Next Year in...Hollywood?

Adam and I went to Los Angeles for the first half of Passover this year. We had a lovely time staying with our good friends Suzanne and Marcus in Pico-Robertson, L.A.'s most Jewish neighborhood. And we managed to fit in a little touring amongst all the holiday and Shabbat festivities.

At the La Brea Tar Pits, with friends Mike and Yael from Jerusalem, who were also enjoying Passover in L.A.:

Resting with Mickey Mouse on Hollywood Boulevard:

Outside Grauman's Chinese Theater:

I would like to put in a good word for Shilo's kosher steakhouse, where we had a really excellent dinner last Saturday night. Why can't Boston have a kosher steakhouse like that?

Visual Update

A quick visual update on the things we didn't blog about as we were ignoring our blog this fall and winter:

My mom and Richard came for Thanksgiving. This was a blessing both because we got to see them and because I was too sick to manage dinner all by myself. We spent Thanksgiving Day touring Plimouth Plantation and the Mayflower II. Here are my mom and me at the Wampanoag Homesite:

And Adam and me at the 1627 English Village:

We were also "blessed" with a huge snowfall three weekends ago. Here is the view from our kitchen window the Sunday after the storm:

I think we got a full foot of snow.

Truly, this was about as exciting as life got for us during the blogging hiatus. I was too sick to do anything else photo- or blog-worthy!

Last Vacation Post

I was waiting for Adam to post about the rest of our vacation, but he's been very busy lately, so I guess it's up to me.

After the Laura Ingalls Wilder fun, we went to the Badlands, which Adam really liked (that's him on that rock formation):

Mount Rushmore:

Custer State Park, where we saw bison:

Wind Cave, where we did the "Natural Entrance Cave Tour," walking through the middle level and seeing the boxwork (a rare cave formation):

And, finally, the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota. The Corn Palace tradition started in 1892, when early settlers displayed the fruits of their harvest on the building exterior in order to prove the fertility of South Dakota soil. Today, it's basically just a sports arena.

After finishing our trip out West, we spent a week with my Dad and family in Wisconsin. For some reason, we didn't take any pictures, but we did finally get a chance to relax and unwind at the cabin in Northern Wisconsin. And we learned to play ladder ball. That game rocks!

On the Prarie

After returning from Florida, Adam and I spent a few days in Boston before turning around and heading to Minneapolis, where my mom and step-dad picked us up for a road trip to Mount Rushmore. On the way there, we also had the opportunity to stop at many of the places featured in the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. This was more fun for the women than for the men, but Adam and Richard were good sports. Here we are at the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum in Walnut Grove, Minnesota:

The next day, we toured the Ingalls' homestead in De Smet, South Dakota, which was beautiful:


There were homesteading activities, like pumping water:

Making rope:

And "sewing" on Ma Ingalls' sewing machine (replica):

There were also sites in town: the surveyors' house from By the Shores of Silver Lake and The Long Winter, and the house that Pa Ingalls built. We saw those, too. Fun on the prarie!

The Happiest Place on Earth

After the cruise, Adam, Adam's sister Melanie, Melanie's fiance Adam Login (henceforth to be known on this blog as Login) and I rented a car and drove to Orlando for a four-day Disney vacation. I had thought this would be a cheap add-on to the cruise vacation, which it wasn't (Disney is expensive!), and a good opportunity to hang out with my sister-in-law and soon-to-be-brother-in-law, which it was.

I had never been to Disney World (although I went to Disney Land once in seventh grade), and I expected to love it. I'm a total sucker for fairy tales, happy endings and classic Americana. To my surprise, though, I felt lukewarm about Disney World. I loved the nostalgia element, but I wish there had been more there for adults, like Six Flags-type rides and behind-the-scenes looks at the history of Disney. I also found the endless cheer and cleanliness kind of creepy, in a Stepford Wives sort of way.

