TOUR OF ISRAEL WITH A SIDE OF COVID...

 I had always planned to travel to Israel and see biblical sights "someday."  After The Hubs got turned on to the BEMA discipleship podcast, and found out the host also takes groups to Israel for a study tour, he was ready to go!  We started planning to go with his brother and sister-in-law about a year ago.  It was interesting to me as the host had homework for us to complete, to get more out of the trip.  I actually really enjoyed it! 

Trip day finally came in March after much preparation! We had to have special paperwork filled out to enter Israel, in addition to a negative Covid test 48 hours before we left and upon arrival at the airport.  All that done, we got down to enjoying the sights, the teaching from our host and our Israeli tour guide, and getting to know the 50 others on our bus who all love BEMA discipleship and Jesus! 

Our host and teacher - first lesson at the Standing Stones

Honestly, the community we had on the trip was a great benefit I did not anticipate.  It was like being at church camp for 2 weeks!  We had connected via a private Facebook group before the trip and our host would occasionally post informational videos on there for us.  So it helped to see all the folks from all over the US +2 foreign countries that were going on the trip.  We all really bonded during the two weeks.  I made a friend from Ohio and we took selfies together every day!

Me and my friend from Ohio

We traveled from the southern tip of the Dead Sea and the desert to the green hills of Galilee where Jesus spent most of his ministry.  We saw the caves of Ein Gedi where David hid from Saul and the caves near the Dead Sea at Qumran where the Dead Sea scrolls were found.  We trekked through fields, up hills and in caves for lessons.  A boat ride on the Sea of Galilee was surreal to think about Jesus taking the same route. We saw the most likely place where the Demoniac was healed and the pigs ran off the cliff into the Sea of Galilee.  We saw a lot of ruins and beautiful green hills and valleys.  Oddly enough, Jerusalem was not my favorite.  It is a big city with lots of people and lots of guesses of where Jesus might have actually been.  And according to archaeology, so many civilizations are built on top of one another who really knows?  But it is interesting to see the geography of the land, preserved ruins of ancient cities, and how Judaism and Christianity has impacted this place.  

Camels in the desert!

Site of an ancient city - Gamla - where many battles were fought

Temple of Pan at Caesarea Phillippi

Synagogue remains

Taking a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee!

A lesson in a cave like Jesus could have been born in...

On top of Masada, Herod's masterpiece

Ruins of Bet Shean

Floating in the Dead Sea (me on the right)

The Hubs and twin brother at Ein Gedi

The Hubs developed a cough after the first week and declared it, a "cold."  Several days later, I thought I had allergies to something that was blooming.  Sure enough, when we were tested the night before our flight home, we were positive for Covid.  No one else in our group was.  We had all worn masks on our bus.  Who knew?  We didn't feel that bad.  But we had to quarantine.  

We had gotten trip insurance thank goodness!  We also had a woman from the tour company to walk us through the necessary steps needed in this situation.  After we were tested we were immediately sent to our room and someone would bring us dinner.  We were taken by ambulance the next day to the official Covid hotel.  I was hoping for a balcony, but no such luck.  We were required to stay in our room for 7 days or be fined.  The room was somewhat dingy, but not horrible.  We had a gorgeous view of the Mount of Olives and Mount Zion. Meals came to our door 3 times a day.  It was always interesting to see what our Kosher meals would be!  After a couple of days, we fell into a routine and kept ourselves busy exercising, washing clothes in the bathtub, playing cards, watching the world outside our window, watching TV and checking social media.  Our son even sent us a puzzle and pie via an Israeli delivery service!

Awesome view out our window

On the 7th day, we got the green light to go and headed to Tel Aviv!  We were excited to spend the weekend there by the beach, eating WHATEVER we wanted and walking around freely!!!  It also made a lot of sense, being closer to the airport and waiting for an email to come in from the Ministry of Health.  It turned out pretty well - we got to Tel Aviv in time on Friday to enjoy the Carmel Market.  We ate some delicious food and gelato.  We walked the beach too.  Saturday we walked about 15 minutes down the coast to Old Jaffa port.  It's a photographer's dream!  Loved the old city and the fishing port that is one of the oldest in the world.  

Olives at Carmel Market

Old Jaffa

Tel Aviv high rises from Old Jaffa

So many picturesque doorways in Old Jaffa!

Our 3 week adventure finally ended on Sunday when we got to fly home.  It was a wonderful learning experience in many ways.  And exhausting and spiritually challenging.  Praise God we weren't too sick when we got the dreaded Covid!

