Merry Christmas!!

Wow it is amazing that it is Christmas eve already.. This year flew by! With a new baby and a big move I think made it seem to go by even faster :-) Still mindboggling that we are this close to 2009

This will be short blog today. I have been lax - sorry! But it has been busy. We had Sebastian's offcie Christmas/Hanukkah party here the day after his parents arrived (last week) which is when we took the picture above. Ty was not real thrilled to sit for a picture which is unlike her...but with so many people around and so many things going on - well lets just say it was the end of the day and she was DONE :-)

We have not done a whole lot of travelling so far. We squeezed in going to Caesarea two days ago when the wind literally almost blew us over!! Casaerea is an old roman port by the sea and we were covered with salt & sand by the time things were done. It was a sign of things to come. The weather has not been great - windy, storming and rainy the last couple days (we found Alex does NOT like thunderstorms at night). So we are looking forward to the sun returning to do some day trips..

Making things more interesting, Sebastian and Ty have caught a cold/flu bug and I am not sure if I have that or an allergic reaction. For those that know me well, the 'godfather' voice is back and I feel like I swallowed razor blades! Ugh! Not quite what we wanted right before Christmas but what can you do? LOL Here's hoping the sore throats, etc disappear asap! (& that Alex and the in-laws do not get sick!!)

On that note I am off to start Christmas eve dinner.....tomorrow, weather (and health)permitting, we are off to have Christmas lunch at the Sea of Galilee so I will not be on for a couple days.....

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!!

When the Cats Away the Mice.....

....find the diaper creme and think it's skin lotion!!! LOL I was upstairs nursing Alex thinking Ty was still asleep in bed..I came downstairs and found that she was definitely NOT asleep anymore!! And quite proud of herself as well! Ahhhh well -she will have very moisturized skin, right?! :-)

Guess who likes to stand??

Sighs...Yes that is our 6 1/2 month old little chub legs standing already......Actually from this angle you cannot appreciate HOW chubby her lil thighs are :-) Skype me and I'll show ya!

Unlike her sister, Alex decided the 6th month would be a good time to become proficient at commando crawling and standing! Not quite what Mom wanted but as long as she cannot get past the stairs in the family room I am safe (not sure how long that is going to last).....

Missed the shot of her hands grabbing that bottom stair :) This is what happens when we leave the room for a moment and don't take her with us. Stubborn!!! Where in the world does she get that?!?! hahaha And yes that is marble tiled floors - one reason I was wishing she would take the slow route to crawling/walking. The rosy cheeks are not from the sun - she is teething though none have popped through yet!

All this movement has changed things haha Tyler is interacting with her more -often to 'save' something that is hers. Not surprisingly sharing changes from day to day with what is 'Ty's" and what can be shared.

Looking so sweet - till she lets loose her "terradactyl" screech...the one she uses when she wants your attention. Trust me - it works!! Tyler does not appreciate it and sometimes it results in the scream wars.....I thought that wasn't to start till they hit their teens?? LOL

You know you are a Dad when....

When your "Crackberry" - as your wife calls it - used to look all professional.........

...till your daughter gets a hold of it and now it looks like this......

Just so Daddy remembers her at work LMAO She did this to Sebastian's blackberry one night when we were out for dinner!

Dead Sea, En Gedi & Masada

Well Sebastian took some time off this Thanksgiving week and we really packed it in!!! First we hit the Dead Sea where you will also find En Gedi - a desert oasis. We also went to the fortress Masada, high up on the cliffs facing the Sea and Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found...

The kids were troopers - especially Ty. She really enjoyed En Gedi (as did we all) and the animals. But the next day at Masada I think she'd hit her limit for walking and site-seeing :-) Wednesday we went back to the house to take a quick break and re-pack for the Galilee trip.

Masada was impressive. I ended up carrying Tyler quite a bit (she had exhaustion and mama-citis at the same time) so missed a chunk so I am looking forward to our next outing there where I may have another opportunity to see it. (We live close enough that we can, and have, done it as a day trip) Qumran was not quite what I was expecting. Seeing the cave from a distance was sort of anti-climatic...other sites on the trip more than make up for it though!!

