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!

The Baptism

During our first full weekend in the States we headed to New Jersey to see Paul’s family and attend the baptism of our nephew.  Though I missed the Brazilian dinner Paul’s brother and fiancé made on Friday night, I heard great things about it.  We’ll have to have a cook-off one of these days!  Saturday brought more time with family and more great food.  “Pah, pah, pah, Paul” – It didn’t work.  The baby is still too young to pronounce the letter P, much less say Paul.  Maybe next time.

The reception for the baptism was before nighttime the Mass and once all of the guests were there, Paul’s sister told us she wasn’t 100% sure the Mass was going to be in English! Ha ha.  It was…and it wasn’t.  Half of the songs and half of the readings were in English.  The gospel and homily were done in both English and Spanish.  And the baptism was only in Spanish.  I was translating for Paul’s cousin which is pretty difficult given that I haven’t spoken Spanish in a year.  The church was packed and the mass was…long (3 hours).  After the part and the after-party, we went back to the hotel to hang out with Paul’s siblings.  As I write about this all now I don’t know how we had the energy to do it all, but when you only have limited time back home with everyone you just subtract and hour of sleep and add a cup of coffee, and somehow it all works out.

Home Sweet Home - Part One

Paul gets to go on lots of trainings and attend conferences for work, but this time, I got to go on training too!  Paul was studying the nitty gritty of managing contracts and I was studying the basics of U.S. assistance to other countries.  Our trainings were conveniently both in Washington, D.C. (so we got to spend some time in one of our favorite cities, eat at our favorite restaurants, and see our friends!) and conveniently timed around our nephew’s baptism and my Grandfather’s major award!  Although we promised ourselves after Christmas that we wouldn’t do it again, we crammed 4 states, 7 flights, a train, and 2 buses into 2½ weeks – and it was totally worth it!  We were pretty useless at work the first day back so this weekend is the recovery consisting of sleep, water and vegetables.

So the trip starts out with us, as always, super excited to be back in the States.  Because we were on official training, work told us a dollar amount that we can spend on the hotel and we find our own hotel.  And if you know me, you’d know that I will get the best deal – so we stayed in some of the most famous 5 Star hotels in the city!  Fabulous!  We got to see a lot of our friends which was really really great (and the main reason we were excited to get back to D.C.).

Just like every time before, I loved D.C.!  The food, the architecture, the smiling people!  What better way to start off your day than a man saying “Good Morning!  Have a great day!” and handing you a free newspaper as you enter the metro?  The training was really interesting and we got in as much time with friends as possible while being introduced to three new great restaurants:  Founding Farmers, Grill Fish and Hill Country.  The first is all local food with amazing cocktails (like the specialty cocktail at our wedding.  The second was delicious fish – also ecofriendly!  The third wouldn’t make my list of favorites, but Paul liked it so much he ate there twice in two weeks.  We also checked out a few houses but they were just slightly over (4xs) our budget.

The highlight of Part One for me was my short trip to Miami!  I’ve heard many people compare Miami to Tel Aviv – nothing alike.  Okay, very much alike, but to compare them is to compare McDonald’s to Ray’s Hell Burger…or Wal-Mart to Nordstrom’s.  The best part about it?  Alexandria!!!  If you haven’t seen us together, we are quite a pair.  Not only do we ALWAYS get asked if we are sisters, but there is always an interesting or funny story about the people we meet or the things we do.  She is great, her friends are great, the food was great, the weather was great! My only complaint is that I never have enough time!

Cold Discoveries and the last drop of Christmas!

Today happens to be one of the coldest days yet in Tel Aviv.  I don't know this for sure, but it seems like it may be true, so I'll go with it.  Today is also the day that I made a great discovery in my car...well, Paul did:  There is a button that says "Info" and when you turn it the dashboard tells you what the temperature is outside.  15*.....Celcius that is.  ~60*.  Brrrrr!

The Christmas decorations are all put away, the laundary is almost done, and the cookies are gone.  The only part of Christmas that remains are the online gifts bought with gift cards and the thank you notes.  Yesterday the mail room at work was flooded with packages!  I think everyone did the same thing:  shopping after Christmas to hit the sales or spend gift cards. 

Baking Project #1: Orange Sponge Cake
with a Cointreau Butter Cream Frosting - Delicious!



(Or their families didn't send Christmas gifts on time and they are just now arriving.)  Whatever the case, we got 3 packages yesterday!  :) 

The best part about being back is having our kitchen!  It was great before, but now!  Now I have a Kitchenaid Mixer, spring-form cake pans, a tart pan, new flour towels, and a butter crock!  I'm running out of room to put the kitchen toys.  All of these new toys lead me to baking, but I should really be running. Maybe I'll become that person who bakes for everyone else's birthdays and parties!

Home...

We are back in Tel Aviv, safe and sound, and the jet lag has not yet caught up with us.  The flights went well, our house is as we left it (plants alive!), the circle is greener, and the weather is a little colder.  Sleeping in our bed last night we smiled and, once again, said "We're home."

But we truely believe that Home is more than the apartment/house and the wonderful toys inside of it.  In Wisconsin I was home with family and despite going to bed at 7 or 8pm, I could not have been happier than changing a flat in a freezing cold parking lot, sipping coffee and playing games after breakfast, or cooking in Grandma's kitchen! 

Ohio was another type of home as I got to spend lots more time with my mom, dad and Shawn (and eventually Paul).  I was so excited to drive to the grocery store and buy anything - regardless of season - and to park a big car in a big free parking space!  It was great! I also got to get drinks in Mansfield with a high school friend and do lots and lots of shopping! (So much that between that and gifts we had to borrow two large suitcases to bring it all back with us!)

