New Friends

We had a very nice friend-filled Shabbat for our first Shabbat in Ra'anana. I will never remember the names of all the people that we met, but I will try! On Friday night, David took Simon to shul and then Eli and I met them at Jodi and Daniel's for dinner. David knows Daniel from his year in Israel and I met Jodi at the Coffee Bean a week or so ago. They are from England and they had another couple, Paul and Nikki and their 4 kids who just arrived from England on Thursday. They also had another couple, Talia and Ian and their 3 kids who are from South Africa and have been here for about 3 months. We had a great time getting to know all of them. Simon was not in the best mood because it was late and he was tired, but he did play fairly well with all of the kids. Eli ate chopped liver for the first time and loved it!
We didn't get home until almost 11 and we all went straight to bed and slept until a little after 9 in the morning. We all went to shul together and actually got there before it was over. People in shul were SO friendly and I can't even count the number of people who came up to me and asked if I was new here. That particular shul is mostly British and not very many Americans, but one of the Americans who does go there is Bettina who will be Eli's daycare starting in the fall. I liked her immediately and Eli actually reached out his arms to her husband and let him hold him for about 15 minutes, so that is surely a good sign.
We went to Debbie and David's for lunch and Simon had a great time riding Maya's bike in the backyard. The 2 other families that they had were Abby and Jonny and their baby Jake. Abby went to camp with Mashie. Then there was Audrey and Jake and their 2 girls. Jake was Eliav's roommate at McGill. The only way I'll remember people is by these connections! Simon was sitting on David's lap and David was tickling him and Simon said "Die!" which is the Hebrew word for "stop, enough!" He also told us that "uch" means "yucky" in Hebrew.
We didn't get home from lunch until almost 5. Eli fell asleep in the stroller, so we put him in bed when we got home. I took a short nap too and then we gave the kids dinner and went to the park across the street for an hour. Simon had a water fight at the water fountain with a little girl and then the girl's big sister (who must have been 5) came and yelled at them. After Shabbos, David and I ordered steak and chicken salad from Burgers Bar for dinner. I love restaurants that deliver!
This morning was pretty uneventful...kids went to daycare/school and I went to the grocery store, did laundry and cleaned up the house a little. I am cooking for the first time tonight...making meatballs, but I couldn't find grape jelly or chili sauce that looked the way I think chili sauce is supposed to look, so I'm making them with strawberry jelly and some sort of weird-looking chili sauce, so we'll see how it comes out!