And Now the Tiny Terror

Yitzchak, at not quite a year and a half, is proving to require a lot of supervision. Like Odeliya he doesn't let his young age stop him from climbing to heights thought impossible for a toddler. He loves climbing onto the dining room table. The only thing better is throwing food down to the neighbor's dog when he comes in to forage/beg for food. Other than that, kicking bowls and making a mess help him pass the time. Today he spilled a little of his drink. He then, intentionally and gratuitously, spilled the rest of the cup onto the table. I have no explanation for it.

Don't get me wrong. He is very sweet too. He plays peekaboo comes looking for us. When I come home from work I always get an, "Abba!" with a running hug. I usually can't put him down afterwards. He loves Odeliya and will go looking for "La la." On occasion he also plays with "Nani." He also talks on the phone and says "Hi" to the computer.

I am less favored. Back during the harvest I was coming home from work one morning. As I walked down the block towards the house at 7:15 am (the kids were already up and playing outside) I saw a dog run past me in the other direction. Yitzchak came trotting after him. Seeing me he said, "Abba! Woof woof!" and continued after the dog as if he had seen me all morning.

On our Chanuka trip to Yerushalaim we left the other two kids with friends and took him to get food. While we were waiting for the pizza to be ready Yitzchak was climbing on the counter trying to get past the glass sneeze-blocker. He would have made it if I hadn't pulled him away. He learned a new word that trip, "pizza." The whole way back to the group he was whining, "Pizza. Pizza" until he saw some cats on top of a dumpster. It went like this, "Pizza, pizza. Meow. Meow..." His love of animals overrode his desire for pizza.

On this same trip we spent Shabbat with Ayelet's siblings here in Israel. Netanel and Odeliya are in an age group by themselves. Tzachi is the oldest of three boys in the same "generation" for cousins. As my brother-in-law put it, he was a maniac that Shabbat. I mean climbing, spilling, stepping off the chair... He was insane. I think he scared the other parents about what their kids will be like soon.

All in all he is extremely sweet and very snuggly when he's calm. But when he's not clam he can be quite challenging, er, I mean fun.

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In other Chanuka news, Netanel got a lego helicopter kit that he built without the instructions. He's got enough imagination all by himself. Also, check Youtube and FaceBook for videos from Odeliya's Chanuka party and other cuteness.

Enjoy.

Odeliya, Our Tiny dancer

We've caught up with Netanel. Now it's Odeliya's turn. We try hard not to treat her like a middle child, even though she is one. She deserves to not be ignored.

Lately I've been trying to drill the English letters with her. SHe's got some of them down pat. For example, "O for Odeliya!"

Shabbat morning aA few weeks ago Odeliya ran into a wall at the corner (the convex kind where there a point). She gave herself a nice gash. We walked around Katzrin. Two nurses at the shul told us stitched were unnecessary, but maybe some glue would be a good idea. We were in touch with 3 doctors, none of which would treat her on Shabbat. The MDA Ambulance crew said we should take her to the hospital to get checked out. They did not really offer to take us. The non-religious paramedic told us that he learned in the Shulchan Aruch that if a girl sustains an injury like this we are permitted to break Shabbat to treat her for aesthetic reasons. This is not permitted for a boy.

A cat took up residence on our porch for a few weeks. She was tame enough and didn't really bother us (she seemed to have come from a home) In fact, she helped us by entertaining the kids. The only condition was that she was not allowed inside. The kids learned to close the screen door and help trap her and take her out when she did manage to get in. They named her "Friendy." One day a small dog was also on the porch and Odeliya was playing with them. They both tried to get inside. Odeliya very sweetly told them they were not allowed. She referred to them as "Friendush" and "Dogush" which is an Israeli term of endearment.

Odeliya continues to be a dancing enthusiast. SHe gets to dance in gan almost every day. During the morning circle time (mifgash) she gets to dance in the middle of the circle and she loves it.

And now another example of Odeliya's amazing imagination:

The other day, while eating breakfast Odeliya suddenly remarked, "Oh no! My baby in my belly is getting all dirty with cereal!" I had just finished davening, was wrapping up my t'fillin, and had several ways to approach this comment. "Don't worry. Isn't your baby eating the cereal?" I asked. "Right," she answered, "My baby is eating it in her bowl." So I acknowledged that Odeliya has a baby in her belly. I didn't realize it already knew how to eat from a bowl.

