Holy Land Tour Sept-Oct 2012

Wow I don't even know where to start or how to express what a great experience it was to go to the Holy Land.  It has been a long time dream of mine to go there.  35 years ago when I was at BYU I was singing in the BYU Acapella choir. Our tour that summer was to go and visit Israel.  I was very excited about it but after meeting the man of my dreams I decided to marry him and give up the opportunity to go on this trip.  (The best decision of my life!) Back in those days you couldn't be in the choir and tour if you were married.  They have now changed that policy.  So my good and wonderful husband had always said we could go someday.  Well.....35 years later, 5 beautiful children, four awesome son-in-laws and 11 in a half delightful grandchildren we fulfilled our dream of going to the Holy Land.  It was a spiritually rewarding trip even though at times exhausting:).  We had an amazing tour guide, John Madsen and he made the scriptures come alive.  We met some of the most wonderful people that I felt like I had known forever.  They were bright, successful, spiritual and positive people that just made you feel good to be around.  They were an inspiration to us. 

 Inside the Citadel

 Looking out over the city of Cairo.

 Close up of the camel

 Ken and I at the pyramids.

 Dad riding on the camel.

      We started out the trip in Cairo, Egypt.  These are pictures of the Citadel one of the largest Mosques in Cairo.  Egypt is 95% Muslim.    Next we headed out to the pyramids.  They were quite an amazing architectual wonder. It seems it would not be that easy to build them in the exact shape and it is sad to think how many people toiled to build tombs for the big ego's of the Pharoahs.

 A cute Egyptian girl dressed up to sell her trinkets.  There are vendors everywhere trying to sell things.  Tourism has been their main source of income and it has been decreasing with all the unrest in the Middle East.

 The sphinx built to "guard" the tomb of the pharoah. 

 

Taba and the Red Sea, Sea of Galilee, Gideon Spring and Nazareth

Red Sea in Taba Egypt, Sea of Galilee and visits in Israel
     We left the cruise ship and flew to Taba on a chartered plane.  It has been fun on this trip because we have experienced many modes of travel.  We have taken a commercial plane, bus, horse carriage, motor boat, small fishing boat, chartered plane and lots more bus rides.  It was interesting going through the traffic in Egypt in a horse carriage.  It was CRAZY and I have to admit a little scary.  It is crazy how people drive and there are no lines in the roads.  Everyone honks their horns and are crowding all over the road.
     When we arrived off the chartered plane we took a bus ride through a rocky desolate area and then arrived to a beautiful resort by the Red Sea.  There we relaxed and swan in the Red Sea and went on the water slides at the resort.  We had a wonderful presentation by Elder Madsen. He is a spiritual giant and we all love to listen to him.  He spoke alot from the scriptures and he makes all of it come to life.
     We then got up very early and I already wrote about our trip to Masada.  We also stopped and took pictures of the Qumron Caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered.  We had a long bus ride on Friday getting to our hotel on the Sea of Galilee.
      We awoke to a beautiful view of the Sea of Galilee.  We walked over to the boat dock from our hotel and boarded the boat and went out on the Sea.   Brother Madsen gave a wonderful talk on the life of Jesus and when he was out on the Sea and the storm came.  He had asked me to lead everyone and sing "Master the Tempest is Raging".  It was a very special experience.  I love the group of people we are with.  They are very wonderful and we enjoying our time with them.  There is a wide variety and that makes it really fun.  The food is amazing and that is good and bad:).  Dad and I are going to have to get back to our eating less diet but for now we are just enjoying all the different foods from the different areas.
     The then went to Gideon Springs and went to a restaurant and had Israeli Falafel.  It is a real pita bread with chick peas, and all kinds of salads to go with it.  It was very authentic in a little place along the road that the tour guide highly recommended.  We went up to Mt Karmel from there.  That is where Elijah beat the priests of Bael.  This is a great story but I will recount it later as my internet is about to run out.
     Then we went to a recreation of a Nazareth Village at the time of Christ.  It was very interesting and really helped us feel the way life would have been for the young Christ in his home and village.  We then drove up to the precipice where it is thought that the Jewish leaders of Nazareth tried to kill Christ for "blasphemy" by throwing Him over a Cliff.  Luke 4 is the reference.  This was a beautiful high mountain that you could see all around.  It was amazing and Brother Madsen really brought the spirit.  I will write more about this later as well.  Sorry for any words with errors.
 

