keyboards, Explosions and Life, Oh MY!

This week has been busy and crazy both weather wise and life wise. On Shabbos it was nice enough to get all the kids to the park. Yeah!!!! Since then the weather has gone downhill and we are now back to freezing our buns off! Although thankfully it is only raining not snowing. Well due to the lovely weather everyone is getting cabin fever. It seems that even if it is nice and we dont make it out, everyone is OK. Probably because they can still play on the merpesset(deck) out back. But when it rains the kids all get a little nutty. This is where the keyboard story comes in. Yesterday morning I was on the computer in the bedroom when the phone rang. I was going to ignore it, but after listening to the answering machine I discovered that I needed to answer the phone. Well one phone call led to another right behind it. Meanwhile Curly and Mo were still in the bedroom unbeknownst to me. When I looked back to check on them, what should my wondering see, but two tiny babies gleefully pulling everysingle key off the laptop keyboard. I wanted to pass out and barf all at the same time and I am pretty sure that the shriek I let out was heard by the people in the neighboring town over! I sent S over to get D to see what damage control could be done and I am grateful to say that we were able to replace almost all the keys. Some dont work quite right and eventually we are probably going to have to cough up $100 to replace the keyboard, but thankfully we can get by for now.

As if that wasnt enough excitement for oneday, I took S with me to check out an apartment in an area outside the city in a place called Brechfeld in Moddiin Elite. It is about an hour by bus from Jerusalem. So off S and I go running to catch the bus. This means catching one in the neighborhood to get where we need to catch the bus the Brechfeld. Fortunately we caught the first bus on time but of course missed the second to Brechfeld by minutes. Grrrr.....but OK even if we catch the 2nd one 45min. later we should still make our apointment on time. In theory.... About 3 minuted before the next bus is due to arrive we had a total Jerusalem, Israeli experience. We are standing at the bus when in Hebrew a police officer starts moving everyone down the street. So of course I am with it and know something is up, but I want to know more details so I ask for the english version. Answer, there is a suspicious object in the area and they are moving everyone down the street. We go to the end of the block and of course silly me I am thinking the bus is still going to come down the street, it will just stop further down. But No.......of course not, they are closing the whole street! OK no problem I think to myself, they will get rid of this thing and then we will get the bus a few minutes late. Wrong again. They did two controlled explosions of the mysterious objects as S andn I about 100 other people stood around watching. It was actually fascinating and the first one they did, I could really feel it! It really surprised me. Were the mystery items really bombs? I doubt it. It looked like someone for got their bags. I could see them lifting things out with a stick type thing and it looked clothes and a plastic bag. (Besides this really is not so uncommon, we know someone who had a personal experience with this. One of our friends have a child who left his school bag in the park. It was a smaller town than Jerusalem and a neighborhood park so the police went dutifully from door to door trying to figure out if the bag belonged to anyone. By the time the parents figured out what was going on and what the question was and that the bag belonged to them, it was too late and one little back pack belonging to a 4 year old was blown to smitherines. Thus sparing the good people of the city from the dangers of a 4 year old's school bag.) So anyway, back to our story...45min. later they finally re-open the street. Did the bus come? NO! The street was closed so long that the bus was rerouted and we had to wait for another one. During this half an hour wait it started to get cloudy, then it proceeded to rain and then hail! Fortunately we managed to stay dry under the bus shelter, but we were sure cold! We did finally make it to our apt. to see the apt. and it was worth the trip but we are still debating the neighborhood. I wont go into it here as it would take to long and be too confusing to explain. When we finally land I will let everyone know where we are. Suffice to say that yesterday was a long, strange day.

Today the cabin fever continued so after a whole day of being ready to strangle my kids I finally hauled everyone to the park at 5:30pm in the freezing cold so they could sit in the wet sand for a half an hour and dig in the dirt until it got dark. Am I a good mommy or what?! And the scary thing is, it is only Tuesday! If this keeps up I am going to need a lot of tea and lot of chocolate to get through the week!

Hope your week is going better than mine!

Here we go again!

Well I finally have a few minutes to update the world and don't you know, the topic has not changed! It is snowing, AGAIN!!!!! OK, seriously, I loved the snow last month. It was fun and happy and reminded me of my happy childhood with marshmallows and hot cocoa and a big fire. I was thrilled to take the kids out in it and build a snowman. But a second time, this is too much! We live in Israel!!!! A big sunny desert right?!! Actually the desert part is only partially true, that only accounts for the southern part of the country. But we are known as the land of eternal SUNSHINE, NOT SNOW!!!!! I am freezing my everloving buns off here! And this time it was all wet and sloppy and here is S going, why can't we go out in it? Forget it! I did not have energy to dress three kids in 6 layers for 10 minutes of slogging in huge puddles so we could go back in and turn the house into a lake from all the wet clothes. Am I a great mom or what?! I did however, have to go out myself to run errands today. Fortunately the city was prepared this time so the roads were plowed and most of the businesses were open and the busses were running. The other thing that was really great was that we got our organic grocery order today. And early to boot, maybe we should have snow more often.......Nah! We usually get our order anywhere from 5-8pm, but today we got it nice and early at around 3:30p. It really was awesome. I was truly afraid that the driver would not make it due to the weather and terror would ensue over the house as we are usually pretty empty by Tues. since everything is weekly. Although I did pick up some staples while out just in case, including a container of peanut butter. Our house is not a pretty picture when it lacks bread and peanut butter. Like mother, like kids, what can I say? It is the one thing they got from me!

Other than freezing our ecole's off, it is business as usual at the house of J5 where chaos reigns. What is really interesting is that most people seem to enjoy this. The last two months have been quite busy for us actually. It seems that while between Channukah and the end of the month everyone took a break from socializing, starting Jan. 1, we have had everyone through our door. We started off with Av coming to stay with us for the month of Jan. which was great and also brought with it a few of her friends visiting. Then after Av moved out, last week NB came and stayed the week with us in order to finish her radio project with D so she could count it as part of this year's school credit instead of the following year as it all has to be done by March. They have not been able to make their weekly visit due to weather and other things beyond their control. In between we have had a couple of the guys from Kollel pop in to eat lunch with us as the house is heated, not always the case with the Kollel, the neighbors washing machine broke so we were one of 3 families that volunteered to share, plus one of the single guys, Sm, from D's kollel who is with out washer pops in now and again to borrow ours, at our invitation, of course, then we have assorted friends who come to use the internet and finally we have one of Av's friend's from Seattle we have "adopted" Dit who also pops in and out from time to time and tends to come to us for advice. Dit also gave me my first nickname, she decided my full name is too much to say and has shortened it to the first 3 letters, it is actually pretty cute. We find that we rarely have a quiet day or night anymore, but we love the socialization and of course the kids suck up the extra attention like a dog with a bone! We know our kids are cute, they are our kids afterall.....But I had to laugh when Sm came by a with a friend for a visit one Shabbos afternoon and the first thing his friend said was, "Oh my gosh, your kids are so cute!" He had been here all of 5 seconds! And we wonder why our kids act so attention deprived when it is just us! We just can't keep up with all the outside feedback. Because we are far from organized here it always surprises me that at times we get a large amount of foot traffic here. But one day our friend and teacher of S was here using the internet during one of our busy times and was the last to leave. She said to me that it is great that everyone feels so at home here, regardless of personality, background or otherwise. It was such a huge compliment because we really had, had an assorment of people through during the time she was here. It really has been a privelege for us to play host, den mother, teacher, friend and neighbor to so many people.When we lived in P-town we were the hot spot on Shabbos because we were one of 3 or 4 families that lived closest to Shul and after I had Shmuely I was not able to take him, so we had everyone over. It was something we really enjoyed. Living in Jerusalem has really given us that sense of purpose and belonging again. We have really enjoyed it these past months. However, as most of you know this is only temporary and we will be moving in a few short weeks. I hope that in our new place, which will please G-d be very long term or permanent, we will also be able to connect and reach out to so many different people there as well.

Winter Wonderland Continues....

OK, it is Thursday night and I am back at it again! To be fair, M was crying because she was cold last night and settled right down once she was in bed with us. The snowy weather continued today. Although today it was mostly sunny skies, just cold, but the snow did start melting. :( I managed to get the twins into S's old shoes today so we could all go out and enjoy the snow. Yes, I do have more photos. We just stayed on our block but we were out for about another half hour today. It was really pretty today. M kept eating the snow, she reminded me of my sister! S had a snow ball fight with the neighbor boys and it was very cute. Y just took it all in as is his nature. They did manage to get busses going today, although I have no idea what stores were open if any, beyond the grocery stores and makolets (local neighborhood stores.) I did go out and do my weekly shopping today and it went fine. No, major gaps in the shelves, etc. They were out of a few things, but not surprising on a Thursday evening.

So in continuation of my goals from last night, I finally decided that if I never put into writing the things I wanted to do, I would have no hope of every accomplishing them. But if it is in writing, then I have a list that I can refer to and I can check things off when I finish them. Although I am not such an organized person, when I do finally make lists, I love having them and love seeing my chores/goals crossed off and completed. So I created my lists in hopes that as I refer back to them I will force myself to take more time to pursue my goals so that I can check them off my list. It is a silly way of doing things, but hey we all gotta have a goal right? It is 10:37pm here and I have lost all train of thought. Perhaps it will come back at a later date. A good day/night to all.

Walkin' In a Winter Wonderland.......

