Jordan: Week 1 Jerash

On our first weekend in Jordan, we decided to spend Friday evening in Jerash. We heard that there was a big festival going on, so we took the bus up to Jerash and stayed there for a couple of hours.

Of course, the bus let us out right in front of souvenir shops. Typical Jordanian souvenir shops have a good variety of head scarves, bottles filled with sand (with your name, a camel, Petra,...), wooden boxes with mother of pearl, handbags, a few oriental clothes, and postcards.

Jerash (Gerasa) is supposedly the 2nd most famous tourist attraction in Jordan. It used to be a Greco-Roman city so there are tons of ancient ruins from the 2nd century AD. That's why the city is also called the "Pompeii of the Middle East".
It was pretty awe-inspiring to see all these ruins. The buildings and columns are soooo tall and so many stones still had so much detail carved in them.

There is an old hippodrome where horse races took place. Today, visitors can ride on horses or these wheel things around the hippodrome.

Crazy to think that all these columns were carved out. I love how you can see the detail of every hammer blow.

There were some music groups that played traditional music and danced. It was interesting to see how people could resist dancing to the beat, but people here don't just stand up and dance at concerts like Europeans/Americans do.

Holding hands with people of the same gender is pretty common here. But unfortunately not holding hands with your spouse :-(

We had read and heard good things about this Lebanese restaurant, so we decided to go there for dinner. The restaurant looked pretty fancy (and the people that went there, too), but the food was pretty affordable....and yummy! I think my favorite was the freshly baked pita bread with hummus and the lemon-mint drink that I'm now addicted to....hmmmmmm!

The best drink in the world!!! It's soooo refreshing after a long, hot day.

I was sooo tired, but so excited to try some traditional dishes. I think this was my first time eating Jordanian food.

Because we had no clue what we wanted and what was good, the waiter just ordered a couple of dishes for us. Luckily, we liked everything...except the traditional Lebanese salad "Tabbouleh", which is made of A LOT of chopped parsley and some tomatoes, mint, onions, bulgur wheat and some kind of dressing. That was just a little bit too parsley-y for us.

Anthon is always happy when he gets food :-)

After dinner, I walked around the restaurant and found the place where they bake the bread. The baker even let me come into the kitchen.

On our way back to the bus, we walked buy a souvenir shop area. Of course, everybody welcomed us there and told us that they would give us a "special price" :-)
We had some time to waste, so we went to one of the shops. I was very interested in their scarves, so the person showed us how to use them.

I'm probably not going to walk around DC like that, but I'm gonna use it in winter as a scarf...so we bought it *yeah*. I'm sooo proud of Anthon being such a great bargainer!

Anthon and I became a great bargaining team during our time there. When he bargained and I thought that something was still too much of a rip off (and the sales person would be stubborn), I started to shake my head and pretend to walk away. And there you go, they always gave in! :-D

We really enjoyed our evening walking around Jerash- what a beautiful city!
Visiting Jerash is definitely a must when you're in Jordan! ;-)

Some Mother-Daughter Time

As I mentioned in the graduation post earlier, Anthon, together with my in-laws, flew my mom out to Provo and surprised me.

We both really, really enjoyed spending a couple of weeks together alone. Anthon had already moved to DC with a big truck, so it was great for me to have somebody around me to not feel too lonely.

The Spencer and Stephanie Magleby, most generous as always, let us live in their basement until I was done with spring term.

Although I didn't have a ton of free time, because spring term started just a few days after Anthon's graduation and I was taking 8 credits during that term, we still managed to spend a lot of time with each other.


On one weekend, we went to my favorite city- Las Vegas! That was probably the highlight of our time together.

My mom had only seen a little bit of Vegas, so I HAD to take her there and show her the strip, go to the "Wicked Spoon" buffet and watch a couple of Bellagio fountain shows.

Of course, I also had to let her try the 16 different Coke product flavors from all around the world. One our favorite thing to do with guests.



After a looong stay at the Ross on the strip (one of my favorite stores!), we walked some more on the strip, watched another Bellagio fountain show and went to Caesar's palace for dessert.

Dessert at Max Brenner- our absolute favorite Chocolate Restaurant and a must when you visit Vegas.

There is a neat fish tank close to Max Brenners. I had never seen fish like this one before...pretty funny.

Mission fulfilled: I successfully converted my mom to a Vegas-Lover *yeah*

Back in Provo, I couldn't believe when my mom told me that she had never gone bowling in her life....so.... we HAD to go bowling.
We invited one of our ex-sister missionaries that served in Augsburg many years ago, Marian Paller. But before we went, my mom cooked some delicious Wiener Schnitzel and made her famous Northern German potato salad....yumm!

