Reunited With Friends

The past few days have been busy and I haven’t made time to update. We had some friends, the Farmer’s, come in from Kuwait on Wednesday. Chris picked them up from the airport at about 9:30 A.M. and since their hotel wasn’t going to be ready until around 3 P.M., Julie and their two boys, Hank and Mitchell, stayed at our house with Jake and I while Chris and Reid went to the Embassy to get some work stuff done. These are friends that were in Monterey with us, so it was good to have friends around that we have a “past” with and fun to catch up. They will be in Jordan for a few weeks. Once the guys were done with their work stuff and the whole Farmer Family got checked into their hotel room down the street, we met them at the hotel for dinner. It was a slightly interesting occasion with 3 boys under the age of 4, Jake of course, was the most rambunctious. Their hotel has about five restaurants in it so we decided that we wanted to try the Lebanese Restaurant, but it didn’t open until 7 P.M. and it was only 6:30 P.M. So we decided to grab a drink in the lobby. And as I mentioned in my previous post about the traffic, the only time Jordanians are in a hurry is when they are behind you in their car, so it was a slow, but charming service being served our drinks. When we finished (now about 7:30 P.M.) and the boys (mostly Jake, actually just Jake) had probably annoyed all the patrons in the lobby by running around and being a little loud, we went to the restaurant. They weren’t open, so they sent us to another restaurant on the roof. When we arrived, we could smell this delicious food cooking on a big charcoal grill and were excited to be seated, the host said they were all booked and there wasn’t any room for us. We looked around to see one table filled and 20 open tables with NOBODY at them. We had to laugh because it seemed a little ridiculous. We headed back downstairs to another restaurant and we actually found a really great buffet, which meant no waiting for food to be cooked, especially since it was getting late. We ate and headed home.

Then on Thursday, our friends, the Pesatures, who are also stationed here, returned from a trip to Turkey. We hadn’t seen them yet, but were glad to have them back. They are also friends from Monterey so the Farmers know them too. So once again, the boys went to work and the girls kept the kids, but this time Kaylan picked Julie and I up and we went to her house since she has real toys. Dan and Kaylan have a daughter, Leila, and they have been here for a while so their household is actually set up. We had a good time catching up and the kids had fun playing. We all headed home around nap time. Then the Farmers headed out to see Amman, and we met the Pesatures at the Embassy for dinner. Every Thursday night they have dinner there. I may have wrote about this last week, when we went with our social sponsors. It is a nice time sitting out on the patio by the pool and they have music playing. Jake loves the bands when they play. 

When we got home from the Embassy, our phone rang, it was Grammy and Grandy. Jake had a lot to say. Below is a picture.

Today (Friday), I got to go to IKEA. Our social sponsors were going so I left Jake at home with Chris and jumped in with Jon and Jessica. IKEA is out by the airport, so about 20 minutes from our house. I’ve never been to an IKEA before, but it was a good first experience. I guess this one just opened in March and so it’s nice, clean, and new. I bought some really fun stuff like toilet brushes and pots and pans. Meanwhile, Chris took Jake to the little park at the Embassy and wore him out. Chris had been invited to one of the British officer’s houses by a man named Scott. Scott is a good friend of Andy Lambert, Chris’s British Exchange Sergeant Major that worked with him at Fort Benning. Andy got Chris in touch with Scott, and Scott invited him to the British Armed Forces Day celebration they were having. Once Chris got there, they asked where Jake and I were. Chris didn’t realize it was a casual family event, so he came back to the house and got us too We enjoyed the afternoon drinking Pimms and Jake enjoyed the bounce house. After the British Party, we went down to Jara Market and met up with the Farmers for a few minutes. It was fun to see in the evening, but we didn’t stay long because it had been a long day and Jake was tired.

The upper right is a picture of Scott and Chris at the British Armes Forces Day Party.