Egyptian Museum and Aswan

On Monday morning we had a leisurely breakfast at the Intercontinental City Stars Hotel in Cairo.   We then drove by bus to see the Egyptian Museum.  It was very interesting and we saw the display of King Tut's treasures and artifacts.  We then flew on a chartered jet to Aswan which is down in the South of Egypt by the Aswan High Dam.  Today was a lot of traveling to get down to Aswan but then we finally arrived to our beautiful Cruise Ship "ALyssa" and had a very lavish buffet for dinner.  Wow....there goes our diet!   I have been so impressed with this tour because it is so well organized and the tour guides are excellent and so is the service.  I have never felt unsafe or worried because they are taking very good care of us.
     Tuesday morning we had to get up 5:30 and be out to get on the bus by 6:30.  Southern Egypt is much warmer so the guides wanted to get an early start to go see some of the ancient Egyptian temples.  We saw one in Aswan called the Philae. We went by motor boat to see this temple because it was on an island.  We came back and had a wonderful lecture by John Madsen about Egypt'srole in the history of the house of Israel from Abraham to the Savior.  He is an outstanding lecturer and we feel like we are learning so much.  We then went to an even bigger temple around lunchtime and then tonight we went by horse and carriage to the temple of Horus in Edfu.  That was beautiful going to see it at night.  These temples are full of idols with a lot of counterfeit efforts to mimic the Priesthood of God and the Holy temples of God.
     The food on the cruise ship is amazing and I had Dad take some pictures which I will share later.  I haven't had enough access to load pictures on the blog but I have sent some individual ones to your emails.  This experience has been so amazing and I feel so blessed to be here!   I would love to have you all here with us!

Citadel, Pyramids of Giza, and the Sphinx

We started out by eating breakfast in our beautiful Intercontinental City Stars Hotel in Cairo.  Then we got on the bus and went to visit the largest Mosque in Egypt called the Citadel or the Alabaster Mosque named from white stone brought in from Luxor.  On the way the housing looked like a war zone.  There is so much poverty and people living in incomplete apartment buildings and trash everywhere.  There are shantys and very poor living conditions but lots of satelite dishes on the rooftops.  We passed by the "City of the Dead" which is where there is a large cemetary of buildings that have tombs underneath that house their dead from long ago.  

     We learned about the five pillars of Islam which are 1. they believe in Allah and Mohammed was the last prophet, 2. five prayers a day and Friday is their main day for prayer where they go and listen to the Iman, 3. fasting and Ramadan is their month of fasting followed by three days of feasting, 4. charity (which they do especially during the fasting) and 5. pilgrimage to Mecca (expected to be done once in a lifetime if you are physically and financially able).  

     Then we drove out to the pyramids of Giza where Ken rode a camel.  We walked down into the tomb of a Pharoah inside and below the pyramid.  These three pyramids are the best standing pyramids in Egypt.  There are 50 others in Egypt but none are in as good a shape as these three.

These were built in around 2600 BC.  We also drove to see the Sphinx which is the guardian of the pyramids.  

      We then went to a papyrus shop which we called the papyrus tourist trap but we were not swayed.  We had some free time tonight and we went strolling through the BIGGEST mall in the Middle East.  It was seven stories high and was amazing.  There are 25 million people that live in Cairo and during the day another 15 million come into work here.  So during the day there are ususally 40 million here.  Islam is 85% of the population of Egypt.  

       We will send pictures again.  We loaded them all on the ipad but can't figure out how to load them on the blog.  There was an older couple trying to help us but none of us could figure it out.  Amy since you have an ipad could you maybe research it for us? Thank you....we love you and will write more tomorrow night.

Arrived in Cairo!

