the good times...

COOKIE PUSS

During fourth of July weekend we got laughing when Bianca said she got a Carvel ice cream cake for Joseph's birthday, but he was disappointed it wasn't cookie puss. Bianca had no idea what Joseph was talking about. 'Cookie puss' must sound so weird when you don't actually know what it is. Poor Bianca! Carvel ice cream cakes were the norm for birthdays growing up. It was always cookie puss too. The ice cream cone nose and cookie eyes, mmm delicious! After we moved and there wasn't an actual Carvel store near us that tradition ended sadly. It then turned into my dad's invention of a Haagan Daaz pint turned over on a plate with candles on top.
The other day we were going through some old photos and I found a few of cookie puss. The cone was for the birthday person, but it was always a fight over the cookie eyes. Luckily, there was always plenty of cake to go around.
Love that cookie puss!

Catch up to a fresh start

It's been a long time, but I think I'll start blogging again just because. I started deleting all my posts from Jerusalem since I already have them in book form, but then I stopped when I had so much looking through them so I think they might stay up. It's been a crazy last couple of months so here it is in a nutshell...

I finished winter semester, finished my job as an RA, and went straight into working on a movie and here we go.......

Once upon a time i left these two crazy girls after spending basically 24/7 with them working on a film called For Robbing the Dead (look for it spring 2011?). We did everything and anything you can imagine in the art department and we spent more time IN the Great Salt Lake during 4 days then I ever wanted to, ever...


And then stayed with this birthday big bro and his wife before I went home....


Then I finally got home and did a camp for kids where we painted this horse...


Then Joseph and Bianca came down for father's day weekend. It was a party hanging with all the married people and me just riding solo...


Then we had this Merkley Cali fam come to visit...


I made the special Merkley Fam birthday cake a few times for the birthdays and for some reason the recipe is so sensitive that if you even mix things not in the right order it'll come out differently - still tastes DELICEE-O-SO though... I think I've mastered it!


We went to see Bianca (my sis in law)and Naomi play and of course they performed beautifully like always, but I never get tired of hearing it live...


I visited this kid too. Wes is pretty much my only friend from college who lives close enough (and that I've actually visited), so it was kind of a weird experience seeing him out of place...


Joseph and Bianca came down again for July 4th weekend and of course Joseph brought guns to the farm and the boys were always carrying them around...


While they were here we had a good ol' summer bonfire and tinfoil dinners...


We ended a fun weekend with some of these from target...


All in all it's been so good to be home!

I call Jerusalem home...

We're back now from the our trip to Galilee! We were able to spend 10 days there at a kibbutz on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. We went on some amazing field trips and were able to have our New Testament classes on the beach! There is no better way to study the New Testament. We're all looking a little more sun kissed. We also went down to Eilat yesterday and went snorkeling in the Red Sea. I thought the coral would be brighter, but there were beautiful fish and worth the 8hour round trip bus ride. Everyone pretty much went from sun kissed to burned though after yesterday, even those who continued to apply sunscreen.
We're watching the Saturday morning session of General Conference live tonight and I'm so excited. Next week on Shabbat we're watching all of the other sessions.
I'll get some more pics up of Galilee and write more soon!

Bible Land Field Trip

Before I get into our field trip from today there is something going on in this blessed month of March. . .March Madness! Now at the Shekel Shaq we set up the "shekel shaq shoot out" bracket group. Of course I had to do it though I have no idea about college basketball and even more so since I've been in Israel! Though we all knew BYU had no chance of winning we still had to show some cougar pride and we got the BYU vs. Texas A&M game playing from online! This was the crowd that showed up to watch the game. Sad loss, but at least they had a chance! Still gotta love BYU sports! And I have to add that I totally guessed on my bracket and I'm tied in 7th place in our group! I was in fourth for a little :)
Anway, on our way to Neot Kedumim, the Biblical Landscape Reserve, Priscille pointed out this scene to me on the side of the road and was like "Look it's Mary and Joseph!". I had to whip out my camera to document it because I thought it was so great! Joseph is even sportin' some hot pink crocs!
Our first station at the bible land was sheep/goat herding. We were divided into groups and had to herd the herd into 3 different circles and have them stay for 30 seconds in each one. We did pretty well. It kind of made me miss our goats Alma and Andy who are both buried under the big tree on the farm. Bless their hearts!
These yellow flowers were beautiful and everywhere! Of course I have like a billion photos of/in/with them. This was the first one... It's beautiful weather here these days and everything is getting so green!
The birthday girl! It was Moon's birthday today and she turned 21! I'm so jealous, how often do you get to celebrate your birthday in Israel and going around bible land?! :) I was just playing around with the color accent thing on my camera and Moon happened to be the perfect subject.
I mentioned something in an earlier blog about self timer pics and how awesome they are. Here is our best one from today! I love it so much! Emma and I are the queens of self timer.
We made this delicious blend of spices with the hyssop plant. We had to crush the dry plant first though.
Chelsea was my partner and was really into crushing it. Maybe releasing some anger issues from living with me? :) Our whole mixture didn't turn out as good as it is in the Old City. I think we were missing some ingredients or our ratios were off. We also made some pita! It wasn't as good as when I've made it in Provo though, but it was still fun.
We watched a scribe as he was copying down the Book of Esther. He also chanted to us too.
While we were sitting there I looked down and realized that I had bird poo on the back of my pants! Seriously, what?! How did that get there?! Gross! Dang birds!The scribe also showed us the Torah! How cool is that?!
Finally, we went on a train ride. This is my favorite shot. Rachael and Emma are just so classy! Check it out!

