In July, we spent a week in Seaside, Oregon with my extended family for our biennial family reunion. Highlights included a beautiful coastal hike, beach playtime, bike rides with the cousins, nightly bonfires with S’mores, a juggling show performed by Bryson, celebrating Will and McKenzie’s birthdays, and the local Seaside Merry-go-round. Thanks Uncle Bob for the great family photo!
This past July, Claire completed her first Kids’ Triathlon! Here are some highlights from the day.
We spent Fourth of July week at Stu’s sister’s place in Oklahoma CIty earlier this month. We arrived into town on Claire’s birthday, so began our visit with a party. Other highlights included a visit to the local amusement park, plenty of time in the pool, hair braiding and manis/pedis from the cousins, backyard fireworks on the Fourth of July, and even a live performance of “Twinkle Twinkle” put on by Juliet and her cousin Susan. Click on the photo mosaic to pull up the slideshow.
We celebrated Claire’s 6th birthday with an arts & crafts party at our house. Claire, Juliet, and six friends created guinea pig gardens with our favorite art teacher, followed by cupcakes then some bouncing in the bouncy house. Click on any of the photos below to pull up the slideshow.
We made our annual pilgrimage to the California Coast over Memorial Day weekend with several other families from my mom’s group. Highlights included playing at the beach, marshmallow roasting, rolling around inside a big inflatable ball, hiking, and generally catching up with old friends. Click on any of the pictures below to start a slideshow.
In mid-May I took a week’s long trip to St. Petersburg with my sister-in-law Mona. Our first day in the city was May 9th, Victory Day, a national holiday that commemorates the Nazi surrender of 1945. We paid a moving visit to Piskarevskoe Cemetery, where veterans were honored by huge crowds. We had a fabulous guide, Helen (pictured in the pink argyle sweater), who showed us sites such as St. Isaac’s Cathedral, the Hermitage Museum, Church of the Spilled Blood, Peterhof Palace, and Catherine Palace. We took in Swan Lake at the Mikhaylovsky Theatre and ate plenty of beef stroganoff and chicken kiev. The girls didn’t really miss me, since I sent home photos of their kitty (see red bus photo) and brought them airplane-shaped gummies from the Frankfurt airport.
Knock-knock
Who’s there?
Boo
Boo Who?
Don’t cry, it’s only a ghost!
The girls got excited about knock-knock jokes this Halloween season. Other highlights of October included a visit to our local pumpkin patch, many fun parties with friends, and of course, trick-or-treating on Halloween night. Click on the photo of Claire and Juliet (aka Mermaid and Fishy) for a slideshow.
After a great time in Haifa, we made a run for the Israeli/Jordanian border in the southern part of Israel near Eilat, which is the easiest place to cross between the two countries. Along the 5-hour drive, we stopped at Mitzpe Ramon, a massive geological crater in the middle of the Israeli desert.
The border crossing was entertaining. We couldn’t drive our rental car across, so Stu dropped me and the girls off at the border station, then returned the rental car in town and rejoined us. We had to pay our exit tax, have our passports stamped, then load all our bags (including two pastel polka dot little girl backpacks) up onto a luggage cart and push it the few hundred yards across the border. All in about 110 degree heat. Claire wasn’t impressed by the whole thing…. she spent most of the time either sitting in her stroller watching Curious George on the iPad, or smiling and making friends with the border guards and their large guns. Once we got through the Jordanian border process, a line of taxis was waiting to take us to our refuge for the night….a fancy 5-star hotel right on the Red Sea beach in the town of Aqaba, complete with kiddie pool and beach cabanas.
Finally, the jet lag ‘broke’ on our fourth morning in Jerusalem, with Claire sleeping until 6:30 and Juliet sleeping until we woke her at 9:30. Later that day a couple of Stu’s Wikipedia friends came to visit and fill out our apartment and, in Sue’s case, bring new adult energy to the girls’ Polly Pocket dolls.
Later that day, we took the three hour drive to Haifa, stopping along the way to explore the ruins of a Roman Aqueduct that for 1200 years supplied water to the ancient Roman city of Cesarea.
We then arrived in Haifa and found what must be the definition of a perfect hotel: it had a great swimming pool, was across the street from a playground, zoo, merry-go-round, and Beer Garden, next door to a Mall, with a McDonalds and a huge grocery store just down the street, plus a big breakfast every morning and a kids day care center. Despite all the alternatives, some of the girls’ favorite time was the hour or so a day they spent cleaning the picture window in our room with soap and wipes.
Other highlights include Stu and I heading out for a huge falafel dinner, a day trip to Acre and the Sea of Galilee (now filled with windsurfers trying a modern version of Jesus walking on water), seeing the interestingly named Alcoholic Kitchen restaurant (where Stu had a Board dinner), visiting the gorgeous Bahá’í Gardens which tumble down Mount Carmel around the gold-topped Shrine of the Báb, and finally a dinner and closing party of Stu’s Wikimania conference on the beautiful Haifa beach.
We spent our second and third days in Jerusalem trying to beat both the heat and our jet lag. Sunday morning we took a drive to the Mount of Olives, just to the east of the Old City, where we saw our first camel and some excellent views over the Old City. Then we took a drive to the Jerusalem Zoo where we met Stu’s old work friend Philippe and his children Michael (9) and Aya (6). After a couple hours walking around in the heat, we were about to melt so we planned to meet later at the pool at the famous King David Hotel, near our apartment. A couple of hours swimming in a luxury pool was enough to recharge our weary sleep-deprived selves for the rest of the evening.
Monday was another early morning thanks to jetlag, so we decided to get in the car and take a driving tour of the Judean Mountains west of Jerusalem. Our stops included a hike in a lovely forested valley, though with the temp at least 85 in full sun we only made it a couple of minutes down the trail. It was enough to get the girls awake and out of the car though. After long afternoon naps, we made a brief stop to the Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall in the double stroller (what would we do without this thing!) and then on to dinner with Philippe and family at a traditional Israeli restaurant, where we ate lots of kebabs, hummus, steak and chicken schnitzel (aka chicken nuggets) for the kids. At dinner, Aya gave the girls tatoos on their arms, and Claire and Ela (3) shared a moment with the international language of ‘Dora’ on Stu’s iPhone.
