Entries Tagged 'Tammy' ↓

After I dropped the kids off at school today I ran home (no ulpan on Friday, yipee) and started to clean and clean and clean.  I found a brillo-type scouring pad and used it to get off the paint splatters and the extra plaster that was on the floors downstairs.  I was on my hands and knees scrubbing, much like the Karate Kid sanded Mr. Miyagi’s floors.  The floors are getting there.  I still have a bunch of spots left to do but the brillo fell apart and I don’t have another one here.  Also, my back and my fingers were throbbing so I had to stop.  Eric was taking the boxes to the area where we were told the garbage men would pick them up from and then he went to the bakery to get fresh bourekas and rougelach and he came home and helped me with the floors for a bit.

After the floors I cleaned some more and then we set up the dining room table and chairs.  We are still using a folding table and chairs but after the chagim we’re going to buy ourselves a real set for our anniversary present to each other.

This morning Talia asked if she could go with her friend to the store across the street from her school after school and take her money that she got last night from the tooth fairy.  I told her she could go.  She came home reaaly excited.  She said that it was full of kids from her school and she showed me the huge pack of gum that she bought!! 

Talia sat down to do her homework with Eric and I rode my bike to pick Ben up.  He had a great day and he told me that he knows how to say apple in Hebrew and he was right.  Yay Ben!!  We zoomed home on our bicycles and ate pizza for lunch.   Ben brought home a letter form his teacher and I understood pretty much the whole thing.  There was one part that I didn’t understand because I didn’t understand the key word in the sentence.  The kids aren’t supposed to wear crocs to school anymore in Ben’s school.  I couldn’t figure out the sentence where they explained why.  I looked up one of the words and it meant barefoot.  I think the teachers don’t want them running outside without shoes and they have been so they are no longer allowed to wear crocs, only sandals.  It’s a good thing that Ben has sandals.   There is also going to be a parents meeting on Tuesday night.  I don’t know if I’ll go.  The last time I went to one of these things it was at Talia’s school and I was completely lost.  Also, I’ll have to get a babysitter.  So we’ll see.  The important thing is that I understood the notice.  If I had gotten it a month ago I would have handed it to Eric to read.  So I am getting somewhere. 

As I am sitting here and writing this blog Ben is telling me that I have to vaccuum!!  If you lease the windows open here like they’ve been open all day, the house gets all dusty in a matter of minutes.  It’s so frustrating.

Anyway, I thought that we would get to go somewhere fun today like we’ve been doing in the past on Fridays but we never made it out.  Keren wouldn’t take a nap when I wanted her to and she was kind of kvetchy today.  Instead we walked to the makolet and we bought ices and ice cream while Eric stayed home and rested.  The kids took their scooters and I walked and pushed Keren.  On the way there we stopped to rest (it’s a whole 10 minutes away) and we heard sounds of shooting.  We could see the smoke coming up.  I don’t know what was going on but I hear that there is often shooting in that area.  I think they usually use rubber bullets.  Not sure.

I found out that there is a woman in Modiin that gives pedicures from her home.  She has a whole thing set up and it’s supposed to be nice.  I can’t wait to make an appointment and go.  Ulpan is no longer for my level on Mondays and we only have ulpan now 4 days a week.  I am probably going to continue to go on Mondays to sit and listen, it can’t hurt, but assuming that it’s way above my level of understanding, I’ll probably only go for the morning until the break and then run some errands the rest of the mornings. 

Anyway, that’s pretty much the story for today.  Nothing too exciting happening.  We are invited out for all 3 meals this shabbat so it should be a pretty busy weekend!

Forgot to mention yesterday that we finally got our garbage can that we ordered when we moved in 2 weeks ago!!  They said that they ran out when they got to our block!  Crazy!!  Now all we need is a mailbox and we are good to go.  They ran out of those too!!  Here it works by PO Box.  Each family has a box that’s next to Talia’s school and you go and pick your mail up there.  It doesn’t get delivered to your door.  Well, they ran out of mailboxes to give us and we are on the waiting list!!

