Getting Ready to GO!

Whew, what a busy week THIS is! Yesterday I had to get new tires on my car, and take my mac in to the Apple store to get the OS reinstalled ...and the technician promptly DROPPED my iMac on the conuter when he took it out of the box, so today I picked up a brand NEW iMac (with twice as much RAM, yeah). We also had the Yearbook Party at the boys' school, and in the evening I had an appointment with my therapist (boy, did I need that!).

Today was really crazy. After I dropped off the boys (David took Sofia), I ran some errands and then went to get my haircut. Then back to the mall to pick up my computer, then picked up Sofia at school. At home, more prepping for the trip...including attempting to confirm our reservations.

Oy, was that a mistake. Then followed about 5 hours of frantic phone calls to:

- the Intercontinental Hotel worldwide reservations line
- the agency we booked through
- the travel wholesaler they booked through
- my friend who is a travel agent (yes, I SHOULD have booked through her!)
- the hotel in Tahiti directly

Upshot is that there is a glitch in the reservation system, and the number that looked like a cancellation number to the Internet reservations groups is actually a reservation number to the hotel. So we are indeed booked...whew. But boy, was that a tense afternoon!

David just gave me my anniversary present, incredibly beautiful diamond earings.

I'm almost done packing. Need to run a few errands tomorrow, and get my toes done.

And there's not really any useful Internet access on the islands, just dial-up, so I will be off line for the next 2 weeks. So here, for your amusement, are a few pictures of my kiddos...







Best wishes to everyone recovering from whatever they are recovering from, dry thoughts heading out to friends in flooded areas, calming thoughts to all those facing the end of school, and peaceful summertime thoughts to all.

Yearbook misprint

Bummer. H and I went over to the printer this evening to pick up the Yearbooks, and they were all wrong They had not used the new CD, and there were font errors that had not appeared in the proof copy. Oh well, at least we don't need the final books until Monday.

So yesterday was still Shavuot. I took the kids to shul again, but this time it was the Adult B'nai Mitzvah class. I have many friends in the class (adults who never celebrated a Bar or Bat Mitzvah - three are converts, a few grew up in Orthodox shuls where girls did not celebrate, a few were not observant growing up). So I told the boys "Be Good" and let them go play with their friends (the boys hang out in the chapel, playing cards, or go outside to bounce a ball against the wall), and I put Sofia in babysitting, and I got to sit in services for nearly 2 hours. Yeah!

Lunch was at shul, very nice, and then I took my 3 plus another boy home. Sofia fell asleep in the car immediately, so as soon as E arrived to babysit, I took the boys off to my friend J's house to go swimming. It was in the upper 90s, very very hot!

Swam, visited, had fun (although the weather gave me an awful migraine). Then took the boys to Tae Kwan Do, then took the extra kid (also a Sam) home, and his mom made us dinner. Their daughters both have crushes on my Sammy - the little one insists she's going to marry him. He seems to enjoy their attention.

Today, Miss Sofia popped a fever over 100, so she stayed out of school. We ran some errands (she'd gone down the slide at the boys' school at drop-off, and gotten soaked, so I took her to Target for more shorts), went to the mall (I got my new sunglasses, and a sundress for the trip), and then to the pediatrician. Dr. H had to dig wax out of both ears, and we also found...uh...something in one ear. It was either dried blood or a part of a bug. It didn't look like dried blood to me! Yuch!

Poor Sofia was screaming bloody murder while I held her and doc dug. Once the ears were clear, doc could see infection, so now Sofia is on Amox again. Hopefully her fever will go down by tomorrow (yes, giving Tylenol also).

This evening we picked up David at work and met my friend R and one of her daughters at Bugaboo Creek for dinner. Fun. Then we came home, started the bedtime routine, and then H came to take me to the printers.

This time next week, David and I will be on our way to Tahiti!!!!!!

Happy 9th Birthday, Sam

Yes, Sam's birthday is 3 days after Daddy's.

