So Shabbat at our house was VERY quiet!  We didn’t have Talia and Ben b/c they went to my grandparents.  Let’s just say we did A LOT of sleeping!  Not only did I go to sleep early, but I also took 2 naps, not an easy thing to do when Shabbat ends around 5:20!

Saturday night we went to pick the kids up.  We hung out a little bit there and then brought them home.  They had a nice time, although I asked Talia if she would rather be home or there and she said at home b/c she has her friends here.  I think they were a little bored there.  My grandmother took them to a very nice playground in the afternoon and also to the old age home around the corner where there is a VERY nice and VERY large aquarium for them to look at.  Nevertheless, I think for Talia, at least, it is more fun to be here.  The other thing was they were supposed to get together with my cousin and her daughter who they adore and at the last minute my cousin went to her parents’ house for Shabbat b/c she wasn’t feeling well.  I am sure if they had had Shelly to play with, the day would have been nicer.  But they did have a very nice time.  Ben had a case of a bad stomach towards the middle of the day and my grandmother had to deal with him running to the bathroom constantly but she said it wasn’t so bad, she just felt bad for him.  By the time we picked him up he was all better.

We borrowed a movie from a friend and watched a movie last night.  We were supposed to originally go out for our anniversary but we got home and I was too tired (probably from all that sleep) and we just decided to be lazy and stay home.  We’ll go out another time.  Eric came home with flowers for me when he went to get the video.  That was all I needed.  Let’s not forget that he bought be a beautiful necklace a couple of weeks ago in anticipation of our anniversary.  I remember how when we first got married I told him that for our 10 year anniversary I wanted us to go to Hawaii.  Yeah, so NOT HAPPENING!

Anyway, today we all overslept a little bit.  They were exhausted from their Shabbat and when the alarm clock went off and I realized that noone was up yet I just rolled over and went back to sleep.  When it went off again and Eric looked and saw it was way after 7, I told him to go back to sleep and we would just take the kids to school later.   In the end they wound up waking up shortly thereafter and Eric took them to school and let me sleep late.

We went shopping in the morning for a dining room table.  It’s been 10 years and we really need one.  We went to few stores to get an idea of what we like and then we went to  a place where they custom make them for you that was recommended to us by a friend. The guy there was great and we spent close to 2 hours there. Before we place the order I just have 2 more places that I want to check out now that we have it all drawn out just to price it out and make sure we are getting a good deal.  I am so excited to finally get a dining room table!

After we came home I got Ben from school and Talia came home shortly after.  We gave them lunch and then headed to Yerushalayim.  It was a little ridiculous that we’ve been here now for almost exactly 3 months (it seems longer) and we hadn’t been to the Kotel!  So we finally finally went.  We had a really nice time.  After we went to the Kotel we walked around the Old City a little and window shopped.  We stopped so I could feed Keren and relaxed a little.  It was getting late and we didn’t want the kids to fall asleep in the car without having had dinner.  So we stopped at Burgers Bar and had a really delicious dinner.  Then we went back to the Kotel so I could get the kids their red bracelets, got one for Keren too!

We hit traffic on the way home in Yerushalayim since it was rush hour by the time we decided to head back.  We got home around 6:30 and the kids were zonked.  I did some homework with Talia while Eric got Ben ready for bed.  I didn’t understand some of what she was supposed to do and she was getting more and more tired so I figured we would just leave it for tomorrow night when Rinat comes to help her with her Hebrew.  It is sad that I can’t figure out first grade homework.  Oh well.

After I got the big kids in I gave Keren her dinner.  I’ve been giving her mashed up bananas with some baby cereal.  The first time she ate it she discovered the spitting technique and it was VERY messy.  There was very little that actually got eaten that day.  I discovered that I can hold the spoon in her mouth and she likes to slurp it off and then she doesn’t spit it out at me.  So that’s what we did yesterday.  Tonight she was so hungry that I couldn’t get it in her mouth fast enough.  She would cry between spoons.  So she finished all of it tonight.  She still hasn’t mastered swallowing but we are getting there.

So Eric is on his way now to the airport again.  He’s going from tonight until Friday so it’s not such a bad trip this time. 

