April 22, 2005
Visit to the Baha'i Shrine
Last summer, a family came from Oregon just for a few months to work at Intel. This summer another family came from Oregon to work at Intel until July. They are the Killpacks: Kip, Kristin and William. Just like last summer, this family is also expecting a baby soon. William is almost 2 years old, but is almost as tall as Tyler.
One of their first weeks in Haifa, we took them to see the Baha'i Shrine. We had seen the Baha'i terraced gardens, but we hadn't yet visited the shrine where the founder of the Baha'i faith is buried.
Tyler in front of the Baha'i Shrine
Just like the terraced gardens, the gardens around the shrine are very ornate and well manicured. We wonder if they cringed when they saw three little kids running around.
Brooke admiring the flowersWe were allowed to look inside the shrine, but we couldn't go in or take pictures. There wasn't much too see, just some candelabras and Persian rungs over the tomb. It was interesting though.
Brooke and Scott in front of Haifa Bay and the fountains
We all came home covered in orange dust from the terracotta covered walkways.
Brooke and Scott in the ornate gardens
One Saturday morning, Tyler woke us up fairly early. He told us that he wanted to go the bathroom, but couldn't because the floor was wet. At first, we thought that he had wet his pants before reaching the toilet, but then we heard the sound of running water. A pipe connection in our water heater had corroded and was leaking water all over the floor. We are lucky that the bathroom and the laundry room floor is about half an inch lower than the rest of the second floor, because all of the water stayed in there instead of running into the hallway and down the stairs.
We immediately started cleaning up because we had church in just a few hours. Unfortunately we were too worried about the water to think of taking a picture. We also had to take showers in cold water because we had to shut off the water to the water heater. On Sunday, our landlord's plumber was able to come by and "fix" the pipe. The pipe leaked two more times before we were able to convince him that he needed to do a better job fixing it.
Brooke is a very happy and playful toddler. Here she is wearing her toy backpack and playing on the stairs.
Cuckoo! (Cuckoo is how Israelis say "Peek-a-boo")
Recently, Tyler has really gotten into coloring. He is doing much better. He tries to stay in the lines, but he also likes to fill the entire page. He is very thorough and presses really hard when he colors. Brooke likes to copy her brother, so she has gotten into coloring too. She is much more sporadic than her brother.
Coloring timeHere is a video of a typical coloring session.
Tyler coloring (video)This is a picture that Tyler brought home from pre-school.
A sample of Tyler's artworkOur children eating their favorite snack, Bamba:
Tyler-isms:
"This doesn't color" - Using a white crayon on white paper.
"I'm just building something, I'm not playing" - Playing with Legos before bedtime.
Brooke-isms:
"Bama" - Bamba, the peanut flavored puffs that children in Israel are addicted to. We once left an entire bag within Brooke's reach and she finished it off!
"Uh-oh" - Why do we hear this one so much?