Recentl my little girl had an actual telephone conversation with my mother. I mena, they actually spoke for a while. When did she get big enough for that?

And yet...

She is still afraid of monsters. Bed time needs to be done with the lights on. When Odeliya wakes up inthe middle of the night she will not let me calm her down and leave. Entire evenings of productivity have been killed by these damned monsters. Odeliya even knows that there are no monsters, and that even if there were they wouldn't be able to hurt her. Hopefully soon she will sleep through the night every night.

Which brings us to toilet training. It's been a long process. Lately we've made a lot of progress and I will not go into details for fear of jinxing it. Really I don't want to embarrass her when she grows up and reads this. Really really I am lazy and wat to end this post.

Next time, Yitzchak, our big little shovav.

Trading Spaces Has Nothing on the Golan Heights Winery

Tuesday and Wednesday of this week were a גיבוש or bonding for the winery. The first day was fun/thought-provoking. Wednesday was filled with special projects. The majority of the employees and managers, along with the Galil Mountain winery, went to an absorption center in Safed. Tzfat has 3 of them and this one is for new immigrants from Ethiopia. They come from desert and openess and spend up to 2 years here. It is a building surrounded by other buildings. THey need to learn a new language and a new culture, starting from indoor plumbing and electricity.

The plan was to convert the empty lot in front of the building into a mini-park. Over the course of 1 day (with a lot of advance prep and a little advance work) we accomplished our mission. We built two traditional huts, some sitting areas, picnic benches, a tabun (fire pit for making bread) and planted a garden. The thought was to give them some greenery and help make their new, urban surroundings a little more familiar.

Our CEO remarked that towards the end a little girl came home from school and asked if all of this (over 100 people working, lots of noise, lots mess). When Anat answered yes the girl's answer was a simple, "תודה רבה".

It was a meaningful way to spend the day. We made a difference that will hopefully ease their transition and inspire them to get involved with the park and maintain it.

Random Thought

I have wondered if hotels in Israel have a Tanach in every room, similar to the Gideon Bible in hotel rooms in the U.S. Ayelet pointed out that Jews, unlike the Gideons, don't proselytize or evangelize.

So maybe hotel rooms here in Israel have a Tanya or Breslov publications instead...

Catching Up With Netanel

With the end of the grape harvest I've started spending more time with Netanel. Not enough, but I'm trying. Now that our schedule's are more regular I am trying to give him more attention. We still need to go bike riding. He needs to learn how to ride without training wheels.

We went to the PTA meeting for Netanel's school. Now we have a good sense of what he does. First of all, last week I brought him to the stop for his bus ride to school. He chose the earlier bus. It's closer to home and sometimes has Dudu as the driver. Dudu puts on movies for the ride. Anyway, seeing him climb onto the bus all by himself and sit down nicely is very strange. He's only 6. When did he get big enough to do that?

Netanel is not in the usual school in Katzrin. We put him into a brand new school that is much more open. We feel that it is better given his inability to sit for long periods. The children learned all the letter in 2 ways: movement - they can make the letters with their bodies (YMCA style) and drawing - they copy their teachers drawing. Here they draw a picture and then find the letter inside. Of course it is all thematically related.

When he was younger Netanel's drawings were mostly scribbles (קשקושים). But hey had meaning. He could explain what was happening in the story, and the same scribbles meant the same thing each time we examined that picture. Ayelet was recently recounting this to someone while Netanel was drawing. "Mommy," he said, "I never did kishkushim." He always knew what he was drawing. Now he just has the motor skills to draw it.

Also, at home Netanel makes a lot of paper airplanes. They have gotten more complicated, involving scissors. He also was cutting a cardboard sword. He was cutting freehand and did a great job. When one sword was lopsided he immediately changed it to a candle for Chanuka.

In seeing Netanel's many many drawings and cuttings I am reminded of his nursery teacher. She was very worried about him. Netanel was clearly very smart and very ADHD. In addition, he showed signs sensory processing difficulties. At the teacher's insistence we had him evaluated. The results confirmed her suspicions. Three years later he is doing just fine. His scribbles are pictures and he can cut out shapes without following a line. If only Morah Lisa could see him now.