Yesterday we had his party. We had a bunch of boys over to Papa Gino's for Pizza and homemade cupcakes, and then they all came back to the house for a back-yard splash party - water funs, sprinkler, etc. It seemed like most of them had a lot of fun.

Poor Sam, though. He had high hopes of getting an acoustic-electric guitar for his birthday. Just one problem: any time I ask him to practice guitar, after about 2 minutes he starts to cry! So we didn't think that it was worth spending $100+ on a guitar if he wasn't going ot practice. So now he's crying "this is the worst birthday ever!"

Of course, it's also a holiday (Shavuot) so the kids and I were at shul all morning, and we go back again tomorrow. At least they had a lot of friends there, and there was lunch.

None of them are sleeping now, and I'm trying to ignore them. Micah is in a nasty mood, Sam is whining, and Sofia is trying to get my attention. This morning, Sofia pooped - but FIRST she took off her diaper! Poop all over my bedroom carpet. At least David was still home to help me clean it. He's flying now (I don't remember where he's going).

I'm tired and grumpy. But I had fun making the video. I know it's long, but I really love seeing pictures of Sam!

Happy Birthday David!

I love you.

f

Come see what we did this afternoon...

I posted a page to my photo website.

Yippie!

Disturbing Video

The following video contains very graphic and disturbing images, but the voice-over contains important information. The images in the video are (for the most part) RECENT, CURRENT images, not old history. The video is called "The Path To The Final Solution".

I wanted to share this with you, my readers, because I know that many of you are blissfully unaware of the nature of today's hatred. The video was made in memory of all the soldiers of the IDF.


****

On second thought, I don't even want these images on my blog, but I do suggest you hop on over and watch the video on YouTube...

Beautiful and Busy Day

Another crazy day, but mostly nice. Let's see...

Last night, Sam had a sleep-over at a friend's house. This morning, I dropped Micah at another friend's at 9am, so they could take him to a birthday party at the JCC in Newton. David stayed home with Sofia, and I headed to Hebrew College for Graduation.

My colleage, Alison, is part of the first graduating class from the Rabbinical School at HC, and my friend Susan is finishing our Masters in Jewish Liberal Studies program. And, it turns out, another friend was becoming a Cantor and two others were receiving their Certificates.

Very busy up on The Hill at school - not only was there a big tent in the parking lot (I parked at the bottom of the hill) for the main graduation, but in the auditorium there was a graduation for the Me'ah program and on the field was yet another tent for the Prozdor (high school) grads.

It was a long ceremony, but very moving. I am so glad I went to it.

In the mean time, David and Sofia picked up Micah and headed over to the Israel Independance Day celebration. Another big event, you had to park at Bently College and take a shuttle to Gann Academy. David, being the incredibly forgetful daddy that he seems to be, forgot to take a stroller for Sofia even after I called to remind him. And he hates crowds. So he was fairly miserable.

I raced from Newton to Waltham, and managed to meet up with them (yes, I had a stroller in my car!). There were just tons and tons of people. Music, food, and info booths for lots of organizations. Some carnival-type stuff for the kids.

Sam arrived with the sleep-over family. He walked with Sofia and I while David and Micah stood in line for 45 minutes to get a balloon dragon - Micah is a very very determined young man!

Then we walked back to the cars. David had to go to Worcester to hand out keys for his rental properties (today was move-in day), and I had to take the kids to Susan's graduation party.

Sam had a little fit when we got to the car, because Micah "called front seat" (they fight over who gets to sit in the middle row of the minivan). He was really tired and hot. David was tired and hot and stressed. Micah was happy, and Sofia was just waking from her stroller nap.

I took the kids to Susan's house. Micah had fun. Sofia clutched at me for a while, but once she had some water and chips, she was very happy. Sam calmed down a bit. I had a nice conversation with another woman from my program.

Got the kids home, fed them a quick dinner, then it was baths and bedtime. I fell asleep in Sofia's room, and woke up when David got home. I was going to go back to sleep, but realized I had to set up a CD for the yearbook - it's going to press tomorrow!

Whew!