So. many. pictures.

The fambam wants to see pictures from Jerusalem.

Which is understandable.

But we have more than 7500 pictures from the 117 days we spent not in California.

And looking through the pictures and finding ones that they would care about is becoming quite the task.

Seriously, there are SO many pictures. Plus, it doesn't help that there are so many duplicates from Nicole and I taking pictures of the same thing, but with different cameras and at different times.

But it has been really fun to look through all our pictures that seem like they were taken so long ago. There are so many pictures though. Ahhh. It's overwhelming.

And I haven't even tried to upload them to facebook. Oh gosh, this is going to be dangerous. haha

But it's funny because Charlotte and I have SO many pictures together. And we are so attractive in all of them. haha so I've decided to dedicate this post to Charlotte and our marvelous pictures. :)

Miss you Lottie Dottie! :((

As a little bit of a sidenote (and sorry for stealing all your glory Lottie),

I also found this great picture:

I miss this kid, especially after our skype date yesterday. :(

Long distance marriages are really tough, let me tell you.

Oh Jerusalem. :(

Sweet Home California.

Well team, I'm back home again.

And I keep thinking about tons of things I should blog about but then I haven't done it... and now I can't remember all the things I wanted to say. Oh well.

But I've been home since Tuesday night. And we finally got our luggage from SFO on Thursday, which was super exciting.

AirFrance said that they had two bags at SFO and that the other one was in LA still but we still wanted two so we drove up there to get them and it turned out they had all three! Super exciting day!

Our snowglobes (the items that we were pretty worried about) made it safe and sound. :) So great. We were a little worried about them because we didn't pack them super duper well but they made it. And I just looked at all the little tags on my bag and it went from Vienna to Paris (with us) and then once it was left there it went to Atlanta, and then LA and then it came to SFO. What a world traveler. :)

I want to do a super fun "I miss Jerusalem because it was Christmas which makes me think of Bethlehem" post but I don't have the energy for that right now. haha

So yep, tomorrow marks my "One week home" point. I can't believe it's been a week. haha

Oh! Yesterday at church, Lindsay Hall was there, super presh.

And today, I skyped with Josh Ludlow (and thus, Junior, Joe and the rest of the family... except for the little girls because they were sleeping). But it was so fun. I love that family. :) It's weird because there is a 10 hour time difference. So it was like 10:30 at night there and it was just after noon here. Strange. It was really fun though. Obviously we're going to have to do it again.

Let's seeee. I suppose this is the end of this super informative post. Four more days of this year. Ahhh! Crazyyy.

Productivity.

Obviously within the first couple of days being home, it was necessary to take some super fun webcam pictures. And no one really wanted to take any with me so it was necessary to take some with whoever would join... and then by myself.

Twinners. :)

And now we're the same person.

Look at my cute little headband Jack made.

Typical.

I was laughing so hard when this picture was being taken, clearly.

With little Nate and Kiki.

Shmack is back!

Such a funny day.

Close up of my eye, obvi.

Three seeesters. :)

And that's how I spent my second morning home. Totes a good idea. :)

What the?!

Good news: We are home!

Bad news: Getting home was much more of a hassle than we had anticipated.

We got to wake up in Vienna at 3:45. Finished packing and getting all organized and then meet our taxi (and our new airport friend) on the curb at 4:30. After loading our bags, and waiting for a little bit so that our friend could go get her passport, which she had forgotten, and then we drove to the airport. On the way to the airport, we realized that we needed to repack almost an entire bag due to the contents that couldn't be carried on. Haha I would go into more detail but some people who read this will be getting some of these items for Christmas. SO it's a super secret, for now. :)

At the airport, Nicole repacked and I checked us in... well tried. We went to AirFrance but apparently it was an AirFrance flight operated by Austrian Air. So we had to check in with Austrian. Which was the best part about the entire day. The guy that helped us was SO nice. He didn't care that both of out checked bags were overweight (23.8 kg for mine/24.4 kg for Nicole's). He didn't even mention it. He just put the little tags on them and sent them through. So nice. :) We then had to go and pay for our third bag which was SUPER lame because it was 75 EUROS. Boo. :( The only issue though was that he tried to check our bags straight through to SJC but he couldn't find our flight. haha he says that it didn't exist. So he just checked them through to LA. But going into the day, we knew that we were going to be stuck, at least for a while, in LA. Always a good feeling...

