Posted By: Mitch

Baby J a Boy or Girl?

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Disclaimer:  This post contains inappropriate words like penis, vagina, sex, crotch, and genitalia.  It also has a few funny pictures that some people might think are offensive!  If you are my grandma, someone who is easily offended, or someone who doesn’t enjoy humor, please don’t read this post.  You will hate it and it will probably ruin your day!

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As soon as we found out that Rachel was pregnant, and that we were having a baby, we knew that we wanted to find out the sex.  Neither of us are big fans of surprises, and we are both planful people.  We anxiously waited for the baby to develop it’s genitalia so we could find out!

At our doctor’s appointment last weekend, we knew we had a good chance to see if there was anything growing between the legs, depending if the baby would cooperate.  About a minute into the ultrasound the doctor said, “whoop, there it is!”  We were so excited that the wait was over!

We decided to have a little Gender Reveal Party to find out the sex.  We invited a few friends over to share the excitement with us and to have some ice cream sundaes.  To reveal the gender, we ordered this huge balloon and had it stuffed with the appropriate colored confetti (blue for boy or pink for girl).

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Before we popped the balloon though, we decided to have a vote to see what our friends thought it was going to be.  Rather than doing something lame like writing it on a piece of paper, we decided to have some fun with it.  We decided that in order to cast your vote you had to make a headband, and draw the genitalia of the sex that you thought it was going to be.  It was a ton of fun (even though it was a bit inappropriate) to see what people came up with.  Here are a couple of pics of some of the artwork that people were proudly displaying:

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Allison wanted to draw a vagina but got scared, so she drew a penis because it was a lot simpler to do.  Jooles also voted for a girl, but opted against the crotch region and went top shelf.

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Our buddy Ethan went all out on his drawings. A for effort bud!

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Adam should win an award for his artwork, and perhaps another award for the amount of confidence he is displaying while wearing a penis on his forehead!

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Once the votes were cast and the ice cream was gone, it was time for the big reveal!  We each grabbed a steak knife from the kitchen and began the countdown:

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POP!!!!!!!!!

 

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Yes, ladies and gentleman . . . . . . . . . Baby J is a BOY!!!!!!!

Now we can comfortably refer to our child with the proper pronouns like: him, his, he, and himself.  It really didn’t matter to us if we were having a boy or girl, as long as they are healthy.  We feel a sense of relief since finding out the sex, because now we can eliminate half of the names in the world, as we begin to narrow our search for the ‘perfect’ name.

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A couple of weeks ago I heard a funny quote from a friend of ours:  “If you have a baby boy, you only have to worry about one penis.  However, if you have a baby girl you have to worry about all of the penises in the whole wide world.”

Now we are just continuing to keep our fingers crossed for a healthy baby and a smooth pregnancy for Rachel!

Mitch’s Monday Happy Hour – May 18

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Happy Monday Tuesday Everyone!

If we were meeting for Happy Hour this week, here’s what we’d have to share:

  • This weekend we enjoyed an extra day off on Sunday for the Muslim holiday Isra and Mi’raj.  Isra and Mi’raj marks the Prophet Mohammed’s journey from Mecca to Jerusalem, and his ascent into heaven.  The holiday was on Saturday, May 16th, but about a week ago, the Kuwaiti government announced that it would be observed on Sunday.  As a result, all schools were closed and we enjoyed a nice 3-day weekend.  The majority of our weekend was spent relaxing, hanging out with friends, and reenergizing our minds as we begin the home stretch towards summer break.
  • A lot of the teachers who are leaving Kuwait at the end of the school year have started to sell a lot of their household items.  We have purchased a few odds and ends over the last few days, but I’m most excited about my new coffee maker!  Now you might be thinking to yourself, “you’re excited about a used coffee maker?”  Well . . . . they are actually pretty expensive here and rather difficult to find.  It’s been so nice to have the last couple of days and is so much more convenient to use rather than my old french press.  There are a few more “garage sales” around our apartment building this weekend, so we’ll see if I score a few more treasures.
  • The last couple of weeks I have been able to get back on the basketball court to ref a few games.  I’ve been doing both the boys and girls 5th grade teams from our school.  It has been a ton of fun to officiate again, but even more enjoyable to cheer on the students from our school as many of them explore a new sport.  Obviously soccer is #1 here, but it is great to see them stepping out of their norm.
  • Since our doctor’s appointment was canceled last weekend because the doctor was sick, we were able to reschedule it for this weekend. I get so excited for each of these appointments, and wish we could go everyday!  It is so incredible to see our little Baby J on the ultrasound, and the growth between each appointment.  I find myself starring at the monitor and just watching and observing, in complete amazement.  This weekend we got to see a nice profile view of the face, with the little nose and lips.  We even got to see a big ‘ol yawn . . . . . it was soooo cool!  We also got to see the arms, legs, vertebrae, and genitalia!!!  We still have some family and friends we want to share the news with, but stay tuned to the blog this week to find out if we are having a boy or girl!

