A whirlwind trip and a wonderful wedding!

Congratulations Mom & Mike! We were thrilled to be able to come home and celebrate my mom's wedding in Pennsylvania on June 18. It was a beautiful, family-filled celebration and they couldn't have looked happier. But let me back up a bit. We flew from Beirut to Chicago and enjoyed a very quick weekend there. We are so grateful to the Pylmans, our gracious hosts, who allowed us to crash at their place the weekend of Leigh's graduation. We loved getting to catch up with them and get some time with their wonderful families. We also managed to squeeze in a bit of work, including a job interview for Dena and some 4th year med school obligations for Jad. While we didn't get to see everyone we would have like to, we had so much fun with the friends we did get to see & are now looking even more forward to being reunited with everyone at the end of the summer.

After Chicago, we split ways for the next 3 days and Jad headed to Montreal with the rest of his immediate family to visit his grandma while I headed back to fulfill my matron-of-honor duties for Mom. We both loved the time we had with family - and Jad especially enjoyed having a few days to spoil our adorable nephews.

Jad & his parents got back into town the same day as 2 of my siblings and their families arrived. My amazing in-laws housed me and, yes, all 4 of my brothers and their families made it in for the wedding. It was so fun getting to swim, play, and be together. Jad got to hit up the lake a couple times, once to water ski with his parents, and another to tube and relax with his cousin Mark & his girlfriend Natalie. We girls got some lovely hang out time celebrating before the wedding. We also got to celebrate my mom and Mike's one year anniversary. They met on a flight, so we made them a little present (see below) and wrote a song that we sang for them over dinner. They loved it.

The rest of May and a bit of June

Shakira, Shakira! We went to our second concert of the year to check out the half-Lebanese Shakira in Beirut's new outdoor venue. We brought along Dominique and Elio...or rather, Dominique and I dragged Jad & Elio to see Shakira. But, she truly is an amazing dancer and put on a great show...even if the boys will only admit that for the part where she ripped off her shirt. :)

Otherwise, we had a pretty crazy busy few weeks thanks to Jad's finals and my finishing up with work and getting ready to head back to the states. With about 10 group projects to do, Jad spent a lot of quality time with his friends from school. Thankfully, they were definitely a bright spot in the midst of a few weeks of 3-hr of sleep nights. Thanks to cramming 18 months of course work into 11 months, it was probably the busiest I've seen him since second year medical school. We were definitely ready for a break - so, to celebrate finals being over, we all headed out for some Lebanese dinner & dancing.

Riwa acting out her feelings during finals

I finished up my work for HOME, but thanks to a summer conference & training my replacement, it was a busy end. I went on my last official mobile clinic trip in June. We actually went to Kawkaba, the Jabbour family village. Jad hasn't even been there, so we got a good laugh out of me going there before him. I had a great time, got lots of kisses and heard many stories from distant Jabbour relatives who knew all about my family.

The mobile clinic that I'm always referring to

A lot of Jabbours

In the midst of the craziness, we also celebrated our 4 year anniversary...kind-of. Jad spent the entire afternoon & evening with 2 girls he was writing a paper with, and I sat chained to a computer in the computer lab filling out a job application. It was really romantic. He did pick me a pretty cute flower though. (But, don't worry, we did actually go out for a nice dinner to celebrate a couple days later.)

We also had to start saying some goodbyes as summer in Beirut usually brings a max exodus of ex-pats. We had a lovely farewell dinner with our small group whom we will really miss (complete with Ray - our fearless leader - using a hair-dryer to "jump start" the grill on his balcony). Before we caught our flight home, we were able to squeeze in a beach day to get some more time with the Khalife cousins and work on our tans before we literally grabbed our bags and headed to the airport.

Part of our small group hanging out on the balcony

Perfect relaxation - a glass of wine on a beautiful beach

Welcome Spring

C'mon, we had to start with this picture! Yes, Lebanon had "Royal Wedding Fever" just as much as the rest of the world, and thanks to AUB outdoors - Jad's university's spring carnival, we got to have some fun with it. So, thank you for all the well-wishes, we're so sorry that you all couldn't join us in person for our big day. :)

But, seriously, it's been a very fun & full month for us. Looking back at these pictures it seems like we spent a lot of time eating with friends. But we like to eat and we like friends, so why not? To rewind quite a bit, we wanted to put a few pics of Easter. We had 5 of Jad's classmates over for Easter lunch, where we fed them leftovers (classy), and introduced a few to the traditional egg decorating & cracking tradition. Thanks to Marwa (next to Jad in this pic) we also got to enjoy a gigantic chocolate egg.

Then we continued the theme by enjoying one of the many Lebanese holidays with lunch right on the Med Sea with Dominique and Elio. (If you notice, we have finally figured out how to strategically position ourselves in pictures so we appear "normal" height.) :) A few weeks later, we all went out again for a momentous mezza where Jad and I both ate, for the first time ever, lahmi neyyi (raw meat - a Lebanese favorite). Do you see all the fruit on that table?? I love Lebanon!

