This was the set up for our first meal in the hotel in Jerusalem. More delicious food and as you can see lots of choices!

Walking through one of the markets---these are very interesting and sometimes a little scary places.  Definitely not my kind of shopping and yet I want to look at all the stuff.  If you even glance the shopkeeper pulls you aside into his shop to try to get you to buy ---I don't think they have window shopping in Israel!

 Going through Hezekiah's tunnel--at times the water is mid thigh-- but this was a treat---it would definitely be on my list of the top things we did here.

 This is the balcony/ dining room where we ate breakfast.  It has a view of the old city wall and if you look down---the pool.

 This photo is at the edge of the dining area so you can see the pool view.

We're off for our museum trek in 12 minutes :)

For the past three days we have been seeing the sights in Jerusalem.  This is one of many Catholic churches we visited.  Today we were in another one with amazing acoustics--every group that came in sang a cappella and it was nice to hear all the beautiful music.  

This is one of the many pictures we have taken of the Temple mount where the Dome of the Rock is now located.  This may be one of the first pictures we took of this site---today we actually walked around the Temple mount so we have lots more pictures looking down on the city of Jerusalem.

This is supposed to be the Garden of Gethsemane--it may or may not be (remember the Rembrandt exhibit?)  That's the way all of the sites in Jerusalem seem to be! But anyhow this was one of the prettiest sites that we saw.  I have lots more flower pictures from this garden.

Another beautiful church.

A view of our hotel.  This hotel is very nice--it is the building in the center of the picture.  The rooms are spacious--the bathroom is very spacious--the bathtub is big enough for Goliath and it has a separate shower.  The bed is super comfortable--we have not had any trouble sleeping on this trip.  And I'm pretty sure we won't have any trouble sleeping on the flight home if our day tomorrow is as full as all the others have been.

 This may or may not be the garden tomb where Jesus was buried.  We had an English guide who took us around this site.  He lives in England and comes to Israel to volunteer as a guide at this site.  I'm not sure how often he does this, but he was really good at explaining why this site makes sense when you compare it to the Biblical record.

Tomorrow we do two museums, then come back to our hotel for an early dinner before going back to Tel Aviv and flying back home.  We have met some very nice people and have had some great experiences since we've arrived in Israel.  

A plant post-- 

These thistles are everywhere and they are so pretty. 

 There were several of these trees at our first hotel---they look like mimosa leaves but the flowers are big clusters like hydrangeas, only bright orange.

 These hollyhocks were out in the middle of nowhere.

 These pansies were in the garden at a church.

 We've seen lots of sunflower fields, but every time we see one I don't have my camera ready!

 This is the herb garden at our first hotel.

Here we are floating in the Dead Sea.  This was really fun but our time at the hotel here was very brief!

We went to some caves the next day which were very interesting.  Our Jewish guide told us that people sometimes rent this space out for wedding receptions--it is very spacious!

 Terry is getting a spa treatment from the little fish in this spring.  He has a video on his phone of the fish.

 Here is another beautiful view---we seem to climb a viewing place every day and have all kinds of photos of these amazing views.   They are all worth the climb!

Here are some pictures of our food at the hotel.  We eat two meals a day at the hotel, breakfast and dinner.  There are so many choices at each meal and everything is delicious.  All of these photos are from breakfast.  At night this table is filled with salads of every kind on one side and desserts of every kind on the other.

 The orange juice machine---

 The first dish on the right is my favorite---it is called Scots pudding and I have a spoonful every morning.  Terry gets the omelets at the omelet station.

 At both meals there is lots of cheese and lots of desserts with cheese in them.  But sorry Rachel, no cheddar. ever.

They have all kinds of dried fruits, cereals, and breads at breakfast and yogurt with granola in small jars that they also put some desserts in at night.
We don't have a picture of the dining rooms but they are very nice.  It's fun to eat with different people at each meal and learn about where they are from and what they do.
We've eaten several meals with a mother and daughter from San Francisco and a lady from Australia and with the other two people from NC--a grandmother and grandson.
We ate lunch one day in a Druze village and another day at a fish restaurant where you got the whole fish--which took some getting used to for me, but I managed to eat it without getting too grossed out by the head! We have had hummus a couple of times and it was really good with the bread that they served.  We also had lentils twice and I thought those were very tasty.

Today we visited several sights near Nazareth.

We went to this very high lookout spot where the views are amazing in every direction.  

There is so much farmland in this part of Israel and we pass all kinds of fields and orchards every day.  Today the temperature was 102 but we had a chance to put our feet in the water again after lunch and then a breeze kept us from wilting as we visited the last site of the day.  Those pictures are not yet downloaded so we'll have to do another post once the camera battery recharges.

We bought 24 hours worth of internet which thankfully you don't have to use consecutively so after  we finally figured out how to post we realized that we have lots of time to to work with--we just have a limited amount of plugs to keep all the equipment charged and ready to go.

