Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem

Yesterday was an excellent day.  We went to BETHLEHEM.  Christ was BORN in Bethlehem!!!

We started off the day at one of Herod's many palaces, the Herodion... cool palace, but that Herod was pretty into himself.

Heading down into the cistern, almost not making it under that little door -- kind of like in Jordan when Tom said "watch your head" and as he said it I clocked my head on the top of the tombs... Real solid.

I'm so glad Liddy is here with me.  This is our classic mother/daughter hold, and it's always fun to reminisce about silly High School stories together.

Best ice cream in the city. But seriously.

This is typically how we walk around town.  They just want to be sure not to lose me.

The Church of the Nativity -- the traditional site of Christ's birth.  Cool chapel, but I wish we had more time downstairs!  We waited in a long line to get downstairs and rush through.

Andrew and I had these people believe IN CHINESE that we were engaged...  They loved it.  Eating it up.

Michael's excellent idea to have a manger scene at the site of the actual manger!

Manger Square where we bought the cutest little Bethlehem baby blankets for all our future BABIES!

We finished off the day in Mormon Shepherd's Field.  A beautiful site overlooking Bethlehem where we had time to write in our journal, read our scriptures and sing Christmas hymns together.  Such a cool thing to picture Mary traveling over that rocky terrain on a donkey.  I'm so blessed to be here and learn about Christ and his life at the places where these things happened.  It makes everything so applicable.

This is me getting mad at Quin because he cannot for the life of him be normal in a picture.

Luckily he redeemed himself with this one shortly after...

We were able to stay in the field until after sun down.  It was cool to be there at night.  It made everything so real.

Oh Little Town of Bethlehem, I love you.