 8:10am
I went to Petra again, to hang out for their day-before-Christmas-break-celebration-and-house-competition. It was nice to have a little more time to talk to both students and teachers there. It made me realize just how much I missed teaching there. Will I ever teach there again? God knows.

December 21, 2008
I went to church in the morning, and was able to see and talk to quite a few people, which was nice. Also went to church in the evening when they had a report from a small team that went to Turkey. (Have I mentioned that I really want to go to Turkey??) They showed clips from the film "Bethlehem Star" which was interesting, at least. We then went home and celebrated Christmas (Mom, Dad, Larissa, and I).

December 22, 2008 5:30am
My alarm went off. We headed to the airport to catch our 8:00 plane to Kentucky. Well, technically, the plane took us to Minneapolis, where we caught a connecting flight to Kentucky. We eventually got here and I got to see my brother and sister-in-law, also for the first time since June.

December 24, 2008
We celebrated Christmas again, this time with Joel and Rachel.
December 25, 2008 9:30am
We got in the van and drove to Elizabethtown to visit my Aunt Erica, Uncle Chuck, and my cousins Vicki, Chas, Amy, Jessica, and Jonathan and celebrate Christmas with them. We played Rook, ate a lot, opened more gifts, played music, and I showed pictures from Israel. We spent the night there and the next day we worked on the deck and the pump, took a walk, and made chicken pot pie and jello fluff for dinner before heading back to Joel and Rachel's.

December 27, 2008 9:00am
We're caught up to today! This morning we went to Bardstown, which is, I believe, something like the second oldest town in Kentucky. It had a tavern from 1779.
We visited a distillery (The Maker's Mark-gotta love that Kentucky Bourbon...or something. Interesting tour, at least),
Drove by the location where Abraham Lincoln lived as a child,
and walked around downtown.

So really, I've managed to stay fairly busy since arriving "home." :) Of course, I still have a month to go...