      I am sorry I don't have any pictures yet but we just arrived to our BEAUTIFUL hotel in Cairo.  Friday morning we got up at 3:30 and then drove to Ken's office where we had a taxi waiting.  We left our car at his work and off we went.  We flew to LA then changed planes and flew on to NYC where we had a 5.5 hour layover.  We joined with our tour group and flew 11 hours overnight to Amman, Jordan where we had about a 45 minute layover and then a 40 minute flight to Cairo.  It has been a long journey and I can't believe I am sitting in a hotel room in Cairo, Egypt.
      I didn't know what to expect from our tour exactly but this first hotel is absolutely gorgeous.  It reminds me a little of the resort we stayed at in Cancun.  I will take some pictures in the morning.  I have been very impressed with the tour so far.  It is very well organized and the people are very friendly.  There are people from all over.  I thought it would mainly be people from Salt Lake City but there are people from Oregon, Conneticut, Virginina, New Zealand, Kentucky to name a few.  They are mainly older people but there are two really cute couples that are a brother and sister and their spouses.  The one couple has a six year old and two year old and both couples are from Pocatello, ID.  So they will keep all of us old folks hopping:).
      We slept quite a bit on the plane and we are so excited for tomorrow with the activities planned.  We are going to visit the Cairo Museum which houses the greatest collection of Egyptian artifacts anywhere in the world, including King Tut's treasures.  We are also going to visit a Mosque and the Citadel.  I will blog more tomorrow night and add some pictures.  Dad and I are very excited!
      There is a family here with the parents and four children with all their spouses.  I think a trip in the future with all you children and spouses sounds like a fun idea:).    
      Our tour guide is John Madsen and this is his 8th trip over here.  He is very friendly and I believe we will learn so much from him.   Anyway I wanted to check in and let you know we are alive and well.  Many of the people said that their relatives and friends were telling them they were crazy for coming.  I heard from the trip organizer not one person cancelled so hopefully we will all be safe and have many wonderful stories to tell!

2012 August cousin Lance Astle wedding

 Ken and his uncle Lynn out by the pool.  Ken barbecued one night when the family came  for Lance's wedding.  We were so excited to have some family come visit from Utah.  We are always the recipients of every one's kindness and it was fun to be the host and hostess.  We love our family and miss them so much.  Shelly, Kelly, Lindsay, Ira, Lynn and Marian all stayed with us Thursday through Sunday.  We went to the Oakland temple on Saturday and witnessed Lance being sealed to Annie Clark.  It was a very beautiful day in Oakland.  When I met Annie's mother I thought she looked familiar.  She came up to me after the ceremony and said she remembered me from Acappela choir when we sang together at BYU.  It is such a small world in the church. It was fun to see her beautiful and talented family.  Annie is a harp major at BYU and she and Lance will make quite the pair with Lance on the cello and Annie on the harp. 

Ken and I out by the pool.

Ken's cousin Kelly and Aunt Shelly relaxing after a tiring day of driving and car problems.

 Cousin Lyndsay

Annie said she loved everything about Lance except the way he dressed:). She said he would need to make some changes and she was going to help him.  I thought he looked very nice all cleaned up in the suit Annie picked out for him.  Here is Lance with his proud mother.  She was so happy for him to find Annie and marry her in the temple.

Shelly and I at the Oakland temple. Lyndsay and Ira are below.

Cousins Lindsay and Kelly

Three sisters Andrea, Kelly and Lindsay

Shelly Astle and family

Lynn and Marian

Ken and Marlene thinking back on our wedding in the Oakland temple 35 years ago on August 19th!  I am so blessed to be married to the love of my life for all eternity!  It just keeps getting better. 

 Uncle Lynn and Aunt Marian

 Lance and Annie Astle

2012 Steve going off to San Diego

 Steve was very excited for his new adventure in San Diego.  We are going to miss him but know he will enjoy learning new things and meeting new people. 

 Steve wanted to take a picture of Dad and I.

 I love these two good and handsome men.

 I was very happy Steve let me take his picture before he left.  He even said oh yes mom pictures are good. 

We have had so much fun having Steve live with us for the month of July.  He was working and off to Ohio for a week but when he was here we enjoyed his company.  He has been working for the Air Force full time even though he is a Reservist.  He applied and was accepted to U.C. San Diego and has decided to get his Master's Degree there.  We are very proud of him for his hard work and big goals.  Here are some pictures of him right before he was heading out the driveway.  Also note that Ken has lost 40.5 pounds.  I am so proud of him!!!