We left Tel Aviv early on Thursday morning. Our first stop was Caesarea, which was a port and a city built by Herod the Great.
We first went to the theater. Only the seating remains. The stage and back no longer exist. Bob gave his talk about events that happened at Caesarea while we were seated there.
Next stop was the palace - well the ruins of the palace.
The palace had a swimming pool. Following is a picture of what remains of it. It wasn't filled with sea water. They piped in fresh water from 10 miles away.
This is a picture of the aquaduct used to pipe in the water to the palace.
There was a hippodrome close by which was used for chariot races in roman times. Later the byzantines built other buildings on it. Below is a floor from one of those buildings.
The next picture is the ruins of a bathhouse that was added to the hippodrome.
one of the support arches
After the byzantines came the crusaders. Here is one of their fortresses.
The fortress had a moat around it.
We have spent the last two days in Galilee. We are staying next to the Sea of Galilee in a Kibutz, but will be leaving tomorrow.
There have been internet problems and time problems so I haven't been able to post as much as I wanted.
Going back to Toronto, our flight to Tel Aviv was not full so we each had two seats on the plane. However the armrest wouldn't go all the way up so it was certainly not comfortable. We landed at Ben Gurion airport which is between Tel Aviv and Jersualem and drove to Tel Aviv to our hotel.
We passed wheat and barley fields which looked green and lush. They can only grow these crops in the winter here because it is too hot in the summer and there is no rain. For the past five years there has been drought and the crops haven't grown, but this year they are looking good and we have found out why. It was cloudy when we arrived and the next day there were occasional showers and that evening the rain started and it has rained ever since.
After supper some of the group (including Bob, but not me) walked to Jaffa which is the old section of Tel Aviv. It was a harbour in biblical times - where Jonah departed trying to get away from his responsibilities. The following are pictures taken in the dark that night.
It was a long trip, but we are in Tel Aviv. We drove to Calgary on Monday and had supper with Jeremy and Edward and their families and had Family Home Evening together (well at least Family Home watch olympics).
Tuesday morning Jacqueline drove us to the airport where we caught a flight for Toronto. It was snowing when we got there and when we left for Tel Aviv the plane had to be de-iced.
We arrived about 2:00 this afternoon. Our hotel looks out on the Mediterranan. The pictures are from our balcony.
The Alberta Winter Games were held in the Cold Lake/Bonnyville area of Alberta. Our gand-daughter earned a place on the Zone 1 Figure Skating team and went by bus with the Zone 1 athletes. Sue-anne and I went up to watch her skate. Although I have lived in Alberta fifty some odd years, I had never been in the northeastern part of the province (although I guess it is really the central eastern part) so I was looking forward to seeing a different part of the province.
Last Thursday morning when I left home the trees were covered with a delicate coating of lacy hoar frost and looked beautiful against a blue sky. As I drove down our street, I thought I should stop and take a picture, but decided to wait until I arrived in Taber. Well by the time I arrived at the edge of the city and turned onto highway three fog covered the countryside and scattered snow flurries were falling. It snowed intermittently all the way to Taber. In some places the less used lane was totally covered. I took a picture in Taber, but without the blue sky it just wasn't the same.
Sue-anne's Street in Taber
Sue-anne joined me in Taber and we drove to Brooks where we stopped for a short time and said, "Hell0" to my brother and sister-in-law at their place of business.
On we went to Hanna where we stopped and had lunch with my other brother and sister-in-law and my nephew and his wife.
After we left Hanna, we did have some blue sky for a while but it sooned turned to cloud and fog again. That was the last blue sky we saw the whole three days we were away. We drove to Elk Point where we had booked a motel room. All the rooms around Cold Lake and Bonnyville had been booked long before Sue-anne thought of booking.
The Sign at the Elk Point Motel
Elk Point is not very big, but there was a take-out Pizza Hut where we got pizza for supper.
It is well over an hours drive from Elk Point to the J.J. Parr Arena on the Cold Lake Air Force Base. We left quite early the next morning to get there but we had some problems. "Our Lady of the GPS" wanted us to take some gravel roads and we followed her advice but we didn't see any gravel. The road was more like a snowmobile trail and we followed it to within sight of the highway we were to turn on when there was a chain blocking off the road and we had to turn around and go back the way we came.
Our Snowmobile Trail
View from the Snowmobile Trail
The next place "Our Lady" wanted us to turn was into a road that led to the back gate at the Airforce base, but because there was a sign that said the gate wasn't always open and because we no longer trusted her we decided to use a map and find the arena ourselves. We got to Cold Lake and drove around the town for some time before giving up and stopping at a service station to get directions.