We had so much fun going bowling! My mom was actually pretty good for her first time. In the second round, she got, I think, 2 or 3 strikes in a row.... I still don't believe she had never gone bowling before.


We also went to one of my favorite places in the area- Welfare Square! Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures...
I loved going back and showing my mom this place. I served at Welfare Square for 6 weeks during my mission and I absolutely loved it. What a remarkable welfare system!
A trip to DI afterwards, was a must, too, of course ;-)

I"m not exactly sure when we did that, but we also met up with Bob (who baptized my mom) and Cherry Reed and had some delicious dinner at the Cheesecake Factory together. My mom had never been there and I HAD to introduce her to their amazing cheesecakes *sooo dangerously good!*

On another occasion, we went to the Salt Lake Temple and did several ordinances for some of our very close relatives. We had a wonderful, spiritual and uplifting time there!
In the evening, we did endowments together with the Jeff Price, who played an important role in my mom's conversion to the church, which was really neat. Missions never end, right?

I'm so grateful that my mom got to be here for Anthon's graduation and that we could spend some time together. With my parents living so far away, we never know when we get to see them the next time. We thought that we would see them again when we have our first baby or so (that means a looooong time!), so I'm really glad that at least my mom got to fly over the lil' pond and spend some mother-daughter time with me.

Thanks to those who made this possible!!!

Some random pictures from Vegas, my photographer's paradise...

Amazing, huh?

The most stylish H&M I've ever seen... 

Graduation!!!!

No....not mine, unfortunately.

But, Anthon finally graduated from BYU this April!

I have no idea how he survived this last semester! He worked at the Church Office Building up in Salt Lake 2x a week and in addition worked as a TA.... oh, and I forgot the 16 or so credits he took, mainly business classes.

This kid has way too much energy, but I'm glad he does :-)

Anthon's graduation was the first graduation I had ever attended and it was pretty neat to watch the ceremonies with all the robes, marching, musical numbers, speeches, and handing out the certificates.

Yep, that's Elder Oaks in the red cloak.

But what made this event even greater was that we had family around! Dad Petty came from Colorado, Mom Petty from Italy, Frank and lil' Katie from Maryland, the Bergs from Switzerland, Grandma Petty from Brigham City....and my mom from Germany! Crazy!

The airlines get rich with families like ours! :-D

Because Anthon is too sneaky and too smart, we knew that the Bergs would be there, too and surprise us. We actually thought of surprising them in Heber, but we didn't know for sure when they would be at home....and we were in the middle of finals, so we ended up not doing that. That would have been so funny, though! ...maybe next time ;-)










As many of you know, I had absolutely NO idea, however, that my mom would come, too! I have no idea how Anthon and my mom could keep the secret...but they did. I was totally overwhelmed when I openend the door expecting Anthon to come home, and then saw my mom (and Anthon).

Although things were crazy with finishing up the semester, having family there, moving to DC, and attending the ceremonies, we really, really loved and enjoyed spending some time with our families (Emily, we missed you!). Kind of sad that we all live so far away from each other! Luckily, since we moved to Northern Virginia, we now have Frank & Emily closer to us- yeah!

So, what has Anthon been doing since his graduation?

Anthon was so excited about starting his job with the Department of State, that he didn't even want to take a break after graduation.
We had never been on a "real" vacation together (where just the two of you fly somewhere, stay at a hotel for a week or two, relax, see things,...), so we always talked about doing a cruise after graduation. But looking at our budget and thinking that Anthon could start working 2 weeks earlier (and earn money), Anthon decided to just start working.

Right after graduation, we packed our moving boxes, loaded a huge truck and Anthon moved to DC on his own. I stayed for spring term to get some more credits in and to keep working for a professor from the German department.

Anthon first lived with Frank and Emily for a couple of weeks, then moved to an apartment in Northern Virginia. One or two (?) weeks later, he found out that he would be sent to Haiti and work at the embassy for a month.
A few days before Anthon flew back to DC, I drove out to DC with our Honda and tried to get as much done around the apartment as possible, so that the apartment was ready for his return.
Just a little over a week after Anthon's return from Haiti, he found out (with a 2-day notice before his flight left) that he would be going to Amman, Jordan for a month. Crazy!
Luckily, I'm not going to school this summer, so I could come with him and experience what life in the State Department is like.

Anthon is always super busy, but he loves how fast the day goes by. He really likes the people he's working with, goes out to eat with them during lunch break and tries to get to know them as much as possible. He really, really loves what he is doing and we think that we really want to try to get into the "real" State Department thing where you move from country to country every 2-3 years.


More details about our time in Jordan to follow ;-)