One month from today, we arrive back in Minnesota for the summer!

Hope everyone is well and we will see you next week for Happy Hour!

 

More Photos of the February 20th Sandstorm

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A couple of months ago during one of my weekly Happy Hour posts, I mentioned that we had a pretty nasty sandstorm (you can read about it HERE).

Here are some additional photos from that sandstorm:

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Photo courtesy of Ethan Schultz

No, those aren’t clouds . . . . . it’s sand coming our way!

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Photo courtesy of Nasser Ali DjNas

The sandstorm off in the horizon, coming our way.

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Photo courtesy of Gabe Massine.

It is coming right at us!  It was kind of like a tsunami wave . . . . you could see it coming, but you couldn’t do anything about it.

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Photo courtesy of Niamh Dickson.

Here it comes!

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Photo courtesy of Gabe Massine.

A view from our rooftop, as the sand is starting to take over the buildings:

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Photo courtesy of Niamh Dickson.

Here is a cool aerial photo of the storm coming in:

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Photo courtesy of kuwaitup2date.com

Besides leaving a thin layer of dust all over our cars and apartment windows, the dust storms don’t cause much damage.  It’s like a thin layer of fog that settles in, but by morning it all cleared out.  I would rather have a dust storm every few months rather than 6 months of winter back in Minnesota though!

 

Mitch’s Monday Happy Hour – May 11

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Happy Monday Everyone! If we were getting together for happy hour this week, here’s what we’d have to share:

  •  Exactly 1 month from today, we leave Kuwait!  We’re headed back to America where we will spend the summer months.  It is so crazy how fast the time has gone here.  It still seems like just yesterday we left our lives in Minnesota and moved to the Middle East.  With a month to go, we’ve decided that we can officially start our countdown until we can see our family and friends from back home.  We leave in a month, but the kids only have 19 more days of school, so they are getting excited for summer vacation too.
  • Last weekend we were scheduled to have another routine doctors appointment just to check up on Rachel and Baby J.  The doctor thought that there was a pretty good chance that we would find out the sex of the baby at this appointment, but . . . . . . . our appointment got canceled because the doctor was sick!  We were a bit disappointed, but we knew that it was best for her to stay home if she was ill.  Hopefully we will be able to reschedule the appointment soon, so we can find out if we are having a little baby boy or girl!
  • One of the major oil companies here in Kuwait is called Chevron.  All of the employees and their families live on a compound, south of Kuwait City, and a majority of their children attend our school.  To show their appreciation to the staff, last weekend they invited all of us to their compound for a beach party!  We went with a bunch of friends and enjoyed the afternoon swimming, tanning, and just hanging out.  Chevron provided a complimentary BBQ lunch for everyone, and we had an absolute blast!  It was so kind of them to host us for an awesome day at the beach.
Old Navy
  • Kuwait has a majority of the stores that we miss back in America, (except Target of course!)  However we were delighted last week when we found out that Kuwait’s first Old Navy was having their Grand Opening!  We checked it out over the weekend and were pleasantly surprised how nice it was.  It was exactly like a store you find back home, and it even had the old blue truck in it!  It was a pretty big store, spread out over two levels.  Rachel was pretty excited because they had a decent maternity section, which has been pretty tricky to come by here.  We browsed for a bit and found a couple of treasures.  I picked up a couple short sleeve shirts for work and we bought a couple of baby outfits for our friends who just had a little baby boy.  Clothes everything in Kuwait is pretty expensive, just because they have to ship everything from so far away.  We were pretty pumped though, because the prices were pretty decent, plus everything was 20% off for their grand opening sale!
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  • One of the jokes here in Kuwait, is that the official bird is a plastic bag!  Unfortunately, it is pretty common to see them blowing around.  The other day, we were driving home from school when suddenly, BAM!!  A plastic bag got caught on the antenna of our car.  I couldn’t help but chuckle, and just thought to to myself, “only in Kuwait.”  That wasn’t the only thing going through my mind though, of course I was yelling, “quick, take a picture of it for the blog!”
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  • Yes, that is a picture of a monkey. Why you ask? . . . . . . It was on the loose at our school last week!!!  It wasn’t a “wild” monkey, but someone’s pet!!  It’s a long story, but first, a little background of exotic animals in Kuwait.