For more recent tidbits about Netanel's amazing personality see Ayelet's blog here: http://milkandhoneymomma.blogspot.com/. Scroll a bit.

New Bracha - Cute Netanelism

Netanel is at the age where Shabbat get annoying since there are things we cannot do, like watch movies or ride bikes. He's learned the tirck of Baruch HaMavdil and will say it even on Friday night. He says"ברוך המבדיל בין קדש לאכול" which is pretty close.

Aliya Support from the Torah

Hi all,

This was really meant to go out the week of Parshat Lech Lecha. In the beginning of the Parsha Hashem speaks to Avraham and tells him to get up and go. Hashem tells Avraham to leave his birthplace, his family, his comfort zone. What's more, the order to leave is open-ended; Hashem doesn't give Avraham a destination, just to go to the land Hashem will show him...

And Avraham went. He packed up his household and left. He didn't look back.

I think all Olim and all potential olim can take strength from this. Everyone with a dream of living in Israel can take chizuk from Avraham Avinu that we CAN leave it all behind. We CAN follow Hashem through the unknown and make it to the Promised Land.

And if anyone needs more chizuk they can get in touch with me.

Some Kiddie Vinaigrettes and a Realization

Shana tova to all. With the chagim behind us we can resume normal life. Almost. The בציר is still going on. We had a break over Rosh HaShana - Yom Kippur. During Chol HaMoed the grapes started coming in again full swing. We will probably wrap up the harvest in another 2-3 weeks. I am working nights this week, but I missed the past two nights to help Ayelet. She got sick on Friday and has spent much time in bed. Baruch Hashem she is on the mend now and i should be able to return to work tonight.

Netanel is getting back into his routine of getting up for school. Odeliya is doing better at gan. She won't let us leave until they go out to the yard. But now we can barely say good-bye because she's off playing. Yitzchak is still adjusting to playing without us. At shul he runs around after the other kids and runs away from me. But at playgroup he cries.

We were at a brit yesterday in our shul. At one point the kids were climbing on the super-structure of the miklat (shelter) stairs. It is basically a big ramp with a platform on top. Inside are the stairs down to the shelter. My little 14 month old managed to climb up to the top and then slide down safely.

There is another new family here in Katzrin. Netanel loves playing with their kids and has learned about Star Wars. He is obsessed. I put on the soundtrack of A New Hope. Odeliya got down from her chair and started dancing.

We got the Aliya Revolution album from Yishai Fleisher and Kuma (http://kumah.org/album/) and are now listening to it all the time. It's great chizuk.

Now for the Realization:

Israel goes to great lengths to avoid killing "innocent" palestinians. We do this at great risk to our soldiers and civilians (see this example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuCzHQB1sks). We often wonder why we do this. The rules of war we learn in the Torah are not as "humane." Once an enemy in our land refuses our peace offers we are insructed to wipe them out. I recently heard stories of German brutality during the Holocaust. The senseless killing and the pleasure the Nazis took in doing it. Maybe we are so careful now because of what happened then. We are so determined to be different than our enemies that we will not come close to pointless killing. It is a tough decision, but so is killing children being used as human shields. I hope that in the merit of our morality we will receive peace and tranquility from Hashem. An end to the fighting, an end to the tough decisions of whom to kill or not kill. May this be the year of our redemption.

Shavua Tov,

Yoram

New Year's Resolution: To Blog More?

Nah. Who am I kidding? My resolution for this year is to stop being lazy.

Not that I'm really lazy. I just took two sick days from work int he middle of the busy season because I was too sick to think from pushing myself too hard. But are some things I need to really make myself do. Some of them are "work" related, like calling in the warranty for from broken stuff. But more importantly is to not be lazy with the kids. Too often I come home from work too tired to play with the kids. As Murphy would have it, the days that I have energy they are not in the mood to go out and play. Two things need to change: 1. When they want to play I need to push myself to do something with them, even if it's not exactly what they want, and 2. I need to force them to have fun when they are not in the mood. The few times I made them go out and play it proved to be a success. I need to remember that they are just kids and I know better.