Last night, after I finished my blog, someone came to the door to invite us for Shabbat lunch!  I was so excited not to have to cook that I offered to make her something (?!?)  She accepted and I am making her roasted cauliflower and avocado salad.  She also told me that there was a hat sale going on and it would be going on for the next half hour.  So at 10 pm I put Keren in the baby bjorn and we went for a walk to the hat sale.  I got 3 mitpachot.  One is a fancy one for shul that’s beautiful and 2 are more like bandanas.  It was all so cheap.  I would have wound up paying a lot more for this stuff in America.  I am so excited to wear my new one to shul.  It’s a good thing that it was so late b/c i would have bought a lot more than what I did, especially at those prices. 

Anyway, on to today.  School was good all around.  Ben was happy when I picked him up and Talia came home from her swim chug very happy, as well.  She had a good day.  She said that today wasn’t a learning day, it was just a day where they do all kinds of activities.  Only in Israel! 

Eric, however, did not have such a great morning!!  He took Keren, with her vaccinations that I picked up last night, to the nurse to have her vaccinated.  The nurse said that she wasn’t familiar with the specific vaccination and that he should go somewhere else!  So he went somewhere else and they said that he needed  a referral from the doctor.  Then they said that the medication that she started on in America was different than the one that Eric had and she can’t have it!  So there went 200 shekel down the drain!!  So to make a long story short, Eric brought her to me in ulpan around 11, after 3 hours of running around with her, and got nothing done.   He was not a happy camper.  So now we have to keep one of the medications in the fridge, the other one we have to toss, I guess and we have to get another prescription, take it to the pharmacy, make sure this time to get a doctor’s referral and then take Keren to the nurse/doctor at our Kupah.  So confusing!!

Ben and I had pancakes with chocolate chips for lunch and then after Keren woke up from her nap we went to pick up drain boards for the dishes.  Unfortunately, they don’t have such things in Israel.  They have the things that you put the dishes on when they are drying, but they don’t have the board that goes underneath that drains right into the sink.  So I have them sitting on my counter with nothing underneath them.  On the one hand it’s a pain, on the other I get to use my squeegee… fun!

When Talia came home she asked if she could call a friend.  So I said yes and her friend walked over.  The kids played really nicely for 2 hours and then they said they were hungry.  I had those leftover hamburgers from the BBQ the other night that noone liked b/c they were bland.  I cut up some veggies and fried them in oil and broke up the hamburgers into small pieces and threw some marinara sauce and teriaki sauce on top and serrved it over spaghetti and the kids LOVED it!!  I thought it was yummy too.  Eric stuck to his veggie dinner.

After her friend went home I got the kids into the bath and Eric left to find an internet cafe where he could get a better connection to the internet so he could work.  The connection here is pretty lousy b/c we STILL DON’T HAVE A PHONE and probably won’t for the next 2 weeks or so.  Apparently things really slow down during the chagim so he is kind of panicked over this and I don’t blame him.  He’s having a really hard time working from home with the stinky connection and no phone!  He’s really grumpy and stressed about it, which is making me grumpy and stressed!!

While the kids were watching TV after their bath I got another box unpacked and washed the floors on the second floor.  I have 4 more boxes of stuff in Talia’s room to do with all her chatchkies in it.  That’s my goal for next week.  Otherwise I don’t have many more boxes to unpack.  Hooray! 

Talia lost another tooth yesterday.  I am going to try to take a picture and upload it.  She now has a huge gap on the side of her mouth b/c she lost the top and bottom tooth, one on top of the other.  We forgot, however, to put money under her pillow last night and she was really upset about it this morning.  Eric tried to sneak it in when she wasn’t looking but she figured it out.  Smart girl.  This is the second time that I’ve done this.  I told her that in Israel the tooth fairy is often late.  That didn’t fly.  I told her I would give her more money tonight.  That worked!

News on the Keren front, she keeps rolling over from her belly to her back and then getting stuck on her belly!!  She is so cute!!  Everyone in ulpan LOVES her.  When I didn’t bring her in this morning b/c she was with Eric on the wild goose chase they all asked me where she was.  I told the teacher that she’d mastered the Hebrew language and didn’t feel it was necessary to come anymore.  Ha!

I know that there was other stuff to write about but I can’t think of what it was.  I’ll stick it in on my next blog.

I have a ton to do tonight and so I am going to try to keep this short.

