Halloween 2011

Sometimes Halloween is very minimal for us, or even non-existent (like last year in Jerusalem when it passed by with us hardly noticing). This year, we got into it more than usual and had fun. Maybe it's the new lifestyle with a house, car, and income, but it was just easier this year than it has been in the past. The kids had their costumes planned and picked out weeks in advance, I purchased the pattern and fabrics for Aaron's homemade costume weeks in advance and even finished sewing it well before the final hour. We are still mesmorized by the ease of normal life I guess. Being able to drive to Hobby Lobby, pick out a pattern and fabric, then sew in my own bedroom is pretty amazing stuff. I haven't sewn in years so I had a lot of fun making Aaron's costume. A finished product (that doesn't get eaten/destroyed immediately) is rare in my life lately so it's pretty exciting to produce one.

As with any holiday, we spent a good week pre-Halloween doing Halloweeny things. The weekend before we went to our church party. Ben and I threw our costumes on three minutes before walking ou the door. We hadn't really planned on anything but I was cold so I put my footsies on and Ben got inspired at the last minute so he printed out a sign that said, "Budget Invisible Man Costume" and we sloppily taped it on to his tan shirt.

Ward Party costumes: lazy snuggly woman, budget invisible man, Batman Fairy Princess, Robin Hood, and a knight

One night we decorated cookies at a friend's house, and as usual Aaron rocked the design aspect of decorating. 

Aaron's final products

As delicious as they were pretty

Then of course Elliot and Libbie always love to put costumes on and run around. Here they are in costumes that are not their Halloween costumes.

Libbie the Knight and Batman

Love this

And now we get to the meat of the matter. The actual evening of Halloween. It was pretty exciting for us to do some classic trick-or-treating for the first time. It was just like I remember it from my childhood: running from house to house getting free candy. Although this time there was a lot more thank-you prompting and searching through crowds of kids to find my own.

Here is the Robin Hood costume I made. He was pretty excited about it. Definitely the most excited he's ever been for a costume. Robin Hood is just adult enough that it appeals to Aaron but it is still very recognizable. He already had a bow and arrows so all I had to do was sew the rest.

Robin Hood

Aaron was invited last minute to join some school friends from the neighborhood in the candy-begging frenzy.

Aaron and friends preparing for the feast

Partially costumed kids, after a long night of trick-or-treating

Elliot and Libbie more fully costumed

Batman Fairy Princess

Libbie is obsessed with this image. Whenever she has control of my phone, she finds it and stares at it. There's a video that goes with it, which she watches over and over again, reciting the lines.

Israeli Independence Day

Israel has, not coincidentally, Memorial Day (Yom Hazikaron) and Independence Day (Yom Ha'atzmaut) one after another. On Memorial Day (sunset to sunset, as with all Jewish holidays) they remember those who have died for Israel. As the sun sets at the conclusion of Memorial Day, the celebrations for Independence Day (commemorating the day Israel was declared a nation) begin. We heard there would be a lot of partying action on Ben Yehuda street, so we headed down there. We didn't want to actually wait until sundown though because that would be after 8:00 and our kids would be really tired. So we went down in the early evening and figured we could get some food and check out some pre-party action. When we got off the bus, we laughed at how deserted the downtown streets were. Everything was either closed or closing, with only disgruntled tourists walking on the streets. We figured we might not make it to the party's start but went to Ben Yehuda Street anyway. Fortunately, Ben Yehuda had lots of open stores in anticipation of the party. Nobody knew exactly when the party would start so we decided to just take our time and see what unfolded.  We started with an amazing schwerma plate at Moshiko.

Aaron exercising his chef-skills even when eating out

Forks not required

We bought ourselves a shofar (ram's horn) during our down time.

Elliot trying out the shofar

As the evening approached, we realized we were unprepared for the cool evening weather. We stopped in at a shirt/sweatshirt shop and got ourselves some sweatshirts. It was a serious splurge but we all love them. Elliot wore his almost everyday for a week.

There were a whole lot of tables of people selling party gear. When we first got there, there were more party-gear vendors than party-goers.

Libbie, as always, was a big hit with the locals

This band was not on the main stage but Elliot and I had a lot of fun dancing to their music as they warmed up

The Crowd

The warm-up guy on the main stage. As far as we could tell, he was singing Israeli national songs that everyone knew. 