Netanel started first grade yesterday. He is going to a new school. It is religious and more Montessori oriented. Hopefully it will be what he needs. It involves a bus ride. I have a similar ride to school when I was in first grade, and even younger. But this is new for him. So fay things are going well. B'Ezrat Hashem this will continue. We'll see how Netanel and the school develop.

Odeliya moved from a private day care with 6 kids to a public gan with 24. It is a huge jump. The first two days have been tough for her. We'll see how she adjusts. The gananot are amazing, so she should do just fine really soon, but only time will tell.

Yitzchak will also be started daycare. He will be by a neighbor with 5 other babies for 5 mornings a week. This will give Ayelet time to think, relax, work, etc. This will also make teaching Yitzchak English more challenging.

Today, Odeliya was playing. Being home sick I had an opportunity to watch her. I sent her to the bathroom to wash her hands and I quickly heard her making scared noises. I went to her and she said that something was scaring her. We "discovered" a baby lion in the toilet. Anyway, after washing her hands, Odeliya and the baby lion became friends. With a little guidance from me the Mommy lion stopped scaring Odeliya and was invited in for coffee. Everything went well until a scary monster abba lion came and ate the baby lion. Odeliya was seriously sad about this. Eventually, with no interaction from me, the baby lion proved to be alright and the monster lion was sent away. Then Odeliya told me she didn't want to play that game anymore and we did something else.

With an imagination like that Odeliya will never, ever be bored. Wow!

We've been reminding ourselves to encourage the kids' imaginations instead of simply answering their questions. It's tough. Netanel has great questions, and I want to give him an honest answer. But sometimes it's best to let him mull over the possibilities before we discuss the real answer. He is getting much better at reading, which means that he will be able to unleash his imagination on his own to a much further degree by reading more. But Netanel also tends to lock onto the first reality he is given as the ultimate truth, which means that he may actually believe everything he reads. So his reading will provide us with new challenges as well.

Okay, it's late and I need to push myself a little further to get in some more client work and do some cleaning before I go to sleep. I leave you with a promise to try to blog more and send pictures and videos of the cute little monsters.

Shabbat Shalom and Shana Tova,

Yoram

Barush Hashem A Change in the Wind

First of all, Tzachi is walking. Video proof of our newest monkey is availabla on FaceBook and Youtube. More is coming.. He can practically fly up the stairs. He loves flipping on the bed and is working on going down stairs backwards. He has figured outhow to use cushions on the floor to get up onto the couch. I guess he feels the need to keep up with his brother and sister.

Now on to the point of this post, Since we moved to Katzerin we have been working to makie things work. My jobhunt was frustrating, with few opportunities presenting themselves and most of those falling through.

Ayelet has also been looking for work she can do while still being a mommy. More about her on her blog, http://www.milkandhoneymomma.blogspot.com.

Ayelet posted to the community lists about an English chug (club). She was trying a new formatg where parents can also stay and would be fitting for a broad age-range. On the Shabbat before the open session many people came to Ayelet to express interest. The Tuesday, the day before the open session, Ayelet got sick and spent the next 2 weeks in bed. The chug was put on hold.

inally, about a month and a half ago things turned. Maybe we learned some of the lessons Hashem had been trying to teach us. Something must have clicked somewhere, because our fortunes changed:

1. Ayelet starting giving massages again. One client looking for regular massages.
2. Ayelet started working for a website in the U.S. She is working closely with a friend of ours that lives here. There is room to grow in the company.
3. My English pad off. The winery got some new equipment and I learned how to use it because the representative was able to train me in English. In May I earned extra money because I had to/got to work extra hours. The nature of the extra hours was at a rate of more than overtime.
4. My profile ont he Virtual Assistant Israel website got noticed. I quickly landed 3 clients.

Now we are working so much that we need to find time for housework. Thank God things have opened up. We are working our new tasks and looking to juggle everything. It's been a learning process, but it's better than trying with no results. With Hashem's help we will acclimate and end up with an easier schedule, enough money to live, and enough energy to enjoy it.

With an eye to a bright future, Shabbat Shalom.

Amazing Imaginations and much more

Wow. I have been meaning to post for a long time. No, seriously. I've had some of the these ideas rolling around in my head for weeks. Unfortunately time, the need for sleep, and the need to care for my family got in the way. Lets see how much I can coherently write this time...

