Even more pumpkin patch

Anna, Ben, Lawson and Lizzy.

Hairy Grandpa and his posse.  Thanks for carrying the baby dad! (Greg carried him through the corn maze, the baby, not my dad).

MMmmmm! Spaghetti.  We added three more children for dinner because I watched my friend, Leah's, kids.  For a while we had the two neighbor boys too.  At one time there were 12 children, age 9 and under in our house!

Thus endeth the pumpkin patch pictures!

Muddy pumpkin patch pictures

Grandma Cherrie and Grandpa Jim. Look at that smile, even in the rain and mud.

The wagon, mired down in the mud.

Handsome Husband.

Ew!! Gross. I had to wash the clothes and clean the shoes.

I am having trouble getting the pictures in my account, so I am using Greg's. It's me Tammy again.

October Fun--Post 1--Pumpking Patch/Corn Maze

Have you missed me? You are about to get overloaded with posts to catch up for the last month. October was a fun and busy month for us. We have really come to love the fun it brings. This year we had two, yes two, sets of grandparents come visit. My dad and his wife Nancy were watching my brothers kids for a week in Iowa City, so we didn't see much of them, but a little. I went up there one day, and then on their way to the airport they stopped to do something fun with us. Greg's mom, and husband Jim, happened to come the day before, also, so we decided to head to the pumpkin patch for some fun. My niece and nephew also came with us. So we had a total of 6 adults and 7 kids (not a bad ratio, really).

The day started out fun enough. We first did a great corn maze with lots of different checkpoints. It was great fun, but then it started raining. It was really starting to come down so we had to leave the maze and hide out in the little store. We still hadn't picked our pumpkins though. We talked it over and most of us decided to brave the rain and still get a pumpkin. Adam and Nancy opted for the drier, warmer car. The rain slowed down a little bit, but we failed to think about the MUD! It was so slippery and deep. It was difficult to walk, let alone pull our wagon with pumpkins in it. We did it though, and everyone had a great attitude about it, even the baby who was carried by my dad in his backpack. It even added to the experience. I think the worst part was cleaning off seven children's shoes when we got home. We came home and had hot chocolate and spaghetti for dinner. It was fun we could do this with grandparents and cousins along.

                                                                       Fun at the Corn Maze.

Lizzy at the Pumpkin Patch

P.S.  This is Tammy, not Greg.

Birthday pictures

Here are the long awaited birthday pictures.  I hope you enjoy!

For some reason, Ben wanted a snowman cake this year.  I figured it was easy enough that even I could figure it out.  The hat didn't turn out as well as I would have liked, but I think the rest is pretty OK.

Here is Ben trying out one of his birthday gifts.  Doesn't he look like a scientist? Er, maybe a mad scientist.

This was Ben's "big" gift this year. It is a bug vacuum and habitat.  He got a little bug jar from participating in our library's reading program this year that he carried around with him ALL the time.  I accidentally stepped on it and broke it one night while he was sleeping, so I thought it was paramount to replace it with something.  He still hasn't asked what happened to  the jar, phew!

This is the only picture of me on my birthday as the camera ran out of batteries shortly thereafter. Adam is so lovingly making me look good. He is a nine year old after all.



This is the cake that Greg decorated for Jacob. Isn't it fun?

Here Jake is trying to blow out his candle. Isn't he cute? It seems he almost always has a cracker in his hand, and if you say do you want a cracker, he walks immediately to the pantry. He understands so much now!

He didn't really dig into his cake. I think he wasn't very hungry. There was really no need to dress him down to his diaper, he didn't end up getting all that messy.

Thus endeth the birthday pictures!

3 for 1--- Birthdays that is

So we have had a lot of birthdays at our house lately. August 20th was Jacob's 1st birthday! I can hardly believe it has been over a year. He started taking steps and walking at 11 months and is now an old pro. It makes him seem so much older. He seems more like a 15 month old than a 12 month old now. He says a few words, ball, boo, more (mo), wee (you know like wee!! this is fun!). He is so much fun and brings so much joy into our home. The kids all love having him too. Now that he can walk he likes to follow them around and they will play with him. He loves to be pushed in the stroller and he stomps his foot when he is excited. He is just so stinkin' cute. We just had our own little family party for him. It was great fun. Oh yes, he is now completely weaned, which makes this mama very happy:)



Next was my birthday. On Sept. 10, I turned the ripe, old age of 33. I am now well into my thirties. It doesn't bother me too much. In fact I feel like I've been married nearly 11 years, I have 5 kids, a great home, I ought to be in my thirites. It is a great place to be. I have thought some about how the Savior was 33 in the last year of his ministry on earth. I think I would like to reread those portions of the Gospels this year. 33 is good.