That is a sentence I never thought I would use here in Israel, but sure enough it happened! It all just goes to show that the old saying, "never say never, " is true. This morning we woke up at 9:00am to a suprise visit from the snow fairy! Apparantly it had only started snowing at 8:00am, but it was perfect timing for us. We usually never sleep so late, but I guess we must have all sensed that today was a good day to sleep in! D still went into Kollel today, but he went late and brought a couple of friends home for lunch to eat in a warm heated house instead of at the Kollel. Today was a B.Y.O.H (Bring your own heater) day. Most apts. in Israel do not have central heating. Thank you G-d, we do! We are really using it!

To say that Jerusalem is not prepared for snow is an understatement! Everyone is in a panic and apparantly people have been at the stores stocking up like mad for the "big storm." We have had about 6 inche of snow and it looks about like East County (Multnomah County, Gresham, Oregon, U.S.A.) when they get a dusting there. Slushy side roads but clear main roads and side walks filled with wet slushy stuff and lots of mud puddles. Now the response here in Jerusalem to a forecast of snow: school was closed early yesterday (Tuesday) before a flake even touched the ground just because it was a possibility. Today all cars have been asked to stay off the road unless absolutely necessary to go out, there are no busses running today, period; and the taxis although out, are few and far between. Also, all major businesses were closed except grocery stores and mini marts. You would think we were in the mild of a midwest blizzard! Although to be fair the winds are pretty strong and we did see a few downed trees.

Our friend Av has been staying with us this past month as she just got back into the country the end of December. So she helped me bundle of the kids and take them out. We took Y and M out while S got himself ready. We layered them up as much as possible then put plastic bags on their feet. They lasted about 10min, long enough to experience snow and for me to get pictures. I then took S up to the park where we saw a few snowmen and even one with a carrot nose! S loved it and we even took pictures of it. We, and by that I mean, I built a very small baby snowman and then used rocks for eyes and a seed pod for the nose. And although I did not think he was so impressed by it, later I heard him telling his grammy all about it. He also wanted to build a big one but then got distracted by the play equipment which is a big structure made out to be a ship. All in all we lasted about a half hour which is pretty good considering it was raining and we were in tennis shoes. Tonight Av and I went for a walk and it was really pretty to see all the snow on the ground. It deffinitely brought back memories of home and all the cold snowy nights we spent laying bed praying that the snow would last long enough for school to be canceled for the next week!

Since I am up blogging I will take the opportunity to catch up from the past month. I really wanted to do a nice begining of 2008 thoughtful blog, but time and energy seem to be lacking although I did start one. I think it might even be a whole 8 lines. So instead I will try to do a breeze through now.

The end of Dec. Av arrived to stay with us after officialy making Aliyah(becoming an Israeli citizen). She has been a huge help and we have all enjoyed her company even if she does keep reminding us that at the young age of 34+ we are deffinitely "OLD"! When did that happen? We often get a laugh when we are talking about movies and realizing that what she saw at 13 we saw at 28.......wah, wah, wah......But seriously we enjoy having her here and it is working fine. She may be moving in a week and we will miss her, but we also understand the need for her to be on her own and not wanting to live with three wild indians and their chieftans all the time!

The begining of the New Year has had me thinking of goals and life and milestones. Some of this had to do with sitting in a government office for an hour by myself. Hey anything to pass the time!
So I finally decided to make a list of anything I ever wanted to do and catergorized them into long term and short term goals. Like I said, I had a lot of time on my hands. So one of the things I wanted to do was learn how to knit. And guess what? I started! My friend M taught me about two weeks ago and I am trying to find time to work on it. I think I have 8 lines done! I am hoping it will be a scarf for S, if I keep going at the current rate I am sure it will be ready by next winter! The other thing I am doing now is reading Wicked. Although this was not a goal, it is something I started last October, as in 2006, but could not seem to stay awake through. It might have had something to do with being sleep deprived and dealing with 6mo. old twins and a toddler. I am excited to find that it is much better now that I can stay awake! I am also relieved to see that I can still read a book that is considered an actual novel and not just a 200 hundred page romance/mystery novel. I was begining to worry about myself and my intelligence level.... I am about half way through and really enjoying it. It is really interesting to see all the thought that Gregory Maguire(the author) put into this additional story of the Wizard of Oz. I know some of it comes from the entire series by L. Frank Baum, but some is pure creative liscensing from the author and I like it. Speaking of thoughts I will save mine for another time as I have a fussy M right now! No rest for the weary mother of a busy crew!

Weather Report

It Snowed! Hopefully photos will follow!

The Right to Play G-d

The last couple of weeks D and I have actually been conscious enough to watch movies once the kids are in bed. We watched 'Idiocracy' and 'Gattaca'. These are both futuristic movies that focus on the intelligence level man kind.

'Idiocracy' came out in January 2007 and stars Luke Wilson. It was created by Mike Judge, creator of King of the Hill and Beavis and Butthead. Luke Wilson and co-star are cyrogenically frozen in time for 500 years due to a military experiment that went 499 years too long. The world has gone to waste, the average intillegence is about that of Beavis and Butthead and The Constitution is a thing of the past. Everything is run by corporate sponsors including the government. If you can get past the 'idiocracy' of the movie you will see that is quite intelligent. Basically it states that while all the high IQ folks quite having kids because of "intelligent" decisions, the environment, finances, etc. All the stupid people were breeding like bunnies and took over the world. It is an interesting idea and to some extent we see that here in Israel. Only it is religious vs. non-religious and guess who is having the most kids and guess who will get the most votes in 10-20 years? It is an interesting idea.

On the polar opposite is 'Gattaca.' This is an intelligent movie that sets itself in the near future. It is an all star cast, that was nominated for several awards most of them art and music. The idea is that everyone genetically creates a child by picking out the best traits of both parents. People are tracked by their DNA and are labeled Valid or In-valid. In-valids are children who are created naturally. They are society's outcasts, they live in segregated groups, can't hold a job beyond janitor and can't have a relationship except with another in-valid. This is the story of one In-valid man who buys the identity of a Valid who was injured in an accident and is now paralyzed from the waist down. They move in together and so begins the elaborate charade of one becoming the other and the threat of discovery.

These two movies have led to a lot of discussion about "the right to play G-d." All too often we here the comments "they should never have children!" or "I hope they are done!" There have even been discussions about sterilizing those who are not perceived as being capable of parenting. In other words, drug users, those with a low IQ, and so on. Who are we to decide who has the right to have children and those who do not. My closest friends came from families who would not have "made the cut."

If we were to follow to the logic of 'Idiocracy' I have a friend who would be working at a low-level job married to a moron instead of in a highly skilled profession. I know another story where if drug users were sterilized a wonderful couple, now clean and sober, would have been denied parenthood. The examples are endless and I think I made my point.

On the other hand if we go with the theory of 'Gattaca', all genetically created people should live a certain life, a certain life expectancy and so on. This is much like real life, come from a good family, do all the right things and nothing can go wrong. So how do we have kids who come from the "right" families wind up doing the wrong thing? I have a friend who was about as low as one can get, into drugs, belonged to a gang, and so on. This person came from an average middle class family, good parents and so on. What happened I asked one day? The answer, "I simply made the wrong friends." And that was all it took.

While I admit that I am just as guilty as anybody of deciding who should and should not be reproducing, I am trying to mend my ways. I have come to realize that those born of adversity often come out on top because they have the most to gain and the least to lose by striving for more. They are also used to working harder just to get through the day. Those who come from a comfortable life are sometimes afraid to reach higher and lose out on the comfort they already know. This doesn't mean that I wish every child to be born to poverty or drug abusing parents or worse. My wish would be that all children are born to good families, with plenty to eat, clothes to wear and parents who love them with all their heart. But G-d has given all people free will for a reason and that is so that they can decide whether or not they want to bring children into this world. And for those people who bring children into this world "by accident, " well G-d has a plan for this world and all who are in it. Just because we don't understand everything that happens in this world doesn't mean there isn't a reason for it. For those things we must rely on whatever we believe gets us through, be it G-d, Fate, or something else.

Organics revisited

Well I have been meaning to do a follow up for sometime now and tonight is as good as any. In my last blog I briefly mentioned that we had taken a leap to the dark side and are now almost 100% organic. This does not include going out to eat, the Brooklyn Bakery (probably the best bakery in all of Israel because it is American style!), and a few occasional treats. We have been doing this for about 4 weeks now and I have made a lot of disoveries in the process.

The Pro's are that everything tastes better. The spices have more zip, the bread is wheatie and crunchy with flax seed and nuts, the chicken looks like chicken and has not been man handled into oblivion and tastes like....chicken! The fruit is sweeter and I don't have scrub all the pesticides off. I can just make sure they are dirt free! And futher more, the kids eat almost all of it. The only things they have vetoed are the plain yogurt and the whole wheat crackers. We nixed the yogurt and I keep the crackers. The granolas bars are awesome and I have staked claim to them as there are only 6 to a box and D only gets them when I am feeling generous and the kids don't even think to ask as they know these are Eema's breakfast!

I also like that I don't have to worry about all the hidden sugar, what is there is minimal and is plainly stated. There are no "natural flavorings" to hide sugar in.

The fact that certain individuals in the family have better behavior when they are not hopped up on additives and sugar.

I am learning to make everything from scratch.

I get my groceries delivered right to my door!

The downside:
Cost, cost, cost........but I am getting used to it and since D is doing some tutoring on the side right now it is not affecting our budget.

I have to make everything from scratch. More time, mess and energy and it sucks what little creativity I have right up! This also means that when I miss calculate how much everyone will eat, we get anarchy when there is not enough. Fortunately we have our handy back up of peanutbutter sandwhiches.

I feel like I am living my life in the kitchen.