Todat after school I started to unpack the silver that we have on our shelves in our wall unit.  I am almost finished but not quite yet.  Then I went to get Ben from school.  I decided that since he rides his bike every day, that I would pick him up on my bike!  So I pumped up the tires and rode there (uphill).  The ride home was fun b/c it’s straight downhill and I didn’t have to run after Ben on his bike, I could just ride beside him for once.  After we ate I set him up in front of the television and went to Robin’s house to see what other goodies she had that I could use in my house.  She is the one that gave us the shelves in our kitchen and other things that were very useful.  So she gave me some hooks to hang on the back of the doors for towels and stuff and she gave me a mirror to hang in on of the bathrooms.  I brought her son, Eitan, back with me to play with Ben for a little while until Talia came home.

When Talia came home I brought Eitan back to his house and then after waking Keren from her 4 hour nap (!!) we went to friends of our from camp in Modiin.  Eric stayed home to work, of course.  It was nice and the kids played nicely together. 

After that we headed to the mall in Modiin for dinner.  Big mistake!!  I had to wait for the pizza in Sbarro’s to be made b/c they didn’t have any more regular slices.  Then while the kids were eating I went to Burgers Bar and got a burger for myself.  In the meantime the kids were eating and, unbeknownst to me, were spilling Sprite on eachothers pizza!!  ahhh.  So I scarfed down my burger and we ran out of there.

Oh, while we were walking in I got a call from an Israeli who invited us for a meal on Rosh Hashana!!  How nice??  So I have to really brush up on my Hebrew between now and then so I don’t have a headache by the time we leave their house.  You should have heard me on the phone just trying to communicate to her that we would love to come but I have to call her back b/c I wasn’t sure which meal we were already invited out for.  very excited to have Israeli friends.

Anyway, when I got home I gave the kids a bath and tucked them in and then ran out again to Modiin to get some fruits and veggies and Keren’s vaccination that the nurse is going to give her tomorrow.  Eric has been jumping through hoops trying to get her the right vaccine and he was finally successful, after upgrading our medical insurance.  So tomorrow she’ll go to the nurse accross the street and get her shots that she needs.  I had to refrigerate them when I got home (just a side note).

SO, I have to go do my ulpan homework, I have a lot, and I have to study b/c I think she is going to give us a quiz tomorrow on some new words.  Eric is out now buying us seats for Rosh Hashana.  Oh, he’s back!!

I will start my blog today with some great news… the digital camera that I thought was stolen by the movers was not!!  I FOUNG IT!!  It was underneath the dresser in Keren’s room, which is the room that I knew I left it in.  It must have been in the corner on the floor and when they set up the dresser they pushed it against the wall and the camera must have been dragged underneath it.  HOORAY!!  I am soooo relieved.  Unfortunately, Eric already wrote a letter to the company accusing them of taking it.  He wasn’t nasty in the letter at all, thank goodness, and the response he got back from the guy was that he assumes it will turn up after we’ve finished unpacking.   So it did.

Anyway, today we slept until the alarm went off at 7.  Usually Keren wakes up at 6:30 and I feed her and then we all get moving.  Today she slept later (probably since I fed her at 4 in the morning and when my alarm went off I was shocked!  The problem with this is that I have no time to feed Keren if we start moving at 7.  I usually don’t even get to eat myself b/c I am busy with the kids’ sandwiches, etc.  So we had to scramble this morning.  After getting the kids dressed and fed we ran to school, almost literally.  I dropped Talia at the corner of her school and made her scoot (don’t know if I mentioned that she rides her scooter to school every day) the rest of the way herself so I could take Ben quickly to his school without walking her all the way there first.   Then I ran with Ben and then ran with Keren to my ulpan class and finally got to feed her before it began.  She was getting angrier by the second so it was good that I got there just before she really started to scream.  I get no help from Eric in the morning b/c he works until late at night and I want him to rest and relax in the morning.  He said that he would help and take one of the kids to school but I said it was okay.  In the end it was.

Anyway, school was good all around.  Talia actually said that school was great!!  She said they showed a movie all day.  I don’t know about that.  But I am glad that she had a nice time.  I am hoping that since the movie was in Hebrew, that some of it sunk into that head of hers.  At least now after learning the Hebrew letter reish for 2 weeks, she finally remembers that a traffic light is a ramzor!