Greg, very kindly and wonderfully took off half the day of work to be home with me. We just went on a nice walk with the boys along the river and talked. Then we went and got the kids at school and went out for ice cream, and on a whim I wanted to go to a furniture store, so we all went to together (have you ever been to a furniture store with 5 kids? it is quite the experience, we rent ours out, if you are looking to try something new and different; it is actually pretty fun, just a little bit crazy!). Then we went home and Greg made me a nice dinner of mashed potatoes and grilled steak! MMMM! I didn't want a cake, so we had an ice cream pie, Mississippi Mud. It was a good day. I have a good life. I was reminded of that on my birthday. I told Greg, I felt like I should be the one giving everybody else a present. I just feel so grateful for my good husband and children, not to mention other family and friends. Life is good.



Lastly, was our Benner boy's birthday on Sept. 18. He turned 4! My fourth child is 4! He and I are buddies now that the kids are back in school. He missed them a lot at first, but now is thrilled with the arrangement, I think. It sure is apparent in his happy attitude and smiling face. He is so quiet sometimes, and then he will talk your ear off. He just likes to be near me, whatever I am doing. He will help with the dishes or wash the floor (yes I do those things occasionally). He likes to read with me and has his favorite books, including "I Spy" books and Mercer Mayer books.



The Saturday before his birthday we had his cousin Lawson and family over for a little celebration. That is always fun to get together with the Ebberts. I still think it is so cool Ben and Lawson were born on the exact same day. On Ben's birthday, he proudly brought a treat to preschool. Then we got kid's meals at Wendy's for Ben and his friend Holly. Then Ben and Holly, Jacob and I all went to the Family Musuem. It was so much fun to go with Ben and Holly. They are at the perfect age to really enjoy it and it was so different than taking a wide age range of kids. It was so much fun! The fun continued with a spaghetti dinner, snowman cake, and fun presents, including a bug vacuum, which has been a hit.



We love birthdays at our house, and it is a good thing, because they come in bunches!



Sorry folks, you will have to wait for pictures. We are having some Picasa issues. I know, how boring. You'll live. It just means you will have to come back soon to see if I got some up. Happy Wednesday!

Back to school.... 3 weeks ago

Well folks, I am breaking my many months of blog silence. I always want to be very thorough in my posts, which is part of the reason I haven't posted in months; who has time to be thorough?! I finally decided something was better than nothing, so here is my first post in a long while.

I know I am late, but the kids started back to school on August 13. Anna is absolutely loving it. Her teacher is very kind and uses tons of music in the classroom. The first week they had a contest to name the class pets, a frog and a fish. The fish was appropriately named Phelps. The frog received the name Jacob. She has loved having her friend Sarah in her class again this year too. All in all she is doing great. Here she is on her first day:

Lizzy is loving kindergarten too. She has a male kindergarten teacher, which I was a little worried about, but I have really liked him. He is totally organized and seems to be aware of where Lizzy is at academically. Liz has been extra tired but still enjoying school. They have a staggered start over the first three days for kindergartners, so only one third of the class goes over the first three days. Because of this here first day was different than Adam and Anna. Cute Lizzy.

I think Adam is enjoying too, although he will tell you differently. If you ask him if he likes school he will shrug his shoulders and kind of grunt (have we reached this already?). He often complains of being bored , but has liked some of the things his teacher has done already. She had them act out the olympic race where 2 men were disqualified and Adam got to be Usain Bolt, which he thought was pretty cool. They also had to "form" a team of animals and say which animals they would choose and which events they would have them compete in. He is busier than ever with extracurricular activities, so I think school seems boring in comparison.

Ben just had his first day of preschool yesterday. He was pretty shy at first and stuck close to me, but when it was time for me to go in the other room for a mini parent meeting, he did just fine. He keeps asking when he will get to go back, and said he had a great time. I think this will be really good for Ben. He has really missed the kids now that we are back to school. I don't know what I will do with myself when it is just Jacob and I for a few hours a week. This isn't his first day of preschool picture (I admit it, I forgot to take one!) but it is a cute picture of Ben.

