So today was my day off.  I got the kids to school and then did some errands with Keren.  Came home and cleaned up the house a little.  Made a few phone calls that I needed to make.  One of them was to Sassy, my soon to be driving instructor.  He finally swung by to take my green form and he looked at it and said that I am missing something on it and I need to go to one of the offices to get it done.  Stinks!!  So that’s what I’ll be doing next Sunday on my day off.

A friend from ulpan, the one who has adopted Keren as her grand daughter came by and we schmoozed for a bit.  So that was nice.

I got ready for the brit and then at 1:30 I ran to get Ben and caught up with Talia on the way home from school.  Since they both get out at the same time on Sunday, either I have to pick Ben up with the car or Talia has to wait for me b/c she beats me home from school.  If I take the car, I can pick her up while she’s walking home.  So I found her in the middle of walking home and she jumped in the car and I got the kids ready to go to Avi and Miriam’s child’s brit.

The brit was in Petach Tikvah in a a hall called Opera.  They spell it in Hebrew, of course, and I had no clue what it said.  The hardest words to read here are the ones that they write phonetically from hebrew.  Anyway, I used the GPS to get there and it was great.  Got me right there in about half an hour.  It was really nice.  They had it in a big room with a bar and with kind of a cocktail hour.   After the cocktail hour they brought out the baby and everyone stood up and they did the brit.  They named him Yoav as his first name b/c they liked it and Shmuel as his middle name after Avi’s grandfather.  There was a lot of crying.  My uncle who announced the name couldn’t get it out b/c he was so hysterical.  My aunt, whose father he is named after, was beyond hysterical.  My cousin was hysterical b/c her mother was hysterical and so on.  The only one who didn’t cry from the family (other than myself) was the mother of the baby!!  That was funny.  Usually the mother does most of the crying.  Anyway, after that they served a first course (yummy liver or fish) and then the main!!  It was like a wedding!  They had about 200 people there.  This was unlike any bris in America that I had ever gone to.

We stayed until close to 6 (it was called for 2) and got home around 7-ish.  We hit a lot of rush hour traffic.  the kids were great there and great in the car.  I don’t think it was SO much fun for them but they had a nice time seeing the family and I got to see a lot of my family that I don’t normally see.  My cousin Deenie was there with most of her kids and my other cousin Dani was there by himself.  It was nice.  Unfortunately, after 3 pictures the batteries in my camera died!!  When I went to replace them, the ones that I had were also dead.  So I don’t have any pictures, just 2 or 3.  They hire a photographer when they do these huge things so there will be pictures, but none that I can order or keep. 

The kids took a million balloons home.  I smushed them all into our tiny red car and they all made it (too bad). 

Oh, good news on the vacuum front.  It works!!  I don’t know how, it just works.  I said i was hoping that it would all of a sudden work after a little rest and it does.  I’ll see if it breaks again.  if it does i’ll have to take it in.

So we had no time to do homework tonight so I am going to have to try to write a note to Talia’s teacher telling her we were at a brit and had no time for homework.  I am fairly confident that I’ll be able to write an intelligent note that conveys that message.

Anyway, Keren was so cute, she fell asleep in my arms just now while she was playing with my hair.  She never does things like that.  I was sitting on the couch watching something on my computer and she was playing with my hair and dozing off.  I plopped her in bed and now I am going to make the kids their sandwiches for tomorrow and get into bed myself.  Back to ulpan tomorrow!!