Our little baby kitten

On tuesday night lauren and ben were sitting peacefully at home having dinner. the window was open. there was a continued soft miaow cry from outside the window and ben went to investigate... it was a little, poor, sad, broken ankled, cute abandoned kitten, crying out to the world for help. the kitten came up to me and was being very playful and miaowing the whole time. he climbed up my leg and higher, clearly wanting love and attention (the poor soul!).

we called animal rescue, and were debating to adopt it... lauren was nearly in tears and the sadness of its cry! after much speculation we decided not to keep it, but bring it in to animal rescue (at 11pm!) to be looked at, repaired, fed and found a home (hopefully hopefully hopefully).

he was delivered safely but unfortunately we weren't allowed to be told of its subsequent development

:(

but thats one saved precious little kitten. aww

Shevi'i shel Pesach

Givat washington is a very calm place. set in a quiet area of the land near ashdod, gated in and carless on chag. the campus yeshuv clears out for guests to be hosted within the yishuv. we stayed in a vacated families house, which was really nice.

kids were playing everywhere! all around the rural surrounding of grassy gardens, trees and play areas. it was really nice and relaxing. orly had discovered a trail of ants, which we decided to follow until we reached their nest ("home"). orly made up stories about the ant families and was exploring all the surroundings around her. lauren and ben now call her 'cave girl' (secretly) because she refuses to wear hear implements (i.e. it is scraggly), and she generally has a dirt filled rough look to her, running around wildly! gorgeous!

at one point orly sat playing in the sand/mud for an hour, shmearing it onto herself and playing with it. she played with the kids really nicely as well. we went to the 'pinat chai' in the afternoon in kibbutz yavneh next door and saw all the nice animals. orly was following the horses around, especially the shiny brown one. pointing out all the different things. bless.

a really relaxing way to end our first pesach in israel :)

sunday chol hamoed - erev chag

lauren and orly, and ben and yael went their separate ways today. lauren went pottery painting with orly, followed by some time at the shallow water pools/fountains near mamilla.

ben went to the jerusalem bird observatory to enrol yael in a young persons year pass for advanced birding. at the JBO three of the volunteers went to the collect birds that were caught in the nets around the pond area every 20mins or so. they brought them back to the main station and showed them being handled, measured and tagged. awesome. yael was even getting in on some good birdwatching and befriended some old ladies (yaeli the crowd pleaser).

day catches: olivaceous warbler, reed warbler, lesser whitethroat, common whitethroat, blackcaps, orphean warbler, blackbird. great to see them so close.

the whole mishpacha met up at the water fountains in mamilla, where orly (probably because she didnt have her swimming costume) was scared to get wet. she went in the shallow pools and streams instead which she loved and pottered around in for ages. it was boiling, and very refreshing.

we went home (and because we hadn't had enough matza) we made matza brye. YUM! we got our things together to go to Givat Washington for final day chag at miriam and danny.

panel of experts at the JBO. up close and personal with this reed warbler. what will they pull out the next bag?!?!

yael getting to grips with the binoculars at the bird hide.

wading through water

cave girl walk in water.

orly not revealing the age old secret of the matza brye recipe

yael happily chewing a pepper during lunch

chol hamoed 3 - and shabbat shabbat

ben, lauren and yael went to terem in the morning to get yael's eye seen to. it was surprisingly empty and we were very lucky that there was no one there so early in the morning. we got seen by a student within 5mins - who told us that yael was only 5kg (even though she was 6kg the last time we checked!). lauren said something must be wrong, the student said perhaps she had had some diarhoea? REALLY?! 1kg of body weight worth? we used new scales... 6kg. phew.

we then saw the doctor who smokes. he gave us some antibiotics for the virally instigated now probably bacterial eye infection, as well as eye ointment. we also found out that israeli doctors are rather trigger happy with their prescriptions and referrals. lauren claims that she normally leaves the doctors with hundreds of sheets of prescriptions and referrals! we got said ointment only to find out that the antibiotics that we bought was proper chametz. after consulting with great rabbis the conclusion was that if there was no other alternative then its ok for the health of the child. fair enough!

we got back. lauren and yael prepared for shabbat. ben, orly, sophie, neryah and gavriel went to the zoo (just in time for gavriels nap). orly picked flowers for everyone during lunch. she has such a great memory for little things e.g. remembering what 'the baby mouse in a specific cage' was doing 1 month earlier. funny. we saw the elephants swimming in their own poo, it was great. orly again picking out all the flowers and herbs. good stuff.