We watched skating all day - at least Sue-anne did. There were only cold metal benches with no backs, so I only watched Taylor's group. The rest of the time I read books on Sue-anne's kindle. (For those of you who have never seen a kindle - I recommend them. I was even able to download a book while we were driving down the highway. I wish I would have had one in China.)
Taylor skated against fifteen other girls and earned the bronze medal.
After the skating, Sue-anne and I drove back to Elk Point to our motel.
Our Motel Room
View from the Motel
A Way to Keep Fresh Towels.
The cart stayed outside all night. It had folded towels in the front and unfolded ones at the back. They were all covered with frost.
In the morning we decided to leave for home rather than backtrack to Cold Lake to watch some other sport. Before we left we had to visit the 100 foot mural that Elk Point is noted for. It was painted and researched by Billie Milholland and marks 80 years of Settlement in Elk Point. It was very cold so we didn't get out and walk close enough to read the history on the mural. In fact, I thought I would just roll down my window and take a picture from the car.
The Elk Point Mural
Big mistake. The window rolled down fine, but it would not go up again. We then visited a service station and a garage but, of course, it being Saturday there was no one to help us. Sue-anne pulled on the window and wiggled it back and forth and after a while she got it up again. We were relieved.
As I may never be back to that part of the country, we decided to detour over to Vegreville to see the big Ukrainian Easter Egg. Again we listened to the GPS lady and we did fine except for one township road she took us on - certainly not as bad as the Snowmobile trail.
Road into Vegreville
The Revolving Easter Egg
We made one more stop along the way home and that was at Cactus Corner (corner of highway 36 and highway 9)to eat lunch. The rest of the trip through the fog was uneventful.
January was cold and there was lots of snow. We went to Coaldale for a couple of Jackson's hockey games and we also went to Taber a time or two. We made a visit to Cardston to the temple one evening when the roads were rotten.
We did have visitors. Sue-anne and Edward and families spent New Years with us. Jeremy's family was in Lethbridge the week-end of the Coaldale Hockey tournament. Three of Sue-anne's children stayed over one night. My brothers and sister and spouses came for supper one Saturday.
All in all, although the weather warmed for a few days in the first half of January, it was totally January weather and I kept indoors as much as possible.
We spent a couple of days at home before we rushed back to Calgary to spend some time with Edward's children while Edward and Jacqueline went east for Edward's yearly accounting seminar. They were a busy group with early morning seminary, volleyball, band, music lessons, swimming lesson, cubs, young men and young women groups and play group - and maybe other activities that I have forgotten.
Again we went home for a few days and then left for Utah. We attended a China teachers Alumni meeting. We saw a few of the teachers we had met previously and one other couple from Nanjing.
Then we visited with Darwin's family. Amber, Chloe & Owen were just getting over H1N1.
We returned from Utah on the 5th October and on the 7th we left to spend Thanksgiving in Montana with Jeremy and family. The roads were glare ice so it wasn't a fun drive. We were going to do a hike while we were there and we drove to the trail-head but while it was -3 down at the cabin it was -10 and felt very cold higher up on the mountain. Following are a few pictures taken that day. We then spent a couple of months at home, although we made a couple of trips up to Calgary for Bentley and Austen's priesthood ordinations. We also went to Taber at least once.
On the 23rd December we again left for Montana. The road wasn't quite as bad this time. We had a great Christmas with Jeremy and family and Edward joined us on Monday. We went bowling and most of the family skiied at Big Mountain a day or two.
View from the Cabin
Christmas Eve PJs
Santa made it!
We left on Tuesday and returned to Lethbridge. Edward and family followed on Wednesday night. And so ended 2009.
We set off for Nova Scotia on Labour Day (September 7th). Edward drove us to the airport in Calgary and we had a direct flight to Halifax. It was the first flight I had been on that charged for meals. I wasn't hungry at lunch and when I was going to order supper the stewardess got very impatient while I was deciding what to order so I told her to forget about it and was quite hungry by the time I arrived in Halifax. Nathan, Tara, Orson, Liam, Keaton and Lochlan picked us up at the airport. It was the first time we saw Lochlan.