After ulpan I went to get Ben and took him straight to his chug.  He started his cooking chug today.  I offered him many options of the many chugim that they have and he picked the cooking one.  I knew he would!  In the coming weeks he’ll be picked up and taken there straight from school if I want.  Today, being it was the first day, I picked him up from school and he rode his bike home (as usual) and then we jumped in the car and went to the house that his chug is held at.  The woman who runs it is actually in my ulpan class!  He gets lunch and a snack in addition to what they do there.

I came home after dropping him off and had lunch and fed Keren.  The Talia came home.  She noticed that the park next to our house had its sprinklers on and she decided that she would cool off that way after a long (ha!) scoot home.  So she got soaked from head to toe, came in to change her clothing, and then we did our homework together!  I have to say, the directions in her workbooks are teaching me Hebrew also.  She was excited to be doing her homework at the same time that I was doing my homework!

After homework it was time to pick up Ben.  I got there and he was in a great mood.  The woman said he had a blast.  She said he was really teriffic.  That’s usually the report that I get from his teachers, so I was happy.  Even his Hebrew-speaking teachers in gan say that he’s great (either that or they are saying that he’s horrible and I am just not understanding them, just kidding!)  He said he ate fish sticks and cucumbers for lunch and that she read a book about a cookie and then he made cookies.  It was so cute.  The only bad thing about this chug is that it’s given in English and I think that if it was given in Hebrew then it would be another chance to learn Hebrew.  On the other hand, it’s a good break from all the Hebrew in gan that he gets every day.  At least he understands these stories since he doesn’t understand the stories in gan.

We came home and the kids had something to eat b/c they are usually hungry around 4.  Talia walked herself to her art chug that she has today at 4:30 and Ben and I unpacked the few boxes that were still in his room.  He was excited to find the mat that does under his train set  and he had me set his train set up and he was happily playing with it for some time.

After Talia came home from her art class the kids watched a dvd for a bit and then Eric fired up the grill and we had hamburgers for dinner.  They didn’t go over too well with the kids.  Ben was full after his vegetable soup, but then again he did eat meatballs at 4, and Talia complained that they were bland.  In her words they, “had no taste.”  Now I usually don’t get accused of my food having no taste.  When I tasted them, however, they had no taste!!  They needed A LOT of salt.  I think they must salt the meat here differenlty when kashering it.  Maybe they wash it off and in the US they don’t?  I don’t know.  All I know is that we had sweet meatballs on Sunday night and now on Tues. night we wound up with bland hamburgers.  Oh, we also had no BBQ sauce.  That probably also had something to do with it.  But I think most of it was the lack of salt in the meat.

A neighbor of ours heard that we moved in and brought us some cake this evening.  That was nice.  While she was here I had asked Talia to turn off the bath that I was running for them.  She came down and told me that there wasn’t enough water and she wasn’t going to go up and turn it off again.  I was busy talking and didn’t really understand what she said but I figured that she turned it off.  Anyway, long story short, she didn’t!  After shmoozing some more the woman left and we went upstairs and I heard the water running!!  When we got there it was at the tippy tip tip top of the tub.  We quickly pulled the plug and stopped the faucet. Phew.  Maybe I would finally have clean floors if we had let it run for a couple more minutes.

Anyway, the kids are in bed now and Eric just went to make a house call to someone who needed a computer doctor.  Keren is sleeping in her bouncy seat beside me.  I am going to eat my dinner and then…. unpack some boxes, what else?!?!

This morning Eric took Ben to school and I took Talia.  Eric said that Ben made him go a completely roundabout way because he is used to first going to Talia’s school and then going to his school.  Otherwise, everything went smoothly.  I had discovered that we owed money to the class for things like if they want to buy ice cream one day or things like that.  So I went in to her school to pay those things and also for them to explain some other things that I owed them for.  Luckily the night before my cousin, Avivit, explained that I had to go in and pay them for these things, otherwise i don’t know if I would have realized.

Keren was very well behaved in Ulpan.  She was in a great mood and kind of just hung out and was pretty relaxed.  Eric came to pick her up halfway through again like yesterday and relieve me.  He was busy in the morning going to Keriat Sefer and picking up stuff for around the house. 

Not 15 minutes after I walked into the house this afternoon my grandmother, great aunt and her daughter came over to visit!  I had to run out and get Ben from school so I left them there with Keren while I ran to pick him up.  Then everyone had coffee and my aunt aunt and savta started cleaning my kitchen, sewing the cusions on my couch (which is falling apart), etc.  They were hysterical.  I was tired just from watching them.