From Ohio we went on to Connecticut, to Paul's childhood home.  Connecticut is always fun because we get to see sooo many people!  And this time we got to meet Atlas - our nephew!  In the short amount of time we had there we managed to squeeze in more shopping, New Years Eve, and Paul's birthday - which we celebrated no fewer than 4 times.

Our final stop was Washington, D.C. Oh, how I love that city! A functioning metro, great restaurants and bars, walking everywhere, cute architecture, friends, friends and more friends! D.C. felt like coming home as we crammed a years worth of check-ups, happy hours and dinners into 3 days. I missed a bus or two and walked through some of my favorite neighborhoods and saw some of my favorite people. As one friend put it, the thing we all love about DC is how alive and changing it always is - but that also means that it keeps living and changing when we're not there. There were lots of new restaurants and bar, sidewalks completed and new solar-powered bike-rental stations, but it was still the city I love.  More impactful than the new stuff was the number of people walking down the street or taking the metro, and how much everyone smiled! DC isn't the mid-west, they aren't THAT friendly, but everyone was happily talking to friends or on the phone or just smiling as they walked down the street.  It was so nice!

It was such a great trip and we felt so at home everyplace we went. One of the last things we did in the airport before flying out of the States:  made a list of all of the trips in 2011, plotting when we could next come home and how many days of vacation we'll need!

Christmas Cocktail in the Holy Land

I must apologize to all of you who checked back on Sunday to see if our Christmas Cocktail Party was a flop...and shame on you for thinking I would let a party flop!  It was awesome!  People were SO happy to have a Christmas event to mark the season and a reason to dress up and time to hang out with friends!  As surprising at it is...there is no Christmas in the Holy Land. At least not as we know it and not in the place where we can go.  Throughout Palestine there are Christmas tree lightings and peace choirs singing - but not here in Israel.  Anyway... enough of that sad story - on to the spectacular Christmas Cocktail!

The duty free alcohol for the party showed up, as predicted, the day after the party.  We ran to a local store and picked up the necessities to make our creative cocktails with festive names like "Father Christmas" (Bourbon, orange, bitters and powdered sugar) and "Holiday Cheer" (A fruity martini). And wow did our friends ever take the cocktail part seriously!  I set out little red and green notecards for everyone to write their cocktail recipe on...and the bar was littered with these cards!  The drinks were delicious, all but 4 of my cookies were eaten, the appetizers brought by friends were devoured! And most of all, people LOVED the Christmas decorations in our house which actually felt (and smelled) like Christmas!

My Christmas piano books were out but I'm too much of a chicken to play for everyone.  Lucky for me, one of the guests is a "trained in classic piano."  She happy browsed through the books and played the favorites while everyone stood around sipping cocktails and singing from the caroling books I'd saved from a Christmas cruise.  The surprising and touching and magical part of this is that my Jewish friends (some of whom have never heard these carols) were singing along! 

Another surprising thing here is the "Happy Holiday" versus "Merry Christmas."  Take the trend towards "Holiday" vs. "Christmas" and add in the complex cultural dynamic of Christians, Muslims and Jews, pair that with the fact that most people don't celebrate Christmas here, and the fact that we work for a politically correct government entity...and you get lots of Happy Holidays.  But not at our party.  All of our friends said Merry Christmas and it really meant a lot to us. 

Our tree and the many ornaments from my childhood were the highlight of the party.  And the make-shift advent wreath and the beautiful stockings I made. (Not really but I was proud of them and I want to put the picture on top!)

In short, it was a fabulous time!  Now that we have done Christmas here, it's time to go back to the States!!!  I probably won't post for the next three weeks (sorry), but we'll be on whirlwind tour of the States (at least the Midwest and the East Coast) and we'll be so busy seeing friends and doing everyday things we probably won't have time to write. (You can't possibly understand how excited I am to drive go grocery shopping.  Driving there without traffic, parking in a free parking lot with large spaces, paying in US dollars!!) 

This truly is the good life

This truly is the good life. We live above a boutique serving up the likes of Vera Wang and Emporio Armani. Look, but don’t touch, I tell Jen. Upscale cafes dot our SoHo-meets-Bryant Park neighborhood. And only yesterday while walking back from a nearby park we stumbled across a photo shoot for the new Polo Ralph Lauren line just a block from home. Home? Yeah, I guess this luxurious locale is now home. Or at least it will be once my garlic press and truffle oil arrives.

The fresh produce here is delicious and cheap—a handful of freshly-picked dill goes for two shekels (75 cents). Which is great, because everything else is crazy expensive. Like $7 for a jar of tomato sauce. So, yes, we discovered that you can make pasta sauce, salad dressing, and grilling rub out of dill. Can dill be made into a refreshing tea? Stay tuned for the answer.

But best of all, I just discovered that we live half a mile from a verdant 10km running and biking path that straddles both banks of the tree-lined Yarkon River. It is as if a river ran through Central Park’s Great Meadow. Which means I will be running much, much more.

Just before our departure I purchased a new pair of running shoes—I swear by Brooks Trance line—and a pair of Vibram FiveFingers. Those are the “barefoot” running shoes that have a thin rubber sole and individual toes. They must not be available here in Israel because I get lots of looks when I run in them. I’ve been assuming that these gawkers have been shouting words of encouragement, but then again, ani lo medever ivrit—I do not speak Hebrew. I just smile back, pick up the pace, and think to myself, this truly is the good life.