Israel Trip

Somehow, I have forgotten to post this trip. I may try to continue to add to it, because this is such a small highlight of our whole trip

Old Jerusalem
Near the Western Wall

Noah and I went to Israel in December of 2017.
It was an amazing time to explore, learn, and grow. We saw so many things and still there was so very, very little that we saw. To imagine that these places have been inhabited by many, many generations of people for several thousands of years is just so incredible. There is such richness of  history throughout the area; no matter where you turn or which direction you travel everyone has a story and history to tell that is just so huge that you can not ever take it all in.

Tower of David
Old Jerusalem

There are many, cultures, many differences, so much beauty and a lot of struggle and turmoil because everyone wants to claim a part of its vast richness, religious significance, cultural significance, historical significance.

Tower of David
 Old Jerusalem

I have always loved history and how the pieces of history weave into each other  to form layers of stories that fit together like a puzzle, but on so many layers and levels that you can only imagine it as an intricate tapestry of many layers, levels, and colors. Being in Israel was so much like that. I am not good at remembering timelines, dates, and specifics of history, but listening to the tour guides and others tell the history and layers that literally stack and add upon the previous generations either rebuilding the destruction of the past eras or adding on to existing structures and fortifications. 

Entrance to the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre

at the end of the Stations of the Cross

on the Via Dolorosa and St. Helena Rd.

The historians can show where different eras ended and others began by the size and structure of the brick work on the walls. There were many times where they pointed out where the walls were destroyed by siege and taken over by the Phoenicians, Arabs and Philistines, Romans, Babylonians, the rise and fall of the kings and their kingdoms.

That is just a very little bit of the historical end of things. From a religious standpoint, the very idea of walking in the very place where the birth of our Lord happened. Touching some of the very same places, seeing some of the very same sights and vistas,  and  walking some of the same streets. It has truly made the Bible more understandable and more real. Over the years in life you read and imagine the places and the stories that you are told and you have an idea of it, you see movies and pictures and get glimpses and they seem so much closer. 

Bread Shop at a Market

Then you get there, you walk the streets, see the sites and the vast expanses of dessert, smell the smells and touch the rocks, and sand, and stones. Walking the market places watching the families go about their usual daily business and visiting with people that  live and work there, kind of gave me a pang of jealousy, but only for a moment because everything in life comes with a price and although it looks exotic and wonderful, it also comes with a high cost of living and living under constant military and heavy police guard, constantly having tons of tourists always walking the streets and

neighborhoods and relying on the many tourists and visitors as a steady stream of income.

Dessert Shop at the Market

Each area we visited had more stories to tell than there was time for. We spent a lot of time in Jerusalem, I truly loved walking the streets of Old Jerusalem the most. Walking in and out of the high walled streets that were very much like a maze and very easy to get lost in. It was broken up into Quarters that belonged to the Christian section, Muslim section, Jewish Section, Armenian Section

and maybe another. It was interesting to walk along and realize that the dynamic of an area changed drastically as you moved from one area to the other. 

Beautiful Pomegranates

Although the market places had mixed markets of different groups, Each area had a unique feel according to its section. The amount of culture and diversity found in this small space was incredible. Growing up and only hearing English everywhere you go and then getting the opportunity to walk these streets and for the first time in life understanding that you are in a place that language is so very wide, and diverse and everywhere you turn there is a different culture standing next to you no matter which corner you are on. American culture is a melting pot(that's what we were taught as kids); but what I found fascinating and I loved about this experience is that I love the distinctions in each of the cultures. 

This had to be one of my favorite shops 

Fruit cubes used for Tea

I loved the sights, the sounds, the looks, and styles. I loved that each individual culture was still part of the

bigger picture, but still distinct and separate and yet they each existed in and among each other with respect. I am fully aware that it doesn't fully exist in harmony and they are in an area of extreme conflict and it can be seen as an area of danger from on moment to the next, but in talking to the people that lived there, a lot of that is political and the day to day life is a different experience. 

 

Street in Old Jerusalem

When we arrived the Jewish people were celebrating Hanukkah. Every night throughout the celebration something different was going on in the area. We spent one of our first evenings out on the last night of Hanukkah walking around during their celebrations and they did something similar to what we would consider caroling at Christmas time where people walked through the streets and viewed all the lit Menorahs throughout the area.  It was quite crowded and chaotic, but fun to see and be a part of. The Christian/Catholic section was decorated in typical Christmas decorations with lights and Christmas trees and it felt very familiar. The other areas were not particularly decorated for celebration, but it was no less impressive to walk through and experience. All of the market stores, vendors, and things for sale made each area unique and beautiful. 