You can find/buy just about any kind of animal in Kuwait.  I have heard stories from colleagues of the crazy pets that there students have at home.  Even the kids aren’t shy about telling you that they have pets like monkeys, deer, penguins, lemurs, or even lions! Last December, there was a big news story here in Kuwait City about a family’s pet lion killing their maid.  Apparently it got out of it’s cage and attacked her . . . . . . . SAY WHAT! Fast forward to last week at school . . . . . . I was waiting in the classroom for another teacher to drop off her kids.  They are always on time, but that day, they were about 5-10 minutes late. When they finally showed up, the teacher said they were late because they were looking at the monkey.  I had no idea what she was talking about, so I just thought to myself, “ok, no problem.” Well later that day I found out that indeed, there was a monkey on the loose, running around our campus!  Apparently it escaped from a nearby house, and the family was out chasing it, trying to capture it.  Luckily, the monkey clung on to a fence for awhile near our soccer field, until the owner was able to catch up to it and offer it some food, so that it would come home.  The kids at school got a kick out of it, but all I could think of was, “only in Kuwait!” That’s what we are up to this week, see you next Monday for Happy Hour!

Egypt Through the Eyes of Mitch’s iPhone

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The other day I was going through the pictures on my iPhone, reminiscing about the memories of the last few months, when I realized . . . . . I have some pretty crazy photos on here that people would like to see!  So here are a few from our trip to Egypt last February:

  • The main reason we decided to travel to Egypt was to see the Pyramids.  For some reason I assumed that they would be located out in the middle of the desert, but boy was I wrong!  The city of Cairo/Giza is basically built right around them.  I was surprised when we were driving down the road to check-in to our hotel, and BOOM . . . . there were the Pyramids!
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  • We even had a view of the Pyramids from the pool at our hotel!
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  • Cairo isn’t one of the nicest/cleanest cities we’ve ever been to.  Here is a view of one of the freeways in the city.  *Notice the garbage along the center median and the amount of sand along the emergency lane.
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  • One of my favorite things to do when we travel is to buy food from street vendors.  In Cairo you could find just about any type of fruit or vegetable being sold alongside any street.  We bought some of these bananas from a guy on a bicycle and they were DELICIOUS!
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  • Cairo isn’t a very rich city, so one of my favorite things to see were the different types of transportation.  Here I was able to snap a picture of a tuk tuk (like we saw in Sri Lanka) and also a donkey pulling a wagon down the street.
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  • This guy was nearly breaking the speed limit with his 2 donkeys!
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  • We also saw horses pulling wagons.  This one was right in the middle of the city, with tons of speeding cars going by.  The engine size for this wagon is 1-horsepower (insert charity laugh here, for my lame joke!)
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  • When you did see a vehicle, chances were that it was overloaded with either goods (or even people).  By looking at this picture, I would assume that this little truck is slightly overweight . . . .
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  • Even when the trucks got bigger, they still seem to find a way to overload them!
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  • One day my buddy Adam and I ventured out to the desert to visit some secluded ruins.  I love this picture, with the lush palm trees going right in the middle of nowhere.
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  • Inside one of the ruins we found these awesome hieroglyphics.  They were so precise with such outstanding detail.
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  • It’s kind of hard to see in this photo, but it is a zoomed out view of the hieroglyphics in the previous picture!  The walls of the ruins were completely covered in them!  Every single image was as precise as the one next to it.  It was incredible to view such large areas of them, it must have taken them years to accomplish!
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  • We also saw lots of graphics like this one.  This one was about 6 feet tall, and right outside the exterior door of one of the ruins.
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Sometimes I wish I had our big fancy camera along to capture high quality images, however sometimes the images you are able to capture in a moment’s notice with your iPhone, are just as special and memorable.