The main band on the main stage. They totally stunk. We stayed only a few minutes.

It was a fun evening. We admit we were a little conflicted about the whole thing-- celebrating Independence Day with the Israelis while simultaneously mourning "Nakhba Day" with the Palestinians. Both "holidays" refer to the same day in history-- the day Israel received it's independence, but while the Israelis call it Independence Day, the Palestinians call it "The Catastrophe." (Most years, they are celebrated on different days because the Israelis go by the Jewish calendar and the Palestinians just use May 15.) We fought within ourselves for a little while about it all. Mostly we were just in it for the party, but we wondered if maybe someday the whole world could celebrate the creation of a Jewish homeland together, in peace. So we were just doing our part to help that happen. I guess.

Easter weekend

It took us four days to celebrate Easter this year. My parents were here so it was fun to draw it out as long as possible. We started on Friday with a quick stop at the Garden of Gethsemane. Surprisingly, my mom and dad had it all to themselves.

We had the idea to stop in at the Garden Tomb on our way to taxi over to the market, but when we got there we realized why there weren't any tourists at the Garden of Gethsemane... seemingly, they are all at the Garden Tomb. I thought we should stop in just for a chance to contemplate the Easter season at a tomb that (at least) closely resembles Christ's tomb. It turns out that there was a worship session (advertised as "Son-Rise Service,") scheduled to start in fifteen minutes that wasn't too full. We decided to stay at least for a little and check it out. The music was rockin' and the people were partying in a very non-LDS way but it was actually kind of great. They handed out the lyrics to the songs so we could sing along. It was fun to be part of the crowd and celebrate the Resurrection in a new way.

Some of the crowd at the "Son-Rise Service"
Every continent except Antarctica was represented 

Dad getting into it

Aaron getting not so into it 

Mom and Dad enjoyed themselves

The Garden Tomb during the service

We stayed for half the service then ducked out to get on with our day. It was a pleasant way to start the Easter weekend, particularly because we hadn't planned to go. If we would have put it in the schedule and gone out of our way, it wouldn't have been nearly as enjoyable. But as a coincidental stop-by it was nice.

On Saturday we continued our Easter celebration with our Sabbath Easter service. I spoke in church on John 3:16 ("For God so loved the world that he gave his only Begotten Son...") and how that relates to Easter. I talked about Easter as a holiday of love and sacrifice. Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ loved us and made sacrifices to show that; we make sacrifices in our lives to show our love to them as well as to the people around us.

On Easter Sunday we celebrated with a traditional Easter dinner with friends. Our good friends Rasmus and Martha from NYC came to visit a few days before Easter so they were here to celebrate with us. We also invited our friends the Williams family. Mom managed to get a nice-sized ham over here in her check-on baggage so we enjoyed some non-Kosher meat for the evening. We also had a little turkey, au gratin potatoes, "Angel" Biscuits (made with yeast but fast... super light and fluffy), chard casserole, and a green salad. All very yummy.

Karen, Kourtney and Rasmus helping to prepare the feast

Bedlam before the meal

Somehow we didn't take any pictures of the table but we had it set with bright colors for the occasion. 

For dessert mom made rhubarb pie and Jolynn made a cake. Aaron and Rasmus also made homemade vanilla ice cream. Rasmus had no idea what he was getting into when he asked if he could help, but he was a great sport about it. Aaron took the lead and poured half a bag of sugar in it. It turned out delicious in the end.

Jolynn made this cute cake

We continued with the secular celebration of Easter on Monday by dyeing eggs and having an egg/candy hunt. Aaron has known for years that Santa and the Easter Bunny are characters created to represent the fun and magic of the holidays, as brought to children by people who love them. We try not to talk about Santa or the Easter Bunny in ways that misrepresent actuality but somehow it's still magical for all of us. I love it when they visit our house! Aaron considered contributing to the role of Easter Bunny this year but instead chose to go play outside and be surprised. This year we sent an email to the Easter Bunny to let him/her know when would be a good time to come. We didn't know where to send it so we just went with easterbunny@gmail.com. We were all delighted to get a note back from EB saying he/she would do her/his best to accomodate our request. It made our day!

