Lehitraot

We traveled the width and breadth of the Holy Land for a month, but there simply wasn't enough time (and sometime money!) to do absolutely everything on my list. Some of the time skipping an activity or site was due to Israel's minor obsession with needing reservations. A smaller portion of the adventures that awaited us were do to random age requirements. I am going to list all of the things that crossed my mind, my message boards or my path that we will just have to put off for next time (when ever that may be!). I can't vouch for any of these things, but they are worth looking into.

In NO particular order:
Qatsrin: Ancient Talmudic ruins in the north. General info on Katzrin and the area
Beit She'an: More ruins, fairly to the north, but they have a light and sound interactive hologram show set amongst the stones that is supposed to be very well done The parks website
Sachne National Park and Hot Springs: Constant 83 degree water with waterfalls, very near Beit She'an and right next door to Gan Garoo. We should have gone, but the thought of changing everyone and then back again was just to overwhelming for us to deal with at that time. Might make a great winter activity.... It is also called Gan HaShlosha
Rosh HaNikra Grottos: I really wanted to go, it was just too far north and closed too early for us to squeeze it in. http://www.rosh-hanikra.com/default.asp?lan=eng
Tiberias: In the summer it is like a steam oven, but I would like to go back to the Kineret, walk around and go to Rambam's burial site. If I could have come up with one other great reason to go to Tiberias on this past trip I would have, but my kids were getting burnt out on graves.
Holon Children's Museum: Particularly the "Dialogue in the Dark". You need to reserve, and there is an age restriction of 8 years old and above. It does have other parts to the museum for younger kids if you need to split up, but as far as I can tell you still need to reserve and go around with some sort of a guide. I could be wrong, but that is why we skipped it. http://www.childrensmuseum.org.il/front/ShowCategory.aspx?CatID=99
Tnuva Factory Tour: They have two factories that offer tours, one in Rechovot and one in Tavor. They both have a minimum age of 6, but are supposed to be interesting, and entertaining and fairly inexpensive. With my son Mendel who has an anaphylactic allergy to all things dairy we simply could not go there. What was I supposed to do, cover him in saran wrap? Keep jabbing him with the epi-pen and tossing Benadryl into his mouth? Oh, and FYI tours are ONLY in Hebrew, by advanced reservation and very select days. You also need to tell them if you keep mehadrin kosher.The Tnuva Website is all in Hebrew...
Bamba Tour: Yes, we like factory tours. This one we had planned to do. We called in May to book July and were told to call again in June. My sister called June 6th and was told the ENTIRE July was full. And yes, Mendel is allergic to Dairy but not to peanuts (TG!)http://www.osem.co.il/en/home/The-Bamba-House–Visitor-Center
Afrikef: At some point during our stay I had planned on going to see the monkeys, but I was misinformed that it was farther than Be'er Sheva (pretty far south, and hotter as you go) so I nixed the plan. Sadly, I later found out that it is rather close to where I was staying. What's the point of the place, not much, but there is an enclosure of free roaming monkeys. Admission is on the high side for random attractions, but next time I think we will Go see the monkeys !
Safari Park: This is near Tel Aviv. You drive into the Safari Park with your own car and drive around the animals, even lions. You stop and some of them come up to your car, keep your windows closed. That would have been great. Again, awesome, a bit pricey for what it is, and just not enough time for such a random activity. We had already dinged up our rental car and should have just gone for it. http://www.safari.co.il/content.php?id=3

Please let me know if you check any of these out for your self and if they are worth while to do on a future trip. If you have any other must do outings that I didn't get to, I would love to hear about it. Leave a comment!
Erica

It will take a tank to get us home.