shabbat and we pooled our resources with sophie and neryah for friday night.

we were invited out for shabbat lunch. afterwards we spent some time in the park with a friend of orly to which orly turned the colour (no jokes) of a bright cherry tomato. we watered her, and stripped her down at home. played and chilled. a great shabbat :)

one puffy eyed gorgeous yaeli

a surprisingly empty terem hospital

orly picking poppies for everyone at the zoo

chol hamoed 2

On thursday we decided we'd pay a visit to the wise sage that is safta zila. it was a glorious day and after being offered kneidelach 5 times safta finally submitted. we had lunch together on the mirpeset and chatted to our hearts content. and a very contented safta there was. she bonded very nicely with yael and (of course) gave advice on lots of things - thanks safta!

we then took the opportunity to visit the carmel national park (nesher bridges). after waze directed us to the absolute opposite side of haifa we eventually got to the nesher park. there were 80ft suspension bridge walkways as well as lots of really nice trails. orly was brilliant. we were picking flowers, leaves and herbs to smell. orly currently picks out rosemary and lavender, she really likes them. we always pick them "for havdalah". she drew lots of pictures in the sandy path and ben taught her how to do real rock climbing. orly was so brave on the bridges, going by herself and finding her own paths on the rocks. we pointed out the insects that were eating the nectar in all the nice flowers and how the pollen was sticking onto them to make more flowers. she even learnt how to rock climb with her hands and feet, independantly! a well deserved ice cream awaited her at the entrance to the park where ben gathered a minyan for mincha before heading home.

we headed home, but stopped off at the kenyon for dinner. unfortunately no kosher for pesach stuff there :( some places had no normal hechsher anyway, and they still decide to put up a sign (hand written on a piece of paper) "kosher for pesach", that cant be right! anyway. more matza and egg.

when we got home yael wasn't looking great... she had a swollen eye, an eye infection?! hospital at 11.30pm at night on chol hamoed?! what to do? call every doctor we know! we'll go first thing in the morning!

zonked. tired and home. A good day

bonding

having fun

playing

the coveted view (in semi panoramic)

carmel adventures

picking and smelling everything. "but berries are very dangerous and can give you boo-boos in your tummy!"

orly drawing something on the ground.

cave girl 

orly learning about 'valleys' and being so brave on the massive suspension bridges

the established rock climber herself

Chol Hamoed 1

So. Israel in chol hamoed is busy, very busy. everywhere you go is packed. it is an inescapable inevitability.

we learnt this when we went to the 'quaint fairytale land of the springs of ein hemed' just outside of jerusaelm (15mins drive). after 2hrs on the road (an accident and a burnt bus) we arrived in a packed 'nature reserve', filled with men bbqing anything that once was alive. all 250 bbq stations were occupied and we 'summer creamed' up, and had our matza, egg and shnitzel. we nearly walked through the 'natural springs' although they were so natural that they had natural green algae growing in the later stages of its development.

there was a fairytale theme which orly was scared of. the witch was scary and for the pantomime of the 'sword and the stone' orly had to hind behind the buggy because she was scared. we took a quick look in the ruined old storehouse and thought it better to go home and get in the paddling pool instead, much more simple!

bird alert: in the garden: collared flycatcher as well as pied flycatcher, blackcaps, chukar, black redstart, graceful prinia, swifts, jays, laughing doves, blackbirds, bulbuls, chiffchaffs, kestrels, syrian woodpeckers, palestine sunbird, little egret and (amazingly!) bee-eaters.

orly and the application of sun screen

orly hiding behind the buggy at the pantomime!

paddling pool. plain and simple!

Mah Nishtana HaLayla Hazeh

Seder night arrived. Sophie, Neryah and Gavriel joined us, although gavriel was asleep (too right, because it was bedtime!). we gave orly a sleep in the day and she was buzzing! orly sang the ma nishtana beautifully and got a bizzli every time she answered a question correctly. we sang all the songs she had learnt (although we didn't know all of them!).

When we got to the 10 plagues ben had cut out hundreds of frogs and locusts (friendly smiley ones), and was planning to throw them around everywhere but orly wouldn't have it. she was scared by them. she did like the 'hail' that we had prepared out of polystyrene, she enjoyed throwing them on everyone, all over the house, everywhere. then we got out the big blue blanket, held it up on either side and all passed through the sea like the jews! apart from orly, who was shy :) we drank our wine and grape juice, leaned and munched. per weight orly ate more matzah than everyone at the table!