At some point Talia left to go play accross the street with a friend and they all eventually left.

I ran to the doctor later on to get my green formed signed off on.  Now all I have to do it take the actual driving lesson and then the test and I am ready to go, assuming I pass.  I liked the doctor that I spoke to and I think I’ll probably use her as my primary care doctor here.  They are located right accross the street with the kids’ pediatrician, so it’s VERY convenient.

When I got home Eric had already given the kids most of the dinner that I had put in the oven for them before I left.  I felt bad b/c I know that he’s supposed to be working but then again I needed to get this stuff done for my license and I have no time to do it when the kids are in school b/c I am in school too!!

Before bath time Talia told me that she knew the word for glue in Hebrew (devek) and she was right.  So at least somehting is sinking in!!  She has been doing her homework very nicely and seems to enjoy it.  She also isn’t putting up too much of a protest before school every day.  Today when I picked Ben up I asked him what he did and he showed me that he made a picture of a bee.  I asked him why, was it for Rosh Hashana?  He said, yes.  Then he told me that they also read a story about Rosh Hashana but that he didn’t understand it b/c it was in Hebrew!  I asked him if he understood some of it and he said he did.  I hope he did.  Who knows.

So now I am off to unpack some of my bedroom boxes b/c there are still a ton.  It was really really nice that I got to wear a new skirt today that was packed in the lift.  I missed my other clothes and was sick of wearing the same ones over and over again.  There are people here that were on our flight that don’t have their lift yet b/c of the strike, I feel so bad for them.  I don’t know what they are going to do when their baby grows out of her clothes.  Guess she can always borrow from me…

Before I write about today I must write the cutest story about Talia.  I had sent her on Friday to deliver flowers to the people we were eating at on Friday night.  It was down the block but I didn’t know where exactly.  She came back and told me that she met someone on the way and they helped her find it.  I thought nothing of it.  Then on Shabbat day Eric said that he bumped into someone that we know from camp and she said she saw a little girl walking around and looking lost.  She asked Talia, in Hebrew, who she was looking for.  Talia responded, in Hebrew, “ani lo midaberet Ivrit!”  She kind of mumbled it under her breath.  So she again asked her in Hebrew who she was looking for and again Talia responded “ani lo midaberet Ivrit.”  At that point she recognized who Talia was and she spoke to her in English and helped her find the house she was looking for.  So Talia’s 2 sentences are “I don’t speak Hebrew” and “I have to go to the bathroom.”

Anyway, today was a typical day.  Got the kids to school and Keren and I headed to Ulpan.  Eric did a lot of work around the house.  He built the closets (now I can unpack my clothes), built the BBQ, found the kitchen table (yay, finally!), cleaned up a lot of the boxes around the outside of the house and some other stuff that escapes me right now.  He also watched Keren the second half of my Ulpan class so I wasn’t distracted.

Unfortunately, when I came home and saw Talia’s closet I was very surprised.  I thought that we bought her a big closet to put all of her things in.  The one we got is a little tiny thing that has a small bar for clothes and one shelf.  She is going to outgrow it in no time.  in addition, I have no room for all of her clothes that aren’t on hangars.  Also, she has a lot of STUFF in her room.  She doesn’t throw anything out.  I usually throw a lot of her stuff out when she’s not at home and she doesn’t notice.  Unfortunately, although I did that before we left America, there is still tons and tons of STUFF.  I tried to have a civilized conversation with her where I suggested that we look through her things and see if there was anything that she could live without but she got very insulted that I would even suggest that she could live without certain lanyards, etc. and the conversation turned ugly.  So I am going to have to figure out where to put everything and Eric and I are going to have to go to Ikea and buy her a set of drawers.

The kids had a good day at school.  I was very frustrated today in Ulpan.  I couldn’t find the words to use when it was my turn to talk and I felt my face getting all red.  I was really upset.  I felt like I just wasn’t getting anywhere. 

After school (for all of us) I took Ben shopping with me.  We went to the supermarked where we bought, among other things, chicken and chopped meat.  I had gone prepared because I knew that if I translated chicken legs into Hebrew that I was going to wind up with the feet!  So I found out how to say legs and chopped meat and I did it. There were tons of different meats to choose from. Much easier when it’s all prepackaged like in America. 

