Where’s the salt?

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?!?!