Subaru

Today we got our new (used) car. It literally took the entire day, but we now have a 2004 Subaru B4 (yeah, I never heard of that model until today either). We had to rush in the morning after a rough jet-lagged induced night of both kids being up from about midnight until almost 3am. They were just awake and ready to go. Eli was playing in his bed and woke up Simon. I wanted to take Eli out of the room so that Simon could sleep, but Simon told me that Eli was awake because he was scared in his crib and needed to sleep in Simon's bed with him. I nixed that idea and Simon had a huge fit. Eventually they went to sleep and then we ended up having to wake Eli in the morning so that we could leave to go to Jerusalem to get the car.
In the meantime, El Al called and our luggage had arrived and was actually all delivered safe and sound!
We went to Jerusalem (and had to turn around shortly after we left because David forgot his passport, which you need for everything here, including buying gas for some reason) and Eli and I dropped of Simon and David at the Subaru dealer and went to the health insurance place. I was very nervous for my first driving in Israel experience, but my practice driving in Boston through all of the Big Dig mess served me well. Similar to Boston, there is no freakin' place to park in downtown Jerusalem and all the streets go one-way the wrong way and I ended up driving around the entire city in order to get back to where I needed to go. I lucked out and found a meter that had 20 minutes on it. I knew I'd be longer than that, but I just had to risk it because I had no idea how to pay the meter since it only had a slot for some sort of card that I didn't have. I didn't get a ticket.
The health insurance sign-up went fairly smoothly and the people who worked there couldn't believe it when I told them that the total cost of insurance for 8 months (we get national health insurance after 6 months, but I signed up for 8 just in case) for all 4 of us is less than one month of insurance in America. I'm not sure that this insurance actually covers anything, but it only costs $1 per day for each of us.
Eli and I went back to the car place to pick up David and Simon. We ended up waiting for a very long time. Simon came to wait in the car with Eli and me because Eli was sleeping so I didn't want to get out. Simon was very well-behaved considering how bored he must have been. He kept himself entertained by pretending to drive and using up all the windshield washer fluid. I kept telling him to stop and he kept telling me "it's ok, Mommy. I'm just going to do one more time and then one more time again and then one more time again."
Just when we thought everything was taken care of, it turned out that we had to bring some form and some money to the post office and then bring it back to the dealership to get the car released. Why the post office, we have no idea.
We didn't get on the road back to Arica and Josh's until 4:15 after returning our rental car. When we finally got back here, Simon joined Danya and Jordy in the pool for a little while and Eli gobbled up a yogurt since he never ate lunch.
2 babysitters came over and the grown-ups went out for a really yummy dinner at which we ordered WAY too much food! We just got back to find all the kids asleep, thankfully!
I will post pictures of the new car tomorrow.