We took some nice pictures today in Yerushalayim.  Click on the link below to see them:

http://www.yorkphoto.com/share/p=276161226867136785/l=441017916/g=70636009/cobrandOid=1002/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

So before I begin about today, I feel I must first explain the title of the blog.  It’s regarding a conversation Eric and Talia had a couple of days ago that I fogot to write about.  Because we were in the hotel with my family, Talia was interested in knowing who married into the family and who was part of the family first.  So I explained about her cousins and who is brother and sister and who my grandparents’ children are, etc.  That night Talia asked Eric who she was closer to.  Eric didn’t understand and tried to ask her what she meant and she was getting very frustrated with him.   He explained that she was both of ours and without either of us there would be no Talia.  She didn’t get it and insisted that because she came from me, that she must be closer to me.  So Eric was trying to explain again that without the two of us she wouldn’t exist.  He told her that there would be a different child if I was married to someone else and we had a baby.  Still no dice.  Finally I got involved and yelled out to Talia that daddy’s seed goes into my egg and it makes a baby so she is a part of both of us.  Well, that seemed to do the trick.  So she said, “oh, so daddy puts a tube in mommy?”  I yelled out, “that’s right!!”  Luckily the conversation ended with her figuring out that that must be why he is in the hospital with me and gets his own bracelet when we have a baby!  Phew!!

So last night the mosquitos were in our room again and we ended up sleeping part of the night in our room and then splitting up and going to other rooms the rest of the night.  I can’t wait for it to get cold here so that they die.  I can’t figure out where the are coming from and they are so small and skinny that it’s nearly impossible to see them.  We can just hear them buzzing around in our ears whenever we turn off the lights.  It is so frustrating.

Today we wanted to do something fun for the kids but also something that we could only do in Israel.  My cousin Miriam used to give tours and she suggested going to Sataf.  So we went to Sataf.  It is a place to hike and see caves and stuff like that.  At one point there is a cave to crawl through that has water in it and you end up in a small pool of water.  The kids had a blast.  They kept going around and around.  I went through it one time with them but it was such a tight space that I had to crawl on my knees and use one hand to hold the flashlight and one to balance myself.  It was definitely an adventure. Glad I made it out with only one bump on my head.

After that we went to the mall for lunch.  It was really late and I think I might have dehydrated b/c I felt really lousy.  I got a yummy chicken sandwhich while Ben got pizza, Eric got Chinese food and Talia got McDonald’s.  Everyone enjoyed.

Next we went to visit Danielle and Asaf again.  We drove to Beth and Peter’s aptartment and I was feeling so lousy that I fell asleep in the car and Eric left me there.  I don’t even know how long I was asleep for.  Eventually he came to bring Keren to me since she had to eat!  Then she slept on me in the car a little and eventually I made it into the house to say hello.  It was late and we had to get going by that point and I was still feeling lousy. Unfortunately it took us a really long time to get out of Yerushalayim b/c of traffic and Keren was screaming in the car.  She finally stopped as we pulled into the yishuv!  The kids were exhausted and I made them some pasta and gave them baths and put them straight to sleep.

Now I have to go fold laundry and catch up on some of the shows that we’ve downloaded from the internet.  I really don’t know how people made aliyah before the tv shows were on the internet!

SO I had no time to blog on Friday.  It just got crazy and I decided that I would just wait until tonight instead of rushing through it and leaving stuff out.  I know how dedicated my readers are to my long and drawn out blogs! 

Friday, after I got the kids to school, I came home and cleaned and cleaned and cleaned.  Luckily, Keren slept a lot better on Thurs. night and when I came home on Friday morning she happily went into her bed for a nap and I was able to clean the house. 

As soon as the kids came home from school I fed them and dropped Talia off at a friend and went to get Eric at the airport.  Unfortunately, El Al’s website was off an hour and his flight was delayed so instead of getting there right on time for him to walk out, we were there an hour early and we had to wait for a while.  On top of this, i didn’t have any diapers left in my bag for Keren and was basically praying she didn’t make.

Anyway, Ben and I killed the time by buying ice cream and people watching.  There was someone there with her kids who bought a balloon, tied it to a really really long piece of dental floss like string and put a piece of tape on the end of it.  She was sending it up to the ceiling where every one’s balloons were and she was fishing for balloons.  It made for entertainment for us, as well as the other people who were waiting for their loved ones.  Really smart idea.  Ben wants to try it next time. 

