Chanukah Vacation

Today is the last day of Chanukah. I took Sunday and yesterday off work to keep the kids out of DH's hair for a bit. The two days off flew by but I feel like I got a lot done with the kids which is nice.

I kicked off my long weekend by taking T to see Fiddler On the Roof at the Cameri (Israeli Theater) in Tel Aviv on Saturday night.

Fiddler on the Roof

I mentioned in a previous post how NOT excited T was about this idea but by the time the date rolled around she was resigned to suffering through it with me to humor me. WELL. She and I got to Tel Aviv quite early. We had time for a coffee in the cafeteria at the theater. They opened the doors to the auditorium at 8:10 and since we were so early we were the first ones to go in and sit down. She kept making comments like, "OMG. We're going to be the only ones here. OMG. There's just going to be old people here. OMG. If my friends saw me now I'd be so embarrased." We were sitting 8th row from the front and smack in the middle - amazing seats. And then above us were two more tiers as well. The place was pretty empty for quite a while. Even I was getting nervous that we'd be the only ones there. And then all of a sudden at about 8:25 pm, everyone came in at once with a great big WHOOSH and the place filled to I'd say probably 90% capacity. Not bad! Every time a younster or 20-something person came in, I'd dig her in the ribs and said, "Hey, look! A young person!" I did it so often that I had her giggling: "OK OK Ima. Shush! I get it!" The show opened with the first song "Tradition" which totally grabbed her and swept her into the story and she was hooked. She was laughing a LOT through most of it. The music was WOW, the actors were excellent. Natan Datner played Tuvya and Chani Nachmies (sp?) played his wife. They portrayed the characters perfectly. When it was over and we were leaving, T very readily said with a tone of surprise in her voice, "That was good." HIGH praise, coming from her! Her only critique was that there was a bit too much crying and heavy at the end for her taste. It's true. It starts out all light and funny and haha and the story does get heavier as it goes along but......that's the story. I really do hope that this experience will give her a little bit more faith in my judgement when it comes to these things. For next time.

It started raining heavily Saturday night and carried on through Sunday. So Sunday was a "hang out at home day". Apart from taking both kids for haircuts in the morning, it was a pajama day, movie day, arts and crafts day, order pizza in for dinner day, etc.

Pre-haircut



Craft time - making rainbow clouds.

I have been looking to buy a laptop for myself. DH and I had nearly decided on which one to buy and then a friend of ours told us on Shabbat that she had bought a Dell mini (10" screen) a year and half ago and wasn't using it. She said she would sell it to me for 500 NIS (~$135). So Sunday night I went over to her house and played around with it for an hour to see if it did what I needed it to do. I went into all my favorite web sites, tried running a movie on it, etc. It also has a built in camera for Skyping purposes too. I ended up buying it from her and I'm so excited about it.

We saved a lot of money this way and even if it only lasts me a year I can upgrade next year. Our friend had bought a larger battery for it too so if I ever need to run it off the battery it has enough life to last 6 hours. It's small and compact and doesn't take up much space when not in use. Yesterday Y came with me to work. I popped this little thing into my handbag and got Y set up beside me at work watching a movie on it. Perfect!

On Monday, Y and I had a tiyul (field trip) organized by her school for parents and kids. There were 4 bus loads of people! We were gone from 9-3. They took us over to Beit Shemesh to a synagogue there where they had refreshments for everyone. Then they bused the kids somewhere else for a hike and crawl through some underground tunnels for an hour and a half. This was led by a tour guide. While the kids were off doing that, they had a rabbi come speak to the parents about marriage. Sounds heavy, right? Wrong. This rabbi was SO funny! He was more of a comedian. He talked mostly about the differences between men and women. Who can't relate to that? (He said that his day job as a rabbi involved a lot of counselling for groups of men prior to marriage, groups of women prior to marriage and couples together.)  We, the parents, were giggling so hard. He was wonderful. And of course, I really wished DH could have been there to hear him. Or at the very least that I would have thought to have videoed it for DH.

After the rabbis talk which was very enjoyable, we were bused to Park Britania (National Park) to meet up with the kids after their hike. The buses took us up to the top of a high hill there with an awesome view all around. Considering that it had been pouring rain the day before, we were SO lucky with the weather. It was sunny but VERY VERY VERY cold up there on the hill. After the buses of kids arrived, the people with the food turned up and despite the cold, they brought portable grills and pitot and hotdogs and salads and all the supplies for a BBQ in the "forest". (In this country, anywhere where there are a minimum of 7 spindly trees clumped together they call a "forest". Pu-lease. They ain't seen nuthin'.) They got the hotdogs on to cook pronto and there was a mad rush by one and all for the food. Once the "forest" had been cleared of debris (i.e. hotdog wrappers, plastic forks, cups, plates, etc.) and bagged up (largely by me), we headed back to Rehovot and Y's school. A very nice day.

Having just gotten a wash the day before in the rain, everything looked so bright and clean. The blues couldn't have been bluer, the greens couldn't have been greener and the whites couldn't have been whiter.

We got home from the tiyul around 3 pm and we weren't home 20 minutes before I turned Y around, grabbed E and we headed back out to the gymboree at Bilu Center. We were there from 4-8 pm. It's a pricey outing but I felt bad that E was home all morning with DH and probably didn't do much more than spend a lot of time in front of the TV so I wanted to get him out of the house for him to do something active. It was the perfect decision. I thought, you know, being Chanukah and all, that it would be mobbed but surprisingly it wasn't. The employee who heard me comment about it said that the mornings had been much more crowded and that we came at the right time of day. So that was also great. There were still plenty of people there but there was room for me to sit down and the kids didn't have to wait to go on anything or play with anything.

Since last night was the last night of Chanukah, we lit the chanukkiyah (menorah) filled with 8 candles. Here's E helping to get the candles set up in the chanukkiyah and helping to light them.