So really the pros' much outweigh the cons'. I never thought I would go organic, but the benefits have been really rewarding. We have also been discussing the reason for the costs, which is that because pesticides and cheap fillers are not being used, there is higher risk and greater loss in the fresh produce and with products like cookies, etc. You have the fact that their costs are higher, but also that you can't sneak in cheap subsidized fillers so it costs more to use real ingredients. And since I feel that I am living in the kitchen I am going to take a lesson from a friend of mine and make all the meals in one night freeze it and re-heat at meal time. She used to do this when she worked full time and the kids were little. This way she always came home to fresh home cooked meals with out the exhaustion and mess. Now her kids are older and can help out more so they make it as they go. I have done this to some extent already on and off and when I do it, it works great! My favorite is with pancakes. I have given up cold cereal since the kids can eat like 2-3 bowls in one sitting and be hungry in an hour. Not worth the cost or the time. We now do oatmeal and pancakes. When the pancakes are pre-made they heat up quick and the clean up is minimal. With oatmeal I don't do it ahead of time, but it does heat up quickly and it is filling. Although I am thinking of keeping cold cereal for Shabbat as a treat. Overall, I am proud of myself for making the effort to switch eating habits, but I have a long way to go as sometimes our meals are smaller. I think pre-making things will help that though.

What we have discovered is that despite ourselves, we are now part of the elite food snobs. It makes us sound more elitist now that, "we keep organic...." It really is not something we do because we think it is, "the only way" we do it because it is tastier and because it is one more way to stay one up on the kids! And truly that is the bottome line isn't it! ;)

*Disclaimer: Note to all of you who tend to send us junk food from time to time, please don't think we have given up all our bad habits. While we are trying to shield the kids from the dangers of horribly processed mystery food, we figure it is too late for us!

In other food news, for those of you who know me well, you know I am a peanut butter addict and that when I am preggers I can keep Skippy operating all on my own. Well it would seem that the peanut butter gene has been passed to M. If ever there is a tub of peanut butter within' her grasp she will stick her hand in and start scooping it out in globs. Last week she got to the end of the tub while I was in the kitchen cleaning up. She looked about like Winnie the Pooh with his head stuck in the honey jar, only she had her whole hand in there and peanut butter from head to toe! Like mother like daughter!

PG Tips

I have now discoverd why the English are so bent on their tea. It is what coffee and beer are to those of the Pacific Northwest. For ages I have avoided caffeine because it is usually causes a host of unpleasan side affects. However, the majority of the population in my husband's Kollel is British and boy do they know tea. For months he had been raving about it and guarding his stash, a gift from a friend, like an Oregonian with a latte. Well after a sleepless night with the kids I had to try it. Wow! Thank you G_d! I could function again! That was Tetley's, you know the one they advertise as a party gift to the losers on Jeopardy. Well let me tell you, that is no loser parting gift, I was thinking I would love to be a loser on that show just to get a year's supply of it! And then we had friends bring us back tea after a visit home to England. They brought us PG Tips, now think double latte instead of single. This tea company is the Starbucks of the Northwest, including their own line of merchandise. The glorious thing about PG Tips is that it has all the caffeine I could ever need, brews in 5 minutes start to finish and doesn't require a fancy machine. Add whole milk and sugar and you have an instant buzz that will last at least until 2 or 3:00p at which time I switch to chai tea which only has half the caffeine. The downside to this nirvana, we can't find it here. We have to get our fix direct from England. This means begging our beloved British friends to bring us back a stash everytime they go. Now two weeks later we are down to single digit numbers and trying to find our next hit. After all those years of learning about the Boston Tea Party I now understand why the Brits were so ticked when their tea was dumped over board! If someone dumped my PG Tips in the ocean I would want to shoot them too!

The Festival of Lights

This year Chanukkah for us seems to be pretty rushed. Hurry up and light, open gifts, eat and get the kids to bed. At around 4:30p we can already hear the Lone Ranger music playing mentally in the background as we try to get everything done with out a melt down. But last night we had a moment of peace. We went our for pizza as a special treat for Channukah and for the first day of the new hebrew month. On the way home we stopped to look at all the Menorahs (Chanukkiah) lit in the windows and in door way entrances. It is traditional for a Channukiah to be lit in a window or in the entrance of a door so that all can see it who pass by. Since we live in Jerusalem and there are numerous aparment buildings, one tradition is to place the Menorah at the entrance of the apartment building, each family having their own and it is put in a glass case kind of like a fancy aquarium. People also put them in their windows too. Some families also have a tradition of lighting one Menorah for each member of the family so one window can be crowded by 6 or 7 or more Channukiahs. Walking home it was so peaceful and beautiful to see all the lights glowing and seeing families gathered around lighting candles. S and I had fun looking to see who could find the next place with a Chanukkiah in it. It reminded me of all the years of going to look at holiday lights with my family back home. Jerusalem is such a busy place but it seemed for just that moment in time that all was still and peaceful and pure. Happy Holidays no matter what you celebrate!

This and that and all that jazz!

Well we have had a lot going on and nothing all at the same time. I can't seem to remember what I want to write about when I have time so I am going to try and force it out of my head now. First of all November started out with a visit from my in-laws which went very well. D and I got to go out on a real date to a real restaraunt with no kids! Needless to say there were a lot of jokes before we left the house! I told them it was like being in high school again, asking if we can go out on a date and asking how late we can be out! It worked out really well though, Grammy and S made pancakes for dinner and the kids settled down and went to sleep nicely. M spent the whole time camped in the rocking chair with grandpa have long talks and reading stories. It was really sweet and S had a great time playing pirates with Grammy on the back porch. I think she did great at keeping up.

Lately we have had a lot of Shabbos guests and D is building a radio with our friend SB's daughter for a school project so we get to see them every week! M is in love with their little dog Fritz. He is 6mo. old approx. and he and M play so cute together! She squeaks when he is there and gets all excited.

In other news we have totally gone organic. Yes, I know this is shocking after my last post on the topic, but I have to admit, S's behavior is ultimately so much better after we chopped the sugar and switched. We are not purists as I did mention we went for donuts for first night Channukah and I do buy other treats when occasion calls for it, but over all we are doing organic and I have to say, if nothing else, it takes so much better! The flavors are much stronger and I love being able to just rinse the fruits and veggies with out wondering if I got all the pesticides off.

OK it is 3:00am and I can't remember anything else about anything else! Happy Hannukah!

Our little Diva!

M is becoming our little fashion diva lately. She now is very specific on what she wears and won't get dressed unless it is what she wants to wear. The other day I went to put her in a dress that she just would not wear. I gave her two choices, she could either get dressed and come with us to get donuts for first night Chanukkah or she could stay home with abba. Both were met with a "nah" which means no. And I am sure I heard a "I don wanna! "Then she got up and walked out of the room. So out of frustration I said, "Do you want to wear a new dress?" (I had been saving this since it is a size 2) To this she turns right around comes back in and gets dressed! I even took pictures. Today she would only wear jeans and a short sleeve button down shirt. I have to admit for 1 & 1/2 she has good taste! I hope it lasts.

Hacked!!

My email address was hacked and taken away by scammers, I am not in Canada or beset by robbers but if you still want to send $1200 call me and get my real life address!! You would not belive the number the phone calls I have received from old friends all over the world. Just know dont send any more emails to my yahoo account since I cant get in and some scumbag will read them instead
(posted by D by order of A)

Here is the text of the scam email:

Hi,
I am in a hurry writing you this message,Cos i don't have much time on the pc here,so i have to brief you my present situation which requires your urgent response..Actually, I had a trip to canada two days ago but unfortunately for me all my money got stolen at the hotel where i lodged due to a robbery incident that happened in the hotel.I had been so restless since last night cos i have been without any money i am even oweing the hotel here as well moreover the Hotel's telephone lines here got dissconnected by the robbers and they are trying to get them fixed back.I have access to only emails at the library because my mobile cant work here so i didnt bring it along,please i want you to help me with money so please can you send me $1200 so i can return back i would refund it back to you as soon as i get home,I am so confused right now and dont know what to do,you can have it sent through western union but My passport is with the Embassy here so not sure if i can use my name to collect it now,But you can send it directly to the western union manager here and i would get it through her, I have already spoken to her,so will get it immediately its sent but let me know if you can helpme then i will make findings.please let me hear from you so i can collect her full name and address where you can send the money to today please.Its really urgent for me as i dont know what to do right now than to leave here soonest you send it to me and i'll pay you back immediately i get home..Thanks alot for your kindness,
I will really appreciate your quick response.

Alina

Getting Dressed

I have no time to write and am way behind, but had to put this down before it is forgotten. S is of the age now where he wants to pick what to wear. This has been going on for a year or so and often the end result are the strange looks we get from people who wonder, "who is dressing that kid?!" Most of you know that our kid wears a hat and coat no matter what the weather, even in the middle of summer and he refuses to wear shorts. This has nothing to do with the neighborhood we live in. All the kids here wear shorts. We have decided this is because he wants to dress like D, who doesn't wear shorts because he spends most of his time in Kollel wear shorts are not appropriate. So what is the latest? Grammy D got him a Thomas outfit. Shorts overalls with matching shirt. I told her I didn't know if he would wear it, but bring it along and we will see what happens. So earlier this month when they were here, she brought is along. She took it out, got him all excited, cut the tags and we put it on. Wow, he was so excited sporting that new outfit! Then he looked down...."I need pants!" he said. So now he wears his Thomas shorts overalls with long pants over them. We need to take lots of pictures so we can post them at his Bar Mitzvah! And people look at us like we are crazy! We try to explain that it is not our fault, but who are you going to believe an almost 4 year old, or his parents!

