Days Twelve & Thirteen - With Pictures from Jeff!

It's much too late at night for me to attempt to formulate and record my thoughts in any way that makes sense, so this will be succinct tonight--mostly pictures and captions.

I was very, very happy to get some pictures from Jeff today! I love him...sigh. :) Josiah picked up right away on the fact that Jeff is wearing a floppy hat in these pictures. Jeff used to have one of these when we lived in Israel, but somewhere between here and there it disappeared. He was wishing that he had one before he left on this trip but wasn't able to find one in the short amount of time we were devoting to shopping in preparation for his departure. Josiah surmised that he must have found a place to buy one in Israel. :)

The first three pictures are of Jeff on the cliffs of Arbel, a prominent geographical feature near the Sea of Galilee and a fun place to climb around and explore.

~ the Sea of Galilee is visible on the far right in the above picture
~ Jeff and Eric relaxing in the shade...in such a climate, shade is CRUCIAL...it's amazing what a difference it makes to find a bit of shade in which to cool off

This is a picture from a newspaper that includes an article about the English camp and a picture of the camp that shows three of the team members and a number of students. To see more like this, go to this site. What? You can't read it??? Oh, well, enjoy the pictures at least. :)

Here are two pictures from Banias, one of my favorite sites in Israel. There is a stream here (which actually flows into the Sea of Galilee) and a waterfall, not a common thing in Israel! Reaching this spot demands a certain amount of exertion, but it's well worth the sweat! :)

This picture, obviously taken out of the window of their van, is of people riding up the ski lift at Mount Hermon which, at this time of the year, doesn't have snow on it, but definitely does in the winter. Israel is a lot more varied geographically than most people realize. Whereas the majority of people seem to imagine hot, sandy deserts when they think of Israel, the country actually includes very fertile agricultural areas, gorgeous oceans and seashores, and--yes--a mountain on which to ski.

This is at Nazareth Village--shepherds in the watchtower.

And, for Jeff's sake, a few pictures from here. Last night, I had the fun of going out for dinner with my friends Julie and Misty. We three were pregnant at the same time, with Misty giving birth to her daughter Elissa first and Julie delivering Mairi only 5 weeks ago. It was so nice to have some girl time with them, and I was especially blessed to have Julie's daughter Shannon keep my boys while we went out. Josiah did this 100 piece puzzle this morning all by himself. I've done it with him once, I think; and Shannon did it with him last night. But today he did it all and was proud of himself. It was definitely worth the 75 cents I paid for it a while back at good old Gift & Thrift. :) In the past, Josiah has enjoyed puzzles, but never been obsessed with them. Seeing him do this one though reminded me that I should be on the look-out for more puzzles for him.

And now, some pics of the day from when we lived in Israel. These are all from the school (a public junior high school) in which Jeff taught English for 2 years.

~ the entrance

~ the security guard that manned the gate...he was always asking Jeff to bring back a certain kind of shoes and a certain kind of alcohol (can't remember what kind for either of those categories) for him when we went on trips to the States...he thought he could get a good deal on those things by purchasing them outside of Israel ~ some of the students during an end of the year trip to a park in Tel Aviv that had a lake on which they could waterski