Alex is doing the inchworm crawl and wanting big Sisters stuff which is making things interesting LOL We ended up staying at the Youth Hostel of all places. It was fantastic. If any of you make it here (or are here) and need hotels DO check these places out. They are not the small dorm-room crappy types of things. The ones we have seen and stayed at are newer and with kids it works out great!! A lot less expensive too!! Which is saying alot give what they charge in Israel for hotel rooms (bloody ridiculous and for not much). The only bad thing if you can call it that is I usually push the beds together & against a wall so me and the kids sleep in one bed and Daddy lucks out with a bed of his own! (Sigh) Not fair, but with Alex still wanting to eat at night its the easiest way!

Next blog is Galilee...

Sea of Galilee & Area

On our way to the Sea of Galilee we stopped at a couple places. Mount of the Beatitudes was first. Also called the temple on the mount its known as the site where Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount: "Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven...."

The Catholic church there is run by Franciscan nuns - one of which came up to Ty as she ran to me in a shy moment. lol But she got a BIG smile from Alex! And slowly a little one from Ty!






Ty sees the nun coming and comes straight back!

"Megiddo is the jewel in the crown of biblical archaeology. Strategically perched above the most important land route in the ancient Near East, the city dominated international traffic for over 6,000 years — from ca. 7,000 B.C.E. through to biblical times. As civilizations came and went, succeeding settlements at ancient Megiddo were built on the ruins of their predecessors... Megiddo is the only site in Israel mentioned by every great power in the ancient Near East. In the New Testament it appears as Armageddon (a Greek corruption of the Hebrew Har [=Mount] Megiddo), location of the millennial battle between the forces of good and evil. "

http://megiddo.tau.ac.il/introduction.html


Then we made it to Tiberius on the Sea of Galilee. Neat little town - more of a destination because of whats around than the town itself. We stayed at a Youth Hostel again. Gorgeous location!! Up on the hillside the views were spectacular as you can see.

The next day we drove north intending to go to two nature preserves that are supposed to be spectacular but the rains set in so we ended up going to a town called Metulla - right on the border with Lebanon - and had the most fantastic meal :) While waiting for the restaurant to open we walked around and found, I kid you not, CANADA PLACE! LMAO Seriously!! In northern Israel, right beside Lebanon there is a town that has a huuuuge rec center called Canada Place. I just had to take a couple pictures of it! It has a pool, shooting range, play areas, etc.

After lunch we headed back to Galilee taking the scenic route going through the Golan Heights area.....OH!! and hit Bet She'an as well. I have not downloaded the pictures from that yet LOL so that will have to be another blog :) That place is amazing!

Bad part about all this? We have hit most places that are on our 'tourist' map LOL Fortunately many are ones you can go to again and again (esp if you have kids distracting you)....

Okay time to go - hope all had a great Thanksgiving! I will try to post more over the next couple days :)

Still here......lol

Hello all! Its been a while and usually that means travel :-) This time is no exception! Sebastian took this week off and we travelled through the Dead Sea area and then the Sea of Galilee and any sites in and around them. Israel is not that big so to cover a lot is rather easy to do! In fact we did this while still coming home on Wednesday to repack lol.

I had a 30+ picture slideshow mostly done yesterday and Explorer crapped out on me so I am back to square one. We took lots of pictures so I will try to get at least the Dead Sea part up today!

Random moments....

Ahhh being a Mom......pic above Sebastian took in one of my more faaaabulous moments LOL

Did ya know that peas are funny??

Tyler & Alex dressed up to go pick up Dad from the airport (coming back from Ramstein)

Awww sisterly love!

Mooooom!!! You weren't supposed to see that LOL

But who could resist this face?!?!

Helping Mom at the computer

Its been busy but not with anything terribly exciting. I am throwing this up quickly while waiting for the Domino's dude (lol yes we get Domino's) because my stove crapped out and I am waiting for them to come fix it tomorrow (keeping fingers crossed). Its gas stove and the ignitor would not turn off last night - just kept clinking and firing away so off went the gas and now we wait. Cannot say I am that upset that I can't cook tonight. Sebastian is out for dinner as his office has people in town so I figure its karma's way of evening it out :-) lol Now had I only thought to pick up coooold beer I'd be set!