We then went to wait for our flight. Aka go sit right outside Starbucks until we could go through security/to our gate. In weird European airports, they have personal security for each gate... so we had to wait until it was our flight's time. But once we went through, we waited at the gate and the annoying lady tried to convince me that I needed to check my other suitcase because it weighed more than 8 kgs. I kinda went along with it because she was leaving it up to me but since I didn't really know where I was supposed to take it and because that's ridiculous, I just brought it on the plane with me and it was fine. :)

The flight to Paris was great. There was an empty seat between us, I sat at the window and they fed us a DELICIOUS chocolate chip muffin. So yummy. I also got to watch the sunrise over Austria which was beautiful. Great flight.

Once we landed in Paris, we had an hour and a half, exactly, before our flight to LA left. We had to run through the airport, find the new terminal, run down the huge airport, cut through the huge protest, and then arrive at the Border Control line. Which took FOREVER. We were in the line for a good 35 minutes before they let us cut because our flight was going to leave in 15 minutes. haha so we zipped through that, ran down the airport, got on a little train, went through security, and then arrived at our gate. We literally walked on the flight at 10:45, which is when the flight was supposed to take off. We weren't even the last ones on the plane and we didn't end up leaving for another hour and 15 minutes but it was still nice being on the plane and being able to relax. :)

Once we finally took off, it was a great flight. The food was not good, but we still ate it. We had our own tv's so we watched Modern Family, How I Met Your Mother, Friends, etc. And then I took a little nap, which felt like 5 hours but it was only an hour, and then we just wasted time. I did some stuff on my computer (aka money stuff to fill out the customs form, and played solitare), and then watched Slumdog Millionare (SO GOOD.) and before we knew it, it was time to land! It didn't really feel like that long of a flight, which was weird because it was like a 12 hour flight. And we sat on the plane for an hour before we even took off. BUT the best part about the whole thing was that they had Häagen-Dazs ice cream that we got to eat on the airplane. This is a concept that I have never participated in and it DEFINITELY gave them some gold stars. Good work AirFrance. The hour before we landed though felt like FOREVER. Probably because they made us put all our fun activities away and we kept thinking that we were going to land at anymoment. Not true. It took far too long. But once we did land, it was great.

We then had to deal with our lack of airplane ride home. And we kept forgetting that we weren't in one of our airports. We walked to Passport control, where we got to wait in line for a while, and then we walked up to the desk and the guy was super nice and cool about letting us into our own country. Which is surprisingly not normal. haha But he was super nice and he made that part much better. We then waited for our luggage... that never came. So we had to report that all while trying to figure out how to get on a plane home... It turned out to be REALLY good that they lost our bags (well, not lost, just not placed on our flight) because then we didn't have to recheck them and pay. haha :)

We went to Alaska Airlines and checked in and apparently our flight had changed to 9:10 or something late but there was another flight at 5:57 that we wanted to be on but it was a $25 to change... so worth it. We basically payed $25 to get out of LA 3 hours earlier; SO worth it. haha so we went and hung out at our new gate, charged our phones while updating facebook/texting peeps and the like.

We finally boarded our little baby plane, they gate checked my bag (the best thing ever) and sat on the plane. Our last flight and it was only going to be an hour. Easy peasy. But it felt like SO long. Probably because we were so tired and done being stressed and the like but it was ridiculous how long it felt. And the funniest part was when we landed and the people behind me stood up and I heard them say "Ahhhh. Wow, it feels so good to be able to stand up and stretch our legs." To which I was thinking... "Riiiiiiiiight, because that hour long flight really takes it out of you..." By that point, Nicole and I had been flying for 15 hours and sitting in airports/traveling for 30 hours? Ridiculous.

Haha we got our gate-checked bag, headed through the little airport and then waited for our family to pick us up. They greeted us with sticky pop and red-hot cookies. Delicious.