Eventually Eric came out and we hightailed it out of there.  I had to get Talia and I felt bad that I left her at her friend’s house for so long and my cousin and his wife were supposed to come over to bring us a gift for Rosh Hashana.  So we came home and Eric unpacked and I threw the chicken in the oven.  My cousins came over and gave us a beautiful honey dish!  We gave them a tour of the house and they left to go to their friends in Modiin for Shabbat.

Ben learned how to say cross your arms in Hebrew in gan.  It’s funny, the words he comes up with that he learns in gan and he remembers.  Today he told me that he knows the Hebrew word Rimon!  Also, Talia didn’t come home for a while tonight and he said, ‘Eipho Talia?”  Talia came home from the candy store that she goes to on Friday straight from school with a slushie and she called it by its Hebrew name, barad.  I told her that she was speaking Hebrew.  She didn’t realize it.

Friday night was the first Shabbat meal where we ate at home since we moved.  It was so nice!  We ate after Eric came home from shul and the kids fell asleep on the couch (Ben) and on the floor (Talia).  It was nice not to have to carry them home for a change.  It rained last night.  It actually poured!  Very exciting.  The only problem is that our bikes and strollers are outside and we have to find something to do with them now.  We will probably buy a shed from Robin and put it in the back and use it to store our things this winter.

Keren was up again last night a lot.  Oh well.  She woke up at 7 and I fed her and then Talia woke up and the at 8 (!!) Ben woke up.  I played with the kids and them gave them breakfast.  Eric got up a little later and went to shul.  The kids played/fought a little and then went to shul and then I went shortly thereafter.  Still can’t get used to the fact that it’s over by 10:30.  I don’t get the appeal, quite frankly.  It makes it so much harder to get there for any davening.  So of course I missed all of shul.  We had made up to meet the couple that we were going to go to for lunch at the park behind the shul.  We didn’t know what they looked like and they didn’t know what we looked like but Talia is in class with their daughter so we let the girls find eachother so we could find them.

We had a very nice meal in their house.  They have a HUGE dog.  It’s either a sheep dog or it just looks like one but it was massive.  Ben was afraid but they put it in the back of the house and he was okay.  Also, they had cats that they had to put away b/c Eric is allergic.  Other than the animals, it really was a nice meal.  They are a very nice family.  While we were there it poured again.  It was one of those days where it was sunny and then pouring and then sunny again.  So we never got stuck in it.  The kids played outside for a while and they came in filthy.  They were full of mud.  I was angry at Talia b/c she was wearing a nice outfit and I feel like she needs to start taking care of her nice Shabbat clothing. 

Anyway, we came home and Eric and Keren napped and I watched the kids play/fight and then around 4:30 they want tot he park and I finished my book.  Now I need a new one before Rosh Hashana.   Ben came home a little while later and I fed him dinner and Talia didn’t show up until shabbat was almost over.  We told her that she has to come home earlier than that next time!  Eric got her a watch but he’s yet to finish unpacking and he is worried that he doesn’t remember packing it and it might be in his car in America.  I am hopeful it will show up in one of his suitcases.

We got a babysitter for tonight b/c we had a Bar Mitzvah tonight.  That’s right, we are hanging with the older crowd!  We have another 2 coming up!!  This couple lives accross the street from us and they are very nice.  She explained the whole Tipat Chalav institution when we first move in and told me where to go.  They have a little boy a little bit older than Keren is.  We’ve decided they’ll get married one day.  On the yishuv the kids tend to marry eachother.  So who knows, it might happen.  It was a havdallah and a melava malka.  It was very nice.  The ice cream and cheese cake were definitely highlights of the simcha.

Now we are home and I am zonked and I still have ulpan homework that I may or may not do.  The people who we ate at today didn’t have any AC and for some reason they had no breeze.  We were dripping wet when we left.  Keren is a llittle schvitzer and her hair was soaked aslo.  We left our AC on but when we came home we opened up all the windows and it was gorgeous.  So we need showers now.  So I am off. 

Oh, one thing that I forgot to mention last week is that when Eric was in Ny I called the guy to come and hang up all of our pictures and he came and did it.  So when Eric came home he was surprised to see the pictures all hung up.  The house looks like a home now.  It looks really nice.  It’s also nice to see the pictures up that we haven’t hung up since we moved out of Riverdale!

