day five: sukkot 2010

The fifth day of Sukkot at Usery Park....

I got a box full of limes at the market for three dollars and the kids helped me juice some for lime-aid.

The little girls played.

In the evening Soaring Eagles, the Native American Ministry that Jay and I have been working with brought out their drums and shared some worship to Yahweh native style.

day four: sukkot 2010

"There are only two rules" we were told as we examined the white board with plans for each days activities during Sukkot. "Follow Torah and don't let the cat in the house."


Lily took the rules to heart, she sat quietly during the Torah study, while having her belly rubbed....


and she made sure the cat did not have a chance to sneak in the house.

day three: sukkot 2010

Back in the valley, we spent Sunday night in our camper parked in our driveway. Monday morning Jay headed to work and Lily and I spent the day with our friends who are toughing it out in the desert heat at Usery Park.


I spent a good portion of the day playing photographer, with the majority of my shutter's attention on the two little girls as they played.







In the evening Jay, along with a couple more families, joined us for spaghetti, worship, prayer and fellowship.

day two, sukkot 2010

It took some coaxing on my part but I finally got everyone rounded up and ready to head to the woods. I didn't want our weekend in the mountains to pass without some "get out and enjoy nature" time.

Lily, as usual, had a wonderful time romping up and down the river, back and forth on the trails through the woods.

Snap grass in Arizona!

Exploring waterfalls...


Whittling away the day...


A lazy dog sitting in the shade-type afternoon.


Bears are dangerous....duhhh!

day one, sukkot 2010

Drosh, reading and discussing the torah portion under Sue and Rob's sukkah.



Larry's sukkah reminded me of Giligan's Island.

real men....

don't eat quiche served on pink floral plates.

dancing at sukkot

Friday night was the start of Feast of Tabernacles (or more accurately Feast of Booths) according to the lunar calendar. Today and next Shabbat are considered high holy days. We will spend time with three different groups of believers over the 8 day celebration.

you've come a long way baby

Yesterday I canned nine pounds of mushrooms, onions, and garlic (they had a good deal on mushrooms at the fruit market). As I worked in the kitchen I remembered sitting to my dad's left at the dinner table and meticulously picking out each little bit of mushroom in the beef strogonoff (or whatever else we might have with mushrooms in it) and putting them on my dad's plate. Unlike green beans, mushrooms were not a "you have to try a bite" food item, probably because my dad enjoyed them so much and didn't mind having to eat mine as well as his.

egg-aggerate

When we returned from the date farm last week we found a note on the counter instructing us to look in the refrigerator...

mexico... here we come!

Yesterday my best friend Grace purchased a ticket to fly to Arizona so that she can go on the Mexico outreach on October... I'm can't wait to see what Yahweh is going to do!

dancing at Yahweh's feasts

Yom Kippur also known as the Day of Atonement, central themes are atonement and repentance. It is traditionally observed with a 25-hour period of fasting and intensive prayer.

date dance

The guest house were we stayed.

Last weekend we visited our friends on the date farm. They had already been harvesting for a week or more and were happy for the helpful hands that visited that day as they have more dates than they can process.


Jay was in the lift before breakfast was served but changed jobs later in the morning when more friends arrived and took over the picking.


Then he worked with several other men on installing wire for the new solar system while I worked at cleaning and sorting dates with the women.


We were happy to hear during the late-afternoon watermelon break that the 19 trays of dates that had been picked and sorted that day was a record number.


After sharing a time worshiping together and a quick dip in the pool we headed home tired but happy.

dancing in the pink

On the way back from the chicken pen, having delivered a late afternoon snack of parsley stems, I noticed the pink clouds. The Oleander bush provided a pretty foreground for the pink ballet in the sky.

sun dancing on the water

shofar sunset

The end of the Feast of Trumpets found us driving through the desert marveling at the beautiful sunset. We stopped several times to try to capture the Creator's beautiful painting in the sky.