There’s no place like home ..

How am I already back in Amman? That was easily the fastest 10 days of my life.
(Though included in those days was also the slowest day of my life..
amman–>tel aviv–>massive security–>layover–>new york .. a story for another day)

Thank you everyone for an amazing Christmas and New Year :)

Some life updates:
– Our cat, Tigger, is alive.
[Though I still need to send the next “kitty support” payment to our cat sitter]
– We moved into a new house! Its a townhouse on a golf course and its lovely!
– All the cousins are OLD! Maria is taller than me (I knew this day would come) – Brendan is more mature than me – and Nia is walking around like an independent woman .. though still succumbs to tickling ..

 
There were plenty of more antics and adventures..
never a dull moment during Christmas at Nana’s!

– ALSO! There was snow! and a lot of it. Luckily, it didn’t (really) ruin our plans… the Whittaker/Clausen/Bremser family prevailed and managed to take over a restaurant for brunch :)

– In the biggest update of all, my home friends are famous! Yes, that’s right, our brief 10 minutes of fame [from that time Ted something or other interviewed us about the shark sighting in Chatham] has NOT ended.. now we have muscians in our group!

To remind you all of the holidays… here is an introduction ..
the Anna and Hayley Christmas Spectacular!

Anna and Hayley’s Christmas Spectacular: Part One from Julie Whittaker on Vimeo.

Anna and Hayley’s Christmas Spectacular: Part Two from Julie Whittaker on Vimeo.

Gets me every time .. I can’t wait to show this to my Petra U students and make them sing along .. Hayley and Anna, prestige worldwide ?

Anyway, there are so many more updates and fun memories I want to post.. but yet its making me miss home and its late here before my first “back to work” day tomorrow! So some last things I guess..

– I didn’t forget arabic during my stay! #win
– but I never found an engagement dress for Nisreen… #fail
– I saw Chris Hearne, TWICE!
– Jackie helped me buy nearly 100 books for basic/little kid English classes.. AND i managed to keep my suitcase underweight
– Melissa turned 23 !
– I visited the Fairfield girls’ apartment BEFORE greg, Mr. NYC, did

and..
– I had an AMAZING TIME!!