The major draw back of renting a home in a less touristy city is you have to clean it up before you leave. No maid service, no cleaning crews. Pity.
Our last day in Israel therefore consisted of packing and cleaning up the house. It has four floors, but right away I figured out that we didn't need the attic level so I closed it off. One of my more brilliant thoughts, as now I didn't have to clean the bedroom or more importantly the bathroom up there.
Israel is a fairly dusty country. From the start of our trip we made everyone remove their shoes at the entry in order to lessen the dust brought into the house. Daily sweeping and weekly sponja-ing (Israel's version of mopping and sending everything down a drain hole in your floor) was needed, but now I meant business. Level by level I herded the kids to areas of the house and declaring bathrooms off limits. It was starting to look good, but there would still be a lot of last minute cleaning.
Once most of the jobs were accomplished, I still needed to get the kids out. We went into the Mercaz (city center) of RBS-A and picked up tzitzis for Dovie -- kind of like a restaurant version, you pick the size and style of the garment and then the thickness and knot style of the strings. Dovie chose a larger sized, wool, Chabad type garment. We were given the choice of thicker or thinner strings. Since I had NO idea which way to go, we chose one of each and left with two freshly tied pairs of tzitzis. We then headed to the candy store for some re-enforcements for the flight home. The kids had their final round of Angry Bird Popsicles. And then, to the underground shekel store!
I had been promising the kids "real" souvenirs. They seemed to all want IDF type of items. I also needed to get the kids out of the house so it would stay clean. And, I wanted them on the more tired side of the line for the trip home. That calls for one last outing. Latrun Tank Museum fit the bill.

http://www.yadlashiryon.com  Latrun was actually home to a British Police station that was the site of a battle. You can see the shell pock marks in the walls. It is on the road to Yerushalaim and overlooks a large critical area.  When we got there, they were setting up for a swearing in of a new Tank Brigade, so there weren't any tour guides.

 We entered the site for 100NIS a family and handed a self guided map. We fortunately brought my nephew Shlomo with us who ate a tour guide for lunch and knew everything there was to know about the area and the various tanks.

The kids listened to him for a while, but really they just wanted to climb on the tanks and pretend to attack the enemy. There is an indoor component, but due to the event that was to take place shortly, they moved things around and roped other exhibits off. We never did locate the movie and spent very little time inside. Most of the action was outdoors anyway. There are several tanks that can be climbed on, tank carriers you can cross, even tanks that are cut in half so you can see how the soldiers man them and how the engines look.

There were scores of soldiers hanging around awaiting for the ceremony to begin, so of course I couldn't let that photo op go by. Randomly, I approached a soldier and asked him, in Hebrew, if we could take a picture with his buddies with the kids. He answered me back in English. He wanted to know where we are from. I told him California. He asked where in California. I told him just outside of LA. He said, Oh, his best friend is from the San Fernando Valley. I said, well, we are from the SFV, in Tarzana. So, he asked me if we know a certain family.... We did! They daven at our shul and we know them well.  Small world. We then got our final IDF picture!
We stopped off at the Latrun gift shop and the big boys got bullet necklaces. Meir got an "I love the IDF" giant pen and I bought Bailey a stuffed camel. One thing she learned on the trip is the noise a camel makes. Ask her next time, it is very funny.
The Berman's had a family Bar Mitzvah to go to, so we went to their house for our final farewells. Then, in keeping with my mission of making sure the house stays clean I took the kids to eat dinner at the burger store in the mercaz.

 We returned back to the house to finish up packing and cleaning the house. Thank G-d my niece Elisheva came along to help me out. She was like a fairy with spare hands. She changed Bailey, sorted the foods and items her family would keep from our surplus, sponja'd the kitchen floor and helped pack up some odds and ends. Since our rental car had enough space for my family to sit in, a stroller and a sandwich, we needed to have a cab help take half of the kids and half of the suit cases.

We returned the rental car (filed the damage report....), and got to the airport in good time only to stand in line after line. We boarded the plane and took off a little after 1 AM back to LAX. I can hardly believe this long anticipated trip has come to an end. But here we are.

Got a Coke and a smile.

My kids love watching "Unwrapped" and learning how their favorite (and sometimes foods unknown to them) are made and sent to market. So, when we found out that Coca Cola in Bnei Brak offers tours, we signed right up. Yes, of course, this is yet another activity you need to plan for well in advance. If you have a group of 15 or more they will even set up something in English for you. We were 12 counting the little kids, so Hebrew it is. http://www.cocacola.co.il/Center/home.html 

Yerushalaim cities are challenging at best for parking, but Bnei Brak takes the cake. The streets are incredibly narrow and mostly 2 way. There are no meters or pay areas that I could determine. After about 15 minutes of snaking my way through I decided to park like and Israeli and invent a space on a sidewalk next to an apartment building. I made sure that anyone near there could get out and I wasn't blocking any driveways. I just couldn't wait to get out of my car already.