A few weeks ago... On Shabbat we all walked to the Pinat Chai (mini zoo) in Katzrin as usual. We did the usual round, including seeing the new baby goats. They'er very cute and can squeeze out of their pen and run around.

On the way back to the door there is a pen that has been vacant since we moved in. Odeliya climbed in and, playing along, I asked her if she was an animal. She said yes. But since she was so cute and seemingly housebroken we brought her home anyway.

On Monday I took the kids to the Pinat Chai again. Odeliya climbed in again and again we decided to adopt this baby animal. She insisted on crawling to the playground. Netanel jumped right into the game and started taking care of our new pet. Yitzchak also got involved. He made it clear that he wanted out of the stroller. Then he crawled along behind Odelia. Since then, Baby Animal has been added to their repertoire of games.

Along the same line of imagination, Ayelet told Netanel how she used to make swords out of cardboard. So I cut 2 swords out of an old box and wrapped them with duct tape. Immediately, at Odelia's suggestion, she became Capt. Hook and Tani became Peter Pan. Their fun lasted until they "accidentally" woke up Ayelet from a much needed nap.

The nap was the beginning of a 2-3 week run of sickness in the house. A nasty virus went around Qazrin. It has flu-like symptoms, but affects different people differently. Some people, mostly kids, were home on and off for weeks, i.e. you feel better for a few days and then get hit again. Ayelet was in bed for 2 weeks with fever (although she may have had something else). Meanwhile all the kids had a bought with the virus. For Yitzchak it was diarrhea. For Odelia it was vomiting. Netanel was mostly spared, but he also spent a few days home from gan.

The first day of this was compounded in complexity by my swapping shifts at work. The winery hosted its bi-annual Vintage Festival (said with an Israel emphasis on the end of the word). In exchange for more time home during the day I worked two overnight shifts (7pm to 7 am) watching over the festival workers to make sure the winery and its property were not damaged. The first night's guard duty was boring. However, we did see a fox coming to pick at scraps of leftover meat left out for cats. It looked much healthier than the foxes in the Pinat Chai. My attempts to get close enough to take a picture with my phone were unsuccessful. The second night was the end of the festival. I watched the event crew work all night packing up the myriad items they had brought: tables, chairs, plants, etc. While they slaved, me and some other employees salvaged items that were slated for disposal. This includes a while bunch of good wood, tablecloths, light fixtures, and other wonderful finds.

In the meantime Ayelet was sick on and off (mostly on) for 2 weeks. I ended up coming in late and taking a lot of time off from work to care for her and the kids. Baruch Hashem we live in an awesome community. Over the course of the 2 weeks people brought over food and helped watch the kids and clean the house. Several people brought over soup without even calling first to ask if we needed anything. This kind of support is truly a blessing.

Fortunately we are now back to full health. I was getting worried. For a while now I have been saying how luck y we are that most of our nisyonot are financial, but that we are happy and healthy. Our bought of sickness had me thinking. But now that we are healthy again we can resume our usual searching for answers on that front. I have begun a new round of soul searching, looking not just to find my purpose, but also to improve my basic deeds and behavior. This includes praying better and spending better time with Ayelet and the kids. Hopefully this will bring us to a more stable position.

To add to the insanity of our ill health, the afternoon that Ayelet was in bed and I was preparing to work the first overnight shift we made some new friends. I was hanging up the diapers to dry (we use cloth) and hopeing to get an hour of sleep when a car pulled up outside. In the car was Meir, the realtor who found us our current house. He was with a family of new olim from the U.S. They had that shell-shocked look on their faces that we had last year. It was interesting to see how the paretns and children were acting. The parents were exhausted and stressed about finding a place to live. The kids were shy and clingy. It's something I remember well. We advised that that it would pass.



Over the course of the 2 months since then the family has moved to Katzrin and we have become very close. Everyone is back to their usual calm pleasantness. Aliya really is stressful. It was interesting to see. I suppose we'll see it more as we continue to help olim. We are on the Nefesh B'Nefesh contact list for olim to the Golan. We are happy to help.

Now that we have a car I have realized something that the pop-sociologist in me finds fascinating. Israelis can't park. Maybe it's intentional that they park over the line, taking up two spots. But on a Friday when everyone is buying last minute things for Shabbat, it's important to take those extra few seconds to park responsibly. It frustrates me every time.

