Elijah's 3rd Birthday!

Elijah had a wonderful day yesterday! I love this age because it is the first time that the children are aware of their birthdays. Leading up to his special day, Elijah kept asking when it would be and we taught him how to hold up three fingers to show us how old he would turn. His day started off with the traditional birthday chair and then he opened a couple of gifts that we had bought from the Tank museum. He looked at his hand-made cards, most of which were of 'Little Charley Bear' from CBeebies which he loves to watch. All the cards were made by hand this year because we had no idea where to buy any here in Israel and they would have probably been in Hebrew anyway.

On the left, Little Charley Bear by Lydia and Mercy made the card with robot, also from the same TV show.

Made by Eliana. Ice Cream is a favourite for Elijah!

Caleb made this very creative-interactive card.

Isaac sketched Little Charley Bear using his artistic skills.

Jeff had two meetings after lunch in Netanya, so he dropped us all off at a very nice mall for a few hours while he was busy. Fortunately, we found some things to do in the mall. One was to find a toy shop and buy Elijah a couple more special gifts which we knew he would like. When we had fully exhausted the mall, we ventured outside and started walking towards the beach in the hopes of finding a park on the way. Israel has some of the most excellent parks I have ever seen. With so many living in apartments, parks are essential for children. Netanya has, by far, the best parks and we managed to stumble upon one.

In the mall, we found an area with padding on the floor and just four of these soft play animals. That was it! But they all made the most of them for almost 45 mins! Then, after a couple of injuries and a mall supervisor shouting at my kids in hebrew (who should not have been in there anyway), we decided it was time to leave!

And we walked to the park.

The apartments tower all around the parks. 

We had planned to visit a special restaurant for a Birthday dessert so we decided to do something simple for dinner so that we would not be too full. This may seem strange to some of you, but we actually decided upon IKEA for their famous Swedish Meatballs! We were first introduced to IKEA when Isaac was a year old and we have always enjoyed visiting not just for the furniture and kitchen accessories, but also for the food. There is something about IKEA that gives us all warm feelings. Apart from everything being in Hebrew, it felt very familiar.

Afterwards we headed for dessert…… Max Brenner's Chocolate Restaurant which was amazing. Brenner is known as the 'Bald man' who makes amazing chocolate. The desserts were very unique and very rich. Elijah loves chocolate and so this was the perfect place for him, and for the rest of my family who also adore the stuff! I am probably the one who can take it or leave it. I opted for the 'White chocolate cheesecake crepe' which was gorgeous. There are milkshakes, frozen chocolate frappes, hot chocolates, waffles, sweet icons which are basically glass jars filled with cookies, ice cream, sauces and other wonderful yummy's. There is the famous chocolate chocolate soufflé, chocolate pizza, cheesecake,  pancakes and finally the chocolate fondue which comes with fruit, marshmallows, pieces of muffins and nougat. Eliana chose this dessert and she had a little burner for toasting her marshmallows. She was in heaven! In fact we all were, including me.

Bloated and high on sugar, we headed to visit with a couple whom Jeff has been blessed to get to know through his job. Such a sweet family; the wife is from New Zealand and the husband's parents grew up in New Zealand also but moved to Israel where he was born. They have such a lovely story about how the Lord brought them together!  While we were there, another couple also popped in to spend time with us. Both the husbands teach at a Bible College here and God is really using it to help both Israeli and Arab believers to become grounded in the word.  Probably the highlight of our trip here, (other than seeing the sites) has been meeting the people. We have been made to feel so welcome over and over again. We finally left their home just before 10 pm and drove the familiar rode back to Jerusalem which takes about an hour. We are all becoming accustomed to the 'popping' in the ears as we begin to climb up to the Holy City. The three littles are usually asleep in the car by the time we drive into the apartment parking garage, but strangely enough, there is now the feeling of coming 'home'. I have realised how adaptable our family has become over the years; making our residence a place of home no matter how temporal it may be. However, with just one more week left here in Israel, we are praying that God prepares us for our next step and we are beginning to get ready to settle in the place God has for us. Not knowing where that is yet, we keep moving forward, trusting that God will speak to us and say, "this is the way, walk in it" (Is 30:21), when we turn to the right or the left. Our God is so faithful and He has not brought us this far to abandon us now.

Thank you for all your prayers for our family during this time!