The kids and my sister went a head as scheduled, but the Coca Cola tour guides later brought me up to meet them. They have a strict 8 years old and up policy for the tour, so I had to bring Bailey, Meir and Chana to the Coke tasting area to hang out with my sister while I continued with the rest of the kids. I had missed the group shot picture in front of a backdrop of Coke cans from around the world, a movie (because that is how all Israeli tours begin) and room set up like an old fashioned bar where Coca Cola began. I thankfully missed some sort of spinny room that was supposed to evoke your senses. When I caught up with them, all of the kids were on exercises bikes pedaling to music through a forest. I think it was to show you how Coke gives you energy.
 Our next stop was onto a ride that was shaped like giant bubbles. The ride moved up and down while we put on 3-D glasses and went through a Coke-world that was mostly a tour of old Coke ads (many I remembered....) Finally we were admitted into the Coke factory. We watched zillions of 1.5L bottles line up, fill up, get their labels and lids and be boxed and stacked. It was pretty cool, and very loud. Rav Landau who gives Coke products their hechsher is one of only 3 people in the world who know the whole Coke recipe.

Our final stop met up with the little kids. Every one could take a bottle of soda of choice (of course some kids asked for a Pepsi :P ).

The day was still young and thee was now sugar and caffeine in abundance to burn off, so off to the park. My brother-in-law works in nearby Petach Tikva (or according to local signage Tikwa) therefore the Berman's knew of a great park that was across from a mall. I don't know if the park has a name, but it is on Basel street. This park has one of the largest, most complex climbing structures I have ever seen. It also had an enormous rope swing that all of the kids could stand and swing on at one time. The kids ran, climbed, slid and spun for a while.

 We ate lunch and then ventured across the street into the well air conditioned mall for an ice cream treat. Burger Ranch has a special, 4 soft serve ice cream cones for 10NIS (about $2.50). We walked the mall a bit before heading back home.

The the little kids topped off their day with a swim in the Berman's pool. They dined on Pizza Hut while RC and I ate dinner out sans kids.

Diaspora in Israel.

My objective for today, being the 9th of Av, a dreaded fast day, was to get the kids out in the middle of the day for a couple hours, come home in time for Bailey's nap time and then count down the minutes until break the fast. The outing also had to be something that was indoors, air conditioned and largely something the kids could do with out much guidance from me. Once again I gave Dovie the option to stay back, so we took Shayna along.
The Diaspora Museum in Tel Aviv is a museum that focuses on Jewish people outside of Israel. I remember it to be a typical museum with exhibits of replica synagogues from Europe that were nearly all destroyed. I didn't think that this would be a hit with my kids but I came across something else that they offered. Their newest exhibit was called A, B, SEE, DO (in English). It is a hands on Hebrew language lab for children. It looks like you stepped into a box of "Pictureka"

http://www.bh.org.il/The%20Family%20Gallery.aspx Like most of Israeli attractions for some reason you MUST pre-order tickets for this exhibit.  They give you a reduced rate if you buy 5 tickets. It is geared for 3-10 year olds. Each area has English signage, but the games and activities are exclusively in Hebrew. I figured that although the target audience was on the young side of my group, given their level of Hebrew we should be able to enjoy most of section. I think I guessed correctly. And we brought my Hebrew speaking niece along for insurance.