Well, Keren was up again last night.  I think she was up 3 times, actually!!!  At least I got to sleep early enough that when she woke up the first time at 12, it didn’t really bother be because I had already slept for a couple of hours and it felt like the middle of the night to me and not the beginning of the night.

Before ulpan I found the store that’s down the block from Talia’s school where she goes on Friday to buy herself a treat with her own money and I got myself a yummy iced coffee.  It’s more of a smoothie that’s a coffee flavor.  I brought it with me to ulpan.  I have to show it to Eric when he comes back.  Definitely the highlight of my morning.

Ulpan wasn’t so easy today with Keren.  Geri, the grandmother who loves Keren and hold her a lot of the time, didn’t show up again today!  So I had her all to myself and that proved to be a bit difficult at times.  I look forward to the upcoming weeks when Eric will be home and he’ll be able to take her off my hands for part of the time.

On my way to get Ben today I ran into my friend Robin.  She said, “are you writing about me in your blog?”  She had heard from my cousin and Eric’s grandmother that she is in the blog.  I said, “absolutely!”  It was funny.

After Ben finished school I picked him up and we went to the supermarket in Modiin.  Unfortunately, even though I’ve been there a least 5 times and even driven there once before on my own, I missed one of the turns and then couldn’t get back to where I needed to be and we were driving around for a long time and Keren was screaming in the car (as she loves to do) for most of it.    So that wasn’t fun.  During the time we were in the car I noticed that Ben hadn’t eaten his cucumbers.  I asked him why he didn’t eat them in school and he said that the teachers that spoke only Hebrew were there today and that he didn’t know how to open the bag (I use the cheap bags and tie knots in them) and he didn’t know how to ask her help   So every day we try to have a word of the day here and today’s word of the day was poteach (open) so that it won’t happen again.  I also told him that he should have just brought her the bag and she probably would have figured it out.  Well, I opened the bag for him and he didn’t even want them in the end.  Maybe the whole story was made up, who knows. 

Once I did get to the supermarket it was great b/c the supermarket there is like a big Stop & Shop.  It’s big and clean and open and totally worth of extra 12 mins or so that it takes to get there.  We bought tons of stuff and came home and started cooking for Shabbat. 

Talia came home shortly after.  She had swim today and said that it was great.  About 10 minutes after she came home the girl that I have coming to help her with her homework and speak to her and play games with her in Hebrew came over.  That was really great.  She played with her and they did homework together and Talia had a great time.  Ben even got in on the action as well.  Then I fed the 3 of them and they played some more and then she left.  She is a real sweetheart and even if this doesn’t help Talia’s Hebrew and I have to get someone else to tutor her (a grown up) I think that I’ll have her come as long as she wants to b/c it allows me the opportunity to get stuff done around the house on a Thursday afternoon!

Talia has become very good at jumping rope.  She has 2 jump ropes and she brings them to school now every day.  If she doesn’t learn anything this year at least she’ll have learned how to jump rope!  It’s the cutest thing.  I will take a video of her and post it as soon as we get high speed internet and I can actually do it.  She we were jumping rope for a while this evening until I finally dragged her inside and into the shower.

Got the kids into bed early again tonight and even Keren, after screaming for a while in bed, is fast asleep now, at least for the time being.

Thanks to my hubby for giving my blog a much needed face lift!!

So today I had no ulpan in the morning and thought it was going to be a little relaxing.  It wasn’t. 

This morning, after a sleepless night (Keren was up at 11:30, 2:30 and 5:30!!!) I decided to drive the kids to school instead of walk b/c we were late but also because I wanted to go shopping afterwards.  Keren is always awake when I take the kids and I take her with me even when Eric is home.  Of course he’s not home today and today she decided to sleep in.  I am sure she was exhausted from a crazy night last night.  So I woke her up,  dropped the kids off and ran to Modiin to pick up some fruits and vegetables. 

I came back and fed Keren and put her in for a nap and then started to clean up and cook since I am having my granmother, great aunt, their brother and wife over for lunch.  I also had to make something for dinner for my cousin and her daughter who are coming for dinner tonight.  She wanted me to come to her but I thought it would be easier for me for her to come here.  I don’t like getting home late with the kids and having to carry them up the stairs myself if they fall asleep in the car.  I would rather go out there on a week that Eric is home so he can have the house to himself while he works and when we come home he can carry the kids.

