Happy Monday, Everyone!

As some of you may know, our little family was in the Middle East during Lennon’s first birthday. We wanted to make Lennon’s first birthday one for the books, so while planning our trip, we decided to spend his first birthday in Petra, Jordan!

We know he won’t remember a thing about this trip, but at least we have amazing pictures for him to look at when he’s older. I mean, how many people can say they rode a camel in Petra on their first birthday?! I wanted to record what we did on this b-day and also how we went through Petra because it was amazing.

To start, we woke up at the crack of dawn and whispered Happy Birthday to our little boy. We wanted to get an early start so we could have the full day to celebrate our little one-year-old!

We stayed at a great Airbnb right near Petra and our host was actually in charge of a lot of tour guides within Petra so he knew everything. He suggested that we go the back way and start our journey at the Monastery. I HIGHLY suggest doing this. First, because it is empty at that time so you get amazing pictures and you go down the 850 stairs instead of up. So, we drove along the bumpiest road of my life (probably because it wasn’t really a real road just kind of a dirt path up a mountain) and arrived at the back trailhead. It was so beautiful looking over Petra on our walk to the Monastery.

The Monastery was incredible. I think it was my favorite building in Petra. The Treasury is the most popular, but wow the Monastery was just breathtaking. After we enjoyed a little breakfast at the little cafe overlooking this wonder, we headed down the stairs toward our ride for the day – CAMELS! We passed quite a few people making their way up the staircase and I felt so bad for them haha.

The camels were a must for us. For some reason, we really wanted Lennon to ride a camel on his first birthday and I’m so glad he did! The pics are the cutest thing. (Side note: Lennon happened to get to ride the tallest camel in Petra!)

The camels went all through Petra and we got to see everything! Our guides would stop whenever we wanted to hop off and go closer to some of the buildings. We went to the Treasury and enjoyed a little snack before heading back to our Airbnb. The crazy thing is that the camels literally took us to the front door haha.

We didn’t get Lennon any birthday cake or traditional first birthday party activities, but I think he is going to seriously love looking back at the pictures from this trip!

Where should we take Lennon for his second birthday?! Kind of joking, but also not 😉 Let me know in the comments!