Similar to most children's museums world wide, kids spend very little time reading and absorbing the lessons of what they are doing and just jump in and figure it out as they go, or not. There were many very cute hands on Hebrew language activities and mixed in were all sorts of climbing and sliding structures.
At the opening there was a "step on the Aleph Bet Letter" game, further in there was a pictorial texting activity, there as a "Martha Speaks" rock climbing wall (where you feed her a letter disc and she says a Hebrew word with that letter), the kids stood in a green room and signed according to a Hebrew story that was projected on the wall, a tower of Babel building area and more. We tried out everything including a Hebrew Braille wall and a conveyor belt of letters for word puzzles. We spent about two hours there. We were able to walk around part of the museum on our way out. We wandered into a world wide Family Tree competition display which was very cute.  We saw one mock up shul before heading out. The kids ate their lunch on a grassy hill before rolling down a few times. We made our way out to the car and headed back as planned.
Break the Fast was hosted by my brother's-in-law family in Mevaseret-Yerushalaim. They hosted a lovely meal in the Yeshiva Dining hall complete with a variety of their grandchildren finishing Mishayos or Gemara for a siyum. A real shame Moshiach didn't come while we were here in Israel over Tisha B'Av, that would have really been the ultimate!

Hakol B'Yedai Shemayim

My sister suggested a short interesting hike near her house for today's activities. Snack bags and lunches were packed, water was frozen and cameras were ready. Since I didn't know where we were going she lead the way. We made it to our hike after an hour long detour on the highway involving a road surveyor who should watch where he is going, a couple ambulances, a whole slew of police and some forms. Don't worry, no one in my family or my sister's family were injured. It will forever serve as a warning to my kids about standing in the street and will make Rabbi G's comment "Kids, go play on the highway" a little less funny.

Since the way was heavy on the drama we stopped off to see the ancient oil press that was used to get the last remnants of oil out. The kids climbed up for their photo op. We drove by the Roman stairway to somewhere and passed a water collecting chamber. Our final stop was ruins with mosaic floors. They had recently put up a barrier gate, but the kids ignored it and went to go examine the site.

Before Shabbos we picked up some supplies from Angel's Bakery, some flowers for my sister and a BOX of Sponge Bob Popsicles. The little girls took Bailey around our street with dolly carriages and babies (a first for the Bailes!) the boys played DS and Ipad games and The Shayna-Mendel alliance took Meir to redeem his shekels for a prize at the shekel store. He proudly came home with a Yerushalaim key chain. Wouldn't it be great if that qualified as his souvenir?

Free is Free

Many museums participate in the ASTC Reciprocal program. This means, if you have membership to a particular museum you automatically get free admission to a "sister" museum as long as it is 90 miles away from the one you originally bought the membership. We are members of the Discovery Cube Museum in Anaheim, CA and its sister museum here in Israel is the Bloomfield Science Center in Jerusalem.

They took one look at my membership card and saw the ASTC emblem and let us right in. Free parking too. How awesome is that? The museum is a very hands on science center and fortunately they have all of their signage in English and Hebrew (Arabic too, but we have yet to be able to decipher those squiggly lines) The first area is an out door area that focuses on optical illusions. My kids love puzzles and riddles and illusions, so this was right up their alley.
We entered the main hall to the science behind scenes in popular Israeli children's books. If my kids knew the stories they may have appreciated this more, but they still tried out everything. Bailey's favorite was loading a wind tunnel with vellum leaves and watching them blow out. Meir and Mendel especially liked the plate spinning exhibit.

Next we checked out the out door water science center. The kids were light on the explanations of what they were doing, but enjoying themselves nonetheless. We had to move inside once Bailey found throwing the pea gravel into the water features more entertaining.
With our free entry, we were also given coupons to redeem a project in the Phineas and Ferb section. We colored and built - with directions exclusively in Hebrew - a P and F race car and glider. There were tracks to send them down. A few other things were in that hall, but we breezed right through.

We checked out their exhibits on electricity and finally the Carnival science. The museum is nice, a decent size with lots to touch and do. It is also air conditioned. Is it a must see, no. But it was free for us and an enjoyable day out.  Too bad the food in the cafe wasn't kosher. We did keep to our ritual of ice cream and Popsicles.

