Things I love about Israel!

1. Yummy fruit.

Dragon Fruit, Pomegranates, Pumelos, Passion fruit, Kumquats, etc.

2. Amazing parks everywhere!

3. Delicious Pastries!

Their pastries, halva, chocolate bread, and ice cream cubes have made a permanent impression on my heart.

4. Mediterranean Sea? Yes Please!
What a fun time we have had being able to walk, or drive to the sea and play in the beautiful water.

5. Green Parrots Every where!

There are so many of these beautiful green parrots here in Israel, they drive many people crazy with there annoying call but I think they are fabulous.

Pull my hair out! Israel!

These are the things that make me want to pull my hair out living here in Israel.

#1. Roaches!!! 

Oh my gosh is there anything more grotesque?

#2. Parking in a lane. 

It is no problem for someone to just stop their car in the lane and get out and run into a shop really fast, or not fast, everyone just merges into the other lane and no one ever honks.  I guess being inconsiderate is just fine here.

#3. Israeli Straddle!

It is so common here for drivers to not be able to decide what lane they want to be in so they take 2.

Notice both the van and the blue car are doing it. (it might be contagious)

Again....

And Again...

( I swear I wasn't just taking pictures of people changing lanes.)

 #4. Some of the ugliest architecture ever!

Hike

After cleaning up camp we drove about 15 minutes to the EL AL hike. It was nice weather and we were really comfortable hiking.

All of the kids had to have a walking stick so Chris broke off one for everyone. Tristan decided to share Chris'.

Just behind Chris is the top of the first waterfall, the pond is the the dark part in the lower right of the picture.

We have climbed down now and are standing in front of the waterfall.

 Tristan fell asleep, this is how I kept his head from bobbing. LOL

There are actually 2 waterfalls on this hike, usually people leave one car at the beginning and then one at the end. We couldn't do that so we only made it to the first waterfall before deciding to turn around and head back. As luck would have it just after we turned to head back we were rained on, poured on. It only lasted for about 5 minutes but it was enough to make us wet and the ground muddy, so our walk back was messy. Our kids were troopers and kept a good attitude. When we got to the car we stripped the kids down to there undies and put the muddy clothes and shoes in bags. 

What an adventure!

Camp at Galilee

I had been wanting to go on a camp out at the Sea of Galilee for some time. We wanted to wait till it wasn't so hot and then Chris got busy at work, so we didn't end up going until the 7th of November. The news said that there would be rain off and on, but I refused to push off the trip anymore. So we headed out....We got to the camp site and they said they were closed for the year. We thought this was odd since it had been in the 80's still. So we drove to the next camp place they were also closed but the nice man said that we could still camp there. And it was free!!!

We set up camp and the kids played on the fun little play ground. 

The sun started to set and we pulled out our dinner and ate.

After dinner we went in to the tent and told ghost stories (well one ghost story, after Chris told about the "click,click shhhhhh" the kids didn't want anything more to do with scary stories) We brought along our DVD players and finished the night with a movie. (Yes, I know, is this really camping?)

We woke up the next morning to the sounds of thunder in the distance, but we (I) decided to just take the morning easy and see how things went. 

(I think Chris' face is do to the unpleasant night, us two old folks spent sleeping on the ground.)

Yes the rain did hold out for us to finish eating breakfast and getting dressed and even for us to clear out the tent, unfortunately it started to pour as Chris and I put down the tent.

After our hike we came back to the Sea because Olivia was in hysterics that I had packed swimming suits but because it had started to rain I told them we would have to swim another time. 

Chris trumped me and said "Wet is wet", and took them out swimming in a down pour.

What beautiful place this is, we are thankful to have the opportunity to be here!

Happy Halloween!! 10/31/12

We started Halloween off with some spooky breakfast, skeleton eggs and spiderweb pancakes.

We then went to the school to help the kids get ready for the parade.

The parade was a quick walk around the square court yard at the school.

 My 3 tough Ninjas!

GRRRRR!

Playing In The Street Because We Can! 9-24-12

Yom Kippur is a legal holiday in the modern state of Israel. There are no radio or television broadcasts, airports are shut down, there is no public transportation, and all shops and businesses are closed. In 1973, an air raid siren was sounded on the afternoon of Yom Kippur and radio broadcasts were resumed to alert the public to the surprise attack on Israel by Egypt and Syria that launched the Yom Kippur War.

It is considered impolite to eat in public on Yom Kippur or to sound music or to drive a motor vehicle. There is no legal prohibition on any of these, but in practice such actions are universally avoided in Israel during Yom Kippur. The exception being emergency services.

Over the last few decades, bicycle-riding and inline skating on the empty streets have become common among secular Israeli youngsters, especially on the eve of Yom Kippur." 

(Taken from Wikipedia)

Not sure if it was a good thing teaching him he can run in the streets.....

The night riding was so refreshing the temperature was cool so it made it such a blast to be out.

This is us riding down the freeway on our bikes.

One of our favorite streets here is called Hanassi, but we call it shady lane because the road is lined with these huge trees that shade the whole road.

Simchat Torah 10/7/12

We were invited by some friends who knew a Jewish Rabbi, to the Celebration of Simchat Torah. This is where for the year they have finished the reading of the Torah and roll it back to the start. There is a lot of prayer,singing, and dancing. We had a lot of fun and it was a really neat experience.

The Torah Scroll

This is where they read from the Torah the end of Deuteronomy and then they roll it back to Genesis.

This is the process of them rolling back the scroll

The man in the blue shirt is the United States Ambassador for Israel, there was only a small group of Americans, so we thought it was really fun to be there at the same time as him. He had body guards there of course.

It is a terrible picture, but I got to hold the scrolls.

A video of all the singing and dancing. The people take turns carrying the scrolls and dancing with them.