While I was cooking I got a call from Talia’s school that I mixed up the sandwhiches and Talia wound up with one of hers and one of Ben’s.  So I had to make Talia a new sandwhich since she doesn’t like Ben’s cream cheese and jelly and bring it over to her school.  I told her to eat the other sandwhich I made her and then later on in the day I would bring her a new one.  I waited for Keren to wake up and went over there to drop it off and then came home and cooked some more. 

After I picked Ben up from school he had some lunch and we played a couple of games and then my grandmother, grandfather (quite the surprise) and great aunt came with my great uncle and aunt who are visiting from Milwakee who I never see except at Simchas.  It was very nice, except for the part where my grandmother insisted on showing the the entire house and it’s kind of a mess upstairs.  They brought little toys for the kids and the kids had a great time, especially because my grandfather came also and he never comes over when my grandmother comes.  Ben was at his side practically the whole time and my grandfather was in great spirits.

My cousin came over as they were leaving so they shmoozed a little bit and then they all left and it was round two.  The kids played  a little bit and then we had some yummy dinner.  Somthing finally turned out right that I made.   So we ate and then put the kids in the bath (pictures to follow when I can upload them) and then I tucked the kids in and she helped me clean up and then she left.

It was a very busy day today but it was a lot of fun.  I am looking forward to a calmer day tomorrow and looking forward to ulpan again.  I better go do my homework!  Hopefully we all sleep tonight.

Rushed to ulpan today after I dropped the kids off at school.  They were so excited that I was also going to school that noone cried today!  hooray!! 

Ulpan was totally fun.  I loved it.  Hard to concentrate for so long in another language and talking is like breaking my teeth but I learned a lot and I think it’s going to be really great for me.  It was also fun to be in a school environment again.  I sit next to a girl who just got married and moved here from France.  She only speaks mostly French and some English.  I look at her notebook and she is writing in French!  Guess I won’t be able to cheat off of her work.  Ha!  Keren was pretty good.  When she got kvetchy I just nursed her.  Another woman in the class was very excited to hold her and she held her for a bit too and that helped.  Next week I’ll have Eric home so he can watch her while I’m there and just bring her to me to nurse.  Luckily ulpan is right around the corner.  I guess everything is kind of close when you are on a yishuv.

I thought that Talia had school until 3:15 but i guess I was wrong b/c she walked in the door at 2:40.  I assume that she didn’t just leave early and that everyone came home at that time.  I’ll have to find out.

Did a little more unpacking and organizing today but obviously not as much as I’ve been able to do the past couple days when I’ve had my mornings free.  I had to do it with the kids home and they like to unpack and play with the things that I am unpacking and then I wind up with a mess and it doesn’t work.  So I gave up after a couple of boxes and now the place is looking kind of messy again.  Oh well.

The kids were really tired tonight and I got them into bed nice and early.  Ben, at one point, was crying because I set up the mobile on Keren’s crib and he said that he wanted a mobile also so he could fall asleep to music too and he started to cry!!  I told him I would find something that played music too.  Talia was just grouchy all afternoon and she needed to go to sleep early too.

Not much else to report on…  kind of a slow day.  Talia has her swim chug tomorrow.  That should be nice for her.

Keren didn’t do much sleeping last night.  I don’t know what that was all about.  I am zonked.   I hope tonight is better.

Business as usual today.  We woke up and got ready for school.  Talia cried again when I left her at school and Ben happily went.  Hopefully one of these days they’ll both be happy to go.  At least tomorrow is a short day so hopefully she won’t cry!

After I dropped off the kids Keren and I came home to pick up the car and head out to the tipat chalav.  When we got home the guy from Bezeq pulled up and was ready to install our phones.  I was psyched and let him in.  After about 10-15 minutes he told me he couldn’t do it b/c we needed a “bikoret”  I ran to write that word down b/c I figured that Eric was going to ask why the guy couldn’t put the line in and I wanted to have some kind of answer for him other than saying that I had no clue what the guy was saying in Hebrew.  well, i still don’t know what a bikoret is but I know that we don’t have one and we need one and until we get one, we won’t have any phone service in the house.  Very annoying.

