Snow

The kids have enjoyed 5 days of school off this year already! Thanks to the latest snow droppings, we had three days in a row - right before Daddy left for 2 months. Those 3 days were spent sledding at Beachmont, shoveling out front and building snow forts on our back deck. I was especially thankful for this extra family time!
On Wednesday evening, when the majority of the snowstorm hit, we were at our friends in Perry Hall. We didn't realize how bad it was outdoors! Below are two pictures from our ride home. The first is a view of Route 43 just past the mall, heading towards Bel Air Rd - and this was after getting stuck twice! The second picture was taken when were going to merge onto Bel Air Rd south. This was the location of our third, and final, stickage (is that a word??). As you can tell - we weren't the only ones stuck. What is normally a 20 minute ride turned into 1.5 hours! Ahhh... twas an adventure to say the least!

Finally! A new post - and this time it's all about FOOD!

Taking a queue from my brother Pete, I've decided to dedicate this blog entry to food and the wonder that it is. That's right, FOOD! We all love to enjoy food with a mouth watering effect and one that lingers with our taste buds until the next time we indulge in said food, so here's to Diana, the provider of such meals for this past week (or so).

The Walsh's were kind enough to remember the Smith's this Christmas and entreated upon us a delightful basket with seasonings and meal ideas worth a week of good eating.

Our first adventure (Taco Tuesday) in the Diana Dinners was my personal favorite and that was TACOS! I've recently decided that if I were on death row and was to be brought a last meal, tacos would be my choice. The spices blended within the ground beef was precisely the balance needed to satisfy myself along with 4 other salivating Smith's. Very nicely done.

The next night (Wednesday) we broke out the grill (despite the snow) and smothered a couple of pork roasts with some of Diana's “patented” meat rub. I have to admit that the meat was cooked perfectly (much thanks to my grilling expertise), but the rub made it taste delicious. Not only did we have some left over for another night (which was a success in and of itself), we were excited to still have some of the rub left for another future meal. The fresh green beans (seeing it is winter, we had them specially imported from Mexico for this meal) were tender and the mashed potatoes were a delightful compliment.

Thursday was Chicken with the breading that was prepared by Diana with special herbs and spices (maybe the Colonel would like to get his hands on some). This meal was coupled with some butter-cooked potato slices that went well with corn (my favorite of the veggies...it's not a second starch in my book, it's a veggie). Having the chicken breaded with Diana's breading, upped the standard for all future breading events in the Smith house (a third starch in one meal?).

While it was against my choice, I had to wait until the following week for the final Diana Dinner: A Moroccan sausage with couscous. If Ryan could vote for his favorite of the Diana Dinners, he would have chosen this! A little culture goes a long way when it comes to food and my children have learned the diversity of enjoying food from many different varieties (thanks Hamiltopia).

One additional special treat that we had for our final Diana Dinner was the homemade tiramisu (one of the most popular of the Italian cakes) that she created from scratch. She was kind enough to take time to spend a day with Jess and a few others who celebrate birthdays around Jessica's; the tiramisu was left over from that.

Now that I've bored you with my pseudo "Cooking with Julia" style post, thanks for bearing through this blog about food you didn't get to enjoy, but rest assure in knowing that it was thoroughly enjoyed by all Smiths!

More Israel Pictures - with less description :)

There is no rhyme or reason to the order of these pictures. They certainly don't follow the order in which we saw everything. But... I just wanted to get them up here to share!
Below is a boat that they discovered in the mud of the Sea of Galilee. The wood is about 2000 years old, meaning that this could've been a boat used during the time of Jesus. It was very interesting to see how they recovered this boat!

On the left - the view of Tiberias from the Sea of Galilee. On the right - Andy eating what the town calls St. Peter's fish (from the Sea of Galilee).

Left - the view of the Mediterranean from one of our hotels. Right - A typical meal (breakfast or lunch) in Israel. Hummus with pita bread and a LARGE salad.

Left - underneath the city of Jerusalem is the remnants of the old shopping corridor. At the end of the corridor is a painting to give tourists of picture of what the marketplace would've looked like in its time (right).

Left - I was amazed to catch this women (on the left hand side of the picture) chipping away at the wood of David's tomb. The divider on the right of the picture separated the women from the men visiting the tomb. On the right are the streets within Jerusalem's walls. They were extremely narrow and streetwalkers did NOT have the right of way. :)

A view of New Jerusalem.

Andy and I went to an African Safari (yes in Tel Aviv, Israel) on our last day. It was, by far, the best "zoo" we'd ever been to. Half of the park was a driving safari where we saw many animals playing and eating. The other half had a normal zoo-like set-up where, again, we saw many active animals.

We caught this monkey digging for gold and then eating it! Yuck!

A group of young boys on a field trip began feeding these bears their chips. It was great to see the bears stand up begging for more! No guards or employees were present to stop the school children, so the feeding frenzy went on for quite some time.

The poor rhino on the right seemed to be suffering from a form of pink eye.






In Caeserea we saw the Roman ruins of a theatre right next to the Mediterranean. The horses were to give a picture of the chariot races that would take place here. On the right, I am sitting in the stands where many Romans sat and watched the chariot races.

Below we are in Megiddo. On the right is a view of the Jezreel Valley (the prophesied sight of Armageddon) from atop Megiddo.

At the Yom Kippur Memorial Sight below, we saw many bunkers and tanks remaining from the 1973 battle that has given Israel the most peaceful borders its ever had. Behind the tank is a view of Syria.

Below is Nimrod's Fortress, atop a VERY HIGH mountain. And yes, once you got onto the Fortress, you still had to climb UP. Nimrod's Fortress is in the Golan Heights, north of the Sea of Galilee.

Also in the Golan Heights is the Banias Waterfalls. Hidden in the valleys of the mountains is this amazing waterfall. There were suspended bridges to walk along the waterfalls. It was one of my favorite spots!

In Caeserea Philippi (Peter's hometown), we saw the ruins of their city center, gravesites and their oil press.

The Church of the Beatitudes - built on the mountain they claim Jesus preached Matthew 5 from. The Sea of Galilee is in the background.

In Luke 10:13 Jesus said, "Woe to you Korazim!". Below are the ruins of this town that quickly rejected Christ as the Messiah. Based on the ruins, they were obviously and intelligent group of people, capable of building with the most dense and difficult stones in the region. Yet their intelligence kept them from seeing the truths of the Messiah. Andy, on the right, is sitting on the Royal Stone in Korazim's palace.