By the spirit of Spring

The time has come, we can wait no longer

It’s the Spring,

NY in its finest,

we are ready and able

for the smells, the sales, the streets, the attitude

the bacon, the bagel, the new hype in the neighborhood

so we’re coming

and you’d better not be out

because we miss’ya

we want to see’ya

isn’t that what friendship is all about?

Tomatoes and Falafel

The holidays are finally over (TG) and life, as we know it, is back to normal. Of course, 'normal' is subjective, and for us it's a new reality, but at least it feels like we are moving in the right direction now, rather than constantly immerse in family dinners.

I have to say though, as far as our story of 'moving (to/from) home' goes, things are great. Eli wakes up by himself in the morning, all excited and usually leaves for the bus stop 20 minutes before it arrives so he can meet his buddies. Friends pop up at our door (or our kitchen, as the door is usually open for Brooklyn to go in and out) - a new definition to the concept of 'playdate'. Omree had a lovely 5-yr birthday party at the pool which is his favorite spot this summer since he learned to swim.

There are still difficulties, constant criticism (32 kids on one teacher..). hesitation (shall I trust the hair stylist for choosing the right color for my hair?), frustration (I will never find the right hair colorist!) but at the end of the day - for now, we are staying.

Omree came down with a stomach bug the other day, so I picked him up from kindergarten. On our way home we heard on the radio that the price of tomatoes exceeded the price of a falafel sandwich(!) So we stopped at the local nursery and got some tomato plants to grow in our yard. My grandmother was known for her green thumb and I really hope she passed it on to me. Slowly, but surely, we are adapting to the country lifestyle., who would have thought!

Meet Brooklyn

We've had Brook for a month now and it already seems like she's been with us forever.

She is 2.5 months old, and she is crazy about the kids no matter how badly they treat her. When they are off to school, she doesn't stop wining.

As Eli said when we brought her home for the first time - now we are a family of 5.

Busy Ants

as soon as we signed our new lease, we started running around getting all the stuff we needed - in Israel, you move with your own appliances so we had to purchase refrigerator, washer, oven etc. - everything had to be delivered and installed in time. Also, there were a few things to do before we moved: cleaning the yard, treating the house against bugs, ants and other insects, phone and internet setup, electricity and more.

So, how did it go? well, it really didn't.

It is 5 days into our new home. Most of our appliances are here, (my favorite is the Red KitchenAid mixer, today we made yummy oatmeal raisin cookies).

The gas technician arrived in the morning (the instructions are not to touch the oven in its package until the technician arrives and connects the stove to the gas supply), I must say- he was punctual, cheerful and ready to work. While he was unpacking my new stainless steel oven, he managed to sell us 250 shekels worth of equipment that was going to make our lives easier. I can't tell you exactly how because I was dealing on the phone with the sales person who provided the wrong model, but when I came back to the kitchen, the guy was already packing up his cellphone into its holster. When I asked why he was leaving when the stove was not yet connected, he said: "you guys should be able to continue from here by yourself. Connecting to the gas is straight forward."

ugh!

We love our new home. It is spacious - well, at least until our furniture arrives. The rumor is it is somewhere between Greece and Cyprus. We have a big yard, the beach and pool are each 5 minutes away and on Thursdays - which is tonight- it's movies on the lawn. we are so going.

At night, we sleep on our mattresses. This is the time when the kids start to miss their friends back in NY. They want to go back, they don't really like it here and it's mostly because they are scared going to the bathroom at night. You probably thinking 'monsters?' actually, it's ANTS and they are busy working all night.

Home Sweet Home

Shalom,

It is the end of our third week in the Milk and Honey and the great news is that our searches for dream home finally bore fruit. Today we signed our lease on a new house (well 'new' is not exactly a good word to describe this property) and we are extremely excited about moving-in in the beginning of August.

As Roni said, this house has lots of character which is something we lack :-)

our new home is located in Bitan Aharon (wikipedia) which is about 30 km north of TLV (approx 18 mi) . Although BA lists only 30 families, it is adjacent to Kfar Vitkin (wikipedia) which is the center for social life (school, grocery etc.). as you walk around in Kfar Vitkin, occasionally you see a tractor carrying hey, cows lying in the shed and horses being prepared for a ride. in short - heaven on earth!

As for the kids, they are adjusting but are still very emotional about their friends in NY. They constantly change their mind about which place they like better. Omree, finally said yesterday that he could not stay here because he did not like the "squashed chickpea with pita", and

apparently this was what everyone ate in Israel.

The lack of routine and structure confuses them. Eli asked tonight for a "family meeting" in order to discuss our" future plans".

We visited Jerusalem on Saturday. There was some old familiarity in walking the narrow streets of the old city, but at the same time it reminded me of Canal St.where you can buy anything including a Palestinian flag and a Jewish praying shawl ('talith') sitting peaceful one next to the other. no strings attached.

so I have been wanting to share our experience with our friends, on both sides of the ocean, and of course the easiest channel would be to send updates on facebook. Unfortunately, in an act of provocation I recently deleted my facebook - perfect!

so I'm trying this blog and we'll see how it goes. thanks for reading this far.

This picture was taken at Brooklyn Label just before we left to the airport. call it our 'last supper'.

Hello World!

This is my first blogging so I'm pretty excited. And that's all for now.