Walk Through Bethlehem

I am first going to start out by saying that this weekend has been crazy busy. I had to play in the Christmas musical at Church and had rehearsal from 9-12 on Saturday morning. I then ran some arounds, came home for about and hour and then rushed back out to play at the performance at 4:00 that afternoon. Then I went by Chick-fil-a to get dinner for everyone, ran home to eat it and then bundled up to take the kids to Matthew's Methodist to do the "Walk Through Bethlehem." On Sunday morning I played in the musical at 9:30 and 11:00 services. We got home from church at 12:45, we ate lunch and then I headed back to church for my students violin recital. My dad met me at church so that he could accompany my students and practice with them. The recital started at 3:30 and lasted until 5:00, we had a fun reception afterwards. My students did great and it was a fun recital! Then my dad and I went back to my house so that he could eat dinner with us and see Caleb and Kathryn for a while. I was so glad once I went to bed last night and knew that it was all over! Now I just have 1 more rehearsal on Tuesday night and 1 more performance on Wednesday night...

Anyways, here are some pictures from the "Walk Through Bethlehem" that Russ and I took Caleb and Kathryn to. It was very well done and it really gave us a good picture of what Bethlehem was like when Jesus was born. When you walked up to the entrance of Bethlehem, we were met by a roman soldier and a woman who was handing out 4 gold shillings per person. We then had to pay 1 shilling each to Ceasar, sign our name on the census before we entered the city. There were many booths set up outside and lots of animals. We got to see a camel, donkey's, sheep, rams, goats, alpaca's and mule's. Caleb loved seeing all the animals ~ I think that was his favorite part! We then went in to the gym of the church and it was really neat. They had brick walls all around, booths set up everywhere, a starry night on the ceiling as well as the big star of Bethlehem. Roman soldiers were walking around all over the place patroling the city. Caleb got to smell frankensence and myrr at the spices booth, eat bread from the bakery, drink wine (apple juice) from the city and even see a replica of a home in Bethlehem. We followed the big star to the inn, where the inn keeper told us that there was no room at the inn, but to follow the star outside to the stable. The stable was actually pretty big with Mary, Joseph and a real baby ( who was very unhappy at the time). An angel was standing in the stable and singing. This scared Caleb a little bit! There was a big pile of gold coins and gifts in front of the stable where we could give our gifts to baby Jesus. It was really neatly done and it was a great way to be reminded of what Christmas is all about. Caleb really enjoyed it and was full of questions about everything. It was hard for him to understand that the baby Jesus he saw, wasn't the real Jesus, even though it was a real baby!

Caleb watches the camel

The rams



Caleb feeding the goat some straw

Caleb buys some Bethlehem "wine"

Kathryn drinking her "wine"

The stable with the Holy Family

Caleb buys some bread from the bakery with 1 shilling

Kathryn checking out the rams and goats

One of the men of Bethlehem walking around with a pony.

Caleb tries to pet a donkey