Halloween!

Hello all ! Sorry for the delay in getting these pictures up. I managed to contract food poisoning late last week and it pretty much took me out this weekend. Never even made it out Halloween night. Sebastian and one of his co-worker friends, Ken, took the girls out for the map-led halloween run. The community person at the Embassy arranged it. You paid in advance got a map of which houses you could go to, time to start/finish, and - with security patrols around - you went trick or treating :-) Definitely a different way of doing it. Tyler came home happily with a small bag of candy so it was a big success for her. Alex well she fell asleep and came home sleeping and warm in her costume...

With no further ado, here is more of the ladybug and the bumblebee

Our sweet lil Bumble Bee!!

Ty's wings were a bit more flexible than Alex's LOL but they still fit in the stroller (Ty is focusing on her candy bag)

Alex wasn't interested in sitting for long and Ken was happy to let the little bug out for a bit.. (Thanks Ken!!!)

Okay Dad - less camera and more candy!!! LETS ROLL! :-)

Neighborhood Part 2

Ask and ye shall receive LOL Here is what the road/sidewalk looks like normally.....

The only gaps between the cars are driveways.. This picture makes it look like there is still pretty good space on the road to drive but in many spots you cannot get 2 cars to pass each other - sooooooo you hope for a driveway! haha

Below is how many cars are parked in this neighborhood LOL (And malls, movie theaters, parks, etc) Owning a truck here is handy!! Do people get ticked here? Not very often. The road that runs in front of Sebastian's office is crrraazzzy - double parked, triple parked, you name it - and no one does anything about it (other than honking and cursing lol). The only explanation that I have been given is that the police are more concerned with terrorism issues to be worried about parking....between that and the 'rules are just suggestions' part of this culture, well you get the idea.

The Neighborhood

After trying to describe it I thought a few pictures would help....these ae taken during the day so there are fewer cars parked along the street (or should I say on the sidewalk lol seriously!)...and less, ahem, debris on the sidewalks. That debris can be landscaping garbage (grass, tree clippings, etc) that get thrown into piles (i.e. no bags) on the sidewalks for Friday pick up and dog poop. Yep sad to say but it seems no one cleans up after their dogs practically, even though there are bags at most green areas in the neighborhood. It can make walking with the girls difficult at times. I guess since they have street cleaners that come through every so often they figure they can.....

Walking along a street close to here this is what you see on the left & right. I took both to give an idea of the walls around the houses I have been talking about. The one on the right gives you an idea of how high most of them are...

And this is a picture of the construction across the street. It is taken from our second story and you can see the outer wall on the ground - gives you an idea of how big it is!! And yes, they start work early in the morning (and our bedroom faces into it).

We have a couple smaller parks around us as well. This is a one...There are a bigger ones but further away that we go to as well, especially now that the weather is cooling off a bit! This is one thing this area did well - there are quite a few parks around.

No that is not one of my dogs...don't know where it came from - the owner was not around. That happens frequently - you just hope they are friendly! I got chased coming back from a gym - thank goodness the girls weren't with me. I ignored it and luckily it finally stopped and took off. Another reason not to walk around with your IPOD on LOL - it will however get your heartrate up when you finally see it coming!

The following were taken 2 nights ago in 'downtown' Herzliya Pituah when we went to Moses restaurant for dinner and the Coffee Bean for frap's afterwards. These are 2 of our favourite places!!! Lucky for us they are side by side in an area big enough to keep Ty entertained as well LOL Actually there is a kick-ass coffee/frap/pastry place called Roladin that is even better than the Bean but thats another story. Nights are great here - cool & breezy.

Parting shot of Alex since she is not in any other photos :-)

Time to go make breakfast for Tyler. I have more pictures so will post another blog hopefully later today!

