ps- new blog

So, Analyn and I also created a new blog. Check it out!

I got married.

So, I flew home and got married. Analyn and I then took an extended weekend away at a cabin before hustling and bustling to get everything done we needed to in UT before flying back to Jerusalem. Here's a couple of pictures that were provided via email by Noah, my cousins wife, because I wasn't carrying around a camera with me, and we don't expect to get the professional ones for a little while longer (they have to fly half way around the world before we can see them...).

So, we got married in the SLC temple, then had a luncheon in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building for family and close friends, then later that night we had a reception at the Utah County Courthouse in Provo.
Here, Beautiful Analyn poses for a picture, while I try to rush her away. This is not our child...don't freak out, it's my little niece, Tori. At the luncheon, they did a pretty good job making everything fancy for us. The county courthouse and our caterer did a pretty good job also. Apparently, we were pretty popular- we sat and talked to people for hours, and they just kept coming. The line was huge. But then again, that's what happens when you have parents that know just about everyone in the city... ps- no jokes about my growing bald spot. I will not have my self esteem become as devastated and desolate as my head will soon be.

Full outside J'lem

One of the fun things about living in J'lem is that there is so much to do so close. So when Analyn was here, we went on some road trips to a couple little places. Here are the pictures to prove it.

In Caeserea, we wandered around in the ruins of Roman-ess and strangely, found a little art shop that sells artful tops/dreidals. Probably way expensive also...
Then we traveled on to Haifa and saw a little bit of the Baha'i Gardens there. Sadly, the main shrine was covered in scaffolding for maintenance. Then we headed a little further up the coast to Akko, which is an old port and crusader fortress. Probably one of my most favorite places I've seen so far. The town just had a great feel to it...One of my friends from school, Corinna Hann, came along for the ride and took all those pictures, so Thanks Cori, if you ever read this...

Later in the week, Analyn and I headed up to the Galilee via the West Bank (we had a fun experience at a check point being detained- for future reference: when being checked at a check point in the West Bank on an American Passport, with a girlfriend who speaks no Hebrew, don't speak Hebrew to the guard, even if you do want to show off for your girlfriend...it leads no good place, as the best that can be assumed is that guardsman will think that you are somewhat suspicious and make a thorough check of your passports and not just wave you through as a non-arab in a rental car. The other option is that they consider you foolish and possibly somewhat a traitor as you look like a Jew- honestly who else would speak Hebrew like that?- who is refusing to join the rest of their people in immigrating to Israel and they force you to the side and do a full automobile check...luckily, they didn't feel like strip searches were warranted...). It was a pretty rainy day, so we didn't stay anywhere very long, but this is us being posers at Capernaum and the Sea of Galilee.