On May 6 Jackie and I left on our adventure. Last year I went to Lebanon by myself to deliver a baby, and I kept feeling like I had left my pocket handkerchief at home. (I think that's from The Hobbit. If not, then it's from The Fellowship of the Ring. Timothy will know.) Well, when we left together, I discovered that I didn't feel that way this time. I realized that Jackie is my pocket handkerchief! I loved that he and I went together on this adventure.
We drove to San Antonio and Emily took us out to eat Greek food (we realized the irony of eating Middle Eastern food right before we left for Lebanon, and laughed together!) and then drove us to the airport. I love the San Antonio airport. The lady at the check-in desk put us in adjoining seats all the way to Beirut. (That wasn't the case when we left Beirut; we were booked in separate seats all the way home. But we still managed to sit together!)
The trip was basically smooth, and we arrived in Beirut at about 11:15 pm local time on May 7. Jason was there to meet us, and we drove to Tyre, arriving there at about 1 am on May 8. He told us that this time was going to be different, that he thought Jenna was going to take her time getting here. I hugged Sarah briefly in the hallway in the dark before we all went to bed.
We spent the next week seeing the sights of Lebanon. First we went to the Cedar Tree Reserve. There aren't many cedar trees left in Lebanon, but they are trying to remedy that. Cedars are funny. The young trees don't look like the mature ones. I'm not sure at what point they change, but they really do change.
In the picture above, you can see the mature tree in the middle, and the young trees all around. Isn't the change strange?
"Our family" in the cedar trees of Lebanon.
After the cedars, we ate in Saida, the old Bible town of Sidon. This is the outdoor cafe at which we ate, and Jackie with the plates after we had eaten already! Not much left, I'm afraid.
Above is the outdoor cafe.
Across the street from it is a Crusader Castle/Fort. (If you stop to think about it, Crusader ruins are some of the more recent ruins in this area, from 1100-1200 AD.)
Next we visited a big mosque in Saida, and Sarah and I had to cover up, so we borrowed scarves from the gatekeeper.
Jackie took an amazing shot of the interior of the mosque with this lone praying man. The next day was the day Jackie got sick, and he was sick all night and stayed in bed all the next day. Be thankful I don't have pictures.
The following day, Wednesday, we went to the beach.
Above is the city of Tyre.
This is as "uncovered" as Sarah gets to go swimming. Jude is in the foreground with the red flowered shorts.
I was showing a little more leg, but I didn't have very specific instructions about swimming attire, so I think I did pretty well overall. Jackie and I went walking around the city by ourselves some. We went to a certain part of the beach and picked up old pieces of pottery that wash up from the old ruins of Tyre and from wrecks of ships off the coast. We walked around the souk, the marketplace, one day with Brenda. We walked around the old Roman bath ruins with Danny. Jason took us to the Hippodrome and the via Romana one day, and another he took us to the lighthouse and by the Tyre shipbuilder. Dani took us down some alleyways that made us think we were in old-time Bible days because they were soooo narrow. They felt like donkey trails, and probably were. Now they're paved. We sat in on several English classes and talked some with the students. And Jason took us to another Crusader Castle, this one where we could get a view of Mt. Hermon.
The grounds of the Roman baths.
Picking up pottery pieces.On Saturday we went back to the beach and met all kinds of other friends there. It was really fun! Jackie felt good enough that he played ultimate frisbee with some of the other people. I enjoyed the wonderful ocean. We both got too much sun. Afterwards, we went back to Jason and Sarah's house and ordered pizza, and a bunch of other people came over and helped us eat it. Around 6 pm, most everyone was going home. It had been quite a day. But it was not over. Sarah started cleaning house! Finally, about 10 pm, I told her it was time to quit, but she kept vacuuming, saying she would feel better if it was done. She was having contractions.
She went to bed soon after, and woke up in labor at 1:30 am. It was May 16. Jason got me up at 3:30 or so, and when I checked her at 4 am, she was well on her way to having baby Jenna! It was a wonderful birth for Sarah. It went so smoothly and quickly. She didn't have any trouble pushing as she had done for Jude's birth. Baby Jenna was born at 6:14 am, and Jude woke up about 5 minutes later! It was really really special to me to be there for this birth! And now I will have to leave the three days of Ireland for another post. This takes a lot of time....
Beautiful babies!