 

 

Mitch’s Monday Happy Hour – May 4

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Happy Monday Everyone!

If we were getting together this week for Happy Hour, here’s what we would have to share:

  • It is officially getting hot here!  All of a sudden last week, as if someone flipped a switch, the heat just cranked up.  It went from the low 90s (which feels great) to temps over 100!  The good news is that we only have about a month left in Kuwait before we head back to America for the summer months.  The bad news is that it is going to get much hotter here before we leave in June!  From what I understand though, we are pretty lucky this year with the temperatures.  Typically the heat arrives at the beginning of April, so we’ve dodged it by a whole month.
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  • Due to the increased heat, we’ve had to bump our “weekend walks” to early morning strolls.  Last weekend, we left about 7:30am, and the temperatures were already at 95 degrees!  It was a bit warm, but we knew we knew that this would be the most enjoyable part of the day.  We found a nice little walkway along the beach pretty close to our apartment.  The best part about going so early, is that there was hardly anyone out-and-about at that time of day.  Our “weekend walks” are one of the most enjoyable parts of my week.  It allows us to kind of get away from everything, and just talk!  We discuss life, work, future plans, and just kind of reflect on life.
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  • After our walk along the beach, we decided to treat ourselves for breakfast at one of our favorite little cafes here called The Early Bird.  It’s just like any cafe you would find in North America, with a menu consisting of eggs, pancakes, french toast, etc.  They have bacon and sausage too, but unfortunately it’s beef, so not as delicious as we are accustomed to.
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  • At breakfast I was wearing a t-shirt from our hometown back in Minnesota, pictured above.  While eating breakfast at the cafe, a guy at a table next to us asked me, “are you from Minnetonka?”  I was a bit surprised by the question, and responded hesitantly with a, “ya, have you heard of it?”  He smiled, and said he was from the city of Golden Valley, which borders Minnetonka!  It is such a big world out there, yet small too.  Encounters like this definitely put things into perspective.
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Photo courtesy of: tetontenkara.blogspot.com

  • Last week we published our 100th post!  While our posting has slowed down a bit the last couple of weeks, we are still dedicated to keeping this blog up to date, especially with the arrival our first baby soon!

Mitch’s Monday Happy Hour – April 27

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Happy Monday Everyone!

Lately, Mondays mean two things: blogging the weekly Happy Hour post and LAUNDRY!  For the third Monday in a row, I’ve been unpacking a suitcase and doing laundry from a vacation.  I was just looking at a calendar . . . . . and realized a few fun facts regarding my April 2015 calendar:

  • As of April 25th, I’ve only worked 7 days this month!
  • Of the 18 days I’ve had off in April, I’ve only been here in Kuwait for 2 of them!
  • There are 4 weekends in April, and I haven’t been home for any of them!
  • During the month of April, I’ve slept at 6 different hotels!

I’ve been pretty fortunate to do so much traveling this month!  One of the main reasons we decided to move overseas was to enjoy the ease of visiting and exploring so many new places.