In search of food and souvenirs (I had been holding that off until the end of our trip, and sadly we are just about there) we decided to head to Malcha Mall. I found it, but for future reference the GPS calls it the "Jerusalem Mall". We walked around and noticed the lack tourist trap items so headed to the food court. Pizza and Falafel hit the spot. I thought about going to Ben Yehuda street, the home of tourist traps, but it was rush hour and traffic was just too annoying.
Back to RBS to hang out with the cousins. Mendel even had the ultimate play date and slept over at the Bermans.

we found a better place twice in one day

There is this place in Holon called "Better Place" where they are manufacturing completely electric cars and setting up charging and battery swap-out stations throughout Israel (and parts of Europe and elsewhere). They offer tours and tests drives. Unfortunately for us, but good for them, they are so busy right now with their car orders that they cancelled all of their tours. http://www.betterplace.com/global-progress-israel So, we had to find a better place to go to rather than "Better Place" and I think we succeeded.

The Solomon-Berman camp headed back into Yerushalaim to Ir David. Not to be confused with Dovie's Ears, cuz trust me, you don't want to go there!
We parked in Mamilla Mall. After yesterday's parking fiasco this was refreshingly normal and straightforward. We walked up to Jaffa Gate and asked the Information Center how best to get to "Ir David". She wanted us to walk through the Arab Shuk to the Kotel and out Dung gate. There was NO chance that we were going that way. Fortunately I knew how to navigate my way through the Jewish Quarter. (Thank you Rivka S. now F. for all of those Shabbos invites to Aunt Tova's!)
The City of David is just across the street and down the hill once you exit Dung Gate right near the Kotel.  http://www.cityofdavid.org.il/en
We arrived just in time to catch the 3-D English movie. My Matmon card allowed us to visit the grounds and walk the tunnels for free. We only had to pay for the movie. They did a very good job laying out the history of the area with computer graphics and aerial maps. It was worth the money. We ate lunch in a shaded area complete with washing stations and washing cups. We were serenaded by the harp at the front gate. I then had the kids change into their swim trunks and water shoes so we could make our way down to Hiskiyahu's Tunnel (Warren's Shaft).

This tunnel was similar to the one we did in Mey Kedem, except for a few things. 1) It is much longer, about 500m 2) there are NO sources of light in the tunnel. Flashlights are a must (yay headlamps!) 3) you could walk side by side in much of the tunnel in Mey Kedem, here much of it was tight walking single file 4) there are several areas where the ceiling is quite low most adults had to duck as we walked 5) except for the beginning, however the water is very shallow, mostly mid calf. We hypothosized as to why there were certain differences. We came up with a) The Roman's had better technology b) the Jews did this to survive and hide, so it was secret c) the Roman's made theirs to develop an area and had more room, the one in Yerushalaim was in an already populated area and had to snake around more. Could be.

Dovie decided he was going to play "Bored tour guide" as he lead us through. He made up commentary on everything we saw along the way. "Here is an ancient wall, watch your step as you climb up these ancient stairs, over here you will find the ancient cave with the very same spider King David saw..." Part way through the water tunnel he got tired of his running commentary and decided to play shrieking zombie. I'm sure if the Berman girls were going through with out us they would be troding through the water (minus the headlamps) singing Tehillim and noticing how their voices sound with the acoustics of the tunnel. But too bad, zombies it is. At least they weren't trying out burps and other noises they seem to favor.

Once we finally came out the other end we had a choice, take a taxi for 5NIS a piece back up to the entrance, or go through a dry tunnel for 400m. (roughly 20 min) We chose to walk. Along the way we learned that this was part of the path that people took when they were coming to the Bais HaMikdash on the major holidays. Some how I doubt they were able to go through that part with their oxen and cattle, but it was cool to think about climbing the hill to where the Temple once stood. It was cool for a while, until Bailey decided that she had had enough of the sling carrier, wanted to walk, then just wanted to pitch a fit. Fortunately my niece Liba stuck around to help me though the second tunnel.

This tunnel ended on the scaffolding of where they are still on archeological digs and excavation. It was neat to watch them at work uncover the ancient rooms and mosaics. (No bored tour guides here).
We had thought that we would go to the Davidson Gate to see what is going on there, but even with the popsicle break we were sensing an end to our day. I wanted my kids to do one last Mincha at the Kotel before our trip was over, and it was right there, so off we went.

