School, Scouts, and Activity Days

Here are a bunch of pictures from the last couple months of the kids' various activities.

Activity Days: Apparently Mary is quite skilled at applying her own face paint.

Linda was invited to a cafe for a birthday party for a girl in her class. It was the most elaborate party I've ever been to for a six-year-old. (Of course, if you've read the post about Isaac's birthday party, you know I'm not the elaborate party kind of mom.) Cake, muffins, hot dogs, presents, games, hats, noisemakers, party favors--the whole shebang.

Israeli's don't celebrate Halloween. They celebrate Purim. It commemorates the triumph of Esther in saving the Israelites, and somehow over the years it has become a dressing-up holiday. The kids' school also celebrated the opportunity to dress up, but carefully structured it so there would be no vampires, mass murderers or zombies. Each grade had their own theme: Linda's was fairy tales, Isaac's was explorers, and Mary's was tourists. All the parents were invited for the costume parade.

Linda has a wonderful teacher named Sarah Gandy. She dressed up as a bee.

Mary enjoyed watching the parade of costumes.

Isaac made a great explorer with his toilet paper tube binoculars.

Mary made a paper camera to capture those special moments.

Linda, our own Princess Valentine. Her class wrote a new fairy tale incorporating many of the traditional fairy tale characters. Linda was the only new character, the princess who helps all the other creatures learn to get along and help one another.

Isaac and his buddy Ivan learning knot-tying at Cub Scouts.

We invited Linda's teacher over for dinner on the Sabbath; Abby enjoyed having her over just as much as Linda did!

Here's Mary's class preparing to perform their Exit Point. This is the end of the unit where they get to show off everything they've learned about graffiti and advertising.

Mary and her group during their presentation.

Isaac performing his Exit Point about volcanoes.

The kids have a great music teacher at the school, and she prepares a program for every Christian holiday. For Easter they prepared and performed a short play at the Garden Tomb.

The show included lots of singing and dancing.

Isaac is on the left in the back row, wearing his dark blue sweatshirt.

Here are a couple videos of the Christian rock songs the kids learned for the program:

Joe and Abby's preschool took a field trip to a fruit orchard in Jericho, where they were able to pick oranges, lemons and grapefruit. Joe and Abby were much more interested in the various furniture and decor around the patio than they were in the fruit. 

All the kids loved this porch swing. It was rather dangerous at times, when a few kids got in the way of the swing and ended up crying. But they all loved trying to jump on and off. . . and on and off. . .  and on and off. . . 

I don't remember what caused this face. Maybe I told her it was almost time to go home.

Joe was fascinated with the sidewalk around the back of the building. . . .

. . . . and with this large stone pitcher.

Linda's Day

We noticed the other faculty families taking their kids one by one on the field trips. This seemed like a good idea because it's an easy way to have a fun date with your kid that you don't have to plan or pay for. Plus the kids always always love to be with the BYU students when they get tired of their parents.

The first lucky child to go was Linda.  She picked the Shephelah field trip because it's the one where we get to reenact the David and Goliath story. It was fun to watch her throughout the day, because it was evident she felt really special to be hanging out with Mom and Dad all alone, and as the only kid she got lots of attention from the students.

The first stop was Bet Shemesh, the home (or at least the hill that overlooks the home) of Samson. In the spring it is remarkably green with beautiful red wildflowers dotting the hillsides.

Hiding in the wildflowers at Bet Shemesh.

What a cute smile!

Linda and Dad in front of the valley where Samson grew up.

Helping Dad with his lecture at the pottery dump at Bet Shemesh. [A pottery dump is the place just off the tell (hill) where the archaeologists dump all the pottery sherd (pieces) that are too small to be useful or presentable. It's a great place to pick up ancient pieces of pottery, but don't pick up too many. Your suitcase may not make the airline weight limit if you're not careful.]

I have seen this plant all over central and northern Israel this spring. The variegated leaves are really stunning.

Next was my favorite stop, Bet Guvrin and the Bell Caves. Bet Guvrin is a complex of underground homes dug in the Hellenistic period (200-400 AD), and the Bell Caves were Early Islamic (600-800 AD). The ground layer is hard stone, but underneath is chalky limestone that is very easy to carve. Over time the people would dig huge caves that today have beautiful acoustics and are nice and cool out of the hot sun. They are also home to hundreds of bats. Linda and I had a good time running around from cave to cave, and Linda liked dancing to the BYU students' singing.

The students often have to listen and take notes on  information from the professor. This lecture took place as an introduction to the caves. Linda, meanwhile, was hard at work coloring her Hello Kitty pages. 

