wind cave hike

One of my goals for our week of Sukkot was to get some good hiking in. The campground, Usery Park was a new one for us, thus untromped trails. Somehow the week flew buy with a couple of rainstorms and a couple of storm-induced headaches so that it was getting down to the wire before I got my hiking boots tied.  The last day of camp we set out on Wind Cave trail and what my week lacked in quantity of hike was made up for in quality. Not the cave, mind you, as that was a bit of a shallow disappointment, but the view...priceless, and the company delightful.

The climb.

The cave.

The view

The end.

tabernacling

 sukkot

 together, community

worshiping, eating, playing

blessing of YHWH's feast

camping

sukkot '13

 Our Sukkot location this year, being just six miles 'round the mountain, allowed the perfect opportunity to involve Natale. Being the salve driver-teacher that I am we still did math each morning but then headed to camp for the afternoon.

Natale did a bit o' hiking, had an archery lesson from the park rangers, had a private dance lesson, and built a candy sukkah. Her favorite part however, was plain old non-adult directed playing with the other children.

silver

I made a new friend at Sukkot this year. Chaiyah is from Missouri so I don't know when I might see her again but I sure was blessed getting to know her. I'm pleased to be able to call her my friend.

shavout

Natale and I studied the story of the 
10 Instructions (Commandments) this week.

q for queen

 We have been reading about Queen Esther for the past couple of weeks. Today we tossed the school books aside and had ourselves a fancy dress-up Purim party. After watching a movie of Esther's story the girls dressed in queenly dresses, chose a scarf to go with their outfit, and had their hair fixed up with flowers. I then presented them with "jewels" for their fingers and the queen-look was complete. 

We traveled to Scottsdale to join the local Messianic dancers as they celebrated Purim with a roomful of elderly Jewish men and women. The girls had a great time dancing, marching in the Esther parade, participating in the retelling of the story of Esther and finally eating a plateful of sweet treats. Everyone was tickled to have the little Esther's join the party and a wonderful Purim was had by all.

 

day six, a rainy hanukkah

We heard news that there was a big storm headed across the Pacific Ocean early this week. The clouds rolled in yesterday afternoon. Overnight I listened to the wind blow. The morning was wet and chilly. Funny how it startles me to open the curtains and not see the mountain.

The sun battled with the clouds in the afternoon creating some interesting photo ops.

hanukkah gifting- day four

 Last week after the Russian dance recital I printed several of the best dancing photos and we turned them into bookmarks for Natale to give as Hanukkah gifts. Today, after a productive morning of schoolwork we headed to the store to pick up supplies for more gifts. After reading Betsy's blog Natale decided she would like to try the Kisses melted onto pretzels. Although they were suppose to be simple we managed to mess the whole batch up....I think I left them in the oven too long and actually baked the chocolate.

Thankfully we still had plenty of afternoon left to make Warm Mixed Nuts with Rosemary as well as start on our hand soap making for tomorrow's gift. After labeling and wrapping a jar for her mother we delivered a second jar to our  neighbors. 

Happy day 4 of Hanukkah!

happy day three - hanukkah

The Hanukkah greeting at my front door.

hanukkah night two

Happy second night of Hanukkah. 
I saw a veggie hanukiah on facebook and thought I'd try to create my own for the Hanukkah party we are going to this evening.

first night of hanukkah-

Happy First Night of Hanukkah

water dance

 

My favorite water shots...

 

 

dancing in the yellow

Last week we celebrated Feast of Tabernacles with our fellow Hebrew roots followers. We spent 10 days (it's an eight day celebration but the first and last days are high holy days so days 9 and 10 were setup/tear down/travel days) at a campground just outside Show Low Arizona at about 6,000 feet elevation. Pine, Oak and Cottonwood trees, warm sunny weather, blue skies, puffy white clouds, a small lake and a picturesque stream all added up to a delightful experience and some inspiring nature photos. Many of my photos included this cute little yellow flower that kept drawing my attention begging to be photographed. I tried to pick my favorites but had a difficult time narrowing it down to fewer than these.