We tried AGAIN to get a picture with some Chayailim. We saw a group of three walking and I asked them if we could pose. The Chayelet (lady soldier) said sure, the two men looked annoyed and walked on. More dud soldier photos. We began to walk up the steps back to the Jewish Quarter when we saw a bunch of soldiers coming down. My sister stepped in to ask if we could take a picture with them. FINALLY we got our army men picture. Thank you IDF!!

You would think our day was over, but I had one more activity planned. After we snarfed down some food for dinner, Elisheva came to baby sit Bailey while the boys and I went into Modiin for a chocolate workshop. http://www.chocolatedreamsco.com/ We met our Chocolatier Rhonda Israel who used to run a yeshiva but decided to do something more fun when she made aliyah 12 years ago. She has a room off of her kitchen which it dedicated to her chocolate business. She has a an official Teudah for Kosher LeMehadrin posted.

Our work shop was in her living room. Since we had told her this trip was largely in honor of Dovie's Bar Mitzvah we were warmly greeted with a festive like party set up. At each place was chocolate tefillin, an informative paper about chocolate and some treats and drinks waiting for us. All of the chocolate she makes is pareve so Mendel was free to enjoy. Rhonda, our joyous, delightful instructor showed us her chocolate temper machine. It can hold about 10lbs of chocolate.

She demonstrated how we can make a variety of different flavors of chocolate with all of the ingredients she layed out for us. She gave us 12 candy holders each to fill with our own creations. She had the upmost patience with Meir and helped him a long. She didn't freak out when Mendel looked like he was covered in chocolate. She complemented Dovie's creations and answered Eli's questions clearly and kindly. She even took photos of our activities for us. We were there for about 2 hours. We put our chocolates into a gold candy holder and then into our own boxes. The boys all said this was one of the best things we have done. I guess we found our "Better Place". Twice.

Geula Now! (but minus the yellow flags)

How could we come all this way and not show the kids Mea Shearim and Geula?! So, everyone into the car and off we go with cousins in tow. No problem finding the place, but parking? Oy Vey! They are doing some MAJOR road work right down the middle of Malkhei Yisroel street, the main drag and so Israeli traffic and parking in the area is INSANE. We literally saw some one park their car on top of a mound of rubble. I got stuck behind a delivery guy who decided to stop and make his deliveries from the middle of the road. There was absolutely no way to pass. A traffic officer finally told him to move on.

 I saw a place to park and even parallel parked on the right hand of the street with minimal fuss. Instead of meters they have these detailed scratch off cards to mark your time of arrival and you can pay by the hour.

In times of yore (like when I was 12) the main attraction in the area was Pizza Uri and the olive wood factory store.  The Pizza shop is alive and well. They sell pizza. No fries, no calzones, no salads. Pizza. They don't even give you a plate, they give you the slices on a piece of cardboard. Good thing they don't serve soup or you would probably have to open your mouth and have Mr. Uri poor it in! One of my favorite parts of shul is Birchas Cohanim. It is not because I am basking in the glow of holy words or any of that, it is because all of my children have no choice but to disappear for several minutes into the men's side.
 In Pizza Uri, because I have a family of nearly all boys I got to experience the same basic peaceful feeling. The pizza store has separate seating. And before any of you cry foul at women being second class -blah blah blah- you should know that the women's side is in the front of the store with better tables and chairs. The MEN are behind a partition, up a few steps and sit on hard benches. I got to eat my pizza and drink my iced coffee in peace.

We didn't go to the olive wood store, though I imagine it is still there. We had a different mission to meet, the Yarmulka store. My nieces delighted in my announcement that the boys needed to select a yarmulke that they wanted for Rosh HaShanah. The rest of their High Holy day clothing tends to be of the white shirt/ black pants variety, so this is the main accessory. I gave them freedom to choose whatever they wanted from the vast selection, but it had to be fancy. We then chose the embroidery fonts and colors. They wouldn't be ready for an hour so we went on to our next item on the list.

We needed a bar mitzvah gift, a siddur for my nephew Shlomo that we would have personalized. I had his sisters choose the type he uses and pick out a nice cover. They even gift wrapped it for me. Joy!