  • This weekend I took a trip with some friends to Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates.  If you recall, Rachel and I spent a few days there last October for my birthday. (you can refresh your memory by reading HERE)  I went this weekend to umpire at a high school baseball/softball tournament.  Rachel was going to accompany me again this weekend, however she was super, super, I mean SUPER busy growing a human!  We figured it was best for her to just chill out, relax, and take care of Baby J.  At the tournament this weekend, there were schools from Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Oman, and India.  I called a total of 15 games in 3 days!  It was super hot outside, but a great tournament and a fun experience to do some more umpiring at another international tournament!
  • I’m sure most of you saw the picture that Rachel posted last week regarding our exciting news . . . . we’re having a baby!  We couldn’t possibly be more excited!  It has been hard to keep it a secret for so long, however we now feel comfortable enough to share the news with all of our family, friends, and the people who read our blog.  It is difficult to keep your excitement tucked inside for so long!  When the doctor confirmed the pregnancy a couple of months ago, I just wanted to run to the highest point around and scream at the top of my lungs “I’M GOING TO BE A DAD!”  However with pregnancies, we know there comes risks.  So we just wanted to wait a while to make sure that we had a healthy lil’ person growing inside.
  • I’m a huge sports fan, and thankfully because of the internet, I’m able to keep up with all of my favorite teams from back home.  I’m super pumped that the Minnesota Wild have advanced to the next round of the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs!  Their next opponent is the Chicago Blackhawks, who just happen to be the favorite team of a few of my close friends here in Kuwait.  I have a feeling that that there is going to be a lot of trash talking, bantering, and sleepless nights as we stay awake throughout the night to watch the games live online!  Go Wild!
  • We have officially started our countdown until summer . . . . . . we only have 46 more days until we fly back home for the summer!  It is still incredibly weird how fast this year has gone by.  It is crazy to think that May 1st is this weekend, when it seems like we just moved here.  We are getting super excited to see all of our friends and family this summer, and can’t wait to spend some time at the lake!

That about wraps it up for this week folks.  Luckily I don’t have the shakes this week, because I’ve been able to drink for 16 of the last 25 days!! (hahaha)  Until next time . . . . . . .

Mitch’s Monday Happy Hour – April 20

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Happy Monday Everyone!

I’m glad you are visiting our blog today, for our weekly happy hour!  Here’s what’s going on with us this week:

  • We had a great time in Dubai last weekend!  I was there for 4 days, while Rachel joined me a day later.  I was busy umpiring at a baseball tournament for the majority of the weekend, and Rachel was able to enjoy a much deserved weekend of rest-and-relaxation.  At the baseball tournament there were teams from Australia, Singapore, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain, Dubai, and others.  It was a great tournament and I had a ton of fun!  I snapped a few pictures and have a few fun stories that I’ll share with everyone soon.
  • I only work 3 days this week, then it’s back to the airport for another trip back to United Arab Emirates (UAE) for the 4th time in 8 months, and back-to-back weekends!  This time I’m going to the city of Abu Dhabi though, which I have only ever been to once before.  I’m going this weekend to umpire at a high school baseball tournament.  I’m super excited about the opportunity, and for another little weekend get away (4 weekends in a row!)
  • A few weeks ago, we started watching the new season of our favorite tv show . . . . . . . The Amazing Race with a group of our friends.  It has become a weekly routine now, where every Tuesday night, all 6 of us get together to watch the latest episode.  At the beginning of the season we all picked a team that we were going to root for, then whichever team wins, that person gets a prize!  It definitely adds a little more excitement to our weekly tv show viewing parties, but more importantly it’s all about getting together with a group of some of our closest friends for dinner on a weekly basis.
  • A group of teachers organized a Fantasy Hockey League last fall, prior to the start of the National Hockey League (NHL) season.  I’ve never played fantasy hockey before, but I thought it would be fun, so I decided to give it a try.  Our season wrapped up this week, and I’m excited to announce that I finished in 3rd place out of 10 teams!  Obviously it was all luck, but I’m pretty pumped about how I finished the season up!
  • The last week or so, we have definitely noticed that weather is starting to get hotter outside!  The weather is absolutely perfect for a majority of the day, but for a couple of hours each day it is smoking hot outside.  The highs have been getting into the mid-90s each afternoon, which has been feeling great.  I wish these temperatures would stick around until we leave in June, however we know that summer is quickly approaching.  And of course, with the arrival of summer, we know that temperatures in the 100s will be here soon.