We loved the summer and enjoyed having time to spend together. We are getting a little better at the school routine, but we are working out the kinks still. Happy school year kids. We love you! Oh, just because he is cute, here is picture of Jacob. Isn't he sweet?

Helping Hands in Cedar Rapids

Most of you probably heard in the news what happened in Cedar Rapids Iowa and many other Iowa communities back in June. Because of a very wet spring, there was record flooding in many areas. Cedar Rapids was particularly devastated losing more than four thousand homes to the floods.

The waters have receded and cleanup efforts are underway. It is a mammoth project!

Our church has been organizing large teams of volunteers to help with the work in Cedar Rapids. I had a chance to go with volunteers from our ward on Saturday. About 150 others were also there from the church all across Iowa working on about 28 different houses.


This is the group from my ward. We were assigned the home of an elderly man named John (the one not wearing the yellow "Mormon Helping Hands" t-shirt) . John said that he was only given two hours warning to evacuate his home before the water arrived. The flood filled the basement and main level to within a foot of the ceiling, completely destroying everything in the home. Nothing had been done in the home since the flood and our job was to remove and demolish everything, leaving only the frame of the house and the exterior siding.

The hardest part of the whole day was seeing and hearing the pain that John was feeling as his house was literally torn apart. He is a retired 23 year military veteran who just last fall suffered a stroke, leaving him partially disabled. Although he still was able to work with us on his home, he spent most of the time wandering around with a somewhat blank look on his face, moaning and crying, and sorting through his former treasures hoping to find anything that he could salvage. The end result was almost nothing. I was filled with grief as I witnessed the shear magnitude of his loss. It was heartbreaking.



The first part of the project was removing the furnishings from the main level and beginning the demolition of the walls. This is a picture of some of the teenage young men from our ward early in the project tearing plaster from the walls. They loved this part! How often do you get to take a crowbar and sledgehammer to a wall?

I fortunately did not have to help with the freezer full of rotten food and floodwater. I did however, find the washing machine still full of laundry along with that filthy brown two month stagnant river water and got my first soaking while helping to move it outside to dump.



I was the first one to venture into the basement and ended up spending most of the day down there. This is a picture of one section of the basement where a portion of the wall had collapsed creating a mudslide of cinder blocks, mud, and John's possessions. After seeing that, I began to question whether we should be in the house at all and wonder whether in the end the house will have to be bulldozed anyway.



When I first went down, it was impossible to even step from the stairs into the basement. It was completely dark. We had only two weak battery powered electric lanterns to work with. The flash photograph shows much more detail than we ever saw. I had no idea what it really looked like until I saw the pictures.

We organized a bucket brigade to begin making headway in the basement - passing up item after item until we had cleared enough space around the stairs to begin working. We found under the piles of debris a thick layer of very wet and slippery mud covering the whole floor.

Most of the day for me was spent carrying things out of the basement and scooping out bucketful after bucketful of that nasty mud. Any storage container that managed to remain upright was still completely filled with river water. I had many soakings trying to move those containers and ended the day completely wet and caked with mud.



As precarious as the situation was, miraculously no one was seriously injured. Rusty nails were everywhere, and sledgehammers and crowbars flying. At one point a huge section of ceiling came crashing down on two of our youth, but they shook it off, showing no signs of injury or slowing down. So far no one has developed any illness, though I'm sure there was disease everywhere in that home. We really felt that because of the service we were doing, that we were being watched over.



By the end of the day, we had cleared out a mammoth pile of debris. This is all of John's possessions and most of his home - all completely destroyed in a matter of hours. It was so sad.



Here's the finished product in the basement. Still a nice slippery layer of mud, but a big improvement over the start of the day.



Upstairs, most of the walls and a good portion of the ceilings were taken out by the end of the day. Everyone put in a very full very exhausting day.



I was very impressed with the youth that came with our group. They all worked hard all day long with very little rest or slowing down. We accomplished a lot of good for John and he and his family showed a tremendous amount of gratitude for the work we had done.

It was a very hard day - physically exhausting (I'm am SOOO sore today) and emotionally difficult. But in other ways, it was one of the most rewarding days I have had in a very long time.

I came home with a deeper sense of gratitude for what I have and a stronger realization that life is not about what we possess in our homes. Those things could be washed away in an instant leaving us with only the person that we are and the faith that we have and the relationships that we have built. Why do we spend so much time chasing the material things? "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal"

One house down ... Three thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine to go. We expect to be going back often.

