Our Shavuot vacation

Nearly two years into our American adventure. I think we are now as settled as we will ever be here. For those of you in the loop, you know that till now things have felt up in the air, and in this coming September we will start feeling the need to think about our return to Israel, so for now we are taking advantage of being relaxed and enjoying summer.
Here is a summary of our Shavuot vacation.
We had a great time!
xxx

https://www.dropbox.com/s/u0465m3r98415yo/VA%20Shavuot%20Vacation1.wmv

Life's funny twists and turns:part 2 by Nomi

Previously.......

On extremely short notice, we took off to Toronto.(see life's twists and turns part 1 )

 So.......
After a 1 hour flight, we arrived in Toronto. Then we waited..... For 2 hours!

Then, we boarded a flight for ........... not 7,not 8,not 9, but 10(!!!!!!!!) hour flight to Israel .Due to the length of the flight, everyone got board pretty quickly (that's just a lie om). Actually I now remember we each had a little screen and we watch a bunch of movies. I watched a little Downton abbey with mommy and I also watched free birds. apparently the seats were really comfy.....

being here is really confusing because we are happy being here,but we are not, and home is where the heart is, but where is home?

Landing in Israel felt really weird because I thought that the next time we saw Israel would be when we came back to live here, but this was so unexpected and I didn't have time to process it in my mind.  Everything feels exactly the same like everything around us hasn't changed, but we have. A few new things that have happened..........

• I went to the shop twice on my own
• We went to the beach in February
• I am going to miss nearly two weeks of school
• I ate a hard boiled egg
• I learned what a palyndrome is
• And I am finally writing a post for this blog, as I have meant to do for a long time...
• And finally I have not worn my red Shevet Tapuach hat for the first time since getting it on Machane Choref in Dec. 13.

Home Is Where The Heart Is?

"My heart is in the east, and I in the uttermost west" wrote Yehuda Halevi in the 12th century. I however am neither here nor there, and would love someone to help me find where my heart is...

This weird situation of being dislocated has thrown us all into a little bit of a spin. In a family this manifests itself in higher sensitivities, lower sense of tolerance mix that up with lack of structure to the day (trying to squeeze in an email or two where possible, kids catching up on some class work) the sense of confusion is great, not helped by lack of clarity as to our return date.

We are home. This is where we belong. We all know that, even Poppy who has now spent more of her lifetime in the US than anywhere else. This is where we are coming back to, where we will have Friday nights with Granny Nola, Grampsy Maxi and the Gilats, and yet for now, it just isn't.
This past week has highlighted for all of us how much we have worked at, and succeeded in, building a life for ourselves in NYC, in creating a home.

According to the dictionary the definition of home is one's place of residence, the social unit formed by a family living together, a familiar or usual setting; congenial environment; the focus of one's domestic attention, home is where the heart is, a place of origin, one's own country. These definitions as far as we are concerned refer both to NY and to Israel for now, and hence the confusion.

In a funny kind of way we have been exiled from our home to our home. We are "forced" to be here not from choice, and we resent that. While we love being here, for now we belong to a different home and we hope to return there soon, and in time, and when planned we will also return here.

Life's Funny Twists & Turns

Catamount Trail Map

As in Ski so in life... knowing how to carve out turns, jump at just the right moment, and occasionally choosing free style or proper form are key. You might think that this is all because of Sochi. But no. It is because this past weekend we were supposed to be skiing in Copake New York. Our lovely friendship with our neighbors would have taken another step as we would join them for Presidents day long weekend in the house they rented in upstate NY. Kids had new snow boots, Nomi had her free snow pass (they give them to 4th & 5th graders...), and I had a book! Then came the call.
Instead of freestyle skiing down the green trail, life took a twist and we found ourselves full speed down the black trail.

Thanks to the Jewish Agency mishandling our US visas, we booked tickets, packed bags and were on flights Israel bound all within less than 24 hours.

Here are some views from the trail -

Flight NYC-Toronto

On the flight Poppy kept asking me every time a flight attendant walked past- "is this the driver of the plane?", as we were walking off the airplane we saw the pilot, so I said - "here is the driver" and he invited us into the cockpit, and Poppy & Tomer to sit in the pilot seat.

The ceiling in Toronto airport was particularly pretty.

The kids are keen to write about our experiences since we arrived. I give them one more day in ski school, if they aren't independent by tomorrow, I swoop in and publish for them :-)
At least on this slope I can be a skilled skier, more than I could say had I ended up on the slopes of Catamount.