Well, we’re finally back in Washington DC, and hoping not to have to go anywhere anytime soon. 

Since Brody proposed it has been quite the whirl-wind tour, with us traveling more in a year than most people probably do in a lifetime.  After Italy, it was Valentine’s Day in Pakistan, with a quick trip to the no-man’s land of Peshawar where you can buy some sweet Stinger missiles on the street and where the Taliban and Mr. Bin Laden are known to hang out. We spent a morning hunkered down in a jewelry shop in the market while angry students tore apart a bank nearby.  That afternoon we bought a couple of carpets for our (as yet non-existent) house.

Our next trip was a bit more relaxing as we found ourselves in Thailand.  I had my wedding dress made to order while we were there, and we also purchased most of the decorations for the wedding while wandering the country.  April was a great time to visit Thailand (if a bit warm) as it was the time of the Songkran festival where everything shuts down for a couple of days and everyone patrols the streets armed with water guns, water balloons, and just buckets of water, looking for someone moderately dry to drench…Its great fun!

After Thailand, Brody was finally able to join me in Iraq.  He made it there by early May; though it didn’t last for as long as we were hoping.  By late June we were in Jordan, working harder than we had in months, but also exploring what Jordan had to offer on the weekends.  One weekend it was the Dead Sea, the next it was Petra, and the third was spent at Wadi Rum and Aqaba.  While Jordan isn’t exactly known for its mountains, I wouldn’t recommend trying to climb its second highest one unprepared and then having to call it quits and walk the 15? miles back down and around the mountain to get home in the heat of the afternoon in the middle of the hottest time of the year.  Then I would also not recommend going swimming in the Red Sea and be the only woman wearing a bathing suit…

While we were exploring Jordan, we also made plans to visit Beirut on our way back to the States.  Two days later Israel bombed the airport.  Then we found out that if you are going to go by land from Jordan to Lebanon you would have had to obtain a Syrian visa in your country of origin (i.e. in Washington DC).  By then it was full on war, so we didn’t really want to go anymore, we went to Egypt instead.  Yeah…should’ve picked Cyprus.

The Pyramids are big, rather impressive from a distance, but you’ll learn more about them if you watch a National Geographic special on them.  Same for Luxor.  Same for the Valley of the Kings…(though Brody’s made a sweet map of it).

From Egypt it was onto Paris…Yep, its official, I am the luckiest woman alive, Brody flew me to Paris just for a day so that we could go on a real date.  Swoon.  What more could a woman ask for?

From Paris we met Brody’s parents in Salt Lake City and then drove up to Idaho Falls with them.  We spent most of the time there trying to accomplish as many wedding preparations as we could, because who knew when we would be in town again?  We visited the Ranch and breathed a sigh of relief in seeing that we had picked an awesome place to have the wedding. 

While we were in the States (for maybe the only time before the wedding) we had to be sure to stop in DC to say hello to everyone while we could.  We knew we had to leave the States for tax reasons, but until we actually left we weren’t sure where we were going to go.  When Brody visited his former employers, they mentioned that they might have a position for him in Lebanon.  We thought that could be interesting, but as with many projects there were funding issues and it didn’t happen…so in the end, we had to put our backup plan into action…Nairobi!

From DC we stopped over in Amsterdam for three days on our way to Kenya.  Who doesn’t love Amsterdam?  It was my first visit and will not be my last.  Biking along canals, shopping for a picnic at the farmer’s market, eating said picnic in a gorgeous park...it was fabulous.

We arrived in Nairobi with everything we would need for a year, but didn’t have a place to stay when we got off the airplane.  Yeah, planning ahead is apparently not our strongest suit.  But we hit the ground running and were checking out possible places to live the next day.  After a few days we found a cute little place that we were quite pleased with and set about trying to find a job.  Yeah, that didn’t work so well.  We knew people who could put us in touch with other people there, but no one really had any leads for us.  After about a month my former employer approached me about a short-term position in Afghanistan.  I thought that would be perfect, I would be able to work for a month or two, earn enough to live there for a while longer, maybe Brody would have found a job by then, and it would just be a matter of time before I did as well.  I was ready to go the next day, but there was paperwork to fill out, and then it had to be submitted to someone, and then to someone else.  Then I had to wait, but it would be any day now.  And so I waited, and waited some more, then I started asking questions.  Too bad no one knew what was going on.  After a month of waiting we had to get out of there, it was driving us crazy, just sitting around waiting for something to happen.  They told me they were doing everything they can, and that I should hang on a bit longer.

But too make a long story short, we're back in the states. No Afghanistan, no Franzbekistan, and no Vanuatu. In DC. And that's that.