You can see all of our pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/finchgregory/2008August30BettendorfWardCedarRapidsCleanup

The Judean Wilderness and the Dead Sea

Saturday was a very long day. We traveled through the Judean Wilderness to the Dead Sea. En route, we passed many Bedouin nomads, some herding sheep and goats as they have for thousands of years. I was amazed how desolate the Judean wilderness is. It begins so abruptly on the back side of the Mount of Olives - I can see why some believe that that mount divides heaven from hell.

Our first stop was Masada. Masada is an old Roman fort built by - you guessed it - Herod the Great (he did a lot of building during his time). It's situated on top of a very high mountain and is very difficult to access. For thousands of years, historians knew of Masada but no one knew where it was. Finally, sometime during the 1800's it was rediscovered. There's now a cable car that will take you to the top to explore the ruins.

Masada is most famous for what happened in about 70 A.D. The Jews had rebelled against the Romans and the Romans had responded fiercely to the revolt. This is when the temple was destroyed for the last time. A few Jewish "zealots" managed to take control of Masada from the Romans. For several years they stayed atop Masada - unable to leave because the Romans had surrounded the mountain. Fortunately for the Jews, there were years worth of provisions there.

Because the fort was so high and so inaccessible, it took the Romans years to find a way to reach the zealots. In the end they actually built a ramp all the way to the top of the mountain. The ramp remains today (though slightly eroded). It's amazing that they built it with literally millions of individual stones.

The night they finally reached the top and were ready to enter the fort to capture the zealots, the zealots held a meeting and decided they would commit mass suicide rather than be captured by the Romans. When the Romans entered the fort, they found everyone dead except two women and five children.

After we left Masada, we went to the dead sea. Here we got to swim and take a dead sea mud bath and soak in the a sulfur hot springs. It was very nice. Here's a picture of the mud monster.

We also made a few other stops in the desert (including Qumran where the Dead Sea scrolls were found) and then made out way back to Tel Aviv to catch our flight home.

It was a really great trip altogether. I found myself wishing I could have spent much more time there as a tourist. I felt like I barely scratched the surface and that there is so much more there to see and experience. I did "feel" a lot there - much more than I expected. Knowing the scriptures a little bit and then seeing the place really helped to solidify in my mind many of the teachings and stories from the scriptures. I highly recommend anyone that is able to take the time to travel there - it is very much worth the experience!

Jerusalem

Friday we spent the entire day in Jerusalem. Where to start? There was so much to see and experience and ponder that it is impossible to really describe and even more impossible to fully experience. This is the land where it all comes together in every sense. The old city is divided into quarters between Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Armenians. As you travel through the city you move easily between the different quarters, but it is like stepping from one world right into another. The Jewish Quarter was very peaceful and clean and quiet and well kept. Stepping from there into the Muslim quarter was quite a shock - crowded, noisy, busy, dirty (graffiti everywhere) with vendors everywhere. The Christian quarter was unfortunately more like the Muslim quarter than the Jewish quarter, not very clean and vendors everywhere.

I was thinking about the significance of how old Jerusalem is divided and how three of the world's great religions come together there and thinking about the last days and what will happen there between those religions. In an important way, it's really symbolic the way the city is established.

This is a picture from inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where many believe Jesus was crucified and buried. It was extremely ornate. This is a picture looking up in the great dome above the site of the sepulchre.

This is an arial shot of old Jerusalem from the top of the Luthern Church of the Redeemer with the temple mount in the background. The view from the top is much different than the view from the narrow winding streets below. In the upper left (white building below the grove of trees near the top of the mountain) is the BYU Jerusalem center where Tammy studied for several months before we were married. I had a chance to drive past it, but unfortunately won't get the chance this trip to visit.

One of the most impressive things that I experienced was the Garden of Gethsemane. It's hard to describe the feelings that I felt there so I won't try, but I will just say it was a very nice experience. This is a shot of one of the ancient olive trees in the Garden.

The other really impressive thing for me was what is believed by some to be the place Christ was crucified - Golgotha - the place of the skull. It wasn't so much the site as it was the guide that took us there. He was a Christian from England there serving as a missionary in the Garden Tomb area. While we were sitting in a quiet grove talking about Golgotha, the guide bore a simple and beautiful testimony about his belief in Christ. It was really touching to me.

This is of course the Garden Tomb where many believe Christ was buried and from where he resurrected.