Then we went to the fruit store in Modiin where I could buy fruit and veggies that I wouldn’t have to worry about saving peels or kedusha or anything.   

The rental on our car is almost up and we would like to not have to spend the money on another rental.  We need to buy a car ASAP.  So today we each went to the store to get our green form (tophes yarok).  We got our eyes checked and paid 50 shekel.  Now we have to go to a regular doctor and have them sign it and then we have to sign up for a driving lesson and then if we take it and then take the test and pass, we’ll have our licenses.  Complicated as usual!

When we got home Talia had a friend over and I quickly made some spaghetti and meatballs for dinner.  My cousin Avivit came over with her daughter Shelly and we all hung out and ate dinner.  The kids took a bath together – the 3 of them!  They had a nice time.  Unfortunately my meatballs were a little sweet b/c I used the ketchup from Israel and it’s a sweet ketchup.  I think if I am going to use it then I’ll have to add salt to whatever I make in the future.  At least the vegetable soup that I threw together at the last minute turned out yummy.

I better go do some unpacking since today was spent shopping and cooking and not unpacking.

Before I write about Shabbat, let me mention that Talia learned how to dive from that one swim chug that she took!  She told me she did and when we went to the pool yesterday she showed me.  She is diving now!  So cute.  Even cuter, she taught Ben how to dive!!  The two of them were diving away into the water.  So I got 2 for the price of 1.  The cute thig was that he was wearing his swimmies on his arms and right after he dove into the water he popped right back up.  Funny to see.

Our first Shabbat in our house was very nice.  Last night we went to friend’s for dinner who we know from Camp.  Her husband is in America and the people that she had over, their neighbors, also didn’t have her husband/father there. So Eric was the token man at the table.  We had a great time.  The conversation was great and we were very relaxed there.  We didn’t need to be super nice because these weren’t new people!  Ben was upset for the first half hour or so when we got there because they have a dog.  Dogs here are very common on the yishuv and you’ll often see them wandering around by themselves.  They never come up to you or anything but they are roaming around and will very often pass right by you as you’re walking.  So anyway, he was freaked out even though the minute we came in they saw that he was afraid and put the dog outside and tied him up!! He made me hold him and was actually trembling!!  I felt terrible.  I tried to explain that the dog was tied up and ourside of a locked door but you can’t really explain that to a 3 yr. old, I guess.  After a while he calmed down.  We ate dinner and Ben fell asleep (again) on their couch.  I had to carry Talia home and Eric had to carry Ben home.  Talia wasn’t asleep but she was totally out of it.  With my spare hands (?!?) I pushed Keren in the stroller.  It was a good thing they were down the block and it was all downhill.  When we got home, just as we were getting to the door, Ben peed all over Eric!  Then Talia threw a fit that she didn’t want to walk up the stairs but there was no way that I could carry her all the way up the stairs after I carried her all the way home.  She then flipped out that she didn’t want to get undressed by herself.  She basically fell asleep sitting in her bed fully dressed.  I went down and changed her in her sleep after I finished with Keren.

After 2 nights of Keren sleeping pretty much through the night, she was up at 1 and at 5 last night.  That was annoying!

This morning Eric went to shul and I sent the kids a little later.  Just as I was out the door myself, Ben came running in!  He asked where Eric was!  I told him he wasn’t at home and I was on my way to shul.  Then as we were walking we bumped into Talia coming home.  She too couldn’t find Eric!!  He said he was sitting in the same seat the entire time and they had said hi to him when they first got there so I don’t know what went on.
After shul we went out for lunch to a very nice couple.  They had another couple over who has been very helpful to me as far as Talia is concerned.  She is the one that’s been helping me sign her up for her chugim and telling me what’s good, etc.  I like her a lot too.  So it was a nice lunch and the kids all played together, which was nice.

We came home and Eric and Keren took naps while I entertained Talia and Ben.  They were excited to see that I had unpacked their books on Friday so we did some reading.

At 4 I woke Eric up and I took Ben to the park since Talia didn’t want to go.  He had a nice time.  On the way there he told me that he knew how to say “jump” in Hebrew.  I asked him how and he told me!  So cute.  He remembers what he hears in gan.  It’s great.