Violation of My Personal Space!

It is 1:30am here and I have been up at a friend's house cooking and getting our meals ready for Shabbat. Only the top element in our oven currently works so I have been using a friend's oven to cook. So tonight when I went to put in the chicken we got the idea to cook together it was really fun. So how was I rewarded for being prepared and not leaving everything to the last minute? There was a SNAKE on our front stairs. At first I did not notice as it was well concealed just the tail hung out and I was hopeful that it was a shoelace, then I looked from up above at the top of the stairs as it was second from the top and I still just could not decide. Finaly I did what any rational person would do, I went in and made my husband get dressed and go dispose of the little beast! Fortunately he was awake. I told him it was either a shoe lace or a snake and he better get out there and take care of it! He did not like the idea of getting dressed for a shoelace, but when I went out again it was moving! Oh Yucky! My space has been invaded by a small, scaly, creature with no fur and no feet! My kids play on those stairs! They play on that walk way! How am I supposed to relax out there when some slithering creepy crawly could be slurking aournd! Now D pushed that snake off the stairs and into the property below, however, it had the nerve to climb the stairs! I have no idea where it might be now. And to make matters worse I still had to make a second trip back to my friend M.St. to retrieve the rest of my cooking. I was so scared of running into that little wee beastie, let me tell you! Fortunately Frankie the cat has befriended us and do you know when we called him, because we wanted him to kill the wretched creature, he came! And he was standing guard at the top of the stairs when I came back. I have always been a bit annoyed with Frankie because he is always pestering us, but maybe Frankie is not so bad after all. I hav been totally violated and I am holding the snake 100% responsible for that. Maybe not that I have written about it I can sleep. They say that writing is good therapy. But I am still traumatized! Icky! Icky! Yucky!!!!!!!!

The Human Race

I have a lot of catching up to do, but I am not sure I have the energy tonight. So before this becomes completely irrelevant I want to get it posted. In my last blog I mentioned we came back from a weekend stay in Beit Shemesh and we all had a little bug. Well that was not to be then end of our sick days. In fact we would all be collectively sick for about 2 weeks! A few days after we came back from Beit Shemesh I came down with Mastisitis or a plugged milk duct. I woke up on that Wed. morning at 3:00am with chills and sore milk duct area. Once D figured out how bad I was we were up at the urgent care in minutes. Fortunately we live minutes from even walking. We asked the neighbors to watch our kids. I got sick on the final days of High Holidays at the begining of Simchat Torah. This where my commentary on the human race comes in. The urgent care unit is completely run by Arabs so that Jews don't have to work during the holidays. The same is true on Shabbat. In this day and age there is obviously a lot of tension between Jews and Arabs. It has been an on going war for the last 3,000 years or so and I don't imagine that Condoleza Rice or the Bush Administration can really solve these issues in a few summit meetings. Come on folks this isn't Scooby Doo, mystery sovled in 20 min.! So I was amazed that my medical care would be from "the opposition." The medical care there was excellent. I wound up having to go up every 8 hours for an anti-biotic I.V. drip from Wed. until Sunday AM. I had the same doctor for all but two of those visits. That man worked hard and played to a full house! In the evening after the holiday ended and right before Shabbat and right after there was no room to even wait in the waiting room it was so full. Yet my doctor was very thorough and very respectful and very competent from the first visit until his last visit on shift. In the end my final wrap up came from a different doctor. I wish that this harmony that I witnessed in the Urgent Care could be the way the world runs. It was truly a melting pot of the human race. Jews, both religious and non-religious, Arabs, and people who did not fit either category. Yet, the staff, was courteous and respectful to everyone and each person got the same care and the same treatment. In the waiting room there was not seperate seating, everyone waited together and those who were the worst were offered seats by those who were capable of standing. While it is wonderful see that people shine the brightest under difficult circumstances, I wish that human beings would be that compassionate under the best of circumstances too.

Everything But the Kitchen Sink!

Basically this is a quick blog that covers our life in a nutshell over the last month. At the end of August we got moved into our new apartment. It is 4 doors down from where we were this summer. It saved in moving costs, but unfortunately it turns out it is also a temporary situation. When we agreed to move in we were warned that the owners were trying to sell, but they expected it to take a while, turns out they had a potential buyer before we could even move in. But we are here for 6 months. This gives us enough time to unpack, catch our breath and think about our next move. Otherwise, it is nice and S has two neighbor boys to play with. We still have not gotten him into school, a bit challenging for all involved, but we are making do. In between getting moved and settled we have been celebrating the High Holidays starting with Rosh Hashana and now we are preparing to end a month's worth of activities with Simchat Torah.

The High Holidays are always enjoyable but hectic. We go from holiday to Shabbat a few days to prepare for the next holiday and then it is Shabbas again. Rosh Hashana was great We had one couple who stayed by us from D's Kollel which was really nice. They are newly married and we had wanted to go the wedding but it was in England and out of our budget. It gave me time to get to know her and that was nice. We also had two other couples who were in and out. One was our regular friends from up the hill that we see regularly and the other couple, also in the Kollel live in Bet Shemesh and have an almost 3 and almost 1 yr. S. and the 3 year old girl got along great and we just spent this past Shabbas at their house. A welcome break for all of us. We spent the first days of Sukkos at home and then out to Bet Shemesh where we stayed until Sunday night and went to a concert. The concert was 2 days we just went to the first, and consisted of main stream religious bands. Think Amy Grant and the like. Really a lot of fun and free too! It was the first time D and I have been to something like this since we have been here and it was great to have another couple to hang out with.

Sukkos was also really nice this year. Since our back porch was too small for our Sukka we put it up in the parking lot, which just got lots of comments of "so your the ones with the sukkah up there..." but nobody minded. It just meant a lot more running back and forth then we would have liked, but it was good exercise. We slept the first two nights out there, but then we were out in Beit Shemesh and then we got a little bug so that was that. But the night before I took S to Geula a religious neighborhood in Jerusalem so we could check out all the vendors selling Sukkah decorations it is a lot like checking out Chirstmas decorations in the season. It was really neat. Sukkot is really the decorating holiday, but instead of a tree we do a whole sukkah. One of these days I want to put up some of my old Christmas ornaments. I had my Cotton Bowl ornament already to go until somebody who shal remain nameless, but has the initials SJ broke it! Grrrrr....... In perspective it is just an ornament but still......I made him feel really guilty. Worked better than yelling or otherwise.

D is home one more week so I will try to get as much done as possible in catching up with chores and recovering from the holidays. Then we will be getting ready for my in-laws to come at the end of the month.

The kids are doing well all things considered and we are happy that S has friends on the block to play with. Although he tends to wander off and the other two boys are quite good at staying in their boundaries. The good thing is they tend to let me know when he has wandered off yet again. The good thing is he knows where he is going and I know where he goes and he usually comes back right away so we are just trying to be patient. And I do mean "Trying"! or maybe he is just trying my patience.........

Y is learning to use a spoon and should be feeding himself soon! At least that is what I am hoping for! He continues to be a whirling dirvish and a busy boy and his curls are growing in nicely. We have posted our latest picks so if you need the link again contact me off line.

M is up and running and very proud of her new found independance. She loves stairs and I have to watch her like a hawk when we are outside as she will head for the stairs up to the parking lot.

I think that covers everything up until now and I will hopefully be back on line more regularly with regular events and updates.

More on Veggies.....

I bet you all think you are pretty smart and think you know where carrots come from. So did we until S informed us that we were wrong! We were recently having a dinner discussion and D asked S, "where do carrots come from?" S: "From the rabbit!" We of course assumed that he got this from one of his stories where a rabbit sells carrots, or who knows! No we explained, they come from the ground. Then Av who was having dinner with us said, " He means in Winnie the Pooh!" " Oh of course!" We said! Because in Winnie the Pooh who grows the carrots, Rabbit! So while all of you people out there really thought carrots came from the ground, rest assured that you are wrong! According to S, they come from Rabbit and he won't be convinced otherwise!

In other news, the million dollar question has been answered. But we still don't have a million dollars. However, we do have a 6 mo. lease on a 3.5 bedroom 1.5 bath apt.! Hurray! It even has a nice big porch, known as a mirpeset in Israel. Although they are trying to sell and the lease will go in 6mo. increments, we feel this will give us time to find something more permanent in the neighborhood which is totally full right now. In fact the entire Jerusalem area is full and the only stuff available is the stuff that nobody wants! So for at least the next 6mo. we know we have good neighbors, a good landlord and a good place to be. And the great thing is, it is about 4 doors down from where we are now, so no moving van needed! And we get to keep enjoying all the things that we liked about living here over the summer!

Just a little up date!

Just wanted to let you all know that our Princess Puff Puff is walking! Hurray! She has been working on it for about 2 weeks now, but over Shabbat this week she really got it down. She is still not %100 like Y, but she is doing pretty good! They are getting so big! Yesterday in an act of desperation I took out the blow up pool and let the kids go for it. They had a blast. Although I learned my lesson, must have swimmy diapers on at all times! I thought I would let them go free, no, big mess! Very bad idea! I had been putting off taking out the pool as I did not think it would fit on our "front porch" (I use this term very loosely. ) And I was right, it didn't, but it fit just enough and the neighbors downstairs did not mind a little water coming down. In fact it seems we even can use some of the space downstairs for it, but having it upstairs lets me do more and still keep an eye on them. We are in the middle of a horrid heat wave that is making us all think about praying for snow! So I think we will be keeping the pool filled this week until it settles down.