It was nice having a one day seder, made things more relaxed. although lauren seemed to miss the marathon style 2-3 day gasheft. we finished at the ripe old hour of 12.30am and orly, bless her, eyes rolling back, went to sleep.

for pesach lunch we had some more guests and made a bbq in the garden. so relaxing and nice to do that. the wildlife was on top form, israel is bursting with wildflowers at the moment, looks very pretty. a very lovely end to the first day of chag :)

there is a cat and kitten ("mummy cat" and "kitten") who currently reside in our garden. sleeping on anything we leave out and eating any leftovers that dont get put away, including bbqs!

the house ready for seder. orly's decorations dominating the scene

garden residents having a cat nap

Pre Pesach

Whilst still preparing for pesach we hadnt realised that Ben had to work all the way up until pesach whilst orly had no gan in the week preceding! Lauren's heart and soul was poured into all the pesach preparations schlepping 2 children around with her.

Thank goodness orly was at hand to help with the cleaning! She was even really good at swimming in her new paddling pool. Although with no footpump, it takes anywhere between 15mins-3hrs to blow it up depending on lung capacity!

In the build up to seder ben had got lots of different things ready to entertain orly. orly painted and coloured lots of seder related things but it turns out that she really doesn't like the plagues, scary! she watched her pesach dvd many times and memorised all 30mins of the actions, songs and dances in hebrew, was so cute.

Yael is now eating nicely, twice a day. she has avocado, bananas, apples, mush, etc. well done yaeli! she proper gobbles it all down!

big sister and little sister posing for the camera

yael smiling for the camera!

another full house excavation for pesach

the chametz corner, for the final elimination of leaven.

orly collecting garden flowers for pesach

Lauren's driving lesson...

Long story short lol needs more lessons before taking her test.....

'You know how to drive but not how to pass your test'

Apparently I drive like im all over the place and need to relax.

In my defence the lines are very faint here and sometimes contradictory and sometimes the honking can be off putting.

I have another lesson booked and when I told the instructor that I was much better during the second half the lesson he just looked at me incredulously.

Oh well. I guess driving isn't my sport then. I think it may be lacrosse instead....

nature gone wild

israel is bursting with wildlife at the moment. the spring is very much upon us and wildflowers fill every crevice imaginable. our wild garden has been in bloom now for a while, and every now and again i find a stunning masterpiece of herbage that has invited itself into our natural garden space that we claim we are 'renting'! how wrong we are! if anything we are a trespasser on wildlife's turf :)

syrian woodpecker, palestine sunbirds (mating season!), spectecaled bulbuls, (raucous) sparrows, swifts, scrub warblers, jays, chaffinches, kestrels, chukars, black redstart and more. i recently added 2 birds to my israel list, both within 5mins of each other in the garden. the pied flycatcher and the collared flycatcher. gorgeous.

our gazelle valley has also brought us some glimpses of our native gazelles :)

what a treat :) :) :)

weizmann herbage

olive trees budding :)

exotic palm at weizmann

spider having lunch!

wild poppy

almond tree

wild mustard in our garden. YUMMMMMY

wood sorrel. YUMMMMMY

the kids

What can i say. the kids are getting more and more gorgeous by the minute.

yael is doing so well with eating, she eats so well now. we're trying to give her a couple of bowls of something a day. she really likes avocado and pear, oats and stuff like that, she's been really good :)

orly has been SO helpful with stuff. its amazing, she is such a good girl with helping out with stuff (being a pain at times!), but generally really good.

ben and orly spend time in the garden sometimes, searching for cool things, like flowers, animals, birds, insects and now a kitten in the garden! "remember orly, in israel cats are angry", she really doesnt like the cats!

Yael is crawling like mad!

orly is enjoying gan, despite coming up with some interesting behavioural habits as a result. we're being firm in our english values, and 'please' and 'thank you' is still a must. i think the message kind of escapes the israeli education system sometimes! grrr.

Yael's great escape

selfie ;)

at the zoo

orly on her way to gan

yael waving, and practicing dancing

orly at cinema city

orly inspecting a wild poppy

say cheese!!

yes, orly will climb in to 'not wake up yael' in the morning