Ok, I started this post a few weeks ago. I will finish now. I have a few more things brewing, but those will come out over the next few weeks. Until next time enjoy the update and Shabbat Shalom.

Do Israelis Take Israel for Granted?

Recently, surrounding Israel's Memorial and Independence days, I became aware of Israelis discussing whether it was required to stand for the moment of silence that is observed throughout the country. At 8 pm and 11 am a siren sounded nationwide calling for a moment of silence to remember/honor those who paid the ultimate sacrifice for our Homeland.

Leaving politics and religion aside we still have דרך ארץ - Basic respect (which comes before Tora). God saw fit to give us our own state in our ancestral homeland. We have the freedom to lives the kind of Jewish life we want to live. In exchange for this freedom Hashem took the lives of 22,684 of our people. Soldiers stand on the line day and night doing their part to keep us safe. Part of thanking God for this freedom involves thanking the soldiers fulfilling their duty and respecting those who died in the process. Furhtermore, Yom Ha'Atzmaut is becoming a day of bbq's without meaning. While some people say speacial prayers to thank God, and others spend the day studying Tora, some view it as simply a day off.

God gave us a tremendous gift. We need to thank Him for it and remember the process by which we have been keeping it, remember that which we've lost, and refocus on our mission to make Israel the Jewish Nation: עם ישראל בארץ ישראל על פי תורת ישראל

That said, we can change the process to one that works better. I still get excited about those only in Israel things. For example: Only in Israel do the marquis on buses wish you a חג שמח on Pesach, while Xmas goes unmentioned. Today I heard songs that are straight out of Tehillim on a major radio station.Also, it occurred to me that here everyone says Yom Ha'Azmaut Sameach or Chag Ha'Azmaut Sameach. On Independence Day in the U.S. almost everyone says happy July 4. Our country is still young enough that even those that don't feel the power of the day and what it means still understand that the day is special. In the U.S. the meaning of the day is lost.

Here are some cute stories about the kids and becoming Israeli:
Netanel has a special teacher for an hour a week to help him learn Hebrew. Last week they were doing a game that went through all the Hebrew letters. At the letter chet (ח) she asked Tani who protects the State of Israel. Ayelet was still at the gan and heard his immediate reply: Hashem. Afterward he also gave the answer solders (chayalim).

In other Tani news, he is being very careful to make brachot. Even if we don't remind him he always asks us what bracha to make on his food.

When I got home from work today Odeliya and I had an entire conversation in Hebrew. She initiated and stuck to Hebrew even when I spoke in English. It was very impressive. She slipped in English a few times, but did better than me. At one point Ayelet and I just stared at each other wondering how the heck this happened.

Yitzchak is still a cute, happy baby. He is starting to stand on his own. Before long he'll be running to keep up with his siblings. I hope they'll wait up for him. Then I canhave some quiet time :).


In summation, we moved here to be partof the Jewish people, and I think we're integrating nicely. Maybe now Hashem will remove some of the yissurin.


Shabbat Shalom.

חנוך לנער על פי דרכו

Educate each child according to his/her way. We learn this from the Rabbis of old and modern psychology. It's is even discussed at the seder on Pesach (the 4 sons). So why do we educate them out of their natural creativity in school? Why haven't we found a way to teach children properly? I'm not saying it's an easy thing to do. I haven't figured it out yet for my group of 3. The thought of teaching 35 young individuals in one classroom gives me the heebie bu jeebies.

As an example of what I am referring please Ayelet's post here: http://milkandhoneymomma.blogspot.com/2010/04/channeling-harry-chapin.html. Netanel is very funny and creative (see here for another, and very funny example: http://milkandhoneymomma.blogspot.com/2010/04/how-to-bite-noses-without-getting-snot.html) and very very smart. We have known this for a while, but it was confirmed by the psychiatrist in the U.S. that diagnosed him as ADHD at the age of 4. She didn't actually say it was a sickness or anything. It's really only a disorder in that it hinders one's ability to join in polite society, mostly sitting in a classroom and drawing red flowers and green leaves.

Friends of ours are part of a group starting a new school in the Golan Heights. It is not Montessori, but it's similar. They want kids to learn what they need to know now, not necessarily preparing in 1st grade for the standardized test they'll take in high school. And they will teach lessons differently for the children that learn from sitting and listening, and from building, and from drawing.