We finally were able to host our gracious land-lady (best friend of Aunt Cedar who is allowing us to live in her extra apartment), her significant other, & her sister for lunch. We got a good laugh out of our hosting Katy in her own home. Fortunately for us, everyone present happened to be a dessert lover - hence the 7 kinds of dessert on the table. It was great!

 Jad has been really busy with group projects the past couple weeks, so when his Saturday was taken up by a field trip to a rural Lebanese village, he invited me to come along. How could I turn down a 3 hour bus ride with Jad, his lone male classmate, and 30 girls? As a whole, the trip was, well, a bit disappointing, but the bus ride was really fun & the views were great. We rocked out to Spice Girls, watched a few people debke (traditional Lebanese dance), and had an impromptu performance by one very vocally talented classmate.

A few other highlights of the month were freshly-spun cotton candy at AUB's Carnival, a bowling night that included an arcade & DDR (Bushra & I were terrible, really terrible), and a birthday party for Marwa.

Currently, Jad is finishing up finals for his 2nd semester and preparing to start his practicum over the summer. He's definitely ready to be finished with group projects and have a bit of a break from class-work. I am in the process of training my replacement for the job I've been doing with HOME and continuing my Arabic classes. Jad's cousins (Farid & Joumana's sons) arrive next weekend, so we're looking forward to some time with them.

Two more visitors... Who's next?

It’s been way too long! So this entry will also be way too long.
A lot has happened since the last time we wrote:
First, on April 6, we celebrated 10 years of being together! 5 years of dating, 1+ year engagement, and nearly 4 years of marriage. Jad surprised me with a card and rose each day for the 10 days leading up to our “anniversary.” I'm so grateful for the past 10 years, and love that I have such a romantic husband!

 

We were joined for the last two days of the countdown by Andrew, who came for a whirlwind 5-day tour of Lebanon. Thanks to Jad’s busy schedule, Andrew and I spent a lot of quality time together.  It really was too short, but we managed to squeeze in most of the must-see sites, and of course there were plenty of highlights:

- teaching Andrew backgammon, only to have him beat us about 20 times in a row after that
- a dinner with some of Jad’s friends from school that gave Andrew the chance to eat Indian in Beirut sitting between girls from Saudi Arabia and France, having conversations about Hitler and American politics… anyone who knows Andrew can imagine how much he enjoyed that
- capping off his visit with an epic late-night dinner with Aunt Cedar and Uncle George that included an impromptu karaoke performance by Andrew – definitely one of the highlights of his trip... at least for us.
 

Two days after Andrew left, my mom came for her first ever visit to Lebanon! We really enjoyed our time with her, and she really enjoyed getting a taste of our daily life here. We had lots of dinners with family and friends, several walks along the sea, and, of course, the requisite sightseeing. She was a great sport in tagging along to Arabic lessons, standing in line for Shakira tickets (May 26!), and putting up with our driving and the crazy traffic. She was also here for our sponsor “kid’s” spring concert at the orphanage, and really enjoyed getting to meet him and his brothers. Otherwise, she thoroughly enjoyed Uncle Farid’s incessant comments about why I am not pregnant yet… she can rest assured someone is applying pressure for her.

 

 

After four guests in two months, we’ve really gotten to know some of our tourist connections. At one of the main sites, we haven’t had to pay for the last 3 visits (thanks to making friends with the policeman there). When Jad calls another tourist company, they know him by name. So, now that we have this down so well, who wants to come next…?

Dan and Leigh's Visit

Dan and Leigh left last Saturday, and we miss them so much! We had a blast together! Once again, Dena was an excellent hostess/tour guide, and even I got to spend more time with them during the days than I thought I would (thanks in part to a holiday on Friday). Other than the usual tourist sites, some highlights of their stay:

-    several trips to a nearby café for drinks and backgammon
-    another (yes, it’s really getting crazy) night out at Music Hall, this time with my Aunt Cedar and Uncle George, and our friends Ghassan and Madonna

-    a free, after-hours tour of Beiteddine, which Dena earned by being persistent with (read: nagging) the guard—mostly in Arabic, I am told—until he himself took them around the palace (below)
 

-    epic picture taking at some of Lebanon’s oldest fortresses; something about those places just brought out the best in us
 

-    being all together on my birthday! What a blessing to have Dan and Leigh here for that!

 

 

Speaking of my birthday, I was also very blessed that some of my classmates had a cake brought to school after our last class of the day, and they all sang for me. Was totally surprised and very touched. So, we've included a pic of that too; now you can tell why I’m so glad my friend Metwally switched to my program – it’s a lot of girls otherwise!

 

The past week has been fairly low key and we’re gearing up for the next visitor: our great friend Andrew Herther is coming on Tuesday night. He’ll only be here for 5 days, so we’ll have to condense our program a bit, but we’re so excited for him to come!