Yesterday actually remained a pretty good day! We ended up going to a friend's house to play that we have not seen in a while. I told her we are moving. These are the people that we stayed with when we were checking out our current home and her and her family have been amazing. However, since the birth of the twins we have not seen them much and I can feel the distance. They live at one end of the neighborhood and us at the other end so getting together with the 3 kids has been just too much. It was nice to visit with them, but it reminds that this one of the reasons we are moving. We don't fit here as we are away from all the other kids in S.'s gan who live down there and with D. gone so much we don't do things here and we don't do things with the Kollel as we are too far out. It is hard to start over, but sometimes new beginnings are necessary. It is like the Girl Scout Song;" Make new friends, but keep the old....." And it is true we will keep up with our friends here as we have done in Portland, but I will look to making new friends too.
Y is making walking progress, he was pushing around our foot stool today while walking! Yeah!
I have also been working with S. on his colors and his writing today. He opted not to go to Gan so rather than let him off the hook we have been having Gan at home. It is interesting to see how he works. It has been really insightful.
OK I am off to make lunch!
Ciao!
Monday, April 30, 2007
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Little Things
Not much is new here, but it is the little things that make life good. This weekend for Shabbat we went out for lunch. Our hosts have a son in Gan with Shmuel and another family came that is just a year older and also friendly with the boys. It was great not have to have lunch prepared as I just did not feel like cooking. We had a quite the week with our late Wed. meeting and it was great to go out instead. And while we were there Y. started walking by pushing on of their chairs! Yeah! He is gettting close. The other good thing was while I was walking to the bank today. Normally I hate cell phones, I find owning one to be nuissance about 75% of the time. However, I keep one around for logistics mostly and socializing on rare occasions. Today was one of them. I HATE going to the bank. It is up this huge hill and if I have the kids then there is no way to get a ride. So I dropped S. off at Gan and prepared to trek up to the bank. On the way I called a friend to let her know I had seen her in-laws in the local Portland Jewish Newspaper. Turned out to be a great conversation and we got to chat all the way to the bank and back. It made for a great start to my day as I got exercise, the kids got a nap and I got talk on the phone with out feeling guilty! I hope the rest of the day goes this well!
TTFN!
TTFN!
Thursday, April 26, 2007
The "M" Word!!!
No not that one! We are already married and for 7.5 years too! I mean the other "M" word. Yes, that is right.......Moving. Uggghhhhhhh! I hate it! However, it seems that we have developed a pattern of moving approximately every two years and it would seem that our time is up here in beautiful Karnei Shomron. So if we like it so much why are we moving? Well I would like to see my husband everday and the kids need to see their father everyday. Now, if he had a job where he had to be gone that would be one thing, but if a move can make the difference between how much we see D. well then, I think that is the wise move. So we are moving to a place called Tel Tzyion. It is a 35min. bus ride to Jerusalem instead of an 1hr. and 45min. Big difference. The bonuses are that, D. won't have to leave until 8:00am everyday and will be home by 8:30 everynight, we are close to the city with out having to be in it, which means more trips to the zoo, especially since the twins will be getting a zoo pass for their b-day from their marvelous Aunty Tutu and Uncle H! It also means we can go in for Kollel events and go home the same night and visit all of our friends who live in Jerusalemand go home in the same day with out a huge shlep. We are also closer to the central bus station for going to visit friends in the N. and S. hurray. The idea that we can go to the Shuk for veggies is great and we can meet D. for lunch is also great! Oh and the apt. has a yard and NO STAIRS! And it is really well cared for the couple we are going to be renting from bought it, up graded and are now moving back to the States. So really nice place for a good rent. BUT......and there always is..it means starting over. New friends, new neighbors,etc. It is a more religious neighborhood and we had to be interviewed, although brief, to make sure we would stick to the general principals of the neighborhood. Not a problem although a bit different than what I am used to. Also, very little in the catergory of lets say....GREEN! As in minimal trees, grass, vegitation. Except for our lovely little yard. Coming from Oregon I need my natural green surroundings and being a Duck of course. D. said I had to choose between seeing him and having trees. I said it was a tough decision....He wasn't so happy with that answer so I decided I had better decide on seeing him everyday instead of the trees. I think it is a good choice. On the up side we are at the end of the street, near the bus stop and it is a dead end so few cars and a view. We are in an apt. building with a total of 6 tennents, so not so far off of what we are used to now. The bedrooms are small, but we have our own Master bathroom which is unheard of in Israel. And the kitchen is tiny but with room to add cabinets, etc. And the living room is big and has a tiny study off of it for the computer and D.'s stuff so we can keep the kids out! Yeah. It will be hard to say good-bye to all our friends here, but hopefully they will come and visit us and we can always come out to visit them too. Hopefully this will be our last move for a long time. And for anyone who is curious, we will still be in the West Bank, but a lot closer to the city.