The Great Organic Race

I have been sitting on this thought for a while and now I am up at 1:00am waiting for a reply to an e-mail so I thought I would dive in!

What is it with people who only eat organic food? Now, I don't look down on this and in fact, I the junk food junkie queen, am trying to get my family to eat better these days. On Shabbat just about everything I make is from scratch, right down to our challah! (pause for applause, thank you yes, I know it is amazing considering there was a time I thought making a cake from scratch meant making it from a better crocker box instead of buying it at the store!) So anyway, now I am trying to do this more during the week. This week I am going to attempt to make our bread from scratch instead of store bought. We will see how it goes. But what I have discovered is that my attempts at healthy eating are quite feeble in fact. It seems that white sugar and plain white flour are just not good enough. We must eat whole wheat flour, whole wheat pasta :p, only fresh organic veggies will do, not just your average run of the mill fresh veggies, organic light brown sugar, etc. In fact it seems to go so far that if I buy fresh squeezed Orange Juice from a grocery store this is only second rate to doing it at home myself. Now that is true, but lets face it with three little kids cruising the joint, I am not sure I am up for it on a daily basis. I feel like everyone has to prove that they are more organic than the next person. It is like the great "arms race" of the '80's where each country had to prove that they were more armed than the next guy. I understand people with allergies to additives, or gluten, or soy, and so on, some people really do have to be really careful, but don't look at me like a Neanderthal just because I am still buying my orange juice in a container instead of doing it myself!
The other things that gets me is the cost. Here is something that has no pesticides, no additives, no preservatives, but costs 3 times more than the "junk!" Can someone please explain this to me! To buy 1 kilo (2.2lbs) of organic flour costs 16 shekel about $3.80 U.S. To buy 1 kilo of white regular old flour costs 3 shekel or about .70 cents. Does it really make that big of a difference, am I really going to feel better, look better, because I spent $4.00 on flour instead of .70 cents. Perhaps someone in the organic world can explain this to me. And save the pesticide speech, yes, I know they can be nasty but that is what soap and water are for!

What is Kollel?

We frequently get asked about what we are doing here and what D does and when does the program end etc. Since Kollel is a pretty foreign idea to the average person we have always just said, well there is no set time and D could go in many directions and left it at that. Well today, thanks to Wikipedia, I have a real answer. I am cutting and pasting in the Wikipedia definition in, but there is definitely more information there than I am giving. So without further ado here is the Wikipedia definition of Kollel: A kollel (Hebrew: כולל; "a gathering/collection [of scholars]") is an institute for advanced studies of the Talmud and of rabbinic literature for Jewish adults, essentially a yeshiva which pays married men a regular monthly stipend or annual salary (and/or provides housing and meals) to study Judaism's classic texts in depth. The plural in Hebrew is kollelim. I feel that this is a pretty accurate description and will give everyone a better sense of what D is doing here.

As for what I am doing here, well, I think from the blog that is pretty obvious, I am keeping a trim figure by running after 3 very busy rugrats all day! And by the way our Princess Puff Puff is in the process of learning how to walk and is taking a few more steps every day! This means I will now be running in 3 directions on our zoo outings soon instead of 2!

We're still here!

Just wanted to post a quick note to let the world kow that we are still here. I am not sure where our days are going but they are going in a hurry. There are so many times I have gone to blog and I am too tired. Today is one of those days, but since it has been a few weeks I decided it is time.

Last week we finally made it to the zoo again and on a Tues. unfortunately our homeschool friends were not there and by the time we left the zoo I was ready to leave my kids there. S was all over the place, Y wanted to walk because he can now and suffice to say I was frequently running in two directions to collect kids. Malki was the only one that I willing allowed to come home. Getting home was an adventure all together. Since everyone was on vacation last week, the busses going home were packed! One after the other filling up until the last two busses arrived and neither went to our neighborhood. So here I am standing in the dark with 3 kids and a handful of people who are waiting for rides or pre-arranged taxis in Timbuktu. Fortunately we were able to catch a taxi home, it cost us 45 shekel which is around $10 U.S. then we were so tired that we bought a pizza for dinner. So much for our cheap day out!

Sunday evening we left the kids home with Av and went to a bat mitzvah for NB the daughter of our good friend SB. It was at a park and we saw all of our friends from the bookstore and a few others. The park was way cool and we went on a tour via tram and made two stops, one at a1500 year old wine press and the other at an olive press, I am not sure how old. It was a really nice evening. It also gave a chance to say good-bye to B&I who are headed back to the States after 3 years here. We will miss them at Sukkot as they usually come to us.

Monday morning first thing we had a brit milah for some friends of ours that we know from Portland. It was very nice and afterward we all came home and crashed.

Tues. D and I got a mini-date while we left the kids at home with a friend so we could run out and vote within our political party. D and I are registered with Likud and we wanted to make sure our vote was cast. Unfotunately Netanyahu won. We were tired, did not want to go out late at night, and we knew our candidate did not stand to win, but in Israel every vote counts and out we went. Even though our candidate lost, I am glad we went and did our duty. It was also interesting to be out at that time of night. I am sure this city never sleeps! We were out at 11:00p and people were still coming into vote and there was major traffic. It was crazy. No wonder we can't go to bed at a reasonable hour. It is too busy here!

Thurs. after 2.5 days in the house I took the kids to the post office to get a package from their wonderful Aunt S and then we took the bus to the mall where they have had little rides up for the summer. I put all three kids on little cars that were connected and run on a track. So of course to S it was a train. A good time was had by all until it was time to head to the grocery store. After surviving the grocery store we headed home, until the stoller broke and here I was with 3 little kids and $80 worth of groceries. Does the fun never end?! So we much to S's excitement we got to take another taxi home. Fortunately it was much cheaper than the zoo.

So here it is Friday and this past week feels like a month and yesterday feels like 3 days. We are having Av and friend for Shabbat the first time we have had company all summer and I hope it goes well. Actually with Av here, hopefully we will get some rest!

Houston we have arrived!

Well, we have arrived at a new level of parenting anyway. I am excited to announce that Y is a walking fool now, hurray! And M took her first real steps on Thurs. at then park when we were taking a break from helping our friend Am and hubby move. What is really great is that they can now climb up the stairs! This means that I have less trips up and down the stairs when getting everything into the house, especially after a trip to the grocery store.

Otherwise, not much is new on the scene here. We are enjoying D being on vacation and have been to a couple of different parks and one outing and that is it. Despite the mobility of *Prince Puckler and Princess Puff Puff, it is still rough to get everyone out the door. S is our busy boy, but does help supervise the troops and is sure to let us know when something is amiss, usually with a loud "Nooooooo!" which alerts us to that A) someone is into something they should not be OR B) Someone has encroached on the sacred Thomas the Tank Engine Trains! But he does love his siblings and on occasion they even play nicely together.

*Prince Puckler-Ice Cream store in Eugene known as Prince Puckler's with the best chocolate raspberry ice cream I have ever had. It was a little family owned place and the ice cream was so creamy.....Yum!

The Greene Gene

This something that runs in our family, but only on my mother's side hence it is called the Greene Gene in honor of my mother's family. This gene gives the carrier to make a desert disappear in about 5 minutes flat when no one is looking. This is also the same gene that requires the carrier to make careful decisions when dining out. For instance if a restaurant has really good dessert, then the carrier must decide how much protein must be eaten, i.e. sandwich, soup, or other so called healthful food, with out filing up too much so that there is room for dessert. My mother, my Aunt E and myself seem to be the most affected by it. My Aunt S and sister are not afflicted by this. So lately it has been getting me into trouble. Earlier this week it was marshmallows. Now anyone who really knows me, knows I love marshmallows. I try not to love them so much, they are full of sugar and who knows what else, but they are so tasty, plus, until we moved here and I saw them being sold as a snack, I thought I was the only person in the universe who hate them raw and not just roasted, now I am in good company! I don't often get them for two reasons 1) we could not get kosher ones where we used to live and 2) the sugar. Now in Jerusalem we can get them with a good hechsher so D got me a bag, to share of course. Well if a small bag of marshmallows is purchased on Friday anyone who knows me, knows they are not going to make it past Mon. or Tues. and that is with sheer willpower! So needless to say when D went to go get them on Tues. after the fast they might have all been gone! Oopps! Now tonight it was pudding. D sat and said, " Gee I think this is the first pudding I have had all year!" Hmmm, I said, can't imagine where the rest are going? The kids maybe....(yeah right!) I have promised to try and reform my ways so that D gets to have more treats, but I keep telling him I have 3 kids I need the sugar to keep me going. Although the truth is this is why I try not to have it in the house. If I buy it I will eat it.....I thank G-d regularly for the fact that although I am afflicted with the Greene Gene I do not weigh a million pounds like my friends tried to curse me with in high school. More later from the Queen Junkie! (Junk Food, that is!)

D's Vacation!

D officially went on vacation starting Tuesday, a fast day marking the destruction of the first and second temple in Jerusalem. On the Hebrew calendar this is the 9th of Av. Three weeks prior to this on the 17th of Tammuz there is a minor fast which marks the breach of the walls of Jerusalem until the Romans succeed in destroying the Second Temple on the 9th of Av. For three weeks we "mourn" the loss of our Temple with the final 9 days considered as in mourning of a relative. For 9 days we don't play music, weddings and other similar occasions are forbidden, we dont' buy new clothes and we are in a state of mourning until after a 25 hour fast on the 9th of Av. The 9th of Av also marks many other tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people through out history. Including the expulsion of Jews from Spain marking the beginning of the Spanish inquisition, the start of WWI which led to WWII and most recently the Jews of Gush Katif were expelled the day after Tisha B'Av (the 9th of Av) two years ago. It is a "heavy" time and we use it to reflect on our behavior and how we have done and what we can do to improve ourselves. When the fast ends we are humbled, but filled with hope that things can improve and we are not with the ability to change things for the better.