Next Keren and I hopped in the car and went to the tipat chalav.  I found it with no problem but it was closed.  I guess my phone conversation that I had yesterday with the woman on the phone didn’t go as well as I thought I had.  I must have misunderstood her.  Turns out they are closed every Thursday.  I now have to wait until Monday to take Keren because Sunday OUR LIFT IS COMING!!! 

Yes, you heard right, our lift is coming, they tell you to have 2 people in the house to accept it, and my husband has flown the coop and is partying it up in NY.  Okay, so he’s there for work but I am all alone here and the lift is coming, the lift is coming!!

Anyway, to get back on track, after a morning of cleaning the house again to get it ready for all the stuff that will soon take over the place, I picked Ben up from school.  He had a great day and made a picture of a doobie – a bear.  He also told me that he learned the hebrew word for “quiet”.  He is rocking this language, if I do say so myself!  We hung out the rest of the day together b/c Talia went straight from school to a friend’s house.  I let Ben spill a bucket of water on the floor of the room that will be mine and we squeegeed it into the drain in the bathroom!!  FUN. FUN.

When we picked Talia up she was in good spirits.  I asked her how her day in school was and she replied “good.”  So that made me happy.  She said they had the math teacher almost the entire day.  She later told me that she is forgetting how to count in English b/c they counted in Hebrew all day long today.  HA! She wishes, maybe.  I asked her if she’s going to cry tomorrow when I drop her off and she said she probably will!  I asked her why she will cry if she had a good day today.  I can’t remember her response, though.  We’ll see.  I think by the end of next week she’ll be okay.

We were invited to the Spiegelmans for dinner tonight.  They ordered in pizza.  It was nice to be in a house full of people and furniture again!  Soon we’ll feel really at home here when we have our furniture.  When we get cable service and we have TV my kids won’t want to run out on so many playdates all the time   I think they want to leave so much b/c we have nothing to do here.  I did bring a lot of toys as a friend of mine suggested, but they are tired of those toys and keep asking about their other stuff.  It’s been a long wait.  Unfortunately, because our stuff was sitting at the docks for so long, we have to pay storage fees for it.   It could be worse, our stuff could be in Cypress.  I just found out that a couple who was on our flight had their stuff sent from Israel back to Cypress b/c of the slow down at the docks.  It’s a real mess.  I feel so bad for them.

Well, I seem to have gone off on a tangent so I am going to end this here. I took the cutest video of Keren rolling over!  I can’t seem to upload it though with this connection.  If I can, I am going to take the camera to my grandparents’ house this shabbos and do it before shabbos starts. I’ll add it to the next blog.  They have a better connection there than the wireless that we are “borrowing” here.

SO I didn’t get a chance to post yesterday because we came home late.  So here it goes:

Yesterday Eric woke me up looking for my brand new teudat zehut.  He had to go to Yerushalayim to fill out some paperwork so they would release the lift.  He couldn’t find it anywhere and he wanted to know where it was.  I told him it was in my bag but it wasn’t.  It also wasn’t in the car, the stroller, the folder he’s been carrying around or at the bank, which is where I last had it!!  Luckily, I called Savta and she remembered Eric asking me for it when we were at her apt. yesterday.  It turns out it was next to her computer and Eric forgot it there!  HA!!  Just as he was shooting me the evil eye, we found out he never gave it back to me.

So while Eric went first to Petach Tikvah and then all the way to Yerushalayim, we went to get Talia her books and her T-shirts and her school supplies.  We walked to the “book store” on the yishuv and luckily bumped into a friend of mine that I know from Camp Moshava and her daughter.  She is the woman who stars in the Baal Gan vieo that the yisuv made.  Anway, she took the list from me, gave it to the woman, told the woman I would be back to pick them up tomorrow and whisked me and the kids off in her car to the T-shirt place and to school supplies store. 

Let me explain to you, Talia has to wear these t-shirts to school with a little emblem on the corner and she can wear any skirt that she wants to.  I think that most of the skirts that she has are too short for school but luckily I have a bunch of longer ones coming on the lift so she’ll be okay.  Anyway, we walk into the store (called Stoochies) and there are wall to wall Israelis pushing and shoving.  Well, maybe not pushing and shoving but there is a lot going on.  Had I gone myself, I am sure I would have turned around and left.  So we decided to make a list of what we needed, what color shirts the girls wanted and leave it there but by the time we did all that, the line was gone and after stopping off for a bite of pizza accross the street, the shirts were ready.

