Light-filled

Notice the light  dancing around in little heart-shapes over my son's head. Like a tiara.

Well we are coming off of our eight day Hanukkah vacation. The kids are back in school tomorrow. Our second, smaller container, the one with all of the bookcases, storage units and hangers, the one that will help contain the piles of books, toys and clothes, is coming tomorrow. We've lit a total of 135 candles over the last eight days and the world seems a little brighter. I was happy to have this time off with the kids to be with family and friends. Trying to see everyone we know with only Saturdays to do it (six day school week here...) meant we might not get to everyone before we moved to some other country, so it was nice to have a little extra time for visiting. There were a lot of reunions. We saw friends who had moved to Israel three years ago who we hadn't seen since. And maybe for even a year before they left. The last time we lit candles together our oldest was two months old and their three girls (now nearly teenagers) took turns smothering him with love. We visited a family who we last saw in London seven years ago when our oldest kids were babies. Their daughter and our son are only two weeks apart and hadn't seen each other since. It didn't seem to matter. And of course we saw our son's betrothed, the little girl he's known since they were both a month old. Our families have grown at the same pace so get-togethers are especially easy and enjoyable.

It's hard to believe it was exactly a year ago that we told our parents about our plans to move back to Israel. Before they were even plans really. Just ideas. And now we're here a year later. We're eating sufganiyot. We're cleaning the floors with a squeegee. We're drinking coffee at 4pm. We're driving through check-points. We're paying bills at the post office. We're texting in Hebrew. We're parking on curbs. We're eating a lot of olives.

We're definitely here and we're starting to feel settled.

Hanukkah at the Jerusalem Mall

Yesterday the baby and I went to the Jerusalem Mall. Yes, even Jerusalem has a mall. And a rather nice one too. It's about twenty minutes and two roadblocks from here. I'm still getting used to the whole West Bank proximity thing. In the United States you have all these ideals like that Palestine should be fully sovereign. No more settlements. Dual control of the borders. The list goes on. But then you live here and the easiest way to the mall is through the West Bank. Easy since no one bugs you because you and your pasty white baby and your Mazda 5 don't exactly fit the terrorist profile. There's an even shorter way too, according to my iPhone, which takes you along some unrecommended roads. I realized in time and aborted that mission. It's all very surreal.

As was the experience at the mall. My copilot and I browsed around for a few hours looking at all the shops with beautiful clothes and shoes. We found my favorite art/office supply store and bought some two ring A4 binders to get in step with Euro/Israeli style filing. And we breathed in the smell of freshly fried donuts for Hanukah. I even had a peek at the food court, which, besides offering more middle eastern faire in addition to Sbarros pizza and McDonald's, is pretty much as you would expect from a food court. I also loved the sign that listed a bunch of services down a hallway, including the bathrooms, tailoring, mall management and a synagogue. Once I can get some babysitters lined up, there are several pair of size 39 shoes with my name on them.

Happy Hanukkah!