Sea of Galilee

We spent one day of our trip to Israel driving up to the Sea of Galilee.  It was about a 2 hour drive from Jerusalem but we stopped at an old kibbutz for a quick tour on the way.  We stopped in Tiberias for lunch - really good local swarma and falafel!  We drove around the whole sea and made several stops (which I will post later) but the highlight was at the end at a seaside kibbutz with a St Peter's Fish restaurant while the sun was setting.  The kids took a dip in the sea and we had a great relaxing dinner before we headed back to Jerusalem.

Overlooking the Sea from the location of

the Sermon on the Mount

Kids at sunset
(It looks a little like they are walking on water)

City of Tiberias across the sea

Infamous St Peter's fish

We brought back a bottle of water to give to the nuns at the church that teach the CCD program.  We didn't make it the River Jordan and apparently it is not much more than a brown trickle now so instead of water that Jesus was baptized in they can have water that Jesus walked on.

A Day (or two) at the Beach

(Working backwards through our trip to Israel!)

We spent the last day of our trip to Israel in Tel Aviv.  Worn out from touring, I decided we did not need to see anything else but the beach.  I really like Israel's climate.  It was plenty warm to spend an end-of-Oct day on the beach.  Frank had already headed back to the US so I drove the 9 passenger van back to the airport and took a taxi to a beach hotel.  The girls played in the water and built sand castles, I read in a beach chair, and we had lunch on the sand.  Very nice! We even got to go back out on Sun morning before our flight left.

Wanna buy a sheep?

We had a Muslim holiday this week.  I can't remember what they call it here in Kazakhstan but it commemorates Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac so a big part of the celebration is a sheep"sacrifice".  To that end, we saw sheep in the back of trucks all last weekend and on Sunday we drove down one road in particular that had about 1/4 mile long sheep market on the side of the road.

Emily wanted to buy all the sheep and set them free.  Luckily she didn't see some of the sheep strung up by their legs from a tree being skinned.  (Now she'll know when she reads this!)

Happy Halloween!

Once again this year we were away during Halloween festivities.  (Even though Halloween was on Monday and we were home on Monday but there are no Halloween purists in Almaty so trick-or-treat took place on Sat in our neighborhood and Sun for a larger expat community.)  But, we did not miss out!  Like last year in Rome (I don't know how to link to old posts so go back to Oct 2010 and check it out) we had our own door to door trick or treat at the apartment in Jerusalem.  I think it was even better this year with haunted maze, scary hunchback, creepy yoga, and spooky fortunes!

Frank as the Hunchback of (Univ of) Notre Dame

The whole gang:

Hunchback, faceless person, Chris Everett impersonator

Good/Evil girl, Black Mail, Ukrainian girl, Pants Monster, Archaeologist

While we missed all the trick-or-treating in Almaty we did not miss all the Halloween fun.  Our friends had a Halloween party the next weekend which we made it to.  I dressed as a Canadian, Emily dressed as a Diva girl, and Marcy was a 50s girl (Olivia went to the soccer dance at school.)  I only got one photo - Marcy and her friend Jordan both had 50s theme costumes.

Central Asia Soccer Classic

This season AIS decided to allow 11 year olds to participate in the school soccer league which meant Emily could finally legally play on the JV soccer team (she filled in twice illegally last year.)  As it turned out 9 girls signed up for the JV team - two 11 year olds and  seven 12 year olds - and no other schools were fielding a JV team.  So, they offered us a spot in the varsity league (I was coaching.)  Despite the fact that we were playing against high school teams we finished 3rd (out of 4 teams) and never lost by more than one goal.  Which brings us to this past weekend.  The school hosted a tournament with five schools, 3 from Almaty, 1 from Astana and 1 from Tashkent.  Six girls, including Emily, from the JV team got asked to play on the combined AIS team.  Way to go young girls!!  AIS placed 2nd after a heart-breaking championship game.  But, we had great weather, Emily got lots of playing time (and I wasn't coaching this time), and it was really a fun, busy weekend.

Starting squad - can you guess which one is Emily?

What to do in Kiev?

We arrived in Kiev at 5:30am after leaving Almaty in the middle of the night as usual.  Too bad it turns out that this city wakes up late.  We sat around the hotel lobby until a cafe opened and then did what this family does to entertain itself - found a wifi spot!

Local attractions open at 10am and since we are still sitting around wasting time I thought I would get in on the wifi action.  Easy access to the blog. Unfortunately I dowloaded all my photos from my camera card last night so they are back in Almaty.  Maybe I'll have time to blog through out this trip so that I don't get back to Almaty and never get it done.

Happy Birthday to Marcy!!

Frank is home so I thought I would use his computer and finally do a little blogging.  Marcy's birthday was more than a month ago.  High time I got it on the blog.

As usual, we had multiple celebrations for her birthday.  We had a family celebration a little early before Frank went out of town and a party with her friends a little late so we could fit it in among a few other girls birthday parties.  And, of course, she took treats to school on her actual birthday - MUFFINS - her favorite!

At home I made the now traditional Betty Crocker mix cake and she decorated it herself with a little help from Emily.  Always a stunning display and always tasty!

Marcy was very excited about her party with her friends.  She hasn't had a "real" birthday party since right before we moved to Calgary and that was hastily organized and combined with a going-away party.  This year she had a slumber party with her friend Elise who shares the same birthday as her.  Luckily for me, Elise's mom offered to host the party at her house.  I went to the party for the evening until movie/bed time and then went home to sleep in my peaceful house in my own bed.  Perfect!!

The party was a Nancy Drew Mystery party.  They did a treasure hunt, played a spy game all dressed in spy gear, and a few other themed games.  They pretty much organized the games themselves and kept themselves entertained so we really just had to feed them pizza and cake at the appropriate times and make sure no one got lost in the building during the treasure hunt.  Here are the photos:

The whole gang in spy gear



Pizza

Cake!!

Right after they blew out candles fireworks started going off across town.  Of course, we acted like we planned the whole thing especially for their birthday!  Fireworks go off here all the time and we're never sure of the reason but these couldn't be better timed.

I think she had a great birthday and is very happy to be 9 years old.  Can't believe next year all my children will be in double digits.