September 5, 2005
Train Museum and Apollonia
During Tyler's break from school, Tiffany, Brooke and Tyler came to Intel for lunch with Scott. Scott's co-workers were really nice and gave Brooke and Tyler chocolate. Scott's co-workers also entertained Brooke and Tyler during lunch and in turn Brooke and Tyler entertained half the cafeteria.
Tiffany decided to have an activity for the young women from our branch. Ann Hansen was nice enough to pick them all up and drive them to our apartment. They worked on a personal progress activity while Brooke napped and Scott and Tyler went to the park. For lunch Scott barbequed hot dogs and kebabs (spiced minced meat). In the afternoon we all went swimming.
Young women activityWe have been trying to get to the Haifa train museum for some time. It is only open in the mornings a couple of days a week. So Scott finally took a morning off of work since Tyler was off from school and we went to the train museum. Tyler was very excited at first, then a little apprehensive when he saw how big the trains were. He kept asking if they were going to drive away. It didn't take long, though, for him to warm up and start running around looking at everything.
Boxcar hoboTyler had fun pretending to drive one of the locomotives. There were lots of trains on display. Many of them date back to before World War II, when you could take train from Turkey, through Israel, to Egypt. Now Israel doesn't have any railroad border crossings.
Our little train engineerHere we are in front of a train crane that Tyler really enjoyed.
Fun at the train museumTyler's second year of preschool started September 1st. Of course we had to take a traditional back to school picture near the front door. Tyler is in the same class as last year, but now he is one of the older kids. He kept asking us where his friends were that had moved up to kindergarten.
First day of schoolOn Friday we went to visit Crusader ruins north of Tel Aviv. It was good timing because Tyler had gotten interested in knights and castles because of some pictures on a box of cereal. The site has several names: Tel Arschaf, Apollonia and Arsour. It was first settled by the Phoenicians, then inhabited by the Romans, Muslims, Crusaders and finally the Mamluks.
The Mediterreanean from Apollonia
A large battle was fought between the Crusaders and the Mamluks. The crusaders eventually lost and were forced to raze their own fortress. All around the site there are piles of large stones that were used in catapults during the siege.
Arsour crusader fortressTyler-isms:
"I like hotels a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, ..." - Tyler is excited about our upcoming trips.
"But I would be impressed!" - Meaning he would be depressed if Tiffany washed his blankets.
Brooke-isms:
"appa" - apple
"bow" - bowl
"pane" - plane
"bo" - boat
"wawer" - water
"cooka" - cookie