The Shepard's Fields Fountain

Every single place was a little treasure to see and explore. We spent a decent amount of time on buses traveling to the destination sites on the tour routes and quite a lot of things were quickly pointed out along the routes. Some of the areas that we really wanted to see were closed because of the holidays but we were able to see enough to make the experience complete. 

The whole trip was amazing and surreal. It is not something that I every expected to experience in my lifetime and I will truly be humbled and grateful for the experience. As a child I had always expected that I would travel the world and see every corner. That didn't happen, but in my lifetime, I think that I have gotten to experience on of the absolute best places. 

Mount of Olives Tour- Catholic Church

with a View of the Dome of the Rock

I hope that by having to opportunity to travel with Noah as a child, that it will give him the fortitude to reach further in life to live, travel, and find adventures and experiences to fill his life. 

Hanging at the park on a dragon

At the Jordan River

Noah always has an animal near him

A boat on the Sea Of Galilee

The Sea of Galilee

Mary at the Basilica dedicated to her

A view from on of the areas at
 Ein Gedi Park Reserve

View of the Dead Sea seen at the top of the Masada Fortress

The Dead Sea

The Dead Sea

The Dead Sea

Camel and the dead Sea

Very old olive Tree

Wall Surrounding Old Jerusalem

Rampart Walk on the Wall Surrounding Old Jerusalem

The Cardo - Part of the North-South Roman Main Street

Life sized Nativity

Given to Bethlehem by Italy

6th Century Mosaic

Bethlehem

Mosaic at the Church of the
Holy Sepulchre

Church of the Holy Sepulchre 

One of my favorite meals
Falafel and Hummus with a salad

On of the many interior streets in Old Jerusalem

Spring is in the Air

It is already April, and somehow, life has just sailed by and I haven't updated in what feels like an eon. Spring is in full swing again, it's warming up and flowers are popping up everywhere.

Noah and I have flown across the world and seen some of the most amazing places on Earth. We had an unbelievable experience and I hope to post an review of the week we spent in Israel. I hope that this is the first of many adventures in Noah's life. I hope that the reality of how truly small our little corner of life is and how amazing, and huge, and wonderful the possibilities of seeing more of our wonderful world can be has been fully engrained in his young life.

We got home just after Christmas and as usual life has been moving along at full speed with little time to stop and take a breath.

Nathan is now 18 and on his last few months of high school. In February he was awarded the honor of Eagle Scout and we are truly proud of his accomplishments in that regard. We look forward to see what he will do moving forward.

Benjamin turned 5 in January, and is growing like a bad weed. He is starting his Pre-School/Kindergarten work and learning his letters and numbers and how to tie his shoes and using his ninja skills.

We still have the chickens and a goat. We are also trying to raise rabbits for meat, and the kids have decided that they want to learn tanning and use the rabbit pelts. I am assuming that the process will be long and arduous and probably will become another project for Matt and I, but I really like the idea of using all of the rabbit, being respectful of it's life and not wasting any part of it.

So the reason for this post was mostly to update on that process and progress. It has been a rough start, and our first experience lead to quite a few fall and winter births and a lot of deaths because of cold, wet baby bunnies and inexperienced moms and inexperienced "farmers"; we lost most of the young rabbits before they got to an age that they could be used for meat.

This past year we had several times that neighborhood dogs attacked and killed most of our population of rabbits and there again we never were able to grow any out to an age of harvesting meat.

Just a couple of weeks ago, we(Matt, because I was busy making cakes for Cub Scouts) harvested 5 of our youngest rabbits that survived from last year. There were just to many young males and they were terrorizing the females that we had left. So now we have three females and two males.

Today we discovered that our little grey female gave birth to five beautiful healthy, active little bundles of joy, and over the next couple of weeks we will have two more bunny nursery boxes to set up, so we should be up to our ears with bunnies again soon.

We also have two dozen eggs incubating that will be hatching on the 18th of April. We will have baby farm animals coming out of our ears before too long...

We have also collected a turtle that was buried in the nest in our back yard that it was hatching from, and today while walking the new puppy(yes, we have a new puppy also...her name is Sadie and she is such a cutie) Noah found a new turtle trying to cross the street. It is about the size of a quarter and is so very tiny compared to the one we found last month. So now we have two red-eared sliders to entertain us. They are very entertaining they have such great personalities.

So...Spring is definitely in the air...



How is your Spring shaping up?