Anyway, here we are in front of Cinderella's Castle at the Magic Kingdom:

And I took this great picture as we were spinning (very quickly!) in a teacup at the Mad Tea Party:

Coming soon: our road trip through Minnesota and South Dakota!

Family Family Family!

One of the things that we most missed in Israel was family, so it was wonderful to have the chance to spend some time with my Nana, parents, siblings, aunt, uncle, and cousins on the cruise. All in all 17 of us gathered to celebrate Nana’s 90^th birthday. Together we romped around the ship, roasted by the pool, gambled in the casino and walked around Key West. The cruise also gave Michelle a chance to meet some of my extended family in a less formal setting.

One of the most meaningful moments of the cruise took place during our first dinner when the grandchildren presented Nana with a quilt composed of our profiles and handwritten letters. The quilt was made by my cousin Aliza using meaningful pieces of fabric and by printing the letters onto cloth.

(Aliza is an aspiring artist who received her MFA from Savannah College of Art and Design and who has served as an adjunct professor at George Washington University. Check out her website at www.alizalelah.com)

Other notable experiences included finding an Israeli-run Kosher restaurant in Key West (which helped alleviate Michelle’s home-sickness for Israel) and my future brother in law winning the ship’s blackjack tournament.

All in all we had a great time on the cruise and were able to celebrate a tremendous occasion with family. Just like my Nana wanted.

The First Few Days

It's been just over two weeks since we arrived in the United States, but tonight has been my first opportunity to blog. Things have been crazy and emotionally intense. In my next few posts, I'll try to re-cap the adventures of the past two weeks.

Here is the last picture we took before boarding the plane at Ben Gurion Airport (I'm on the far right):


Sadly, my kosher McDonald's-inspired smile didn't last very long. I was asleep when the plane took off in Tel Aviv, but I cried all through the landing in Boston, and when we walked out of the airport, and many more times in the ensuing days, most recently on Shabbat morning when Adam's family's synagogue sang Hatikvah during morning services. I hadn't expected to feel so homesick so soon, and it's tough, but I'm trying to focus on enjoying my friends and family.

Luckily, I've had plenty of opportunities to enjoy them. We arrived in Boston two weeks ago (on a Tuesday) and flew to Florida the next day. We were supposed to land in Palm Beach at 9:30pm and get a good night's sleep at Adam's Nana's house in West Palm Beach before driving to Miami the next morning for the family cruise to the Western Caribbean. Unfortunately, our flight was delayed by bad weather, and we didn't make it to Nana's until after 4:00am the next day. My specially-prepared kosher meals were supposed to arrive at the dock a few hours later, at 10:30am, but they were delayed by the same bad weather and didn't show up until 4:30pm -- and that only because of our many frantic phone calls to FedEx.

The picture below was taken just after the meals finally arrived, as the ship was leaving Miami. Things got much better after this point!

Yom Ha'atzmaut

Yom Ha'atzmaut fell on a Thursday this year. Because the weekends in Israel are Friday-Saturday, this meant a three-day weekend, and Adam and I wanted to make the most it. So, after celebrating Israel's 60th in downtown Jerusalem on Wednesday night with food, music and Israeli dancing, we got up Thursday morning and headed north for a real Israeli weekend. Together with four friends, we rented a "tzimmer," a little guest house, at Moshav Amirim in the Galilee.

It was the first weekend in May, and everything was blooming and beautiful up north. This was our front porch...

...and this was the view from the porch. That's the Sea of Galilee in the background.

These next photos were taken during our Friday morning hike at Nachal Yehudiya in the Golan Heights. We climbed down the ravine to the foot of the waterfall, and Adam and Doron went swimming.

Other weekend activities included soaking in the outdoor hot tub with glasses of wine, barbecuing (and eating) enormous quantities of meat, singing, playing Taboo and generally enjoying each other's company. This photo was taken right before Shabbat: Adam, Doron (with Rosa, a local puppy who befriended us), Avi, me, Elana and Rachel.