We had a blast

And Lior is 5!!

I was abit apprehensive about the whole thing... the drive... 2 hours in the car does not bring the best out of my girls... not to mention that the minivan princesses are now crowded in to small rented sedan (a Mitsubishi mirage) until I finally buy a car... between Lior in a car seat, Danielle in a booster and Maya in the middle... well the sound affects are far from pleasant.

BUT we made it; they even noticed the change in scenery! It never ceases to amaze me how such a small country can have such a great variety in scenery. We took a 2 hour drive and WALLA we were in the middle of the desert, at the lowest point on earth, how coo is it to actually be at a place you learn about!?

We arrived at around 5:30 in the afternoon. my cousin was there, as was his cousin (other side) with 2 daughters, and his brother in law with his family, when we all finally checked in there were 26(!) of us, 16 of which... were children between the ages of 3-14. The amazing thing, they all got along!

we bummed around the first evening Anita (my cousin) gave us a yoga lesson, that was pretty painful, but it was that good kind of pain if you know what I mean :-)

The kids ran around until 4:00 AM no I didn't make a mistake... we stayed at a Kibbutz guest house, our rooms were lined next to each other and we had a common yard. We occupied the whole row of rooms so we didn't need to worry about bothering anyone. It was great. The next day, some people had problems waking up (no names will be mentioned- suffice it to say I had 3 sleeping beauties and no prince in sight...) at 5:00Pm we went down to the dead sea, some of us did some mud, others were floating, others were busy examining scabs and scratches they were not aware existed (not pleasant :-)

The following day was Lior's birthday, since the tradition of staying up late was well established, the kids threw her a spontaneous birthday party at midnight, with a count down and everything. She was thrilled. We (the adults) were pretty impressed since they did it all on their own.

The following day we went to a nature preserve that has natural sweet water pools and streams. We spent the day there in the shade, sitting at picnic tables that are in the water and played all sorts of games. Card games,(we determined which of my cousins is the worse cry baby/sore loser - I think it's the 50 year old, definitely a man-all the contenders for the title are...), backgammon, fun. We then went back to the guest house, sat out and had a great discussion about whether or not there is a god... we also had an official birthday celebration for Lior.

The following day we wanted to take a short track but it was SO hot we decided to spend a few hours at the pool before heading back.

We got home beyond exhausted, but a great time was had by all. I have some great pictures and I will try to load them, but I wanted to get all of this down before more new and exciting things come our way... HINT we are planning to get a puppy tomorrow. Tune in for more details!

Love to all and to all good night,
Ronit