Yehudiya Hike (Golan Heights)

Well, to celebrate our anniversary and just because, Brad and I enjoyed a day hiking in the Golan Heights through Wadi Yehudia this past Sunday. The trip was hosted by JUC as a student activity day and we took full advantage. A wonderful young lady named Melissa spent the day with Denyon and had a great time. He really enjoys her and was very excited to see her the next morning as well when I headed off to my Gospel of Matthew class.
The hike was amazing. We started at the top of the canyon, hiked to the bottom, and then climbed back up. Down below we hiked from waterfall to waterfall, canyon pool to canyon pool. A couple of the pools we actually had to swim across in order to continue on the trail. It was a bit of a challenge swimming with a bag over your head so as not to ruin your cell phones, passports, camera, and lunches. We managed the first swim with no casualties, but the second we weren’t so lucky. We ended up with a broken, waterlogged flashlight and soggy sandwiches. Luckily we’d already eaten the main portion of our lunches so it wasn’t too bad. For a select few this will remind you of the blue river canoe trip where we enjoyed peanut butter and water sandwiches when I was a kid. That’s the first thing I thought of when pulling out the soppy pita bread and draining the water from the bag! The water in the pools was absolutely refreshing because of the extreme heat. Another fun part was jumping off the cliff rocks into the water. One of those things that they tell you not to do, but everyone does it anyways. The water is very deep actually. That was the thrill for the day. Part of the hike through the base of the water was very dense with all sorts of greenery. There were even some bamboo trees I think. At times we felt like we needed a machete to cut through the brush. The climb back up was nearly straight up and completely black basalt stone. It was a challenge for sure but right up our alley. We came home completely exhausted and very satisfied for going. And Denyon didn’t seem to miss us at all!
Speaking of Denyon, he has made some major progress since we’ve arrived. He’s gotten his two front teeth, and is now working on three more! I can feel two of them and just see the third coming in. Needless to say he’s been a little fussy because of the pain I’m sure. Poor little guy. He’s also gotten much more mobile. He still prefers to army crawl but is getting very efficient at it. I must have looked away for about 30 seconds while I was cleaning up in the kitchen and he was playing around the corner. I looked over to check on him and didn’t see him but heard him…he had actually crawled under the couch! Also, before coming here he didn’t transition well from position to position so if he was sitting he stayed sitting, if he was lying down he stayed lying down, etc. Well now it’s no problem and I had to laugh last week when after putting him down for a nap, then checking on him to see why he was still fussing after several minutes, he was sitting up crying his eyes out snuggling with his little green frog. I’ve never been able to sleep sitting up so I figured he couldn’t either. I assume he was protesting the nap, but he did eventually take one. His first real word and his favorite thing to say is “book.” What a great word! He also says what resembles “please” which again is a great word to be saying. He still loves books and prefers them to most toys. We’re proud of that!
Our internet is still not officially set up in our apartment so we haven’t been able to upload many pictures to the blogsite. We will do that as soon as we can. Right now we’re lucky to be able to be online long enough to post and check an email. It’s the only “business” that we haven’t been able to take care of since we’ve gotten here. The company definitely does not get any awards for its customer service and the fact that we don’t speak Hebrew makes working out the kinks doubly difficult. We’re hoping that we can get it settled this week but you never know. We’ve learned that nothing happens fast here in Israel!
We are enjoying ourselves thoroughly and Brad and I both absolutely love our classes and are learning so much already. It’s a blessing and a privilege to be here. Until next time!
Love,
Shallon