We then drove home and ate enchiladas and they grilled us about all our adventures. Too bad our bags were still in Paris or we could've shown them all our goods. haha but then we hung out until mighty late (okay, like 10) and then we went to bed.

Andddd the good thing about jetlag is obviously waking up at 6:30 in the morning. Boo. That wasn't fun at all. haha obviously the way to begin a much productive day. :)

It's good to be home. Although I still miss this place like crazy:

Another list.

Things that are going to seem strange, in the States.
1. Having a top sheet. I'm going to miss the european duvet. :(

2. Driving. And the lack of honking horns.

3. Suburbia. First time not living in a capital city since August (okay, September...)

4. Free public bathrooms!

5. Cleanliness of the world.

6. English as the dominant language. And not getting strange looks when asking people to speak english...

7. Lack of falafel/shwarma.

8. Not having to mentally convert prices to dollars.

Tis all for now. More to come, I'm sure! Homeward bound now! :))

A list for you. (First Edition).

Things my brain hasn't fully put together, about being home from Jerusalem: First Edition, Clearly.

1. When I see Israel in the news, it takes me a while to realize that I don't live there anymore and thus it isn't as big of a deal to me (still a big deal, but not as personal).

2. I keep forgetting that in just a couple short hours (well, 33), I will be flying back home to California... not Israel.

3. Being out at night, with just two people, and no boy, is not a problem.

4. Late night chats with my **hubby are NO MORE. Infact, I might not ever see that kid again, at the looks of things which is even sadder since we didn't have a proper goodbye (or any goodbye at all...) :( Which also reminds me that there is a potential I won't see half of these friends again. Not okay.

5. The next time I'll have to live out of a suitcase, besides now, is April. No more random week-long field trips.

6. It isn't as fun to take pictures with our digital SLR because taking random, creepy pics in a giant city are just that... creepy. No more Brother Ludlow paparazzi or funny random shots of the Jru happenings.

7. No more pita lunches. (JOKES, my brain has FULLY accepted this one.)

8. French toast made from pitas and my favorite cereal are no more. This one is actually distressing.

9. No more messy roommate, or favorite Canadian roommate. Or people walking in randomly to hang out.

10. Not needing to check the weather for Jerusalem... but doing it anyway because I care.

We'll keep it at that.

I miss you Jerusalem. This separation is harder than I had anticipated. :(

And ignore the super happy picture, I just thought the world like might like to see this jem: jumping over the Dome.

**Special HAPPY BIRTHDAY shoutout to the best husband in Jerusalem, Josh Ludlow! You're finally 17 years old! All the lying for the past two months is no longer a lie! :) I hope you have a marvelous day, even though I'm not there. Good thing you already got your birthday kisses (except not from me....). HAPPY BIRTHDAY STUDLOW... number three! :)

Sabbath... on Sunday.

Since September 3, we've had church on Saturday... So we would always say shabbat shalom and the like. It has been really nice and I've actually gotten really accustomed to having a free Sunday!

Today though, we went back to the normal world and we had church on Sunday. It would've been strange had we had a real schedule and our schedule was just thrown off. But we've been so busy and traveling and such so we really don't have a distinction between weekdays/weekends/Sabbath. haha

We went to a super small little ward/branch? but it was pretty good. We took a bus and then a tram and then walked a block to get there and we got there right on time, perfect!

The funny thing was that there were SO many missionaries in that ward.

A Senior Couple, a companionship of Elders and a trio of Sisters. Out of control.

And people were super excited to hear that we had just gotten back from Jerusalem. One of the Sisters went there in Winter '10 and there was a girl in the ward whose parents were in town and we were talking to the mom, from Lindon, UT, and her other daughter just got back from Jerusalem in April. Crazy.

It was a fun little adventure.

We then went downtown to visit a couple of churches. And just like the Taylors told us the other day, it was weird going into a church and not having to put on our ears and listen about the Byzantines and all that. haha and for the record, insense still makes me nauseous and gives me a headache. Good thing there is none of that in the States. :)

And now it's time to pack and get ready to leave soon. Tomorrow is our last full day and Tuesday involves leaving for the airport at 4:30 am or so. Normally I would complain about that but that is the theme of this trip so we've come to accept it.

:)