Here's an opposite shot of the temple mount looking down from the top of the Mount of Olives. In the foreground is the vast Jewish cemetary. Jews want to be buried as near to the temple as possible as they believe Christ will come first to that place. The Dome of the Rock is built directly on the temple mount where the temple built by Herod was destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D.

Yad Vashem

Thursday evening we travelled to Jerusalem and stopped at Yad Vashem - the memorial in Jerusalem for the Holocaust victims. It was a beautiful beautiful site - so peaceful and so well done. As you can imagine, the subject could have been presented in graphic and shocking ways, but I didn't find it that way at all. While it was informative and true to the facts and definitly sobering, it was done in such as a way as to honor the victims with respect.

There was a lot of symbolism built into Yad Vashem. The museum where the story of the holocaust is presented is in a rather dark corridor. The tall walls are slanted upward and inward until they join together just above the ground - always allowing a beam of daylight into the otherwise dreary corridor.

The museum is presented with a variety of multimedia and actual artifacts from the time artifacts. Maybe one of the most memorable for me was walking across a plastic floor panel, looking down and seeing thousands upon thousands of shoes and realizing that those were shoes stripped from the people as they were taken to be killed. It was a really sobering thing.
As you progress through the museum, you gradually move upward, more toward ground level. At the end of the museum you enter a huge and beautiful rotunda library with thousands of volumes lining the shelves all around the rotunda. The volumes contain the official list of names of all of the holocaust victims.

As you exit the museum you emerge an a large platform overlooking a beautiful mountainous valley. The way the triangular walls converge with the sky force you to look to the heavens and somehow cause you to feel as if you are ascending.

Above the museum are beautiful and peaceful gardens covering a very large area. It was so peaceful there and so beautiful there and such a fitting memorial to the victims of the holocaust.

As we were driving away from Yad Vashem, I noticed a large monument overarching the road enscribed with scripture from the 37th chapter of Ezekial. It was touching to read:

"Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live and I will bring you into your own land."

Ceasarea

On Thursday we spent the morning in the office. In the afternoon, we drove to Ceasarea which is about an hour north of Tel Aviv. Ceasarea is probably most famous among Christians for the travels of Paul and his time spent emprisoned there.



Ceasarea was built by King Herod (same guy that built the temple for the Jews and killed all the babies in Bethlehem after Jesus was born there). I think it was dedicated in about 9 A.D. It was kind of a playground for the rich. Interestingly, Ceasarea is still considered a playground for the rich of Israel with some of the most expensive properties surrounding the ancient city.

One of the most impressive things in Ceasarea is the mosaics that stil remain very well intact. This was my favorite (even though there's a thin layer of dust covering it). If you look close you'll see a dog and a duck and some other creatures and objects.





These are some marble pillars that surround one of the several bath houses.

This is Herod's hippodrome. It's basically a giant chariot race course and gladiator battlefield. The structure jutting out in the left side of the field wasn't there originally so the track was more round with the pathway in the middle.


This was the most interesting thing to me. It's an amphitheatre that was built by Herod. Look familiar? It is very similar to stadiums today.

And you'll also notice that this 2000 year old amphitheatre is still used for concerts! It is 'the place to play' in Israel. You haven't made it until you've played here.

Israel

Because it's been many, many months since we've posted anything on our blog, we've probably lost all of our readers. For any of you who are still out there hanging on, I decided to record a few experiences I've had this week.

This week I'm in Israel!! I'm working with a supplier whose research and development center is in Tel Aviv so I'm here visiting this week with a couple of others from work. It's been a very interesting trip so far and will become more interesting later in the week when we actually get to be tourists for a couple of days.

Being a work trip, most of the week has been time spent in the office and in business meals - lots and lots and lots of business meals. Enjoyable, but way too much food. Tel Aviv is situated right on the Mediterranean so it seems the favorite food in the area is seafood - not my favorite! But I've tried my best to enjoy it. Sushi, calamari, raw tuna, sardines stuffed with caviar, and on and on. Some I've enjoyed more than I expected - most I've barely been able to swallow.

Our hotel is located right on the beach, so I've been able to spend some time in the water (early mornings before work). It's probably been 10 years or so since I've swam in the ocean, so that's been a nice treat - except that there are jellyfish in the water and I've had a few minor stings. I was swimming on Tuesday morning when that big earthquake (6.2 magnitude) struck in the Mediterranean near Greece. Of course, being in the water, I didn't feel anything, but oddly enough right about that time I was thinking about tsunamis - wondering if they ever happen in the Mediterranean? Fortunately for me, not this time, but it's kind of scary to think about what could have happened.