Now that this time is over we are enjoying being able to do the things we have put on hold. So, on Tuesday evening after the fast we celebrated by making homemade caramel corn and watching Gigi! For those of you who don't know, like D did not, Gigi is a 1958 musical staring Leslie Caron that takes place in Paris. It is one of my favorite musicals and my mom just sent it to me so I really wanted to see it and I was patiently waiting until after the Tisha B'av to watch it. So I suggested it to D and he was like OK (think resigned male sigh.) I sweetened the deal with the caramel corn and we got settled and started the movie. We get through the opening credits, etc. and Maurice Chevallier starts singing and D gets the horrified tone and says, " this is a musical?! I didn't know it was a musical, this is going to take a lot more popcorn!" But we watched it and he survived it. Wed. was mostly a hang out day and get caught up on things day. I took the kids to the park for a couple of hours and that was it.

Today we took the kids to get shoes. All three. Between the expense and hassle we have been putting it off, but it turned out quite well. Hurray for outlet stores and back to school sales. Y has little blue and orange sandals which are a bit big but he can walk in them and there is room to grow. Finding proper shoes at this stage is impossible it seems everything is too big or too small. We had the same problem with M. While Y has hard bottomed sandals M has soft ones as she is not really walking yet. Also we could find them in her size, but not Y so he got the bigger shoes, good thing he has bigger feet. I also noticed that while there are about a dozen choices for girl shoes there are about 2-3 for the boys. Talk about slim pickings. However, I can see why when I shop with the kids. The reactions go something like this: S: I can hop, run skip and jump, these are great shoes! Y: What are these things? Maybe I should try eating them. I mean I can walk in them, but I would rather go barefoot. M: Oooohhhhh, they are so pretty! Look at these pretty new things on my feet. M was asleep as I tried out about 5 different pairs of shoes on her so she was really surprised when we finally put them on her after her nap. After 4 stores and 3 pairs of shoes we headed to the grocery and then home.

It has been really hot so no zoo trip. I am hoping it cools off next week. We are thinking of going to Shilo, another Yeshuv, where they are having a festival all afternoon with buses running there from Jerusalem for the event. It sounds like fun and would be a nice change of activity. Tuesday I going to attempt to meet up with friends yet again at the zoo. Maybe this time it will work.
An as usual we will be attempting to find a new place to live. We have made several calls but nothing yet. I just keep thinking everything in its time and place. Will keep you posted as we know what is going on.

Up, Up and Away!

This is sometimes how I feel watching the kids. That one day I will turn around and they will be all grown up! S is just so mature sometimes. Friday we went grocery shopping, it does not take a rocket scientist to figure that Friday is the worst day possible to to shop in Israel. You have a bunch of people all on a time schedule to get home and get their stuff done before Shabbat comes in. The stores are packed and everyone is in a hurry. But unfortunately, due circumstances there we were stuck shopping on Friday. So after enduring this chaos as a family, when we got home, S helped bring up all the groceries, asked me where to put everything and then handed me bags of groceries while I put stuff away. Such a big helper! It was really sweet.

Y is really cruising these days and we will be buying him shoes this week. He even climbed up the ladder at the park all by himself today, with a lot of supervision. He went down a pretty decent size slide for his size and loved it! He has no fear! Gee wonder where that comes from?! Y and M loved climbing on the slide today too. Y figured out how to get all the way up and then slide into M at the bottom, she thought this was hilarious. Go figure! He is such an engineer wants to know how everything works. When we were at the park on Shabbat he was really examining the teeter totter. I put him and M on it and that was OK to him, but he really wanted to know how it worked. He is already figuring out spatial sizing as well. He and M were playing with two empty small trash cans and he could see that one would fit in the other so he took it from M so he could put the one in the other. So cute!

M finally took her first two steps today! Hurray! I knew she was getting ready. M is our observer, she definitely knows what is going on but prefers to quietly sneak off and do her own thing a lot. Except at bath time. This morning Y got a bath out of serious necessity and she complained about how unfair it was that he got to get in the tub and she did not. Who needs a kiddie pool when we have a bath tub! (And by the way, when your 3 year old tells you that your kid is poopy, listen to him. It will save you from having to go around cleaning up a trail of slime left by said poopy child.) But M also likes to play with the boys and I can see that she is a lot tougher than her female counter parts. But she is also very much a girl.

Having three kids is such a work out on patience, energy, budget and so on, but the amount of creativity, laughter, entertainment and joy is really worth it. To see them all collaborating now and developing their own jokes between the three of them is really fun. I can't imagine what it will be like in another 6mo or a year when the twins can really talk. Watch out world my kids are on the run! Literally! And by the way, we have a helicopter! Really! Every time we forget to turn it on S points to the ceiling and asks us to turn on the helicopter! The ceiling fan has become a huge source of entertainment for the boys!

Yummy Crayons!

S keeps his crayons on a desk in his room, but the lid is off. Y and M came into our room and both had crayon all over their faces and Y was holding two more. Naturally I assumed that the crayons had been left on the floor. But no, there they were in their container a respectable distance from the edge. Y had climbed onto a box next to the desk and up on to the desk and retrieved the crayons. What gave him away? His doggy was up on the desk in a spot that only could have been reached if he had climbed up. S by the way was gone for all of this. Our friend Av took him for an outing to run some errands. Either we are too slow or the kids are too smart for their own good!

Warning Politics Ahead!

I normally don't spend a lot of time on politics here. It is boring, can cause family feuds and freak people out. All at the same time even! But I am making an exception because posted on Foxnews.com is a nice big travel advisory from the U.S. government on traveling to Israel. This is pretty much the same advisory that is always in affect so why it made the news I don't know; other than the U.S., the U.N. and crew are meeting in Portugal to solve our problems with the Palestinians...Yeah right, if you believe that....... So, the bottom line is they are saying 1) Don't go to Gaza. Ummm, Duhhhhh! 2) Stay out of the West Bank, this is because of infighting between the factions of Hamas and Fatah and Hezbollah. So basically they are asking people not to go to places like Ramahallah, Qalqilya, etc. Another Duh! Things out in Karnei Shomron as quiet as ever. And they are saying not go anywhere touristy, out to eat or other places that Americans might congregate such as large events. Specifically in Jerusalem. Oh give me a break. What are we supposed to do starve while our children drive us insane because basically they are telling people not to leave their houses or hotel rooms. I don't think so! Has the person who wrote this ever been to Jerusalem? Is there some where here in Jerusalem that Americans don't go. What is the point of people coming here if they are going to sit, umm, where? In a cave maybe, because they can't go to a hotel as there are Americans congregating there too. Oh and they also recommend not going to the American Embassy or the American Consulate. Oh there is some encouragement and commentary about all those security measures they take when we go . I knew their resources were being misspent! Talk about a lesson in inefficiency and lack of organization! Suffice to say we plan on going out plenty, hopefully to the zoo tomorrow and if we get lucky and get a sitter we may meet a friend at a restaurant for some adult conversation that does not include the statement: (please choose one: S, Y, M...stop that, no-no sweetie,etc.) I am most excited. In short, please ignore the man behind the curtain, he has no clue what he is talking about. If you want to know what is really happening here, drop us a line and ask.

Daytime Outings and Midnight Madness

Lately S has been going berserk and driving us all generally insane. 6+ weeks with no structured activity is begining to wear on us all. So last week I finally got it together and took the kids to the zoo to get their annual pass. Thank you to my wonderful aunt who gave us this gift for Y and M's first birthday. It has taken me forever to get it all together and get there. Because first there was the project of converting dollars to shekels, then the zoo wanted us to bring photos, so we of course are going to beat the system save some shekels and do our own and print them out at the photo place for a shekel a piece. Yeah right, first we all had to be home at the same time, when the kids were up and we remembered, then print them and so on. We finally get them printed and they are too big. So I decide to go on line just one more time to see if we really have to do this and how big the photos need to be, etc. and low and behold they do it there! Wow! Wish they had come to that decision a little sooner! Now here is the other duh! I forgot I was sitting on extra passport photos of us all. I am sooooo sllloooooowwwww. After a huge balygan in the morning we finally made it to the zoo on Thurs. afternoon. Almost exactly an hour before closing. And they even took everyone's picture automatically. Actually just mine and S because D wasn't there, see the photos did pay off in the end and the little monkeys don't need cards as they are under three. But even in that hour we did get to see some neat animals and most importantly S got to see the elephants. The great thing is now we can go back all the time!

In the midnight madness category we are trying to get Y to sleep through the night or at least more than he was. If we put him to bed later it helps as he doesn't wake up as much. I am trying to get him to sleep through the midnight-one AM nursing, but that means I am up listening to him. So that means a lot of times I am up on the computer, hence the midnight madness. It doesn't help that everyone except D is off schedule since we have moved here. Although right now Y is up making these cute little noises and talking to dog. He has since made friends with dog after being with out turtle for a few days. This is good since Mr. Turtle is currently MIA yet again. I brought him dog which he left in the living room and he was like oh good here is Dog, but now I am still missing Mr. Turtle. It was cute, poor little guy. I have no idea where Mr. Turtle gets off to, for a stuffed Turtle he sure moves fast and is good at hiding! I think one day I will have a journal just for the adventures of Mr. Turtle.