Sitting on a high rock, inside one of the largest Bet Guvrin caves.

Can you believe the size of this cave? It's amazing that people hollowed this out from above through just a little hole in the top. I think this cave was formed when walls between multiple caves were broken down.

A cute cubbyhole for a cute girl.

The acoustics inside the Bell Caves were beautiful.

The valley of Elah, where David slew Goliath, is a favorite stop for my kids. It was Linda's entire purpose for coming on this trip, but unfortunately the spring rains had created way too much mud for us to go out in the field and play David. Instead, we went to an overlook and practiced throwing stones down the mountain into the valley. 

Linda practiced hard with her David-style sling so she would be able to slay the Isaac-Goliath when she got home.

Giving it another go.
If you look through the two trees in the center of the photo, you will see a road running up into the forest. The field to the left of that road is the valley of Elah (pronounced Ay-lah). The Israelite armies were camped on the left (lower) hill, and the Philistines were camped on the hill across from them. The brown area borders the stream where David would have picked up his stone, then run out into the field to slay Goliath.

Lachish (pronounced La-keesh) was the last stop, and it includes a relatively long (for a 5 year old) hike up to the top. It was a long day, and Linda was pretty worn out. But we had a good day, and I enjoyed spending such a long stretch of time with my sweet daughter.

With Mom and Dad on top of Lachish, after a long and exhausting but fun day.

Isaac's Birthday

Isaac's January 22nd birthday was a balmy 65 degrees and sunny. We inadvertently invited the entire Primary, so it was a good thing everything was planned for outside. We had a Spiderman theme, but with so many people the kids had to choose between a Spiderman cup OR a Spiderman plate. Good thing no one really cared. We started off with pita pizza and a craft activity, then moved up to the seventh floor patio for human pyramids, three-legged and water races, and musical statues. Then we returned to our apartment patio for cake and ice cream and opening presents. I didn't get many good pictures, but it was a good day.

  

Isaac at 9 years old: He loves playing computer games like Minecraft, watching TV shows like Avatar, and listening to his mp3 player. His best friends are Ivan Williams from church, and Justice Grimes at school. He is kind and funny and can be very gentle and helpful to his little sisters. He hates doing chores and homework, but when he decides to do them he always does a really good job. He has a difficult time concentrating at school, but his teachers say he is the sweetest boy in class. If he had his way, the weather would be 75 degrees every day, and he would wear shorts, T-shirts with pockets, and sport sandals. He hates jeans and tennis shoes. He begs me to tuck him in at night and sing "the bird song" (My Heavenly Father Loves Me), and he sleeps best with a fan going to block out any noise. He gives really great hugs and genuinely cares deeply about how other people feel. Additionally, his capacity for psychosomatic fluctuations is unrivaled (i.e. I've never met anyone who can get sympathetically nauseous as quickly as he).

Other Goings-On of the Last While

Playing ping-pong in the student laundry room. 

This sign was too good for Ed to pass up.

Abby and Joe playing with their friend Anne from preschool.

Isaac frequently tucks Abby in at night. Abby loves it. (As you can see, she also loves to sleep naked.)

Isaac also loves to read to Joe.

I feel asleep on the couch one afternoon and woke up covered in stickers. Along with my foot, my left arm and the left side of my face were also covered in sparkly Christmas trees. I must have been in a pretty deep sleep!

Abby has learned to write her name, but she's still unsure about how many "B"s are needed.

 When the Students Leave

The chef here is fantastic. He makes wonderful food, and for special occasions he makes an amazing spread. Here's the holiday dinner just before the Fall students left. Of course it's not usually this fancy, but the food always tastes good.

Just a few of the many dishes available.

Chef Ahmed.

Isaac with David Schade and two of their favorite students: Neil and Shawn Reed.

Such a handsome young man.

The All-Out Pillow Fight the students had been promising the kids for weeks.

Ed and I like to hang out with the students every once in awhile, especially when they give concerts. 

When we finished the gospels in Seminary, we took a field trip to the sites of Passover Week, including, the Upper Room, Gethsemane, Caiaphas' house, and the Via Dolorosa, "The Way of Sorrows." We took along two student teachers, one parent, and some friends visiting from Jordan. It was a great day.

Joe at 21 months

Here's some photo/video fun for the Grandparents. Joe's definitely heading into the terrible twos, and he's all boy. Oh, and the other kids think he's the funnest toy they've got.

Joe and his buddy Truman in the church nursery (which doubles as a bomb shelter and never seems to have any heat, hence the heavy sweaters).

He's a climber and he loves water. 

He's definitely one of us--he loves to read books.

He also loves pudding. 

And balls of all kinds.