Fun, Fun, Fun!

Caution: This is likely going to be a scatter-brained blog post with lots of pictures from the past few weeks. I don't mean to diminish the importance of each of these items by combining them all into one post, because to be honest, each of these items is worthy of their own post, but alas, time will not permit this. So here begins the report of my most recent magnificent memories made.

One fun thing that I have done recently is service as Princess Basma Preschool just down the street from the Jerusalem Center. On their last day of school, a group from the JC was able to go and do fun things like sing songs in English, dance, play games, draw, and facepaint. Those children were just darling! A week or two later, I had the chance to go back and work on a mural that we are painting in their school. Every semester, the group that's here does a mural on a different wall, and I'm excited to be a part of this semester's "artists." I put artists in quotes because those who know me well, know that I was not very gifted with artistic abilities. We had some of the real artists in the group draw a projection on the wall and my job was to paint inside the lines that were already drawn. We only got about half way finished, but I'm very excited to see the finished masterpiece!

Some of the girls at Princess Basma Preschool

the early stages of our mosaic style mural

This is how far we got. The mural is of a character in a popular middle-eastern cartoon

The next batch of pictures are from Brittany's birthday bash. Last Friday, June 3rd, one of my great friends Brittany Hobbs turned 21! We had just finished midterms the day before, so that was even more incentive to have a celebration! After class, we headed out to Ben Yehuda street in West Jerusalem from some ice cream! We enjoyed a delicious x-large family pack (8 scoops) of a variety of flavors of ice cream with whipped cream on top! After that we headed into the Old City via Jaffa Gate, and went to Nasaar's, one of our favorite shopkeepers. On our way there, we stopped by a flower vendor who was selling bouquets for only 10 shekels! We couldn't pass up such a great deal, so we got some for Brittany. Nasaar then gave Brittany a pretty scarf for her birthday too! After that, we went to Jacob's pizza and enjoyed some delectable pizza and a nice chat with a man from Ethiopia who knew a little bit about Mormons. Unfortunately we weren't able to share anything with him or answer any of his questions because of an agreement the church has with Israel. Anyway, it was a nice afternoon/evening, and I think Brittany had a good birthday. I've had the honor of getting to know Brittany really well in the past month and a half, and she is honestly one of the greatest girls I know! She is always so sweet and kind and always strives to live a Christ-like life! I love having long talks with Britt, and I just love her to death! HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRITT!

the beautiful birthday girl!

our delicious ice cream!

me and Britt with her pretty flowers

Next up are a bunch of pictures from Neot Kedumim, a biblical reserve that has all sorts of cool plants, animals, and artifacts that are mentioned in the Bible. I made some hyssop, herded sheep, made some shepherd's bread (pita bread), ate some plants, smelled some plants, learned about olive presses, and probably some more things that I'm forgetting to mention! (I don't know why this paragraph is underlined in blue... and I can't figure out how to change it back)!

hyssop is made by crushing a plant and adding a little bit of salt. It tastes great on pitas and is a nice little spice to have! We got to keep a little bit for ourselves.


me crushing the hyssop plant
we split the group into two teams and had a contest to see who could herd the sheep from one ring into another the fastest. We weren't given any instructions on how to get those silly little sheep and goats up and moving, but once we got them up we just had to nudge them along!
sometimes you just had to get behind them and give them a little shove to get them going
this little baby lamb was just too cute! I had to get a picture!
putting myself in the sheep's shoes


cooking our shepherd's bread (pita) over the fire. For future campouts, this will be a staple in my diet!



Josh and I with our delicious pitas!

BEACH DAY!!! For our most recent free day, we took a bunch of vans up to Tel Aviv to go to the beach! It was a beautiful day and the beach was gorgeous! I got there and played sand volleyball all morning and then spent the hot afternoon playing in the water and getting gelato at a nearby shop. What a great way to spend a free day! I think I'll be doing it again before this summer is over. The best part is, I didn't even get a sun burn! Wahooo!

Jamie and I

in front of the gelato shop: I got a scoop of berry yogurt flavored gelato and a scoop of oreo gelato and it was delicious!

Another cool activity I got to do was take a tour underneath the Jerusalem Center! It was really cool! I got to sign my name and leave my mark here at the JC!

Mi'kel, Jamie, and I signed our names on the ceiling of one of the underground tunnels

Kim, Mi'kel, Brittany, me, Angela, Jamie, Jeehee, and Erica outside of the Hurva Synagogue in the Jewish Quarter of the old city

Me in the Kotel tunnel- a tunnel that goes underground along the entire remains of the Western Wall

Erica, my lovely roommate trying to get into our apartment through the window because Kim and I locked her out... I love my slices! They're so great!