This blog has been in progress forever. Good thing I waited until today to finish it so that I could add these fabulous photos of the sunrise. Why did I see the sunrise?? Because I had to drive one son and hubby to a school across town at 6:15am today for the bus for the robotics competition in Tel Aviv.
What happened in the last few weeks/months?
Judo Competition
Scout Torch March
Chanukah
Chanukah vacation
Did I mention that I have a puppy?
Baking
Burning a cake
Alarm company phone calls
12th birthday celebration
Seeing old friends
Finally success at the butcher
I'll only highlight a few, no worries.
Scout /Tzofim Chanukah torch march.
This is when a huge group of scouts goes out together and walks through our town carrying flaming torches. So yes, I just let my kids head out and wander through the town with flaming torches. I trusted the staff which is kids ages 15+ to keep them safe. And apparently it all went well and they all had fun.
Chanukah vacation
Well, the kids were off from school starting on the second day of chanukah. We basically hung around the house, played with the puppy and ate donuts. Sounds good to me. They claimed to be bored but when they are too busy they claim they have no free time. It's not easy to please a house full of teens. Plus kids, we got you a dog. Just play with the dog! Also, they all got to go out to breakfast, with yours truly. And we were able to eat outdoors in December. #Israel
Baking
Okay, so you know that I've become slightly (shush kids) obsessed with my bundt pan (chiffon pan for you people from South Africa) since arriving in Israel. I don't deny it and I have now embraced it. I've made probably 30 (or 100, whatever) yummy and pretty cakes in the last six months or so. The problem enters when I preheat my oven but just sort of turn it on without checking the temperature. Then pop a bundt cake in. Then wait maybe twenty minutes until your extremely loud smoke alarm goes off. We don't have just a regular smoke alarm.. Oh no. Ours is connected to a fun light and siren on the outside of our house. And it calls the alarm company. Then the alarm company calls you over and over to see if you are okay.
So this nice woman calls me. And I have my daughter answer because I'm trying to find the switch to shut off the alarm. Then my daughter hands me the phone. The woman keeps asking me in Hebrew if everything is okay. I say yes, everything is fine, I was just cooking and my cake is not okay. So being Israeli, she says, oh, cake, enjoy it. Ummmm, I think she missed that the alarm was going off because my cake was now burnt instead of bundt. So close!
Butcher
And finally, success at the butcher. You may or may not know that I had a wee problem last year of being afraid to speak in Hebrew to people. In class I am fine, but otherwise I would panic and mix up my words. This year has been better but I still don't look forward to asking questions. Especially to the butcher. I don't even know what to say in English. But I really needed chicken a few weeks ago because we were hosting a lot of people for shabbat. Usually the market has cut and packaged chicken that I can just pick up. But that day they only had beef packaged. Beef is an entirely different mystery here.
Anyway, I get in line for the butcher while practicing what I'm going to say in my head. And by get in line, I mean put your cart at an odd angle because there is zero line. There is a number counter but no number tickets to take. So you just kind of hope for the best. You have to remember who you are after. In the end, I wasn't pushy enough, but only one guy jumped in front of me in line. I consider that a success in terms of Israeli lines. I then managed to get my turn, and even explained to the butcher what I wanted him to do to the chickens. Let's just say it's a good thing that my budding vegetarian daughter wasn't with me. But I have conquered the butcher. Now I can go back to sending my husband to buy meat.
Okay, this blog has now been in progress for weeks. So let's skip ahead. I'm currently sitting in the orthodontist's office while two of my kids get braces, so I have plenty of time to write. If you're wondering if braces are cheaper in Israel, the answer is, not really. Oh well. No one said that having kids was cheap.
Life here is rolling along. Some might say that time is flying. The kids are busier than ever. The girls recently had their annual overnight tiyul from school. They spent two days hiking and learning about the Negev desert. They got to do one of my favorite hikes, Ein Avdat. And they of course got to have the requisite Israeli snacks which are required to bring on all trips!
Eldest child now spends every afternoon with the robotics club at school. I'm not really sure what they do. All I know is that it is intense, he is there every night and that every parent has to sign up to bring them dinner twice. I don't think I can ever possibly cook enough to feed 25 hungry teenage boys. This will be interesting.
And now youngest child is also involved with the robotics club at his school. This is the first year that his school has done this. Luckily there seem to be some great parents who understand what is going on and I just keep dropping him off in different places to work on the project.
Today is competition day. It's their first year so I don't think they expect too much. But they seem to be having fun.
The girls have their activities. Photography, running, netball, taekwondo, etc... So I have a schedule on the refrigerator mostly to help me remember where everyone is, because they generally get themselves to activities.
So everyone is pretty busy. Except for me. I was getting bored and crazy at home, spending every day with my dog. Who by the way isn't exactly a dog yet. She is an insane puppy toddler who needs attention and training. So, it wasn't that hard for my former ulpan teacher to convince me to return to ulpan. So, I'm back. I decided to take the daled level exam, so we shall see what happens. Yesterday was my oral exam and the teacher testing me said that I speak Hebrew very well. She was probably being nice but I don't care I'm going to go with it! Update. I got a 94% on my oral exam. Not sure what that proves but yay!
And I didn't even mention it, but of course, hubby and I continue going out for breakfast as many Fridays as we can manage. Breakfast never disappoints.
