The Best Dad in the World!!

So today is March 29th my lovely Dad's birthday, he is turning 59 haha just kidding who cares how old he is turning, I just know that he is great! He taught me a ton of what I now know, he taught me how to play basketball and because of that I am super grateful and my basketball skills are all because of him. He is a professor so he knows a ton and that really helps me when I have a question on my homework. Although sometimes I disobey him and he gets mad (which is normal) I will always love him. I love my Dad so much!

Such great parents

He loves his wife

and his Family to death!

Him with the other two professors that teach at the JC (at Neot Kedumim)

The same place where he got baptized

My Dad is also like the funnest guy ever

I love my Dad so much!

Once Again...

Once again, I get to go to one of the most beautiful places on earth. Sorry I didnt post about this earlier but the internet at Ein Gev (where we stayed) wasnt very good at all. Oh how I love this place, one of my favorite places on earth, everytime I go there I dont want to come back to Jerusalem. This time we got to be there for two days extra than last semester (last semester we went there friday to monday, this semester thursday to tuesday) I went on a ton of fieldtrips, hung out at the beach, chilled with the students and had fun with my fam.

Thursday March 22nd
We got to Galilee around 4:30, I went around talking with the students and seeing them again, it was really great to see them all again, its really boring around the JC without them. Then we went to a fish restaurant (we being my and my family and the students) I got the fish, I went for it! It was actually really good fish and I had fun being a normal 13 year old and playing with the fishes eyeballs! :)

This was the fish

Friday March 23rd
Today I started off by going on a field trip with the students. First we went to Gamla, which is super cool and it was at one point a Jewish city and is now ancient and abandoned. The reason why it is significant is that it had synagogue in it and like it says in the scriptures He went about teaching in the synagogues all throughout Galilee and this city is in Galilee, so I might have been in a place where Jesus was at one point! Then we went to Hippos which was at one time a Gentile city it was also very cool. Then after the fieldtrip I ate lunch and went on a hike with the students. We went to some random place with a bunch of water falls and it was really cool and also very pretty and long! After dinner we had a bonfire and we talked, played games, and just had fun by the big fire!

Saturday March 24th
Today was sabbath so we had church but instead of having church early we had it at 2:30 pm! I did some Journal writing and I read the story of Christ walking on the water, and then I read it ti the girls while chillin in one of the really comfy hammocks that they have at the place.

At 2:30 we went to church before church we stopped at Yardenit, it is really cool going to this baptismal site and there are people baptizing themselves while we are there! Chruch was really great and it was very uplifting and of course the view from the house church building is amazing so that makes it better!

Since I am learning the Arabic letters right now I decided to take a picture with the Arabic sign of the story of the baptism of Christ

Brings back so many memories!

Its just a normal house that was eventually dedicated and is now a chruch building

 The rest of the day I just chilled, read my scriptures and played games with the students and the fam.

Sunday March 25th

Today I went on another fieldtrip with the students, I went on this same one last time, I love it so much! We first went to Mt. Tabor which is believed to be the site of Transfiguration. Then we went to the church of Nain which is where Jesus raised the Widow's son from the dead, it is a little chapel but it is still special to me. Then we went to Megiddo which is the site of Armegedian where the battle for the end of the world will be! We then went to Gan Ha-Shalosha which is a hot spring and this time it wasn't pouring rain so we could actually see towards the bottom of the water it was so much fun! After the field trip we came home and ate dinner then I had the classic tea party that we love having, we steal a ton of tea packets from the cafeteria and we go over to someones apartment and have a tea party!

Monday March 26th

In front of the church of Annunciation

Today was our free day I was expecting to get my beach time but nope! Our family had to go somewhere. We ended up going to Cana, saw a few churches there, then we went to Nazareth and went to the church of Annunciation which was really cool and it was made to commemorate where the angel Gabriel told Mary that she was going to bare Jesus. There were paintings/ mosaics done by a lot of different countries of Mary, I was disappointed by the one that was done by the U.S. We then got Shawarma (which is like the best thing ever!) and we drove away from the wonderful town were Jesus grew up! We then drove to the Sea of Galilee and we got to go on a boat onto the sea!! We didn't get to be out there very long but we had a little devotional on the boat, we talked about the walking on water and the calming of the sea. We then drove home back to Ein Gev and we ate dinner, then i had another tea party and we had FHE and we played night games.

The cool door at the church

Inside the church

"The Jesus boat"

I got to give some of the devotional, the calming of the sea :)

Tuesday March 27th

Today I went on another fieldtrip, like the best fieldtrip ever! We first went to Hazor which is the largest Tel in Israel, it was really cool and it was very large! A Tel is a mound of dirt that covers what used to be older cities and you uncover them and you find the city. We then went to Tel Dan (look at Photo #28 in the back of your Bible) which was really, really fun. There was a Pooh Bear tree, and "Paradise" also there is a stream that is one of the 3 main bodies of water that leads into the Jordan River. But it wasnt much of a stream, they were huge! Rapids. They gave us like 45 minutes free time so we walked through "Paradise" and we climbed the Sycamore tree and we had fun in the Pooh Bear Tree. After Dan we went to Ceaserea Phillipi, which was also really cool (look at Photo #26 in the back of your Bible) We then went to Nimrods castle which was made in 1100 A.D. and was a fortress to protect the trade route to Damascus. It was really fun to go all over it, a ton of the actual fortress was still there. After being a Nimrod we went to a lookout that at one point the Israelis put armed forces there to look over Syria and all that was going on, you actually could see a very vast amount of area. After the fieldtrip we ate dinner and then finished packing, said goodbye to some of the students and...