We leave this hotel tomorrow and go to the Dead Sea.  We have a full day and cannot check into our hotel tomorrow until 9:00 when the Sabbath ends.  We will only be there one night so we probably won't post anything tomorrow evening.

You can see in the picture above that Terry is wearing a listening device around his neck with an ear piece.  We use these at some of the sites we visit to be able to hear our guides as they explain what we are seeing.  They are both so interesting.  We have a couple of videos of each one of them so that you can get an idea of what kinds of things they talk about.  I think we will either post them later or show them to you when we get back because they take a loooooong time to download!

Here is a picture from yesterday of Terry in the Sea of Galilee.  Today at the place where we put our feet in the water there were little fish that came up to your feet to nibble if you kept your feet still. Terry has a nice video of that, but I kept my feet moving in the water!

We got back to hour hotel early tonight because the Sabbath starts early tonight and everything closes.   We will have dinner at 7:00 and communion at 8:00 then we get packed and put our luggage out when we go to breakfast at 7:00 in the morning.  We have slept very well because we are exhausted at the end of the day!

(There is a girl who is wearing a pedometer and she said we walked 6.2 miles day before yesterday and climbed a lot of stairs--I can't remember the number she said--Terry just came in from the pool and said she said 54 flights of  stairs. ) 

We've seen a little of the news about the storms--we get wifi on the bus for about 5 minutes each morning.  Hope everybody is doing well.  We'll check back in maybe after dinner tonight or day after tomorrow.

Here are a few pictures from today.  We spent the day all around the Sea of Galilee.  The first picture is from the side opposite our hotel. Hopefully when you click on the picture the view will be a little better.   

 We got a chance to take off our shoes and put our feet in the Sea in the late afternoon and boy did my feet enjoy that treat!  It is very hot here.  In the thumbnail shot I thought this was Terry, but it's not.  The picture of him in the sea didn't download for some reason.

 The picture below is from the grounds of a Catholic church on the site that might have been where Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount.  It was so pretty--lots of flowers, shrubs, rose bushes and the first grass that we've seen in Israel.  We saw some more later this afternoon at another Catholic church.

We took a boat ride today across the sea after having a delicious meal at a restaurant on the waterfront. The boat ride was very pleasant.

It was another full day with lots of beautiful sights and great food and nice people.

Post from Dad

  Today, Wednesday, we spent the day at various sites in northern Galilee.  This is the city of Dan, and the  

wall below is the entrance to it built before Abraham came to the Promised Land.  It is amazing to think that Abraham would have seen this same structure 

This is Banias Falls which we were told is the largest falls in all of Israel.  It was another hot day and so was very pleasant being in the shade and mist of the falls  

 Our last stop of the day was at Mount Bental which was within about a mile of the Syrian border  There were great views of the surrounding mountains including snow-capped Mount Hermon which is about 9000 feet high  Sorry about the lack of punctuation, but the blog page is in Hebrew so I'm lucky I accomplished this much

 Here we are going down 180 steps to see a water source in Megiddo.  I guess our lighthouse experience on Tybee Island was good preparation for this part of our trip.  We are definitely getting our exercise every day!

This is the view that we see each morning when we leave our room to go to breakfast.  These pictures do not do justice to how beautiful everything here is.

Even riding on the bus is nice because it gives us a little rest after sightseeing and it gives us a chance to see lots of the countryside---which I don't think I would ever get tired of looking at---there is so much to see.

Our Jewish guide and our BSF guide are both very knowledgeable about the land, the significance of all the sights, current events and they give us lots of information as we travel.

 This is a picture of our room or at least one side of it.  It is actually a pretty large room and the hotel is located across the street from the Sea of Galilee.  The view when we walk out the door each morning is very nice.  Hopefully we'll get a good picture of that to send soon.
Our schedule is very full---breakfast at 7:00, board the bus at 8:00, tour all day and get back in time for dinner at 7:00.  All the food has been delicious.  However, it is not food that I would have appreciated even 5 years ago!

 This is one of the first sites we went to.  It is a Roman theater and it is right beside the place where the chariot races took place with public executions for the half-time show.  This is right on the Mediterranean Sea.

New House Progress Report #9

Well I'm back from Germany, so let's try and get a house update in before Mom and Dad remember their password and post an update from Israel. All the exterior stone work is done, cabinets are installed, bathrooms are tiled, and trim is going up! The trim is really making the inside of the house look good.

Close-up of the stone. It's stacked a little tighter than I was hoping, but I'm guessing there isn't much I can do about that!

Cabinets installed! Lots of good natural light in the kitchen.

A view of the buffet going from the kitchen to the dining room, or as I like to call it, "the place where Grandma would put all the Christmas goodies"

Here is a shot of the guest bathroom. Both of the upstairs baths look the same, as in not much to blog about...

We had some vandals Saturday night. :( They kicked in the drywall in a few rooms... how rude! Time to put that deer stand to use.

Here are the bookcases, they are still a work in progress, but they are looking great. All of the custom finish work inside is looking really good.

All the exterior is missing now is the shutters. And a yard. And a team of Southern Living photog's.