 Our final stop on the Geula/Mea Shearim tour was in a store that sells all of the Jewish dye cuts for projects and teachers, Jewish themed stationary, holiday table additions and basically anything cute that is Jewish Calendar related. I bought little flags on toothpicks that say "Basar" "Chalav" and "Pareve". The next catered event I throw will certainly be labeled. So cute. And, you know how I love labeling my items....
My kids have fallen into a rhythm of going to hang out with their cousins until dinner time. Even Bailey goes along. This is what it is all about. This and ice cream.

Bikes on a mission

Every once in a while (more closer to once...) I scheduled a less structured day. Today was one of those. My plan was to go into Tel Aviv to Gan Yehoshua, a very large park with a variety of activities on the grounds. http://www.touristisrael.com/yarkon-park-tel-aviv/1098/  My sister and I packed up our cars with as many kids as we could (Poor ol' Shlomo still has school!), a picnic lunch, some play equipment and off we went. We both have a GPS, but that doesn't mean that they will both lead us to the same part of the park. My car ended up in one spot across from Luna Park (an amusement park with rides and roller coasters) and hers took her across from Tel Aviv University. I won't read into that too much.
 My kids were practically drooling at the site of the amusement park, but we have a bunch of those at home and I was looking for a low key day, not a spin til you barf sort of time. Once we finally found each other (and as you are taught when you are child, if ever you are lost stay put and let people find you, so that's what I did. I let her find us!) we tried to figure out where to go. We saw a great big ORANGE colored structure in the distance. It looked l ike a playground to us, so off we went in that direction. Once we got closer we saw that it was one of Israel's totally random sculptures. Adjacent to it was a tree naturally growing sideways that was just asking to be climbed. So, climbed it was.
The Rock Garden was right next to us, but the kids gave us such a look at the suggestion of going into a rock garden that we thought they might just stone us if we did; we decided to move on.
We found the play ground with in minutes. It is a gigantic wooden climbing structure. It even has what my macho boys referred to as the world's shortest zip line, but that didn't stop them from trying it out several times. They played, climbed, swung and ran around until we thought it was best to break for lunch. Once everyone was refueled we decided to look for the Zapari (Bird park) and something called "Junga Junga". I had checked out the website and it looked like fun, but suspiciously they had left out the pricing on the English site. http://www.zapari.co.il/?categoryId=22402 The Zapari was fairly close to the playground, but at 50NIS a head we thought it was a bit steep for what they had to offer. What "Junga Junga" truly is shall remain a mystery.
 We had seen scores of kids of all ages riding around the park on 2-6 passenger buggy bikes and the kids really wanted to try them out. These ended up being 20NIS a person for 1/2 an hour. It was at this point that I had discovered that Bailey's Lamby was missing. Lamby is a stuffed animal lamb head attached to a small silk blanket. Her "lovey". This is what I had been worried about for weeks before our trip. Bailey cannot sleep without Lamby. I even have to time the washing of that thing to avoid nap time or bed time. What a disaster this was going to be. Our bike buggies now had a mission -- retrace our steps in hopes of finding Lamby. We pedaled around the park every so often sending someone scouting out the area to check. No such luck. Lamby was MIA. I tried not to dwell on it, but it wasn't easy. We kept going around the park, discovering a water park and concert stage; we raced eachother and even bumped the competition out a little. The buggies were easy to pedal and steer. Even the younger kids took turns pedaling while us over sized babies sat in the front seats.
We made it back hot, sweaty, tired and thirsty. We stopped for refreshments (Popsicles! of course). It was time to go. Although it would have been faster to go to the car a different way, I wanted to try one more time to find Bailey's Lamby before facing the rest of the trip with an inconsolable toddler. Low and behold Dovie found it on top of a hill that we had briefly passed through. Oh thank Heavens! I had never been happier to find that grubby lamb. Even Bailey was cheering when Dovie was waving it around. Now we can go.

Into the Gush.