Next we went to another store to get her supplies.  That only took about 15 minutes.  I actually handled that myself.  I spoke Hebrish to the girl working there and she helped me find what we needed.   We walked in just before Eric and he was impressed by what we got done.  Frankly, so was I.

I took the kids to ices in the afternoon after the makolet opened back up.  It is hard to get used to the fact that things here are closed mid day.  i keep wanting to go out and Channah keeps telling me that the place that I want to go is closed as I am halfway out the door.  After they picked their ices I took them to the new house.  I was worried b/c the second floor has a master bedroom and two other bedrooms.  I wanted to put Keren in one and Ben in the other and then put Talia upstairs on the third floor which has a nice small room for her with a skylight and then a very big room that we’ll use as the den/playroom.  I thought that she would never agree to it.  She took a look at the skylight and saw that she could have her own bathroom next door to her room and she grabbed it!!  I only hope that she won’t be aftraid up there at night.   The truth of the matter is that that’s where I’ll probably be hanging out when i am not in the kitchen or my bedroom befroe i go to sleep so she’ll have the company next door.  So the kids seemed to like the house.

In the evening we went to a much anticipated Bar Mitzvah of Eric’s cousin.  It was in a place called Eretz Bereishit.  It was basically on a mountain overlooking Jordan or Jerico, I think the latter and they had beautiful tables set up in the middle of nowhere with pottery for the kids and camel rides and music and a bedeoiun tent (don’t know how to spell that) and it was just an amazing atmosphere.  I took some pictures.  Click on the link to see them:  http://www.yorkphoto.com/share/p=869271219865657412/l=418862454/g=70636009/cobrandOid=1002/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

We got home really late, it was far away, and the kids got up late again this morning.

Now for today:

Today was pretty uneventful.  We went to misrad haclita today to find out about some of our benefits that we have as new olim.  The kids were pretty bored.  Next we went for pizza (I had schwarma) and did some other errands.  Of course, we went to a store that was reccommended to us to get Ben his kippot and tzizit and they were closed!!  I am never going to learn.

In the evening we had a BBQ here.  Channah invited some friends from camp.  It was nice but I was tense b/c we had to go to Talia’s school tonight for orientation and I was nervous that I wouldn’t get the kids in to sleep on time.  Of course, I didn’t get them to sleep.  I showered them and left them here to watch a movie while we were out and we took Keren.

The orientation was all in Hebrew, of course.  I understood maybe 5% of it.  Luckily I sat next to Eric on one side of me and an Israeli on the other side of me who helped me understand.  By the end my head was killing me and I was ready to go!!  The fact that the air in the room wasn’t working didn’t help matters either.  SO hopefully Talia will have what she needs for school b/c I really didn’t understand much.  Now I know how she’s going to feel on her first day!!  Glad it’s only until 11:45!!

Came home and put the kids to sleep and now Keren won’t go to sleep and I am zonked.  Tomorrow we have another full day so I’ll end this here and see if I can get her to sleep.

In a really fast 6 hours, everything we own (minus the stuff I bought last night at Ikea) is now boxed up and ready to be loaded. As I watched them, I though how I could never pack my own stuff again now that I see how easy it is to have someone else do it. Then he told me that if I’m happy with their work I should tip them (Duh!). So I asked how much and he told me $8/hr per man – Oh and their day starts 2 hours before they get to me!!

I literally asked him if I’m paying their salary or if they get paid by the moving company. I have no problem tipping, but I was shocked that that’s how much he gets. So I checked with the moving company and they said $6. So I guess he wasn’t pulling my chain too much.

I went to Ikea last night and spent $1,000 on closets and wardrobe units since closets don’t exist in Israel – kind o like our house pre-renovation. The guy in Ikea said I have 90 days to return the items. I asked him at any Ikea store and he said yes. I wanted to see how far I can take it. I said in another country and he said like Canada, sure! Let’s go farther. He actually said I can take it to any Ikea in the world and they’ll take it. Just bring the receipt. Hmm. That sounds like a nice indirect way to arbitrage currency exchange. Buy here and return in Israel. Due to the weak dollar, it’s around 30% more in shekels in Israel.

Gotta go get ready for the movers and buy some last minute things. Stay tuned.