When we came back I fed the kids dinner and they fought a little bit. oy!  While we were repremanding the kids someone who went to highschool with Eric who is visiting for Shabbat knocked on the door!!  She heard that we lived here and she got our address and came over.  I thought that was so nice.  She came with her 1 month old baby and they stayed for a long time and we schmoozed while the kids went to the small park next to our house to play.  It turns out (get ready for this, Dad) that she lives on Kibbutz Shluchot where relatives of mine from South Africa live.  She obviously knows them because it is a Kibbutz, after all.

I got the kids into bed by 7 giving them each a cold shower (they stank) and then while Eric went to shul, Keren and I hung out outside.  It was the most beautiful day and night that we’ve had here so far.  Got a little cooler and the breeze tonight was gorgeous.  We have our windows open now and might even sleep without the AC tonight.  I even saw some clouds in the sky today.

After Shabbat I quickly did my ulpan homework since I have ulpan tomorrow!  There are no Sundays in Israel, ahhh!

Eric is busy now building the closets so I can unpack the bedroom boxes and get my much missed clothing out.  I can’t stand these clothes that I’ve been wearing since mid-July anymore.

One depressing note, I think our digital camera might have been taken by someone during the lift unloading.  I know I had it last weekend and now I can’t find it anywhere.  I am hoping that when things get a little more organized that it pops up somewhere but I am not holding my breath.  I pretty much looked anywhere that it could be for it and it hasn’t turned up.  I am very sad.  It is only a couple of years old and we loved it.  Also, I don’t know how many pictures I lost that were on it.  I have been pretty good about uploading my pictures so they can be on the blog, so hopefully I didn’t lose much…

Totally forgot about my blog today!!  I’ll make it quick since it’s almost Shabbat.

Kids had a great day in school today.  We went to the pool after school and then came home and Eric was here waiting for us!  Yay!!

Tonight we are going to friends that we know from before and tomorrow we are invited to a nice couple with a bunch of kids.  Shabbat should be nice.

That’s all for now.

So we’ve been here for a month, as of Tuesday, and it’s been hot and sunny every day.  I hear that in New York it’s been cool and, I have to say, I could really use some cool days. Even some rain!  SOMETHING to mix it up a bit…

Neither of the kids cried today.  Talia was psyched to have her swim chug after school and Ben was just happy to be in school today.  Yay!

Ulpan was great.  I really love being in school.  I spoke to the person in front of me today about a chug for Ben after school one day.  It turns out she runs all kind of chugim after school for his age group and I think I might enroll him in the baking/cooking chug since he LOVES to bake.  Maybe then he won’t make me bake so much!

So I only had about 45 minutes in between class and getting Ben and I don’t think I accomplished anything in that time.  I called the contractor who worked on our house since I still have so many things here that are not finished and he promised me that he would be here on Sunday morning to meet with Eric.  I also got a call from Talia’s school.  At first I thought the woman who called me said I should come in and speak with her.  So I said Okay and I hung up.  She called me right back to say that I misunderstood and that she wanted to know if I could speak to Talia.  I don’t know how I missed that one!  So Talia said that she wanted me to come visit her in school!  I think she thought that since I was in school right down the block from her that I could mosey on over and visit.  I explained that I was already home and that I was about to get Ben and she would only have an hour left of school before her chug.  She seemed happy enough with that repsonse.

Ben and I did some cleaning up around the outside of the house when he came home and had some pizza and put Keren in for a small nap.  Then we hung out until Talia came home at 4.  She showed up in a great mood and with a friend, surprise!!  The kids played nicely and included Ben for the most part.   They went to Talia’s room after a while and they didn’t want him to join them and he took it pretty hard.  They eventually came down and they all played nicely until dinner.  Then I fed them dinner and the girl’s mother came to pick her up.  Talia told me that she learned how to dive today.  We’ll probably go to the pool tomorrow after school and I’ll see if she really can.  That will be so exciting!

One of the things I found while unpacking today was the Bumbo seat that a friend bought for Keren.  It’s for kids 3 months and up.  I put her in it and she looked so cute sitting up like that.  Ben and Talia got a huge kick out of her.  To see a picture of her in the seat click on the link below.  Take note of her fuzzy hair that sticks straight up.  This kid is going to spend a fortune on hair products one day, mark my words!

http://www.yorkphoto.com/share/p=999111221159786005/l=419047566/g=70636009/cobrandOid=1002/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB
Anyway, not much else to report.  We are looking forward to Eric coming home tomorrow.  He is going to get a ride with a friend who is on the same flight.  The friend is a frequent flyer and goes to the business class/first class lounge and he said that he can bring a friend in and he’ll bring Eric.  So exciting!