One thing about being up late though is I just finished Dean Koontz's book Fear Nothing. It was really good, but way spooky! Good thing D is home every night! I have never read his stuff and really had no interested but D picked up and I started reading it and got into. Turns out this is the beginning of a series, so I want to look for the next one. The nice thing is it came out originally in paperback in 1998, which means I can have someone look for it used in the States for me or D might even have it on line in his e-book collection.

Its 1:20am here maybe we can get some sleep now!

Kidisms

S: M, stop that!
Me: What's she doing honey?
S: She's laughing at me!

This is all taking place at the breakfast table as I am in the other room talking to D. All the kids in their respective seats! We couldn't help but laugh. I think someone got up on the wrong side of the bed today.

Just for Fun!

Av was over tonight for dinner and we were hanging out and doing random quizzes on the site listed below. Thought you guys might find this entertaining too! Brought back some fun memories. So who is your 80's hunk?

***Your 80s Hunk Is***


Michael J. Fox


Who's Your 80s Hunk?
http://www.blogthings.com/whosyour80shunkquiz/

Mr. Turtle and the Laundry Soap

There are lots of things I would like to blog about, but have not taken the time. But this was too much to pass up. Once or twice a week I manage to get out while D is home on lunch to go visit a friend. Her husband is in the Kollel with D and they learn together. So D watches the kids and I get adult conversation. We usually learn a bit and chat a bit and it is a great hour. So today was one of these days and off I went. Besides what can go wrong in an hour right?!
So I get home and it is quiet, real quiet, as in too quiet. "So all the kids are napping?" I ask. "Uh, yeah," comes the reply from my computer engrossed husband. M had gone down for a nap before I left, so I ask about Y and when he went down. It finally comes that Y is in the house somewhere, but his exact location is unknown. So we set off to track down our 2 boys who are MIA in the house. With out much effort we discover them in our room. By the washing machine. We buy powdered laundry soap in 9kilo bags, this about 19.5 lbs. It is almost full. It has been on the floor because there was no room on top the washing machine to put it there. I am hiding the toilet paper up there and a few other things the kids also like to play in. I finally decided to hide it out of site so know one would get into it. Yeah, right! So back to the present, we walk in and not only is there powdered soap on the floor, it is over flowing in the little drawer where you put the soap in the washing machine, all three slots and S is not pouring on top of Y, who thinks this is hilarious. It took everything in D's power not to break down laughing. He had to turn away a couple of times while trying to get after S for the whole thing. I do have to admit, it was pretty funny. And of all things, who should Y have in his hand, but Mr. Turtle! When I asked S where Mr. Turtle came from he said the garbage! Apparently he had been dropped into an empty garbage can in our room that had a lid on it. Never would have thought to look there. Now D swears he had just checked on the kids and they had been playing in Y and M's room which is connected to ours. But I am a bit sketchy on that defense. Especially since lucky him, lunch was over and it was time for him to go. So guess who is left cleaning up? Yep, that's right , me! D's only saving grace is that he did bring me a vacuum and that is not much! I told him that he was the one who should have been punished instead of S. I mean how hard is it to watch 3 little kids for an hour?! And not even 3, only 2 as one was asleep! D swears it could have happened to me. Hmph!

The Case of Missing Mr. Turtle and YouTube

As I explained in my last post Y has a lovey called Mr. Turtle. Mr. Turtle is in fact a turtle. I had said he was a dog toy, by this I meant that he was bought in a pet store and was made to be a chew toy for a dog. This morning Mr. Turtle went missing. This has been a difficult day for us because although Y is not out and out protesting we can see that he is a bit perplexed by this. I tried faking him out with a dog that he got at the same time. He is also a chew toy and is the same material and same colors. Y keeps looking at it like, it is the right material and the right colors, but something is not quite right. I have looked high and low to no avail, hopefully we will find him soon, otherwise we are going to have to figure out where Mr. Turtle came from and see if we can find another one and hope he doesn't notice.

My other thought for the evening is YouTube once again! It has nothing to do with Mr. Turtle, but happened on Fri. afternoon and I did not have time to post it before Shabbat. We all know that when watching something public like YouTube that you never know what you are really getting. Well on Friday this was definitely true. Instead of previewing the Clifford show like I should have for S we just clicked and watched. It was a man narrating a Clifford story book and it looked like a legitimate Scholastic Books Clifford story. Well the story starts out about how Clifford has the hiccups and how the Howards' and Clifford's friends are trying to help him get rid of them. Well finally one of his friends, Mac, tells him to drink water laying upside down and low and behold that does it! So it shows Clifford's veterinarian telling Mac what a good doggy he is for getting rid of Clifford's hiccups. Then the next we see is the veterinarian cutting Clifford open with a saw and all of his innards falling out! Yikes! Not kid material. I quickly turned it off and closed the page. Fortunately I don't think S really caught what was going on because he was not sure why I turned it off. But from now on I will be even more careful before I let S watch something off of YouTube! Although for the record the legitimate selection of Thomas the Tank Engine is great.

Second Post for the day!

I am going out on a limb and typing two posts today. This by no means is a measure of how much time I have as the other one took forever to post. We are trying to get the kids to bed now. S won't sleep since he had a big nap today and M is mad that I won't nurse her, plus she hates to go to bed. Y is the only doing what he is supposed to be doing, which is sleeping.

The kids were just so cute today that I couldn't resist doing a quick up date. We have a big double stroller with baskets underneath. A while back we figured out that in a pinch S can sit underneath when he is too tired to walk. This has come in very hand since we no longer have a front pack to carry one of the twins in. So today while S was waiting for me to get the twins ready to go out and run errands he fell asleep sitting in the bottom basket, it was too cute. I got him up and in bed for a nap. An hour later he woke up, but then climbed back into one of the seats of stroller and took another nap. I leaned it back so it would recline. Guess it is his equivalent to falling asleep in the car.

The other cute thing today was Y is starting to walk more and of course we are so excited! I held his hand today twice and he was able to make it down the hall. Of course I know this means more work soon, but it is so much fun to watch! Mr. Turtle also got a bath today. For those of you not acquainted, Mr. Turtle is Y's best friend. He is actually a plush dog toy and was given to us as a gift, one for each of the kids. We lost number one and fortunately M doesn't care, but Y loves Mr. Turtle and to be separated from him while he got a bath was a very big deal. However, not only was Mr. Turtle about three shades too dark, Y put him in the toilet which had not been flushed! Yuck! So along with all the kids Mr. Turtle also got a bath. We noticed that he is going to have be mended too. I am considering finding out where he originated from and perhaps purchasing a back up in case this one doesn't make it.

M is just her cute little usual self and it is fun watching her since she is just such a girl! She has such a great smile and loves to just sit and watch and clap and play with her big bird. Our tub is two tiered here and so after we had emptied the water and she was waiting for her turn to get out she discovered that she could go up and down. Very exciting for her.

Today I also made another internet discovery. Not only is You Tube good for waisting time, it has quality material for wasting time! Not only can we watch Thomas clips and old cartoons and T.V. Shows, but I found clips from my favorite musicals today! I watched pieces of Singin' in the Rain and Father Goose and Fiddler on the Roof. It was great! OK Father Goose is not a musical, but still! S was less than impressed and wanted to know why we were not watching Thomas, but he did like the Singin' in the Rain piece, "Make 'em laugh" with Donald O'Connor. The kid does have some taste.

Food for thought

Normally I don't give Rosie O'Donnell the time of day in my life, but I was reading Fox news today and curiosity got the better of me. The article was about a photo on her blog of her daughter dressed up as a warfare guerrilla. I of course chalked it up to her being a typical neurotic celebrity seeking attention, but claiming not too. I have very little respect for RO since her stunt in Portland a few years back of trying to get the local radio station to change its name as it was also called Rosie. Can we say, too much time on the hands?! But I went to her blog and started reading a lot of the comments. It was really interesting and people viewed it from all different angles. Some viewed it as I first did, disturbing and horrible. Others saw it for what she claimed it to be, her daughter playing army with her brothers. Some people also saw it as a staged art political comment about how our real kids are dying in the war in Iraq. I decided that some of those other opinions were pretty valid. I found it shocking as we see it in the news here in Israel all too often. Little boys dressed up in guerrilla warfare because that is how they are brought up, that they should want to be a martyr and die in the war against the Jews. But I thought some of her loyal fans made good points. One, that her daughter is playing dress up with her older brothers and people need to get over it. Two, that it is a private blog and the media is just making too much of it. And finally that there are real men, women and children dying over there everyday and not one of them has drawn this much media attention. To me that is really sad. Why does the news make such a big deal over Paris Hilton and how Rosie O'Donells kids are dressed, but not over all the people dying in an actual war.

The other thing that impressed me about RO is that she has a non-profit that is for kids in the U.S. That in itself is not such a big deal, but it is the fact that she points out that 1 in 5 kids in America live in poverty. It has always bothered me to see such huge campaigns for all the starving kids in (insert country here) but have very little information on the large number of kids that are living in deplorable conditions in America, the land of the free and "rich." It is not that kids all over the world do not need help and indeed it is horrible that kids in China and India are working in sweatshops from a very small age, but I also feel it is important to take care of the those in your own house first. Imagine as parents that in our quest to teach children the importance of feeding the homeless our own children went hungry. We would never allow that. And I feel that aid to other countries is very similar we must be sure that things in all areas are right in our house before we can take care of others. This could be said of any country.

