On my mom's visit to Jordan, she really wanted to see the Baptism Site of Jesus that is near the Dead Sea and only about a 45 minute drive from my house.

We rented a car and I did my best to look up directions before hand (knowing from experience that proper directions to anywhere is pretty rare here in Jordan) so to avoid an insanely long and unnecessary trip. Well...no such luck.

The car rental guys told me to head in one direction which was exactly the same direction/highway that I thought but internet directions and the car rental guys all failed to mention how quickly we needed to turn off of the main highway. So, we ended up driving for an additional 3 hours more then we needed too and went WAY farther south then we were suppose to. Oh well.

We got a very beautiful scenic route that my mom wouldn't have seen other wise and we learned that I am a good evasive driver when it comes to pot holes. I like to bring that up and now i think my mom is worried I'm going to go to war somewhere in the world just to I can work on my evasive driving....I haven't ruled it out just yet. :)

My mom went to enjoy the holy site and I sat in the rental car for an hour and half and worked on my final paper for grad school. I felt badly that I had so much work to do while my mom was here, cause I wan't able to just relax and show here everything, but I guess it happens. It's kind of the "pros/cons" of when people go visit their family/friends in a foreign country and get to go visit a new place with a built in tour guide that can take care of all the plans...except that it's not new to that person and their responsibilities continue on there even though people came to visit. Its like my mom said, she was on vacation being here in Jordan, where as I was trying to help her have a vacation in between the thing I still had to get done.

I'm happy she came to visit, I just kinda wish I had been able to take her more places. I'm really excited for this paper to be done once and for all in the next month or so. Then, I can go back to my old "quiet" life of only having two full-time jobs (Arabic and Mercy Corps) instead of three jobs that all require my full-time attention. Two I can handle. I feel a bit crazy, but I can do it. Three is officially just NOT OK. Too much! No feeling of release at all cause I then always feel like there is still something else I need to be doing....well, cause there is!!!

Soon, I will have two and it will be glorious!!!