Thanks for getting together for another weekly edition of our Monday Happy Hour, we’ll see you all again next week!

Sneak Peek: Our Adventures in Jordan

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We had a blast last week during our Spring Break trip to Jordan.  It was a week jam packed of adventures, memories, and laughter that we will never forget.  Here is a little insight into our trip: When we proposed the idea to my parents of taking a trip to Jordan, I think one of the first things they said was, “where is Jordan?”  Many people, especially Westerners, haven’t even heard of it before.  If you look closely at the map, it is a little country tucked in between Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.  It was never really high on our list of “Countries To See,”  until we moved here to the Middle East.  So many of our friends here have been, and highly recommended it!

Map courtesy of google.com

Here is a little bit of a closer view.  The capital of Jordan is Amman, in the northern part of the country.  A majority of the population lives along the west side of the country, from Amman south towards the Red Sea.

Map courtesy of google.com

Jordan is a Muslim country, however it is not as conservative as Kuwait or Saudi Arabia.  Also, unlike their neighbors, Jordan has no significant petroleum resources of its own, so it is not as wealthy as some of the other Middle Eastern countries.  Their country relies heavily on tourism, which has taken a major hit the last few years because of what we call the “CNN Effect.”  Everyone in North America who turns on their favorite cable TV news channel, will hear nothing but negative things about the Middle East and the instability because of the emergence of ISIS.  I will be clear, not one time did I ever feel unsafe in Jordan!  It is a beautiful country and everyone was so friendly!

Map courtesy of google.com

Based on our research, we decided that renting a car was going to be our best bet for our trip.  We had so many places that we wanted to visit, and relying on public transportation and timelines was not going to work for us.  We read online that the driving in Jordan can be scary, however I would consider it super calm based on what we encounter on a daily basis in Kuwait! Below is a map of the route we took.  We flew into the capital city of Amman, then headed south towards the Dead Sea.  After one night there, we continued south along the Israeli border to the resort town of Aqaba, located on the Red Sea.  We spent two nights there, before we started our trek north to the Wadi Rum Desert for two nights of camping.  We then headed to Jordan’s crown jewel . . . . . Petra!  We spent two nights in this ancient city exploring one of the 7 wonders of the world, before we headed back to Amman to fly out.

Map courtesy of google.com

Our first stop in Jordan was at the Dead Sea.  Here are a couple of fun facts about the Dead Sea, courtesy of wikipedia.com:

  • The surface and shores of the Dead Sea are 1,407 feet BELOW sea level, making it Earth’s lowest elevation on land.
  • It is 997 feet deep, the deepest hypersaline lake in the world.
  • In 2011 the salinity was measured at 34.2%, making it one of the world’s saltiest bodies of water.  It is 9.6 times as salty as the ocean.
  • Its high levels of salinity make for a harsh environment in which plants and animals cannot flourish, hence its name: the Dead Sea.

The cool thing about the high levels of salt, is that you float on the surface!  Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a sinker, I cannot swim nor float!  So I thought it was super cool when I walked in, and just started bobbing on the surface of the water.  Here is a picture of me standing like a pencil, and just floating there without any effort.  It was a super cool experience, that I recommend to everyone.

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Me standing upright, FLOATING in the Dead Sea.

Before we headed to our next destination, we stopped at the site along the Jordan River where Jesus was baptized by John 2,000 years ago.  For so many years it was a lost site, until recently it was discovered, authenticated, and now visited by hundreds of thousands of visitors from all over the world.

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Rachel and I at the baptism site of Jesus.

After our time around the area of the Dead Sea, we headed south to Aqaba.  We drove along the Israeli border for about 3 hours until we reached our destination.  Aqaba is located on the point of the “right fork” of the Red Sea.  We stayed in a beautiful resort area called Tala Bay.  I highly recommend this place!  We rented a condo on the beach, and had  a relaxing couple of days.

