Time for the Local News!

D. is on vacation now so I have time to catch up on my blog! Well actually he has been on vacation for a month and this is his last week. So actually it is more like I finally have time to blog!

The last couple of months have been busy with Purim and Passover and a visit from my mother-in-law in between. It is exactly a month between Purim and Passover and there is a lot to do to get ready for both holidays. Passover deffinitely being more intensive. So I will hit the highlights and then talk about our week up north in Tsfat!

Purim was quiet and enjoyable, we had our first attempt at Lasagne and it is now a family tradition on Shabbat. Yeah! Betty Crocker look out! Well actually she is probably safe for a long time as the kids favorites are still hot dogs and peanut butter and jelly! They take after their mommy!

We had a week long visit from my mother-in-law which was wet and soggy, but we needed the rain. We spent most of the week hanging out in the apt. with a couple of local trips into Raanana. However, D. and I got to go to a wedding with no kids! It was great as I got to meet a lot of people from the Kollel and that was good networking. Very nice people too. We also went out to a dinner here in the neighborhood at a friends for their just married son and daughter-in-law. So having D.'s mom here was great!

Then the weekend before Passover we had a friend from the States come and visit. She is here for a month long visit in Israel. M. has been here before once for a year and once for 8mo. in the 90's. What is really crazy is that we grew up together in a way, as we lived next door to her aunt and uncle for many years. My parents are still good friends with them. She is not Jewish but loves Israel. We invited her to come stay with us over Shabbat as she was getting in on Friday afternoon and we live closer to the airport than her going all the way to Jerusalem. It was really fun and we have found we have a lot in common. It was really amazing to think that we knew each other as kids, but have not seen each other in maybe 15 years. As kids we never would have expected to be visiting with each other in Israel to say the least! We are hoping to get together this week again and probably one more time after that before she leaves. We will deffinitely be keeping in touch after she goes home. Or at least as much as we can!

The day after she left we headed up to spend the week of Passover up in Tsfat. Tsfat is just above the Kinneret( Sea of Galillee) near the Lebanon border. We stayed the week with our friends C&N who had their baby at our house last July. All in all the weather was great. We wanted to do a lot of hiking but soon discovered that get out before noon with kids was impossible. We settled for short walks around the city. In the "new city" they are layering brick on top of the old road while doing some work part of the road caved in a building was discovered! We could see the window, but that was about it. When it first caved in you could walk right up to it and check everything out, but by the time we got there it was fenced off and I could not get in. Although I did take some pictures which we will try to download this week. Tsfat is built on 7 layers of city and it is forbidden to tear up the ground or even do archeological digs because the history there is so immense. That to start digging and researching they would never be done and it would destroy what is there. So they jut cover up and build on top. In the old city there are Synagogues built in the 1600's! Unfortunately with the kids, there was no way for me to go to services. Tsfat is gorgeous and some of it really reminded me of Oregon! They have pine trees there! It smelled so good and the flowers were all bursting with color. We are hoping to make it back up there in August too. Will have to see how it goes.

Finally this past shabbat we had a house full of 19-21yr. olds and that was a great time. R. we met when we were living in Raanana, A. is a regular and we are friends with her parents in Seattle and her aunt and uncle in Portland and then her cousin came and brought a friend from University. It was a lot of fun and a kick to host them.

The week we are soaking up our last week of D's vacation and we are hoping to go to the zoo and head into Jerusalem to do some errands.

As for kiddy progress reports: S. is up to my waist now and his language skills and coordination are really improving. When he wants to he can now put on his own pants, start to finish. He loves helping out with the twins and helping me cook. He loves to help bake cookies, cake and french toast.

Y is starting to stand on his own but not yet walking. He is into everything and is as tall as our desk! Time to start putting things higher up! He is also a crawling disaster and some how is constantly give himself boo-boos! He is eating more solids and has even been known to eat a peanut butter sandwich on occassion! Although his favoites are bannanas, cookies and cheerios.

M is also starting to stand on her own and is really gaining weight. Yeah! She is such a good girl, she is pretty self sufficient and will usually entertain herself. I love it, especially since the boys are well, such babies! S and Y deffinitely need to be closer to me at all times. Although M is always up for a good snuggle. Her favorite activity is finding paper to shred. I think she might be part hamster! Her favorite foods are her baby food pears with raspberries, oat meal and cookies!

As for the parents, we are doing fine. And just trying to keep one step ahead of the kids! E-mail me for the web adress if you need it. We will try to get the most recent photos up soon!

OK the natives are restless and D. has his hands full! Hope all is well.

Alina