 

RASPBERRY CHEESECAKE COOKIE CREATION...

I hosted a wedding shower recently, and had asked the bride what kind of goodies she liked.  We tried to make all her wishes come true with this spread!  She said she liked Chocolate chip cookies and berries.  

We had blonde brownies, chocolate chip cookies, berry cups, pink flower sugar cookies, and raspberry cheesecake cookies! I had the idea for raspberry cheesecake cookies when I tried a new icing recipe with cream cheese in it, and it seemed way too rich.  Then I decided to try it on a very plain sugar cookie and topped it with a raspberry and Voila!  Raspberry cheesecake cookies.  They were pretty and delicious!  Here's the recipes:

Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies

8 oz. cream cheese

2 sticks butter

3/4 cup sugar

2 3/4 cup flour

1 t. almond extract 

Mix all ingredients and chill overnight.  Roll out and cut into shapes.  Bake on middle rack in a 400 degree oven for 7-8 minutes.  Try not to let the edges brown.  Frost when cooled. 

I used this recipe for frosting from Pinterest and added a few drops of red food coloring into it to get the pink hue.  I used an M tip and piped it onto the cookies in a rosette shape.  These cookies do need to be refrigerated because of the cream cheese in the frosting.  

Finally, about an hour before the party, I rinsed raspberries and let them dry on a paper towel.  Then I carefully pushed one into the middle of each cookie.  They were beautiful and tasty with the tart raspberry and the sweet cream cheese frosting on the plain shortbread type cookie.

The whole table - I got this fun picture with the groom and all the hostesses!  He had arrived before the bride at the start of the shower and we thought it was funny.  They're a sweet couple.  

 

ORANGE BEACH IN WINTER...

 We are kind of creating a tradition heading to the Gulf Coast each winter for a couple of weeks (snowbirds in training?) and this year we chose Orange Beach, Alabama.  The Hubs worked and we squeezed in a lot of fun between his responsibilities. 

This was our second time in Orange Beach.  We picked a small-ish condo.  We like the small ones because we like the idea of less people and no lines at the elevator.  We like to get privately owned VRBO places that seem well cared for and have fresh furnishings.  That's what we got this time at The Breakers.  It wasn't fancy or brand new, but it was nice, with a magnificent view of the ocean!  We found ourselves with the balcony doors open most of the time.  Pretty great in January!

We did a lot of the same things we did last time we were here - daily walks on the beach, hiking and biking the Hugh Branyon Backcountry trails.  We did find a couple of new things we loved, though:  

A short drive away you can hunt for dinosaurs along the highway in Elberta!

Near the dinosaurs there is also "Bamahenge." It's pretty big - see me in there?

Part of the Hugh Branyon trail in OB

Along the Jeff Friend trail

We reached the lagoon at the end of Jeff Friend trail!

A new Paula Deen restaurant opened in nearby Foley since we were there last time.  We had to try it out and opted for lunchtime.  It's the same menu as dinner but cheaper, of course.  We also got $10 off using a tourist book coupon we picked up at a local grocery store.  Score!  The biscuits were delicious!  I think that and the broccolli casserole were my favorite things about the meal.  

YUM

Buzzcatz is a coffee shop that we frequented often - they have a Happy Meower (Hour) and sell their cookies 1/2 price!  I think we tried all the different kinds by the end of our time there.  :) We went to another great fish place, Doc's Seafood Shack.  We were told by a local that is the best fried shrimp in the area. - fresh, handbreaded - not from Sam's!  It lived up to the hype!  

We shared this - the fried shrimp is buried under all that!

In the meantime, I re-organized my recipe album and did some reading.  I shopped one day and discovered a family owned supermarket (Rouses) that I liked that had a lot of Cajun specialty foods and King cakes!  I visited an artists gallery that houses about 50 local artists' works, Prosperous Pelican, and then enjoyed a little variety store called Al's 5 & 10 - it reminded me of the old TG&Y variety store I grew up with in OK.  

Another fun thing about the Gulf Coast in winter is that they are getting ready for Mardi Gras! 
I got this mini raspberry filled King Cake at Rouse's Market.  
 

See ya another time, Orange Beach!

I love this new tradition we've started - if you're an emptynester what kind of getaways do you do?

P.S.  I always like to find fun places to eat or see along our route and this time on the way home we stopped in Baton Rouge.  We ate lunch at Elsie's Plate and Pie.  It was pretty delicious, too!  