Christmas on St. Patrick's Day!

Once upon a time we went to Bethlehem on a field trip....

Bethlehem University visit with Dr. Musallam. Dr. Musallam teaches our Modern Near Eastern Studies class from the Palestinian perspective and he also teaches at Bethlehem University. Here are some of the boys after our lecture playing b-ball with some of the students. Sadly not one of our boys made a basket.
I really liked the visit to the University because we were able to see a documentary film by one of the faculty that won first place at the Dubai Film Festival recently called Memory of the Cactus (I think). We also had a panel of students that we were able to ask questions too and that was fun talking with them.

A scene of Bethlehem
We ate lunch in this tent type restaurant. It was a cool experience, though not the best pita and kabobs I've had so far. The highlight though was watching a nun in another group there, who looked like she was straight out of The Sound of Music, smoke the hookah, not once but TWICE as they passed it around! Here is our table:

I'm telling you they like hands over here. I see awkward hands on things everywhere! Why not just write "stop"?
A quaint falafel stand by Manger Square.
The Church of the Nativity. Where Jesus was actually born with 97% surety. This actually wasn't as amazing as I thought it would be. The church is beautiful inside and out, but there were a ton of people there. We got pushed through the manger area really fast, so I got a dumb blurry picture of the manger area.
The inside hall of the church.
The mural of the angel telling Joseph of Mary's divine pregnancy. Miriam and I got a picture in front of it and did you notice the angel's head is cut off? Thanks Jacob, thanks :)The place of the manger - why does it look so much like a fireplace? This is my dumb, blurry picture of it that I got before I was hustled out.
The separation wall at the Bethlehem border crossing. There is a ton of graffiti on it. This was on the Bethlehem side.
I thought this was one of the coolest.
This was the best attempt to get a pic of this part of the wall where it had posted huge pics of what looked like crazy Jewish people.
The scene as we arrived at Shepherd's hill.
During our little program we sang hymns, mainly Christmas ones. It was pretty cold, but an amazing experience! I thought coming to Jerusalem I would have all of these amazing experiences as we visited the churches and the sites, but they all have so many people at them and are so commercialized I guess I never grasp or realize the full effect of where I am. As we sat on Shepherd's Hill though and sang Silent Night, in the quiet darkness, looking up at the stars tears came to my eyes as I did realize where I was. Sitting on a hill in between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, and thinking of the shepherds and the joy they must have felt as they looked up and saw that beautiful star and realized that the Christ child was born and the prophecies were being fulfilled! What JOY!
This was at the end. Looking out at the scene with the lights of the Jewish settlements in the back. The stars were beautiful that night too! That night is one of my favorite memories so far!

p.s. I need a hair cut badly! 1st item of business upon returning home!

Update

So we took our Arabic final! I actually was studying for it and thought Ayman had said it was going to be 40 questions. We get to class and he gives us his final and by the second page I was like what?! that's all? I guess I should've realized that it's only pass/fail and one credit and it couldn't have been that intense anyway. Oh well, I finished it in like 5 minutes. That had to be one of my favorite classes and we didn't even have it very often. This is a pick of our class! Those were some good times!

The family we met that one Shabbat actually invited us back for lunch. We went back and had the most delicious lunch with them! We were teaching the girls hand games. Here they are in the middle of "double double this this". They loved learning it!
Here is the group of us who were all there again for lunch! I love all of them! It has been so fun being able to go back and get to know them! The other day when we stopped by to say hi the 12 year old girl showed us all the pictures she'd saved on her computer of Miley Cyrus and all this stuff about Nick Jonas, who she thinks is the cutest of the J-Bros! We just thought that was really funny. When we go next we told them we were going to help prepare food and they said they would teach us! That and Arabic dancing! 

The Post of Lasts!

Tomorrow I will turn in my last paper for Old Testament (just turned in my final tonight)!

Today was our last Arabic class and tomorrow I'll take the final!

On Thursday we have our final for Ophir's class!

On Friday we have our final for Musallam's class!

One Friday we took our Old Testament field trip final and turned in our field trip books!

I never thought this time would come! After Friday my load will be so much lighter! Lovely!

I'm a ninja!

For Friday the 13th (last night) we played capture the flag. We were divided into the ninjas and the pirates. We played all around the grounds of the center. Carly and I got ready in like 2 min so we don't really look much like ninjas. The two of us mainly just ran around and pretended like people were after us, but we didn't see a pirate once though we were on their side and we didn't even have any idea where our flag was even hidden. We had fun though and we took some awesome pictures while hiding in the bushes!

This is my favorite of Carly! That's one of MY roommates! She rocks! :)
Finally we got word that the pirates had actually like gotten our flag like a half hour earlier and the game was over. No one really wanted to play again, so we just watched a movie. Here were some of the best dressed pirates though plus me and Carly!