Eclipse 2017

Our Epic Trip to the zone of totality I would say ranged up there with one of our best spur of the moment trips ever. In July we found out about the eclipse happening...a little late to the game I guess because some people have been planning for years. Our first thought was to just stay local and view it because even in Oxford Mississippi the totality range was somewhere in the 90% range and most of me was thinking that that was close enough. Then there was this little nagging inner voice that was screaming from the nerd in me, "NO!!! It must be viewed in totality. It is so very close we have to make it closer. So we tentatively planned to go to Nashville, but all the hype and media coverage of it seemed to be causing the possibility of huge traffic congestion and many millions of people converging on the cities that were being claimed as the best viewing spots. We started looking and after a while, decided that maybe Wickliffe, Kentucky would be a great place to go because it was close but a smaller town that wasn't participating in all the craziness, but at the last minute(like halfway there) I found out that even there was only 99.9% totality clearly if we were to make this trip 99.9% is just not good enough so Benton, Kentucky it became.

We left Oxford at noon after Mass on Sunday and drove to Middle Tennessee where we camped at Nathan Bedford Forrest State Park. It was a nice campground and not overly crowded or crazy. We got unpacked, and the kids began setting up the tents and hammocks while we checked in at the office. After we got back and finished setting up sleeping arrangements we went for a walk on a trail to cover our Sunday walk for the training that Matt is doing with the boys. The trail was beautiful, but very steep and rocky. Matt and I enjoyed it, the kids...not so much they were not prepared for so much uphill walking but they lived.

 When we returned to the campsite the kids gathered small sticks and Matt, Benjamin and I went to find some larger wood to burn for supper...Hot dogs and s'mores. We made a salad to take with us, but forgot salad dressing and forks to eat it with so we made do. Nathan, Noah, and Jacob set up hammocks in the trees and planned on sleeping out. Jacob made it about 10 minutes before deciding to sleep in a tent with Evelyn. Nathan and Noah made it the whole night. I was very nervous and worried(too many episodes of Criminal Minds I guess) about someone grabbing the boys in the night...I didn't get much sleep.

We woke up at about 5am(to beat all the expected traffic) and packed everything up to leave in what I would say was record time for us...just over an hour.
Our first stop on the road was Paris, Tennessee. Where we had the opportunity to see the splendor of the Eifel Tower and then headed to Walmart to stock up for our day with food, snacks, and more water just in case there was lots of crazy.

We were on our way. Several places along the way had highway signs warning of traffic and no stopping off on the highway to view the eclipse. We eventually arrived in Benton and settled on a state park area on the Kentucky Lake. We got to a Marina that looked promising and set up camp. There were lots of people coming and going with boats, but the area wasn't at all crowded.

 

We found a shady spot and set up some blankets(because we had so much stuff and so little space the camp chairs just didn't fit into the car...we were "roughing it".) We got out the lunch stuff, snacks, and drinks. We set up our pinhole camera and our white board to view the shadows. The kids took out their eclipse adventure papers for while we were waiting(we got there at 9am) and we just hung out along to water's edge.

Eventually another family showed up and they had an amazing telescope. All the kids played together and kept each other company while waiting for totality to arrive. As the kids were talking and playing we realized that everything was beginning to take on an eerie hue and it was getting close.

Things quickly started getting dark, and the temperature began to be noticeably different. As the moon closed on the sun the streetlights began to come on in the distance and a beautiful sunset fell over the sky around us and distant cheers and hollers erupted in the distance as it fell dark.  We were able to take off our glasses and see the stars(and Venus I think) had come out and everyone was able to look directly at the eclipse aura. I took a couple of quick pictures before it was over, and as if a light switch was flipped on everything began to return to normal.

We had an amazing time, and even though I was grateful that it wasn't crowded like all of the claims made, I think that it was so much more fun to enjoy the time with someone else, and when it was all done the kids left with new memories and friendships. 

We decided to head out before the actual ending of the moon's journey across the sun to continue our journey. Matt and I decided to take the kids to Sikeston, Missouri to go to Lambert's Café...Home of the "throwed" rolls. We set off to Paducha and then headed to Wickliffe and crossed the Ohio River and the Mississippi River because that is the point that the two converge. That was the first time that any of us saw this and it was an amazing site to see. At that point we crossed over from Kentucky to Illinois to Missouri in the span of just a few minutes.

When we arrived there were quite a lot of people there...quite a lot. The line was out the door and around the side of the building in the parking lot. We got there at about 4:30pm and were seated at about 6:10pm. Yes, it was worth the time spent waiting. The kids made friends with all of the other kids running around, climbed trees and played on the wooden train in the front. Lots of the adults were sharing pictures and stories of their eclipse stories. It was actually pretty amazing to see everyone standing around and sharing. The kids had a great time at Lambert's Café. Some of them were able to catch rolls. They looked like gophers when they heard "hot rolls" yelled out. We left there at about 8pm and headed home. We made it back home at about midnight.

So in the span of two days we went from Mississippi, to Tennessee, to Kentucky, to Illinois, to Missouri, to Arkansas, to Tennessee and Back home. I don't think we have covered so many states in one trip.