Holidays with Family (and some cute babies!)

We just got back from the States in which we were able to celebrate a whole seasons worth of holidays in just two weeks!  We didn't get to see everybody we wanted to, and we'll still wish we were there on Christmas, but it is good to be back in our place.

Our first stop this trip was Connecticut where we celebrated a wedding (again), a first birthday and Thanksgiving.  As if this didn't keep us busy enough we also squeezed in some delicious Mexican food made with lots of love by our friend Jenny, a stop at the local watering hole the night before Thanksgiving to see the variety of locals, and a nice long walk in the woods.  We had so much fun playing with our nephew Atlas...or more so...following him around as he crawled and walked and explored the whole house.

I think after our many trips crossing time zones we've almost figured out how to beat the jet lag:  NyQuil and Red Bull.  I know - not the healthiest, but I don't think the body was made for time travel and when you only have a few days, you can't waste the best hours sleeping.  Oh..and baking at 630am.  If you can't sleep, might as well do something fun! I had a great time making him these really cute Sesame Street cupcakes...I won't tell you how long they took.  But if you'd like some - forget it.  This was probably a one time shot and only one other person in the world (right now) will ever get anything close to this.

The theme of the trip seemed to be babies!  In addition to Atlas, Paul's friend had a baby just days before we landed.  He was so small and looked just like his dad!  I admired him upstairs for a bit while his dad had band practice in the basement.  Live show!  It was pretty cool.

The next..and prettiest..baby was Allison Marie.  She has got to be the cutest little girl I've ever seen! (and she happens to look like me! :) )  Alli turned 5 weeks old while we were there and greeted me with a dirty diaper.  We met our niece during the second half of our trip in California where we spent a few days with my brother and sister-in-law.

When colleagues asked how my trip was I couldn't say fast enough: "Great! I met my niece! She is so cute!  She smiled at me!!!"  This is monumental because she is just starting to smile and I had played with her the night before.  In the morning as soon as she saw me she smiled. :)  Did I mention how adorable she is?

Besides the baby, I also got to see my entire immediate family in California!  My mom, dad, Paul and I cooked up a storm in the kitchen! They cooked, I poured flour all over the counter every hour and used up all of the butter.  Shawn and I read so many books to Alli and he was awesome just holding her and playing with her during tummy time.  Amy and I went to yoga.  That was the coolest yoga studio I've been to and blows anything I've seen in Israel so far out of the water.  It was really fun and I can't wait to go again next time I'm in Cali!  Dusty made some amazing waffles and gave us all a tour of the USS Midway.  We also snuck in a walk around the block, a trip to the zoo, and a few trips to the grocery store (the Salvation Army woman outside of the store made quite a pretty pen during my many mini-trips).

It was a super fun trip!  I wish we'd have had more time to hit up more locations and see more people.  On the bright side, we'll be back in March!

Wine Tasting, Camping and Minor Injuries

Last weekend was a lot of fun!  We did a wine tasting and camping trip that we've been wanting to do for quite some time.  And the best part was that we did it with a decent sized group of friends!  It was so much fun...that tomorrow night we are heading south for another trip (this time minus the wine).

When we were trying to find a time to go on this trip I went through the calendar and realized that we only have about 4 unclaimed weekends left in Israel.  I could go through each weekend and tell you what exciting plans we have - but I'll spare you.  Instead, the short version:  Ball, home, home, Paul to Africa, party, Christmas, Visitors, visitors and more visitors! Then....USA!!!  So this realization of only 4 free weekends was pretty interesting.  Really made us think we should make the most of every weekend left.

So the crew left from Tel Aviv on Saturday morning and the three car caravan pulled into Nazareth just before noon.  After all 12 of us used the teeny tiny restroom in the wine shop, we headed upstairs to find a large table with lots of cheese and meat and breads...and a table with lots of wine.  It was really fun.

We left there a bit later than expected...and got stuck in traffic somewhere between Nazareth and Cana (yes...the miracle at Cana..Jesus turned water into wine...we were just trying to experience history).  So we headed waay North to one of my favorite wineries. By the time we got there (2.5 hours after our apt.) it was cold and dark and we'd lost one vehicle which chose to go straight to the campsite.  The second winery was also a lot of fun, but cold. 

 From there we headed to a great campsite and set up tents in the dark.  Paul was just getting over a hurt ankle (from a running accident) and I slipped on some water and hurt my knee - so we were quite the damaged pair.  Regardless, we got the camp site set up and served up a great camping meal!  I remember this warm comforting soup my friend Lyndsi's dad used to make when I went camping with them.  I really wanted to make it, but it called for bacon and green beans...which are not in season.  Well, I was determined enough that I found both so we had beans n taters for dinner with couscous and hots.  Top that off with smores and you have some happy campers! 

Everyone who camped out just happened to be a big coffee drinker.  So in the morning three of us pulled out our ingenious way of making sure the group had coffee.  One guy brought a french press, another Turkish coffee, and I had my dad's percolator!  Needless to say, there was no shortage of delicious coffees to go with our eggs and bacon.  I'm telling you, this was not a tough camping trip.  More photos here (if the link works).