The Dead Sea

Well we finally got our car and wasted no time getting out for a bit! We did a day trip to the Dead Sea on Saturday, which is Sabbath here, so there was next to no traffic which was great,.....We had never been there before and with the exception of a slight detour into the West Bank (opps!!) we made it there pretty quickly and spent the day there checking it out.

Weather was beautiful and the tour buses were plentiful LOL When you walk up to the sea you notice that the sand turns to white at the waterline...keeping your shoes on is a MUST as the hardened salt is not something you want to walk barefoot on. Just as bad is the taste! I was holding Tyler where she decided to splash some water and it got in my mouth. Let me tell you I have had salt water before but nothing as awful as this!! The salt concentration is insane!! It is also oily which I hadn't anticipated. Making sure there is a place to shower afterwards is also a MUST unless you bring water with you to douse yourself with :-)

Other than that we are still unpacking stuff but, thankfully, are almost done. We took most of Thursday off from unpacking as it was Yom Kippur here. That day no one drives (it's not allowed) which means everyone takes their bikes and strollers out. We did the same :) Packed the kids up into the Charriot and took off on our bikes riding all over Herzliya, hit the pool, then continued on riding to a couple parks and then home. It was great but eerily strange. We crossed the overpass and it felt like a scene from I Am Legend - looooong highway leading to Tel Aviv and not a soul on it! It was wonderful to explore by bike and not to have to deal with the traffic - we would love it if there were more "no drive" days!!

Here are some pic's

Ice cream stop once we get there.....

Continuing our drive around the sea you see the caves in the cliffs beside you. Hopefully one time we will be able to leave the kids with a sitter and get to explore them. We also drove past the site where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. There's a museum there that we didn't get to check out this time...hopefully next!

Then we found a nice quiet spot to try the water...yes its true you DO float :) ty wasn't so sure about it to start with but as long as she had one of us to hang onto it was okay. Balancing is easy as long as you don't try to stand! Just need to bob like a cork!!

Look Ma!! No hands or feet LOL

Ty checking herself out post-swim

Yup you've seen it here...golden arches at the Dead Sea! (The building/hotel in behind is a Crowne Plaza)

I picked up some of the famous black body/skin mud and brought it back to the house with me...I'll let you know how that goes LOL

HAPPY DAYS!!!!

YEAAAAAAAAA !!!!! :-)

We have an appointment to get our household goods!! Next Tuesday morning to be exact!! FINALLY we will have the girls' toys, strollers, baby tub, high chair, plastic bowls, cups, plates....kitchen >>>OMG I will have my pots, pans and bakeware!!!LMAO Never did I ever think I would be so happy to see kitchen stuff :) Nevermind our TV, bikes, dog beds, etc.....

Yup next Tuesday will be a very happy but busy day!! Now if we can just find our SUV we will be set !

My days are still filled with the kids mostly (feeding, cleaning up after kids and dogs - gawd its groundhog day haha) The stock market as most of you know has been tanking and between that, the volatility, and the kids keeping me from watching it uninterrupted, I have not been doing much in it.

The yard is now done (was seriously overgrown when we got here and has not gotten better on its own!) which will be nice to enjoy now that the temp has dropped to the 70's & 80's. Just need some flowers which we have to wait for the truck to get...and Lisa..my dear sister...how I wish I could teleport her here so she could help with the landscaping! Or pot-scaping I guess I should call it as there are empty pots everywhere - its just a matter of figuring out what to plant in them! I know there must be some great smelling flowers for this area - just a matter of figuring out which!

Bathrooms....

Ok - HOW can I live here a month and NOT know how many bathrooms we have?? (Yes one is in the basement and it never gets used...but sadly thats not the one I forgot about)

We have FIVE yes FIVE bathrooms!! Four of them with showers or tubs....gawd that is too many bathrooms!

I am looooosing my mind.....LOL

Moments in Israel....

Checking out the flowers in the backyard in the morning....

Dang - she found the chocolate!

Playing with the hose takes care of the chocolate!

While Alex chills


Later that day when Dad makes it home we head to the beach...

and this is the view Ty has from her swing!

Sad thing is she won't remember this all so I am trying to

remember to bring the camera for lots of pictures!