History and people

Usually my news consist of four sources. Katu news in Oregon so I know whats up in my home town, Yahoo news as I log in to check my e-mail, Israel National news so I know what is happening here, although it mostly political news and my husband, sometimes reliable in passing it on sometimes not, but always informative when it comes. Lately I have started reading Fox News on a regular basis. David has been reading for years so I would glance at it every now and then but recently I have decided it gives the best news for whats happening globally. We support Fox new as we feel it is one of the more pro-Israel news sites out there. I am a bit slow, but I recently figured out that they categorize all the news. Not just local, global, etc. But for example "Crimes" is broken down into most recent crimes, sex crimes, murder and so on. I started reading it then found it to be most depressing as there too many listed that involved families. However, last night as we were unwinding from Amalia's wedding, I discovered that they list all the recent archeology discoveries too. It is so cool! Some of them I knew about already, but some I had not. I could have spent all night on there reading about all different discoveries. I love archeology. For a while I think I wanted to be an archaeologist, probably during the Indian Jones phase. I mean really, who didn't!? I have seen these adds to volunteer on digs, always think it would be fascinating. My husband thinks I am nuts. Why would I want to sit in miserable conditions, sifting through dirt when I probably won't find anything anyway. But I think it would cool. My aunt did one years ago and I think that is awesome! I found that organization that we came to Israel with had an event where people got to do just that. I want to contact them and find out if they are going to organize another one.

The other thing I found was a website called Find a grave.com I found it on Wikipedia when I was looking up information on Katherine Hepburn, Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant. If you have not been to Wikipedia you should check it out. You can truly look up anything and since it is created by the public for the public if you find incorrect information on there you can edit it. Anyway, so while I was on there I found the Find a grave web site. It started out to be for famous people, but the person who started it opened up to all people as a genealogy tool. It was late and I did not have time to look at it as a genealogy tool, another hobby I have which is currently on hold. However, I looked up actresses out of curiosity and it was cool. They listed factoids about them and if it was available cause of death and where they are buried. It had people from all over the world. I really want to use it as a genealogy tool as I started my dad's family years ago and really did well on my grandmother's side, but everyone else is been a bit harder. I would also like to do my husband's family. Our past is so much about where we came from that I think it is great that more people are making tools available. As our older relatives pass on we lose part of our history unless we can get it down on paper.

Both hobbies are about people's lives and how they lived. One is more personal as they are my ancestors and the other is about people's lives I am not directly related to but helped shape the world I live in now.

What we have been up to

After a week of being sick I finally managed to get the kids out for some activities in the afternoon. We have been to Malka Mall, which has air conditioning, free play areas and a petting zoo. We did not go in, we just looked at the rabbits and birds. We also made it to a couple of parks. A great trick that I have learned from my mom is to take the kids on a bus to a new park. It is cheap and the kids think we have had a huge adventure. Thursday was a big day we finally, please G-d, got the kids registered as American Citizens and applied for their passports. It was a huge mess and suffice to say that if the U.S. government would quit giving money to terrorists and re-organize their staffing situation there it would be a lot more efficient! However, we went with another couple and while we were able to get everything done, the husband of the other couple had to come back the next day. The fate of many of the people there. So I should not be complaining too loudly.

The other exciting thing about Thurs. is that I got to leave the house with no kids for 4 whole hours by myself! I went in search of a wedding outfit for a wedding we are going to tonight. No such luck. Actually I went to what is called a gamach where you can rent fancy outfits for just such an occasion and then return it. You pay a deposit and then get it back when the dress comes back. I only went there as the bride and crew were going to be there. Great dresses, however, nothing suitable for nursing. But the great thing is I got to socialize with out my kids! Then I went up to the Shuk and bought all our veggies for the week. I know, I know, I get free time and what do I do? Go grocery shopping. But hey, it was still exciting!

Truthfully our new family anthem should be G-d Bless Av! She is the sister of the bride to be and is the daughter/niece of friends of ours from Seattle and Portland. Av lives in the area and comes over at least once a week, usually more, to help out and just hang out. So it was Av and her brother who rescued me on Thurs. so I could go out. The kids are great for her and she said her and her brother were able to hang out. She made them dinner, cleaned up afterwards, and got everyone ready for bed. Now in truth we have hosted Av for many a Friday dinner since we have been in the country, but what she does for us far out weighs a few Shabbat weekends. We really enjoy having Av around and she likes being here so it is great for everyone.

In kid news, Y and M both have 8 teeth each. I think Y is getting more but we will see. Also, Y has taken his first steps! We have all witnessed it now, although of course I was the last one to catch him in the act. So I expect he will be up and running soon. He can also climb up the foot stool now and play in the kitchen sink or grab things off the counter. I will have to start making sure the foot stool gets put back when we are done with it. Y also points when he wants something. On Friday night he was playing the drop game with S. He would drop his turtle from the crib and have S get it. When S would not get it, he would point and cry. It was really cute. S is getting big and seems to be on another growth spurt. He is also getting smarter by the minute! He is great at identifying tractors, helicopters and other vehicles. He also loves, Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy and Fog Horn Leg Horn. We have discovered this thanks to You Tube and a search for various cartoons. M has become Princess Puff Puff, D came up with it, but it really suits as she has this straight hair that always stands up. It is really cute. Also, I have given up with initials. M is making her own progress, and is interested in the foot stool but is not really ready to climb it. When we were at the park she did explore and liked going down the slide, but she is much more cautious than the boys. She takes after her mommy.
I am in the process of trying to get the twins to give up nursing, but we are going very slowly. I need to get juice concentrate so I can encourage them to drink more. They get tired of water, but in this heat the kids all need to drink more. Although I am probably cursing myself, dare I say it, M is sleeping through the night! It seems that if we put her to bed late enough she does sleep through the night! Hurray! Now if Y would even cut back, I could be half way sane again!

As for us, the grown-ups, we are fine and just moving along. We are still debating where to move and what to do. We have a little less than two months and we still have more questions than answers. I really don't want to have to move again if we can help it so we are now looking into school options, Gans, location in relation to what we will be doing in 2, 5, 10 years, etc. Because David's line of work is not a conventional job and it is more about achieving more knowledge and where that will take him in the next few years, it is a little more tricky to envision. So we are going from the angle of where we want the kids in school, what kind of neighborhood we want to be in and how close the area is in relation to the rest of Jerusalem. We know that our lives will probably be centered here in Jerusalem for a while so we have to decide do want to live in a suburb and commute in or live directly in the city and which allows for more options for the kids, etc. We both agree that we would rather raise our kids outside the city if possible. I am also concerned that since we have moved here the kids noses have not stopped running, which makes me think allergies to the environment, there is little chance of having a yard here, and no option for a house, and I still say it is dirty and smells funny! Not all areas are like that but enough. It is a big city, it has noise and pollution and it is not always pleasant. On the upside, the school options are huge and we have a lot more help with the kids thanks to all of our friends who live near by. We also have more neighborhood options and we will always be closer to where ever D is working. I do also like the closeness of a lot more activities, more parks, the malls, zoo, etc. So we are weighing the pros and cons and hopefully we will have some place by the time our apt. contract is up here. Or like our friend pointed out we will be living our tents and camping until we do! (Not really!)

Another tooth!

Y got another tooth on the bottom left. This makes for a grand total of 8 now! M. is still holding at 4. Guess she is going to take her time. I think as soon as everyone is better I am finally going to quit nursing the twins. With Y. having 8 teeth now he can eat just about everything and M. does a good job just with her 4. Also at this point it should all just be comfort nursing and not nutritional value. I know they won't like it, but I need my sanity and my sleep.

We are all still sick here so nothing new for now.

TTFN

Question

Why did the baby crawl on the table?
Answer: To get to the clothes pins of course!

Yesterday M. managed to wiggle out of her booster seat, which she was buckled into and crawl on the table to get the bucket of clothes pins I had sitting there. She was happily playing in them and passing a few to Y. I have decided that M. should be called Danger Woman since she is always trying to push off the table with her feet or climb on it. Y is Captain Destructive as he is always pulling things down and breaking them. Today he ruined D.'s cell phone by chewing on it. Guess we will be getting a new one! D. wasn't too happy this morning.

We are all sick here I think S got it first and now the rest of us have it. Yesterday evening D. asked me, "How long are you going to be sick?" Groan..... As if I want to be sick and I planned this out! So, lucky for him I feel better today, not well, but at least I can get out of bed. Guess I am back to running the house already!

Shabbat

We had our first shabbat here in Jerusalem and it was very nice. The kehila (community) here is really amazing. We had dinner and lunch with friends from the kollel. Really sweet couple who just celebrated their first anniversary. We were their first guests to bring kids! Hope we did not wear them out too much. Our down stairs neighbor invited us for a late afternoon meal toward the end of Shabbat and I went to a kiddush for a neighbor down the way that just had a baby girl. The woman hosting the kiddush has twin 15 year old daughters, so that was nice to see. It was very nice seeing everyone out and about on Shabbat and even though we are in the center of the city, our neighborhood is set off so that we don't really feel it. Everyone has been really friendly in introducing themselves and making sure I knew about the kiddush and offering help etc. It is not at all what I would expect to find in a big city and it really feels like a small community here. Our downstairs neighbor said that the whole area here which is comprised of Romema(the neighborhood we are actually in), Mattersdorf, the neighborhood below us and another neighborhood connected are really nice and are all connected community wise. She said that it is really unique in Jerusalem. I really like it. The other nice thing is that people are on all different levels here so I am not so self conscious about where I am religiously. That is a really nice feeling too. And surprisingly I am really finding a lot of green. The park is dinky and S. was bored in about 10 min. but there are lots of big large pine trees and they really smell great and cover up the city smell. All in all things are going well. Maybe it will be a good summer after all!