Aaron discovering "the Easter Bunny" had come

Elliot enjoying some Peeps brought from a USA-based Easter Bunny

Libbie was so impressed that there were candy and eggs scattered around the house
She was especially amused by this carrot-shaped chocolate

Elliot was also thrilled at the discovery of a chocolate carrot umbrella

Showing off his haul (which he later shared with his siblings)

Enjoying Easter treats on the couch, post hunt

Happy belated Easter everyone!

Purim

Halloween came and went last year without a single costume or candy overload. We told the kids that we would do costumes and candy in the Spring, for Purim. Purim is a Jewish holiday that celebrates when the Jews, thanks to Esther, were not destroyed by Haman, the story recounted, not surprisingly, in the book of Esther. Basically kids (and adults) get dressed up and celebrate.

I heard someone describe Jewish holidays in the following way: "Someone wanted to kill us. They didn't. Let's eat." That certainly seems to be the case, with a lot of merry-making included in the eating part. People have been celebrating for the last week, and Purim isn't actually until next week. All week long we have seen crazy hair styles, funky hats, pulled-up striped socks, faces painted, costumes, and all manner of craziness. It's pretty awesome actually. A few weeks ago, we had no idea what a big deal this holiday would be. I got my first clue early last week when I helped a few other moms decorate Aaron's hallway at school. I figured it would be a few streamers or signs or something, but they had much more planned. They transformed the whole hallway into a castle. I snapped these pictures today. I am really impressed that the kids didn't destroy our work.

The king and queen at the banquet table
(I helped make the king and queen)

Aaron's classroom is on the left, with the other "Kita Aleph" (first grade) class on the right.
I stood up on a kid chair on top of a wobbly desk to hang those curtains from the ceiling.

Aaron's class door-- he is in Aleph 2, which I think is the older kids who are in first grade

Another clue of what a big holiday this would be was that we heard from about ten different people that the kids were supposed to dress up on Friday and bring a wrapped-up treat to share. I learned from talking to my ultra-Orthodox playground friend Amuna that there are four mitzvahs (commandments) for Purim: 1) hearing the story of Esther read from the scrolls (the men hear it at synagogue; the men read it to the women) 2) a special Purim feast where all the men should get drunk, 3) giving gifts of food and drink to at least two people (called "mishloach manot"), and 4) giving charity to the poor. Obviously Ben is not going to be getting drunk, but we were glad at least that the kids could do mishloach manot with some friends at school. This morning was the big day-- the Purim party day the boys had been looking forward to. Elliot picked out a Spiderman costume as his special treat the last time we were in the Old City, so he was covered costume-wise. Aaron didn't want to wear a costume. I suggested that he be a book since 75% of his waking time is spent reading (he read the first two Percy Jackson books yesterday and today... but that's another story). He liked that idea and made this costume:

The strings were to hang around his shoulders so he could keep the costume on

He tried his costume on this morning but didn't think it looked good so he decided to wear the knight costume Elli wore for his birthday instead.

Needless to say, the Crusades, and knights in general, are not really a rage here in the Jewish nation of Israel. People didn't really understand his costume. Someone suggested he was a ninja so we decided to just go with that.

Libbie tried to sneak on Elli's costume before he could get to it

Ready to head out the door. (I love Elli's web-making hands... he's never seen any sort of animated Spiderman so we tried to introduce him to the hand position but it didn't quite work so last minute.)

The boys felt bad that Libbie didn't have a costume so Aaron put on her newest dress from Baba and decided she was a princess. Here are Spiderman and the princess riding to school

Some of the kids at Aaron's school

Aaron and his friend Noam. Noam has been so friendly with Aaron and all of us since the beginning of the year. Such a great kid.

Some more students on the playground-- complete "balagan," or chaos/mess
The female teachers all dressed up as ladybugs

Aaron fighting with a couple of friends

Fighting with another friend, whose name Aaron can't remember. Aaron has a hard time remembering the names of the kids in his class because they sound so similar to each other and so foreign to him/us.

Elli, Don-Ju, and Hajin

Some of Elli's friends from gan

In Esther it says of the celebration, "They rested and made it a day of feasting and gladness." We can definitely attest to the gladness aspect of that. As it says in the book, let it be written in the blog.

On another note, we completely missed St. Patrick's Day. We had no idea it was yesterday. Just think of all the pinching that could have been happening in this land where no one follows Irish holidays. Well, maybe I'll make green pancakes for breakfast tomorrow to make up for it.