So far, we haven't really gotten to see much of the tourist sites. We did walk through the ancient city of Jaffa (it's mentioned a few times in the bible and is one of the oldest port cities in the region). That was a very interesting walk - ancient walkways, old churches, cavernous buildings filled with hundreds of huge bats and so on). Perhaps most interesting was that during the walk we came across a traditional Jewish wedding and were able to watch the last 15 minutes or so of it. It was awesome! I loved the symbolism in the ceremony and the beautiful and lively music and the obvious love the young couple had for one another. I felt a little like I was intruding, but was glad for the experience.

The down-side of business travel is that since we're here doing business, there is little time to be a tourist. The up-side of business travel is that we get to interact a lot with people most familiar with the area and people that are living normal lives in the region and are able to share their country on a much more personal level. Our hosts have been great! They share very openly what it means to live here in Israel.

Following are some things I've learned and thoughts I've had about the country. Disclaimer: I've been in Israel for 3 days. I'm no expert. These are just some thoughts and impressions that I've had. I have no idea how accurate any of them are.

The people
I've really enjoyed working with the Israelis. They are very direct and open in every way. Quite opposite from my recent experience working with Indians who are generally very indirect. The Israelis are very talented and skilled in their work and enjoyable to be around.

I was surprised to find a wide mix of people from all around the world living here. A fair number of oriental people and African people. The Jewish Israelis have gathered here from all over the world, so there is strong influence from many different regions. I was especially surprised to find a very strong Russian influence here. Many signs are in Russian and there are two Russian television stations. Apparently, in the 90's there was a huge influx of Russians into Israel (I think someone told me more than a million Russians came to Israel during the 90's). Israel's total population is only 7 million, so this influence is substantial.

Also - you probably already know this, but it was never clear to me until this trip - but there is a difference between an Arab Israeli and a Palestinian. There are many many Arabs living in Israel and are Israeli citizens and generally live in harmony with the Jewish Israelis. The societies seem to integrate without much problem. That is different from the Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank under the governance of the Palestinian Authority. They are not considered Israeli citizens and there are of course substantial political tension. Just a little tidbit of information I never really understood before.

The culture
Keeping in mind that I've only so far seen Tel Aviv, I find Israeli culture very very very much like American culture in nearly every way. Of all the places I've ever traveled outside of the United States, I think I am most comfortable being an American here. I feel like I fit in very well. Israelis are very welcoming to Americans and there are quite a lot of Americans here (both as tourists and as permanent residents). I was surprised when our waiter at one of the restaurants switched from Hebrew to nearly perfect American English. I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing he is a child of American emmigrants. The styles of clothing, the music, the mannerisms, and the food are all very similar to what you might find in America. The buildings remind me more of Europe but most everything else reminds me more of America. Traffic here is more agressive than traffic in the U.S., but it's not nearly as bad as India or Mexico.

I've only on a few occasions seen Orthodox Jews in their traditional dress or Muslims in traditional clothing, but I expect I will see much more of that in Jerusalem.

The politics
Politics is of course a major thing here in Israel. We hear about it nearly every day in American news and of course the same is all over the news here. There seems to be a lot of national pride here - I see Israeli flags hanging everywhere. You don't see flags too often in other countries (besides the U.S.) but they are everywhere here. Everyone (men and women) are required to serve in the military for a couple of years with few exceptions.

Now for security. I saved this one for last intentionally because it is such a non-issue here. Everyone upon everyone was questioning my sanity when I started planning this trip. "But that's such an unsafe country - there is so much violence there." The truth is, Israel is a very safe place to visit. I've not once felt the least bit uncomfortable or unsafe. There are millions of people living here. Yes, there are occasional acts of violence and terrorism that affect a few people, but they have become so rare and the odds of being in the wrong place at the wrong time so miniscule that really there is not much cause for concern. Overall, violent crime rates are much lower than in the U.S. Because of that, I think a person is generally safer here than in America. We'll see if I feel the same way after visiting Jerusalem.

So, enough typing. If you made it to the bottom, congratulations! It's been a good trip so far. I'm excited to start some real sight-seeing in a couple of days and will write more then. Hopefully I'll get some pictures out soon too.