Shabbos in Ramat Beit Shemesh with my sister's family was lovely. I missed Levi very much, but the kids ran back and forth with their cousins, went to the park, played games, challenged each other with riddles, read and otherwise occupied themselves. Since shalosh seudos was so late it did double duty as dinner. Once the kids were cleaned up from the layer of dirt that seems to accumulate over Shabbos no matter where on earth they are, I treated them to a late night gellato at Zislick. Yum. Even the pareve flavors are good. (just skip the "smurf" flavor!)
Sunday was a day on our itinerary I had been looking forward to. We arranged with our tour guide, Sarah Edri, to have a day in Gush Etzion. She came up with a day that would take us through the Etzion block from the times of antiquities until modern day.

Our first stop was at Deerland Park. http://www.deer-land.co.il/page12/English   There my big boys rode the 2nd largest zip line in the world- (Israel calls it Omega) 400m. Dovie is big enough to go alone, but Eli and Mendel had to combine their weight in order to make it across. The owner/employee hooked up the kids' harnesses and told them to lean back and then without any other explanations, instructions or warnings sent them plunging ahead. They had about a 15 minute ride back in a jeep. In the mean time, Meir, Bailey and I rode the "mini" zip line, 140 meters. Bailey rode with me. She enjoyed the ride down but put up such a fuss when the guy tried to put the harness on her. Meir liked it so much he went twice.
We fed the goats rice cakes and pet rabbits and guinea pigs. I hope all of this animal exposure doesn't come with requests for pets when we get back home.

Dovie and Eli wanted to do the ropes course. We watched them with baited breath as they dangled high above us balancing on logs and ropes moving their safety clips on their own. We were supposed to go berry picking, but we were running late, and I have had enough discussion about not eating berries due to bug infestations that we decided to skip it. :)

Once the extreme sports were conquered we went to Kfar Etzion to learn about the area. We watched a movie about the multiple massacres of the Jewish pioneers tragically succumbed to. The final story happened the day Israel was granted Statehood. Arab rioters had taken over, the Jewish farmers turned soldiers had run out of ammo. The Arabs went to where the women and wounded were staying and threw grenades into the basement murdering them all. The screen went up at that point revealing the bombed out basement. We learned about the lone tree that remained in the area and served as a reminder to the orphans and widows of the massacre and encouraged them to return and build again. Our guide then took us to see the Lone tree. It is now in the backdrop of a vineyard and girls school. It is a thriving area (still surrounded by hostile Arabs), of over 36,000 Jews. http://www.etzion-bloc.org.il/tabid/434/Default.aspx

We took a trip back in time to another era in Jewish history to Herodian. King Herod had built yet another palace which later became a major hide out during the Bar Kochva rebellion. We started at the bottom of the site which was where the cisterns and the Bar Kochva caves were located and worked our way up to the top to the palace/bathhouse/dining hall etc of Herod's were. http://biblewalks.com/Sites/Herodion.html  Sarah stressed to the kids that although all of these troubling times have happened in the area, it is the Roman Empire that no longer exists, yet the Jewish presence is thriving.

In order to drive home the message that although we are still here and growing strong, we can't take our safety and security for granted, we then went to watch a team of rescue workers train search and rescue dogs, patrol dogs as well as dogs training to help the disabled. Mendel and Meir went with one of the handlers to hid in the fields. The main rescue dog trainers had one of the dogs track and "rescue" them. It took the dog about 45 seconds to find them! We also watched the dogs train to attack intruders while at the same time being so disciplined that they don't turn on their handlers or anyone else around them. We then watched as two dogs were training to become companions for Ukrainian children with autism. The main trainer's name was Yekutiel. If you would like to donate to help cover some of the cost of training the dogs you can contact him at jewishlegion@aol.com

Our final stop was to deliver cakes to an Army pit stop. The people of Gush Etzion wanted to forge a connection and to show deep gratitude to the soldiers who petrol their area, they opened a pit stop that serves coffee, cake, tea and slushies for free to the soldiers most of the day. It is run by volunteers and run on donations. The kids then wrote letters and drew pictures for the soldiers. Unfortunately we were running so late that there weren't any soldiers in the pit stop. We greeted one who was on patrol just up the rode. He said he isn't allowed to pose when he is on duty but it would be OK if the kids stood around him and I took a picture. Hopefully some time on this trip we can get the ultimate Chayal photo op. Still have over a week to go...