the whole fam damily goes to the playground

It was warm enough to swing two days after Christmas! A little over a week ago it was 6 degrees and the roads were a solid sheet of ice. We promised Lilah a white Christmas, but it did not come to pass.

Locavores not

A pre-Christmas lunch of seaweed salad and strawberries.

Rowdy Xmas

All but one picture from the Christmas pageant featured children with devil eyes (our little devil is in the center).

After some songs, Rowdy the Cowboy told us the Christmas story, and then we ate cookies.

pre-Christmas in Nashville

We went to Nashville a few weeks ago. It was sunny at the Parthenon:

But Christmas had definitely arrived at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel. After paying $18 (plus tax) to park, we observed the light displays and nativity scenes outside.

Then we entered the insanely-decorated hotel inside (can't really tell in the pictures) and ate ice cream.

whirling dervish

This will be of interest only to the die-hard Lilah fans, but it does capture her incessant singing/dancing lately and her current love of this song. The gist of the refrain is "when you cry you're not pretty; enough, girl!"

Check out our Christmas stockings

Mollie made us Christmas stockings. They're great!!!

What I learned at ASOR

This might get me into trouble, but it's from memory. I sketched the Asherah loves Yahweh sherd for M upon my return and both he and Lilah embellished it: M with math and L with hair/a hat on Asherah (left). I guess she felt the need for both to have headgear. Anyway, it's true that Yahweh looks like the kool-aid man but kool-aid wasn't known in the Iron Age according to recent research so there must be something else divine going on. No one around here had any further insights into its interpretation.

Meanwhile, back at home, the tomato plants M yanked out of the garden at first frost (about 3 weeks ago) are indeed ripening in the basement. The goal was garden tomatoes for Thanksgiving, and I think we made it.

Years ago, I think when I went to Jerusalem for a year in 1998, Alysia gave me picture frame stick figures of her, Jason and Cleo so I wouldn't forget them. Well, Jason has resurfaced, and L has made sure that he joins all her other figurines and small stuffed animals in scenes around the house. Here he is eating play-doh worms (sorry Jason).

To plug Tristan's NOVA special that aired last week, here's the link to The Bible's Buried Secrets, which is good! Plenty of Dever of course, plus the other usual suspects and cameos by Michael, Tristan and many others. Although I did not make it into the final cut (ok, I was never even considered for even a brief shot in this thing - another example of ground stone specialist discrimination) this will certainly fill two future class periods, so I am grateful.

Fall Colors

Fall kind of came and went. The week around Halloween was unseasonably warm, in the mid-70s. It was also the time when the leaves changed and fell. There was a lot of raking going on, and more to do, but now it's cold. Last weekend we went to Audubon Park in Kin-tucky and took in the really beautiful trees, collecting leaves and shells as we went.

Back at the house we raked and jumped in leaves a lot this past week. The outfit is her 'Tinkerbell' look, by the way.

We had to compress the pile of leaves for composting somehow.

It was so warm there was even a voluntary outdoor nap this week. I think this is going to be the last time for many months.

Halloween princess

It apparently takes many tries to get the princess costume set for Halloween. Here's a dress rehearsal a week before, when the crown was still unbroken.


This is what she ended up wearing in the school Halloween parade; second from left in blue satin.

And Halloween night with our festive front porch display. Sadly our trick-or-treating took us to like 3 houses because she was scared of the masks.

Scenes around the house

There's been a lot of independent play around the house lately, which is cool. It usually involves cooking things at the toy kitchen, playing with dolls and animals, or a combination of the two. Some are cute; some slightly disturbing.

This one's a little freaky. The dolls' names l-r: Mama, Hihoch (made up Hebrew-sounding name) and Country, who was featured at show-and-tell last week.

Fall Fest

Nothing says fall in E'ville like the Nut Club Fall Festival. And you thought Israel was a culture shock. Check out these food offerings:


But I was all about the caramel apple this year, which delivered.There were some fun kiddie rides that must be antiques by now (see I. Jones below).

People watching was awesome and there were many klowns. As well as an Arab Patrol.


We saw this on the way back to the car:


As always, good stuff, but for a short period in daylight hours only.

Kites, bubbles and sand

Two weeks ago strong winds from the hurricane moved through here and knocked out power in some areas for days (we lucked out and didn't lose power at all). That morning, before the weather got scary, we took advantage of the wind by attempting to fly the dollar store kite in the yard, which is basically impossible with the many low phone and power lines. Don't worry - we know the difference.

L is determined to be a princess for Halloween, and she practiced wearing her dress and butterfly wings while blowing bubbles on the patio recently.

In other news, the annual back-to-school Archaeology and Art History picnic was held last weekend and was a success. Activities included eating fried chicken, mummifying Andrea and otherwise playing in the volleyball sand pit at Wesselman Woods.

September is nearly over and I am waiting for fall to fully arrive already.

One evening on the Kinneret

We are still in Evansville and still without camera, but I like these pictures and so wanted to post them.
Although it's good to be back in infinite ways, there are things to be missed. One major one is the landscape. Evansville lacks a landscape, and its body of water - the Ohio River - is not overwhelmingly picturesque at this bend in the river. The Jordan Valley, however, is one of the most beautiful places in the world I think (although way too hot in the summer to fully appreciate). The sea of Galilee - the Kinneret - is low these days which is bad news. But we did enjoy spending an evening at one of the beaches (from the name of the boat I guess it's Berenike) - deserted at that hour - near Degania, where the water is so low that I swear undiscovered sites are emerging (Ohalo is very close to this). I picked up one flint, but am clueless and can't date it. Anyway, it's beautiful there before sunset, even with the garbage.