Merry Christmas from Israel

[encantotom]

hi newell friends, old and new.

as some of you know, we have been living in herzliya israel since the middle of october on a work assignment for me. we have really enjoyed ourselves and have been able to see many things. yesterday we spent the day in old city jerusalem in the jewish quarter. late evening i had pre-reserved tickets to go on a tour of the tunnels underneath the western wall. it was so awesome. we have seen just about all the sites and some 2-3 times. we flew our adult daughter out for a few weeks and she loved it. we just had our two younger college kids arrive this week and we are showing them. today (christmas eve day) we are driving up north to tiberias/galilee to spend the day, go to a pot luck christmas eve dinner with some new friends and then stay in a kibbutz hotel on the sea on galilee. darlene made her christmas cinamon rolls yesterday we have every christmas eve and heather brought over a 6" high christmas tree that lights up via a USB connection on a laptop so we are all ready for christmas. most of all we are ready because we have some of our family here and we are in close touch with the others. it is the first christmas we have been apart since our kids were born.

the holy lands are fantastic and we love it here and have made alot of friends. it has made us realize we dont need all our "stuff" to be happy and maybe that is what you full timers have learned in some other way.

the driving is crazy here, but no damage to the rental car yet.

merry christmas

tom and darlene