In other news.....in my sister's blog she commented on the V. Tech Tragedy. It is a tragedy that was felt here in Israel too. As one of the proffesors who died, was an Israeli and a Holocaust survivor. Not only was he Israeli, but he was laid to rest in Raanana. Which is very close to where we are now. D. was hoping to go to the funeral, but unfortunately with the fact that it was a Friday, the buses would not make it practical for him to go and be back by Shabbat. I think it just shows how small our world is getting and that one tiny pebble sends out so many ripples. My prayers go out to all those who were affected by this senseless tragedy.
I would also like to point out something else too while we are on the topic of violence. Although I do not wish anyone to go through this type of tragedy it makes a handy point. As I said we have a friend from the States here now and in the three weeks she has been here, there have been two major shootings in the U.S. One in Gresham, Or. at a highschool where Thank G-d no one was killed and the Virginia Tech. Tragedy. Can I just point out that at least we know who our enemy is here!
And finally the family news!
As I said we are moving and had to go through a little interview and check our potential new place. We had to do this last night at 9:00pm! Yuck! So rather than cart all the kids in and stay somewhere and deal with getting them back. We left S. with friends overnight and just brought the twins in who are just still young enough to sleep where ever and be OK the next day. This is the first time we have left him overnight in two years! And we have never left him with friends just Grandparents. He was really tired and had fallen asleep at 5:00pm and we had to leave at 6:15pm so our friends came and got him in a stroller. He woke up a bit and was sad, but by the time I called to check in he was fine. I guess a little ice cream makes up for being ditched by the parents. It was really hard for us to leave him overnight, but really smart. I got hom at 12:45AM and there was no point in waking everyone up to go get him. So he stayed and went to Gan with his friend. I will pick him up in an hour. On the flip side it was nice to have a slower morning than usual. Although I still have not gotten as much done as I would have like. Anyway, our big boy is growing up and staying with friends now. Yikes! I am not ready! But I am glad he did well.
The Twinnies are snoozing now so I better get some stuff done before they wake up! OOOPPPPSSS! Too late!
La'Hitraot!
In other news.....in my sister's blog she commented on the V. Tech Tragedy. It is a tragedy that was felt here in Israel too. As one of the proffesors who died, was an Israeli and a Holocaust survivor. Not only was he Israeli, but he was laid to rest in Raanana. Which is very close to where we are now. D. was hoping to go to the funeral, but unfortunately with the fact that it was a Friday, the buses would not make it practical for him to go and be back by Shabbat. I think it just shows how small our world is getting and that one tiny pebble sends out so many ripples. My prayers go out to all those who were affected by this senseless tragedy.
I would also like to point out something else too while we are on the topic of violence. Although I do not wish anyone to go through this type of tragedy it makes a handy point. As I said we have a friend from the States here now and in the three weeks she has been here, there have been two major shootings in the U.S. One in Gresham, Or. at a highschool where Thank G-d no one was killed and the Virginia Tech. Tragedy. Can I just point out that at least we know who our enemy is here!
And finally the family news!
As I said we are moving and had to go through a little interview and check our potential new place. We had to do this last night at 9:00pm! Yuck! So rather than cart all the kids in and stay somewhere and deal with getting them back. We left S. with friends overnight and just brought the twins in who are just still young enough to sleep where ever and be OK the next day. This is the first time we have left him overnight in two years! And we have never left him with friends just Grandparents. He was really tired and had fallen asleep at 5:00pm and we had to leave at 6:15pm so our friends came and got him in a stroller. He woke up a bit and was sad, but by the time I called to check in he was fine. I guess a little ice cream makes up for being ditched by the parents. It was really hard for us to leave him overnight, but really smart. I got hom at 12:45AM and there was no point in waking everyone up to go get him. So he stayed and went to Gan with his friend. I will pick him up in an hour. On the flip side it was nice to have a slower morning than usual. Although I still have not gotten as much done as I would have like. Anyway, our big boy is growing up and staying with friends now. Yikes! I am not ready! But I am glad he did well.
The Twinnies are snoozing now so I better get some stuff done before they wake up! OOOPPPPSSS! Too late!
La'Hitraot!
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
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
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
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