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After a few relaxing days at the beach, it was time to kick our vacation into high gear.  We headed north to the Wadi Rum Desert, where we witnessed some of the most incredible views I have ever seen!  It is a fairly flat desert with red sand, and gigantic rock formations scattered around hundreds of square miles.  We spent a day and a half cruising around the desert and hiking through some slot canyons, to a natural water spring, and to the top of a few arches.  We had a great time camping in the desert and playing in one of the coolest “sand boxes” in the world!

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A picture I snapped during one of our hikes. It is a good view of how flat the desert ground is, yet huge mountains protruding from the ground.

The last stop on our adventure through Jordan was at Petra, which is one of the New 7 Wonders of the World.  We spent two nights there and a day and a half hiking and exploring this ancient city, that dates back to as early as 300 BC.  The first day there, we did the Petra by Night tour, where you could hike the path in, which was lit by hundreds of candle luminaries.  The next day, we spent about 8 hours hiking around and visiting the tombs, caves, and of course the infamous Treasury and Monastery.  Petra was my favorite part of the trip!  It is absolutely incredible how they were able to carve such magnificent structures into the sides of mountains.  It is estimated that approximately 20,000 people lived in this ancient city at one time. Petra This is just a quick peek into our Jordanian adventures.  We have lots of photos and memories that we will share with everyone soon.  I definitely recommend everyone to add Jordan to your list of “Countries to Visit.”

Mitch’s Monday Happy Hour – April 13

Posted By: Mitch View all 4 comments

Happy Monday! We just returned from our trip to Jordan, so I apologize that we have been away for so long!  We had an awesome trip, and a great visit with my parents.  We will be sure to post some pictures and tell some stories about our vacation on here soon, but in the meantime . . . . . here’s what else we have been up to:

  • Before we left for Jordan, my parents flew to Kuwait to visit us for a few days.  They had a great time (I think) seeing where we live, work, and some of the sights around Kuwait City. It took a couple of days for them to get acclimated to the time change, but they were rockstars and fought through it.  While they were here, we took them to the Souq (an outdoor market), took a tour of the Grand Mosque, and spent a day at the beach.  Of course the best part was just seeing them and spending time with family!
  • On April 1st, Rachel and I celebrated our 3rd Wedding Anniversary!  It seems like just yesterday, we were tying the knot on the beach of Puerto Vallarta.  We celebrated by going out to dinner with my parents and a big group of our friends.  It has been an amazing 3 years full of laughter, joy, and adventures.  I can’t wait to see what is in store for our next 75+ years together!
  • While in Jordan, Rachel celebrated her 30th birthday!  We arrived at Petra on her birthday and had a few drinks at the oldest bar in the world, called The Cave Bar.  It occupies a 2,000 year old Nabataean rock tomb.  It was super cool there!  That evening we also did a night hike to the Treasury inside Petra, where the entire 2 km trail was lit with luminaries along the path.  It was a great experience and we took a bunch of pictures we will share with you guys soon.  The coolest part about Rachel’s birthday in Jordan . . . . . . . . it was the 20th country she has been to!
  •  We returned to Kuwait last weekend, and my parents were able to hang around for about 6 hours before we had to take them back to the airport for their journey home.  It was a long trek home for them, but with their flight times, they are able to say that on one day, Saturday, April 11, they were on 3 different continents:  Asia, Europe, and North America!
  • I’m only home this week long enough to unpack, do a few loads of laundry, and repack before I head back to the airport for our next trip.  On Wednesday, I’m heading back to Dubai to umpire at a baseball tournament.  It will be my 3rd trip to Dubai since moving here 8 months ago, but I love that city, and can’t wait to go.  Then next weekend, I fly to Abu Dhabi for another baseball tournament!  I’ll be gone a total of 4 weekends in a row traveling! #ournewlifeisawesome  It also means that I will be able to drink a beer every weekend during the month of April.  Wooooooohoooooooo!

We are very excited to share our adventures and pictures from Jordan with everyone real soon.  We loved it there, and highly recommend it to everyone!  Until next time . . . . . . . . cheers!

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This was the most popular beer in Jordan: Amstel