Autumn had her Spring Dance Recital on Wednesday at Cottonwood High School and she was a little Chinese Doll. She is the first little girl on the left sitting on the bench.
Now she is the second girl from the left.
I could not get the video of her dance to post so, I guess pictures will have to do.
Airplane 101:
2. Make sure an airplane is at your gate (sunrise in the Atlanta airport). Although, this was not our plane but what a beautiful sunrise and skyline after a very long night trying to catch some shut eye.
3. If you are going on a long, long flight, pack a blanket, pillow, cell phone & charger, movies to watch, snacks, make-up (for da women), toothbrush, eye coverings and ear plugs or just bring everything from home like I do. If your flight is delayed, quickly stake out your own little home away from home area! We basically took over one corner section of the gate! The girls pulled the seats out away from the walls thinking that the carpet would be cleaner behind the benches.
4. Wear long pants (no matter what season it is), long sleeve shirt and warm socks! Even with a jacket we were freezing, in the airport and on the plane. Even me with all my hot flashes, so you know it was cold! We made 2 friends that hung out with us in the Wheatley corner at the airport, the business man (I can't remember his name) in the black t-shirt by Angie and the preacher man. They were just like one of the family.
5. Plan on delays! If a crowd appears, mosey on over and be ENTERTAINED! The ring leader for our almost riot was the bald man in the Levi jacket. Note, Taurean is in the blue hat and striped shirt and was just watching all the fun. You can almost see a red jacket Delta agent who did not know how to handle a crowd. He said things like "Hey, back up and give me some room or I'm going to cancel this flight"! Well, that really helped and he was a Spanish speaking man trying to speak in English and was VERY hard to understand. They finally got 2 other red jacket Delta agents to help settle the crowd. It was VERY entertaining.
6. If you are flying for 12 hours, you might want to take a sleeping aid on the flight and also see if you can buy a strap that holds your mouth closed when you sleep, this is a Wheatley problem (I'm counting the preacher man as a Wheatley). The above picture is of our little preacher man who befriended us and became like one of the fam (see, he brought his own blanket). Airplane food can be very tasty (I did have one chicken meal that was good!). If you are on a 5 hour flight, no free food for you but, you can buy a sandwich or salad for $8.
7. Keep a positive attitude!
8. If you sit at an emergency exit on a over seas flight, be prepared for cold. Also, you get free movies on overseas flights, $6 for a movie in the states. On an over seas flight it's nice to sit about 4 rows from the airplane bathrooms, but not right across from them. Sorry Ang and Vince and Liz and John. They had great leg room seating on an exit row but it was noisy by the bathroom all night and very cold.
9. Travel with someone you love so that on delayed flights you can have them watch your carry-on's while you go to the bathroom a number of times.
10. Ice cream is $1 at the Tel Aviv airport and John was buying for everyone!
11. If you have a delay, take notes of how the airline handles it and...
I love a good Cemetery and they have some great ones in Jerusalem. The picture above is showing the Dome of the Rock, the Mercy Gate (sealed up nice and tight until Christ comes again) in front of the Dome of the Rock and a cemetery in front of the old city wall.
This is Jack Marshall our tour/scripture guide taken from the Orson Hyde Park on the Mount of Olives with the cemetery in the back ground.
The garden tomb...
This was taken from the Mount of Olives looking down on these tombs. They still use this cemetery! Wait, they still use all of them (bones on top of bones)!!
Below is a Muslim cemetery.
Below is a little German Cemetery where two LDS missionaries are buried. These two missionaries are the reason why we have the Jerusalem center and the Orson Hyde park on the Mount of Olives. They died from a plague and their bodies were not able to be shipped home and so they were buried in Jerusalem and so the Church was able to claim a presence in Israel from 1892. And thus the Church was able to buy and lease land in Israel. This is a miracle how this all took place. Their markers are the ones with half a pillar representing that their lives were cut down in their prime. One of the missionaries was Adolf Haag who was born in Germany and immigrated to Payson, Ut and the other missionary was John Clark from Farmington, Ut. John Clark's father designed and payed for the markers for their graves. The Mount of Olives is a very small area and for the Church to have the Jerusalem Center and the Orson Hyde Park area is unbelievable! I believe in Miracles and this is one!
The day we left Jerusalem there seemed to be some kind of gathering of Military men outside of our Hotel. It is mandatory for every Israeli to serve in the military.
All I know is they seem to carry their guns just like we would carry a purse!
This is outside our Hotel in Jerusalem and the guy standing in the door way next to the flag is packing a gun. Our very own hotel guard who is supposed to be standing behind the wood podium outside. I don't blame him, it was very hot!
If you look closely you can see another hotel guard packing heat!
I love this bus stop. By the way, these are only the pictures I took, the kids probably have many, many more gun totting military photo's.
We started our trip off with a bang, or I should say almost a riot at the Atlanta airport. They kept delaying our departure, then boarded us then after almost 3 hours deboarded us and then we spent the night on the floor! Taurean did sleep along with Alan and John. Yes, Taurean's head is in his back pack! Oh, and did I mention that it was freezing in the airport!! It was like a 14 hour delay. We had some pretty excited people who were complaining about how Delta handled it and it was very entertaining! Finally, with no sleep we made it to our tour bus. I'm not sure it was "Fun for LESS" but, it was fun.
Below is a fig leaf. I think Adam and Eve were able to make some nice coverings for themselves with these big leaves.
Sea of Galilee and the boat that we went out on one night. Yes I said night! I was a little nervous because I could not see where we were going!! By the way, the Sea of Galilee looks like Bear Lake! In fact, Israel looks like Utah!! Coincidence? I don't think so.
One of my favorite places below is the town of Capernaum. And of course they built a chapel over Peter's (I think) home.
Well, things have changed since we were in Israel 25 years ago. Below is the wall that the Israel built around the city of Bethlehem to keep who knows what out or the Palestine people in. Guns, guards and towers made us all feel real cozy in the birth place of Jesus.
Sheperd's field where the sheperd's were watching their flocks when Jesus was born. We got to go into some caves here with flash lights.
Masada is the big mountain of dirt in the middle of this picture. If you look to the left side of the mountain you will see a zig zag trail that Alan and Katherine walked down. The city is built on top of the mountain and there is a tram that takes you up to the top. It was so hot and looks out on the Dead Sea! The dark thing on the right side of the mountain at the top is where the tram stops to let you off.
Paintings on the walls inside of Masada. King Herod made it a beautiful place to live.
Fun, fun, fun at the Dead Sea. I did not get in the water, but I must say I had great fun in watching the European swim suits. One gentleman was changing into his swim suit right there in front of me on the beach! Yes, I did take a picture of him. It was like the Mr. Bean episode where Mr. Bean was changing his swim suit on the beach. There was way too much skin showing on that beach!
Another favorite for me on the trip was going to Beit Lehi an archeological dig that is not open to the public. The owner of Fun for Less tours is friends with the land owner. It was like something out of a Star Trek movie! Everything was under ground in caves. Below is a columbarium where they raised doves to be sold at the temple in Jerusalem and to also eat them. It was huge and scary to be under ground.
Below is one of my favorite things of the trip. This is in a cave at Beit Lehi and is a two room stable for animals with three manger's for the animals food. This would be like where Jesus would have been laid in a manger. So cool.
Also, at Beit Lehi there were beautiful mosaic's covered with sand and we would sweep the sand away and...
and a beautiful picture would appear! We were walking on them!!
This is the valley where Samson from the Bible lived and is right next to Beit Lehi.
The huge old Olive Tree's on the Mount of Olives.
Outside our hotel in Jerusalem.