The water sure was raging!

Nimrods Caslte

then I left the wonerful place of Galilee to go back to school :( I miss it so much already...cant wait for next semester! :)

Spring!

So today is March 21st and what does that mean? Its the first day of spring! If there are friends back at home wondering what the weather is like in Jerusalem right now, it is pretty inconsistent. One day it is cool, one day it is pretty warm and the only problem is that the sun could be out, it could be feeling pretty warm and then when that breeze comes out, it gets cool fast. So the average weather in Jerusalem at the beginning of Spring is very inconsistent and a cool breeze can ruin everything! :) Happy Spring!

Family Day March 12th

So we had an initial plan of going to Ein Kerem which is the area celebrated as Elizabeth and Zacharias’ summer home. There are a couple of churches there but we couldn’t figure out how to get to them. We tried to go to the Hadassah hospital where they have some really nice stained glass windows but we couldn’t find parking. So we just stopped at a random playground because we wanted to do something. After playing around for a little, we decided to go down to the reservoir that we could see. It was really fun to be down there and we had fun skipping rocks :)

This was our goal....but we didn't quite reach it.

Playing around at the playground (rhymes)

With a beautiful view

The reservoir wasn't super amazing but it was fun to be with the fam! :)

What a fun day! 

*Sorry I didn't post about this earlier, I wanted to do all my last week posts during that week.

Vans, Yes!

So Vans shoes are my favorite brand of shoes and I have loved them for a while, but the funny thing is that I have never owned a pair of them. But finally I got a pair of Vans shoes and I have had them for a month and I love them so much! :)

These are my old bad boys!

 And my new bad boys! I love them so much!

One of the Greatest Weeks Ever! March 11th to 18th

So, I just have to say that this week was one of the best weeks ever! I did a lot of fun things and I had a lot of fun with fun people! :)

Sunday March 11th
Today the students got back and I hung out with them a lot, I love the students so much! I went with my family to Ein Kerem which is the area celebrated as Elizabeth and Zacharias’ summer home, well we actually attempted to find it but we ended up going to a cool reservoir at the bottom of the hill and we skipped rocks! (post about this)

Monday March 12th
Went to school, ate dinner in the Oasis (the cafeteria her at the JC) then gave the FHE lesson on one of the greatest talks ever: His Grace is Sufficient by Brad Wilcox, look it up!

Tuesday March 13th
Went to school, today was pretty boring

Wednesday March 14th
Went to school, but instead of normal school our class went on a fieldtrip to Akko! It was so cool and very interesting, look Akko up too!

Thursday March 15th
Went to school but yet again had a fieldtrip. We went ice skating and we saw the ice sculptures that they had on display, there were some really cool ones, they even had ice slides that we could go down on! It was really fun! Then I had a Peace Players game, it is a really cool league that me and Josh are apart of, it is meant to bring Palestinians and Israeli's together through basketball, it is really cool and it is always fun to play basketball!
http://www.peaceplayersintl.org/

Friday March 16th
Didn't have school! Woo Hoo!! because all the roads were closed because of the marathon, which I should have been running in but Im not 15 years old yet! so dumb (I was going to do the 10k but I wasn't old enough) Friday is J.J.s p-day so we get an email from him every Friday don't forget to look at the blog full of his letters!: elderjaredwludlowjr.blogspot.com

Saturday March 17th
Had normal Sabbath services, hung out with students and the fam. It was St. Patrick's Day didn't quite celebrate it but it was funny because I didn't have any green Sabbath clothing so I wore my green undies! It was SJ's Birthday too, I love SJ so much! ;)

Sunday March 18th
Went to Tel Aviv and biked, had the time of my life! Chilled on the beach and had a non-kosher burger! (there is a full post on this day also)

Family Outing to Tel Aviv- Riding Bikes and Chillen

So on during this last week I have been wanting to go to Tel Aviv and so our family decided to go on Sunday and my Mom asked me what we should do and I said we should ride bikes and what did we end up doing? riding bikes! It was a lot of fun and it was fun to be around the fam.

This is the place where we rented bikes..

Haha so you know how they say that when you are day dreaming you are in "LaLa Land" haha here ya go! I think they did a good job on making it feel like LaLa Land

Super yummy Banana shake!!

Lunch

We chilled at the beach for like a half an hour

Me and Josh having fun and being ourselves on the outdoor gym that they have

We just had to ride our bikes through this fountain. Brings back the memory of my last night in Provo before I came to Israel, but both biking and playing aroung in a fountain... at once!! Miss you Louisa Eastley!

We stopped at a shop right next to the cycling place (in the left corner) Marissa by this point was very joyful and energetic...not!

I love these girls so much



We then went to Moses bar, actually we tried to find it and we got lost and right when we were giving up it popped out of the middle of nowhereThis place was non- kosher (very important to be non- kosher) so we got Bacon on our burgers!! The students showed up and it was fun to mingle with them.

This is a picture of my moms burger, me, Josh and my dads burgers were bigger, but we ate them so fast that she couldnt get a picture