On Tuesday morning Nathan, Keaton, Bob and I set out to go to Pictou. Pictou county is where my 2nd great grandparents settled when they came from Scotland in 1831. Our first stop was Baillie cemetery where my 2nd great grandparents and my great grandfather were buried, as well as some other relatives. We had been there four years before and the graveyard had been neat and taken care of. This time the whole place was overgrown. We could hardly find the place. What a difference four years can make.
We next went into Pictou. Nathan and I went to the courthouse to look up some probate records and Bob and Keaton wandered down by Pictou Harbour. There is a replica of the Ship Hector in the Harbour. My ancestors didn't come on the Hector; they arrived about sixty years later.
The Nova Scotia Temple
Nathan, Keaton, Bob and I went to Lawrence Beach for an afternoon. It looks like a beautiful day, but there was a cool breeze. Keaton played in the sand for a while but we didn't stay long.
Nathan had taken a few days off, but on Friday he went into work. We went into Halifax with him and toured the Citadel while he was at work. The Citadel was a huge fort built by the British to ward off a land attack by the Americans. The following bit of history comes from Parks Canada who now control the fort.
The present Citadel, completed in 1856, is the fourth in a series of forts since 1749 to occupy the hill overlooking the harbour. It is an excellent example of a 19th-century bastion fortification complete with defensive ditch, ramparts, musketry gallery, powder magazine and signal masts. Although never attacked, the fort was garrisoned by the British Army until 1906 and by Canadian Forces during the First and Second World Wars.
The fourth Citadel was established to guard against a land-based attack from the United States. This massive, star-shaped, masonry fortification took 28 years to build. Constructed originally as a smoothbore fortification, the Citadel quickly became obsolete with the introduction of powerful rifled guns in the 1860s. In response to the rapidly changing times, the Citadel upgraded its armaments and for the first time could defend the harbour as well as the land approach because the new artillery fired heavier shells a greater distance and with more accuracy.
The major role for the Citadel after the turn of the century was to provide barrack accommodations and act as a command centre for other harbour defences. When the Second World War broke out in 1939, the Citadel was used as a temporary barracks for troops going overseas and as the centre for anti-aircraft operations for Halifax. The Citadel was the "last view of the country for so many thousands outward bound and the first landmark to those who returned."
On the week-end most of the Baines took part in a 5 k run - the Cole Harbour Harvest Festival road race.
We arrived home from Oregon on Tuesday, the 21st July and Darwin & family arrived Thursday evening and Edward came Friday evening because there was a memorial service in Brooks for my Aunt, Jean Miller, on Saturday, July 25th. She passed away suddenly and unexpectedly the beginning of July. We attended the memorial service and then went for supper at the D.H. Murray home.Elsie, Aunt Anne and her children and some grandchildren, Ann Homer & Cathy and one of her boys, Alex & Helen and Larry & Allan Sproul were all there.
The Adults Visit in the Back Yard
The Young Ones Prefer Donald & Diane's Backyard Pool
Miranda
Courtney
Miranda and Chloe stayed on with us. While they were here we went to Stirling for my sister, Joan's birthday. The girls had a great time playing with their second cousins. Miranda was picked up on the Thursday and we left Lethbridge on Friday to take Chloe back to Utah.
The Miller Family was also at Stirling John, Cat, Maggie and Anne
When we were in Utah we visited the beautiful Thanksgiving Gardens and now know what "the desert blossoming as a rose" means although outside the boundaries we could still see the desolate non-blooming hills of Utah.
Chloe at Thanksgiving Point Gardens
Thanksgiving Point Rose Garden
Bob and Caden
We returned to Alberta on Thursday, August 6th so Bob could attend his 50th high school reunion. They had a dinner and dance on the Friday, rode in the parade on Saturday and had a luncheon on Saturday.I watched the parade with Edward and family.Bob and I had a few days alone at home and then Erica, Bentley and Miranda arrived to stay while their parents went to Nova Scotia.Courtney came on Sunday evening.Erica and Courtney attended volleyball camp at the college and Bentley went to basketball camp at the University.Langley and Carter came and stayed a couple of days.Bob took the three young ones to see the Whoop-up Days parade.He also took them to the park every day.Sue-anne picked Courtney up on Friday afternoon.Austen and Lincoln arrived on Friday afternoon and Edward and Jacqueline came on Saturday.We went for supper at O’Sho and then Edward and family went back to Calgary.
Next stop was the palace - well the ruins of the palace.
This is a picture of the aquaduct used to pipe in the water to the palace.
one of the support arches 
We have spent the last two days in Galilee. We are staying next to the Sea of Galilee in a Kibutz, but will be leaving tomorrow.
