A Walk Through Bethlehem 121208 and 121308

Here is another catch up post! lol On Friday December 12th, we decided last minute to go to A Walk Through Bethlehem. We had heard about one that another stake was doing in Tampa and wanted to be supportive and go there. So off we went, but as we got to the on ramp for the freeway it was totally backed up. Know the next exit is about 6 miles down the road I did NOT want to wait in that traffic HOPING it would clear up. So we turned around and decided to go to the one at the local Baptist church. We got there around 6pm and this is what we found. Yeah a REALLY long line.
So we waited and waited, the line moved quite slowly, but we were patient. UNTIL we got to the front (1 hour later!) and found out that line was just to sign in! There was another 2 hour wait to actually DO the Walk through Bethlehem! That would end up putting us at 9pm before we even got to START the Walk, which of course was past Tye's bedtime. Not to mention, Kevin would have to be at work at 10 and who knows how long this was going to take. So we bowed out. We decided to go the next day.

Unfortunately, that also meant we had a melt down. Tye wanted to do it so bad, we told him they wouldn't let us, but we could go look at the animals. So that satisfied him. We wandered over there.

Kevin and Tye looked at the goats.

There was a lovely camel. We were trying to stay away as we didn't want to get spit on! We enjoyed some hot cocoa and do you know Tye knew which thermos was the hot cocoa and which one was the water before we even got anything out of them! Smart kid!! lol

When we got home it was a full moon, so I took a picture. Obviously, I didn't get it at the best time and so it looks really far away even with the zoom on!!! lol

Well the next day we decided to give it a go again. We went there around 4pm shortly after they had opened and we pretty much got right in with our number. We had to wait for a number to be called, but it was okay as they had music, dance and this thing called Stick something. I can't remember the name. I will have to find it and post it later.

Anyway, they did all these different stories/songs using these sticks in different shapes and such. I love this picture below as it shows them making a "manger" and a "star" with the sticks. It was sooooo cool!

Then it was time to go. This was our guide through the walk. He was pretty cool and answered a lot of questions that people had.

He took us to the registrar. We had to say how many people were in our group that were going to be entering the town of Bethlehem.

Then we had to go through the gate. The guards were funny as they kept asking us if we were slaves and we kept saying no, but there was one lady who was holding her child and they said, "see you are a slave, no one would carry another person of their own free will!"

After they allowed us to enter the city, we had to go pay our "taxes". Everything we said the guy turned into something else. He would ask how many animals we had and if someone said none he would say, "okay nine." So we paid up. Well, in the midst of being in there I ran out of memory on my memory card. I was soooooo mad!!!! And stupid too as I never thought to try to go back through and delete some of the dumb pictures. ARGH! Oh well, live and learn, eh?!

They showed us the place where they would make bread. They showed us the school and the church. Then he showed us the market. Along the way he would stop and ask people about "this baby that was born in a stable". Finally we got to the inn and spoke with the innkeeper. He talked about how he didn't know that the baby that was to be born was the savior of the world.

Eventually we went around and saw a depiction (with real people and a real baby) of the manger scene. Then the cross and eventually the tomb. It was all done very tastefully and I would definitely like to go again next year. We really liked it, but Tye was getting a little restless at the end, he just wanted to keep moving. We also enjoyed some hot cocoa again when it was over.