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! :-)