TGIT
Thanks G’d it’s Thursday?
As you have read from my blog. Our weekends really start on Thursday nights. Is this the night to go out? Not for us. We have tried to prepare ourselves for Shabbat on Thursday night, that way since I don’t work on Fridays and there is no Ulpan for Liora (Hebrew classes) then we can take early the kids to school and go out until 12:30pm to pick them up.
It’s a swap of “Family Sunday” to “Marriage Friday morning” .
Two weeks ago we were able to go to Jerusalem visit the Menachem Begin museum (Begin Center) which I highly recommend. I asked my father the other day to recount my encounter with this great leader of Israel and Nobel prize winner, it goes something like this: We came to Israel to celebrate my brother’s Bar Mitzvah in the early 80’s, it was my first trip to Israel and during my first visit to the Kotel (Western Wall) as we were going down the steps a “big guy” stepped on my tiny sandaled foot. I started to cry as my father tried to confront him but noticed there were several of them with Prime Minister Begin in between them. As they passed us, Begin saw me crying, reached out to me and patted my head. That’s it… It was not really something to include in his museum, but it definitely deserves a place in my museum (aka Blog). It’s amazing how something so insignificant for a big leader can be so big for a regular person. After the museum we still had some time to visit the Western Wall. Isn’t it amazing we are 30 minutes away from the Kotel?
Last Friday we were also able to take the morning out and visited the Palmach museum in Tel Aviv, also highly recommended. Our morning started as we parked in the museum an hour before the museum reservation started and looked for a place for a nice sit down breakfast. Unfortunately we got hit by Tel Aviv’s reality… The first place we stopped by…Not Kosher, the second one…Lo Kasher, Third one…Niet. It just hit me that it’s actually hard to find a Kosher place in Tel Aviv, or at least in that area. In the end we got into a mini-market bought yogurt, juice and a sandwich and ate it on a table outside. Back to the museum, it is so well done. I have never seen a museum like that were they make you part of it and play with all your senses. They make you feel part of this elite early Israeli army division and from my point of view in the end they show the miraculous war victory and foundation of the Jewish State.
I’m liking these Fridays, however I still miss Sundays.

We are Family
Since we moved here I have been able to meet family that I haven’t seen for a while or have never met in the past. It is great to be able to live closer to family. Last week for Shabbat we were able to host 2 second cousins with their respective families. It was great hosting them for lunch and getting to know their children. Also last week I was able to see a lot of my immediate family at my first cousin’s engagement party in Jerusalem. It was nice seeing them, celebrating this great event and a very interesting experience in the center of the ultra-orthodox society.
It has also being great meeting other distant family members from my Father’s mother side, from my mother’s father side who is also related to Liora’s family in an even more distant way, Liora’s distant relative (Krova) and soon we will be meeting even more. What better place to reunite families?
We are counting the days to see our parents and family coming in a month from Liora’s side, and then later for Passover from my side. We are also looking forward to my nieces visit soon.

Slow November
I just noticed that November has been the slowest month in terms of Blogs. I have been coming back late from work and with not much energy left to sit in front of the computer.
Below are some pictures of the kids at a Pirates party, our last visit to Jerusalem and other for your enjoyment.