WINTER BLUES PARTY...

 Here we are again in the dead of winter with more weeks of cold ahead of us than behind us!  I don't know about you, but this time of year is a bit of a struggle for me.  Too many gloomy or cold days and I find myself dragging.  Thankfully, I've been distracted because it was my turn to host a monthly event with my Heartfelt group!  It gave me the motivation to get all Christmas decorations put away and my home ready to entertain again!

 I decided on a WINTER BLUES theme, making it a positive thing with blue and snowflake decor!  I already had a lot of blue things so that helped. I requested that the guests wear blue to the party and be prepared to share a tip with everyone on what helps them avoid the winter blues.  We had comfort food (chicken pot pie, roasted sweet potatoes, salad and apple crisp with ice cream.  We had a craft as well, snowflake mason jar vases.  We had so much fun, even though the temperature was 20 degrees outside. 

 

A fun sign for winter!

Group photo

Making snowflake mason jar vases!

My dishes have a blue stripe and I already had the light denim placemats, in addition to the navy napkins.  I also have several pieces of blue glass from my mother.  

I gathered natural branches to put in my vases and they do look like winter!

I found the snowflake runner, confetti and decorations 

on clearance at Party City!

 

I found two snowman dishes at the local thrift store!  

They were perfect to hold molded snowflake candies!

I think next winter I will hold another WINTER BLUES party now that I have all the cute things!  

LEARNING TO LOVE THE BIBLE...

Before 2021,  I was a Christian that knew a good amount of Bible and biblical concepts, having been raised in church.  Our family went 3 times a week; basically whenever the doors were open.  I was baptized for the remission of sins at age 14 and I loved growing up in the youth group and the many other families and mentors that surrounded me.  I went to a Christian college and took required Bible courses.  I married a Christian, with the good encouragement from my parents in my formative years.  Thankfully we've been together 38 years.  Even though there have been ups and downs, church was a big part of our shared life and has been a way to be in community with other Christians and serve all these years.  BUT I still felt inadequate about how to study the Bible, and when questions were asked in Bible class, I felt intimidated by others' knowledge.  For many years I focused on reading the children's Bible, with all the basic stories, to my kids at bedtime.  My faith was on auto-pilot.  I did do a small group Bible study for about 10 years that met during the school year, that was an intensive look at one book of the Bible each year, and learned a lot.  But I wouldn't say that I loved it.  

Last year a friend mentioned The Bible Recap to me, and then I saw an invite on Facebook to join a private group doing the The Bible Recap, and I joined in with them. The daily reading + podcast was a game changer for me in a lot of ways.  I have learned to LOVE the Bible!  I couldn't wait to see what the reading would be and what I might learn about God each morning!  And, I completed reading the Bible through in a year, like I've always wanted to do. I loved that each morning the host asks, "What was your God shot today?" Meaning, what did you learn about God?  I realized that for many, many years, I have looked at scripture as a self-improvement book and was looking for what the words meant to my life, instead of desiring to learn more about the Creator of our world! New perspective, that's what was the game changer.  Along with a great help in the daily habit of reading, listening, and checking in on the Facebook group.  

If you feel stuck about Bible study or just want to try something new to add meaning to your life, try The Bible Recap! 

May God bless you in 2022!

CHRISTMAS CRAFTING AND FAVORITE SPOTS IN MY HOME...

 This year we weren't doing Christmas with our kids until January 2, so I was a little slow to get motivated to make things!  I did make a couple of batches of gingerbread cookies and a cookie bowl as well.  I have made these since the kids were small but hadn't done it in a while.  I decided to test my skills again...  Finally on December 23 I got busy with the saw and paint after being inspired by a cute Santa I saw in a store...so here they are!

You shape the gingerbread dough over a foil wrapped bowl and bake.

Cooled and ready to fill with goodies!

I always cut out tiny holes with a cookie cutter before baking so I can thread pretty ribbon through it.

So cute!  I usually fill it with some other goodies as well and wrap it in cellophane paper.

Now on to wood crafting...I had some thin wood and cut it into triangles with DH's help.  He also drilled the holes.

I had fun painting them into Santas!  

No wrapping required

Next, a few of my favorite scenes in my home right now!

The tree, complete with an old wagon, toy car, and teddy bear.

My mantle this year

Entry

My kitchen tree

Merry Christmas to you and yours!