I wonder why?  But the two occasions are a week apart and seems like one occasion.  This was our small Christmas Day and our New Year Day Lunch with our family.

Some people prefer to have a large gathering but we seem to love our small together lunch & dinner.  It’s been two years since we decided to cook & eat a meal that is usually out of the blues for us.  This is what makes the day different and exciting…  The traditional Goan food for such occasion has stopped since we cook them during our parties…  I suggest that you try that out… or treat yourself to something that you’d never do normally.

Yes, we have two birthdays in our home…

17th December is Crystal’s birthday and this we celebrated on the 19th with close family (cousins).  Click here for pictures of the day.  This was a children’s Christmas party too but Santa had to fly off far away and did not come for it.  But he did keep some surprises for the kids the night before.

30th December is mama Bena’s birthday and this was celebrated as a surprise in Winner’s Restaurant.  Bena only knew that we going to have a simple dinner along with my Dad in the evening.  Little did she know that I had to drop off the cake an hour before we arrived.  Stage was being set by our friends, Carlos & Agnelo, who work there.  We arrived as normal, looked for the table in the center because it was not crowed. Sat down, read the menu and placed our order.  After dinner – SURPRISE!!!  The birthday song was being played while the cake was brought out…  Bena looked around wondering “someone must have their birthday today”  Click here for the pictures.

Overjoyed with the information that a tour will take off during the Eid holidays, we signed up for the tour with Dnata Travels.  Wild shopping sprees began and checklist were being ticked and reached over again. Yes the excitement was building up.  My wife and myself, at the time of booking, only had this down in theory but looked forward for the really event.

Finally, December 4th, we arrived at the airport, early & awaited for our agent.  We got together, the whole group met and checked in. An overwhelming feeling arising within me, it was the excitement building up and looking forward for the next few days… We took off for Jordan via the Jordanian Airlines & arrived in Amman at night. To greet us was the local travel agent in a huge tour bus, taking us to the hotel…  Below are the web albums for each day (pictures talk a thousand words):

Day 1 - Day 2 - Day 3 - Day 4 - Day 5 - Day 6 - Day 7 - Day 8

Ingredients & highlights of our Tour:
1)  A fun & loving Tour Agent, Mr. Marcel
2)  An exciting and informative Tour Guide, Mr. Nasser
3)  A friendly & co-operative Tour group from various age group and background
4)  Visiting the “Church of the Nativity”, “Golgotha”, “Tomb of Jesus”, “Via Dolorosa”
5)  Wonderful weather although it was supposed to be the winter season

Points to remember when you are on this Tour:
1)  Early rising (wakeup) at 5:30/6:00am followed by a quick breakfast
2)  Keep your cameras close to you and ever ready (You’ll feel like your a photographer Journalist)
3)  Know where your baggage are at all times
4)  Proceed across the borders & check point orderly and quickly to the bus (remember these are long drives)
5)  Carry plenty water ‘cause you’ll feeling thirsty during the long walks & wear soft comfortable shoes
6)  Don’t carry heavy huge luggage or you’ll end up dragging a bag of stones
7)  Keep the next day’s wear ready to hop into
8)  Have the Rosary, small Bible & pray book at hand
9)  Keep close to the group or you’ll end up wasting time finding for the rest!

My parents and our girls when on a Holy Land tour towards the end of March, 2008.  This was during their school break, just before the new academic year.

They arrived Jordan on 20th… Spend the night there & the next morning drove to Jerusalem and walked the “Via Dolorosa” on Good Friday… a blessed moment, walking the “Way of the Cross”.  They got to visit so many places (describing each, in detail, would take about 10 web pages!!).  On Easter Sunday, they reached Bethlehem and visited the Church of the Nativity (Birth place of Jesus Christ).

The tour lasted 9 days after which they retuned all exhausted but thrilled to have visited places from the Bible.

Yes, “Rocky” seems to back in fashion… I’m reemerging from my long gap with my blog…

So many events have happened, both fun & sad. And time has not been a friend. A gap of about one and a half year has flown like a minute. My promise to updated the blog “tomorrow” did not stay and events kept building up and never did get pen down.

I’ll try to updated you’ll with these events… if I remember the chronological order… (keeping my fingers crossed)