Meanwhile, as I sit here, Keren is on my lap and she is eating my arm.  I guess she is teething.  Either that or she has mistaken my arm for a piece of corn on the cob, because she is eating it the way one would eat a piece of corn!

Off to unpack some boxes.

After a very long night last night with Keren waking up at 12, 3 and 4 with bad gas (sorry, Keren, to share that with the world) we quickly got dressed and ate and ran to school.  Talia cried today and Ben did too!  So I was in a really lousy mood.

Instead of coming home to unpack I had to go to sign up for my ulpan class.  I thought it was going to be a 10 minute thing but it turned into more of an hour and a half thing.  Our teacher introduced herself to us and we told her about ourselves in Hebrew so that she could assess our knowledge of the language and see what levels we were on.  Turns out we are all level bet plus or minus, so we are going to have class 5 days a week from 8:30 to 12:45!!!  So there goes all my unpacking time when the kids are in school!!  I am actually excited that I am going to finally learn how to speak the language properly instead of my elementary school Hebrew that I’ve been getting by with.

I wound up rambling on and on to the teacher when she asked about me.  I went on in Hebrew about how my kids are bringing home notices and I don’t know what in the world they are about and I’m totally missing out.  I kept going and going.  I think she thought I was nuts.  She basically smiled at me, turned to the next person and asked her about herself.

Anyway, Savta and Aunt Suzie came over today to help (again) with the unpacking.  I think I finished my last kitchen box this morning before they came and when I ran out to do some food shopping (now I have to fill up my big fridge) they set up the living room nicely and started on some other boxes too.  So the furniture in my living room, namely the couches, are all facing each other and it looks like more of a room.  They were really funny.  At one point they were cleaning the big sliding glass door that we have in the living room.  One was on the inside and one the outside scraping the paint off the door and washing it. 

I have to talk about the shopping wagons that they have in this country!!  They go forward and backward but they also go sideways!!!!  It is sooooo annoying!!!  Noone knows how to push them.  You kind of have to stand on the side of them and push them that way.  At one point I tried pulling it.  Didn’t work.  For those of you who don’t know, they connect the wagons together and to disconnect them you have to either have a 5 shekel coin to put into the slot (and then you get it back when you hook it on to another one when you are finished) or most people have a special keychain that has a 5 shekel coin on it attached to a yad or something like that.  So today I had to find a wagon that wasn’t attached to anything b/c I didn’t have either.  Luckily I found one and when I got home Savta gave me my very own one for my keychain.  I feel so Israeli now.

Talia had her arts and crafts chug this evening at 4:30.  She loved it.  She is making a cactus with tape and glue and water, I think.  Her teacher speaks only Hebrew which I think is going to be great for her.  This way she’ll pick some Hebrew up (I hope) in more of a relaxed environment.

It got a little hectic here when I got back from dropping her off.  My friend Mindy came over to help translate some of the stuff that the school sent home.  Now I know why school was only until 2:30 today and not 3:15.  Also, a friend from camp came over b/c her daughter takes a swim chug on Tuesdays in Chashmonaim.  So she came to visit us too.  Then the kids were all playing with the toys that I had unpacked this afternoon.  On the one hand I am happy that I opened some of those boxes.  On the other hand, now I have toys all over my house again!!

Another friend saw me standing outside and invited us for shabbat dinner.  So we are now covered for both meals this shabbat.  yay.  no cooking.  maybe I’ll get a chance to take the kids to the pool again on Friday if it’s still open for the summer.  She also asked if I needed anything and I did.  I needed a notebook for ulpan tomorrow since I haven’t come accross any boxes with old notebooks in them yet.  So she got one for me and dropped it off.   So nice! 

Got the kids bathed and into bed pretty much on time tonight.  I will go do some cleaning up in the rooms that have lightbulbs that work in them and then some laundry now that I did a load this morning and nothing terrible happened and then off to bed.  Have to be awake and well rested for my first day of ulpan tomorrow!!