It seems like the perfect thing for Netanel, almost light God sent this new program just for him. The tricky part is that it is totally private and therefore expensive. With God's help we will continue to do whatever is best for our children. Hopefully this new school will be part of it.

Post-Pesach Update

Dear readers,

I am finally making time to write, but I will be brief so that I can do a few things before I crash.

Purim was really fun. we were in Yerushalaim with Ayelet's family. The kids had lots of fun (pictures coming to FaceBook soon). I spent most of the 2 weeks prior manually loading bottles into metal cages as part of the champagne process. It was very very tiring.

After Purim we finally got our car. It is a nice car with just enough room for us. Thank God it works well and gets us around. Now we can continue searching for our community, be it Katzrin or a nearby town.

Pesach was cool. We spent the whole week with family, moving between my parents and sister. We also went potato picking for an organization called Table to Table. The groups picked over 20 tons of potatoes in one day that were distributed to needy families.

Now we're back home and getting into a good routine. Ayelet, Yitzchak and I went for a little tiyul on Friday morning. We walked 10 minutes out of Katzrin and found a lovely nachal (stream) to sit by and drink our coffee. It's so call that we can do that right out are door.

this week we had a dog for 2 days. We took her for a one-week trial.After 2 days we decided that now was not the time to deal with the expense and hassle of a puppy. Netanel was very upset. Next year we plan to get a dog as an afikoman present. Hopefully by then we'll be ready. While playing with the litter of pups Yitzchak was mistaken by the dogs as one of their own. That playfully nipped him on the face. Since then he's been scared of dogs. So we'll need to work on that.

Today at work I translated. We bought some new equipment and I had to explain how to use it to my co-workers. It was cool to be doing something specific.

Other than that, we are very excited for Yom Ha'Atzmaut. The warmer weather also means playing more outside, catch with the kids, and gardening. Ayelet has trimmed the roses and I planted some mint. Lets see how green our thumbs can get. We continue to learn new levels of emuna (faith in God). As we deal with the difficulties of Aliya as well as our own challenges I find myself doing more soul-searching and praying. May it be God's will that we learn our lessons the easy way and experience fewer trials and tribulations.

I'll try to get the post out sooner.
Till then, enjoy.

Purim is Coming!

I know it's been a long time since my last post, as usual, but I've been very busy. Ayelet and I have been trying to get more organized. We've been getting everything cleaned up from Shabbat on Saturday night and we've been better about folding clean laundry. This is in large part due to Ayelet's new pastime of downloading movies. This way we have new stuff to watch while we work. We've also started learning together again. This time we are learning The Garden of Emunah. Ayelet is learning the original Hebrew version with some of the other ladies in the community. We figured that given our exhaustion level and usual chavruta time of very-late-at-night the English made more sense. Honestly, I think we've already learned a lot about emunah from first-hand experience. But we've been getting a lot out of the book anyway, even if much of it is just helping us to understand what we learned first-hand. As I've said before, I have been looking for the meaning behind the various trials and tribulations God has been sending us. Maybe learning this will help us see the message.

I have recently wished that Hashem would just send me an email with His message. Let Him spell out the message in simple works on a screen. Then I wondered what His email address would be. obviously it would be God@God.God. But then there may be other addresses. For example, I'd rather get an email from Havaya@God.God than Elokim@God.God. The last address is probably reserved for emails with a subject like "SMITE."

Back to the updates: we have been looking for a car. We found one via a neighbor's cousin who is a car broker. While we work out the details of payment we also need to sort out how to take ownership. We can't buy the car without insurance and we can't get insurance without Israeli driver's licenses. This has been keeping Ayelet busy lately.

We are also looking into how to increase our income. I have been looking for things that I can do and Ayelet has as well. She will soon be launching her massage and beauty business. Stay tuned for further details,

I have been working in bottling since the end of the harvest. Soon I will be returning to the tank farm to refresh on that kind of work in preparation for the upcoming harvest. Also, this will give me the ability to talk to the winemakers more and try to push my way into their department.

Okay, enough for now. I'll write more about the kids after Purim. There should be more to say then. Have a good week.