Back to the Land of Milk and Honey

We said goodbye to Savti and Zaide and all the cousins on Sunday and headed to the airport in Toronto. The computers were down at ElAl so they were checking everyone in by hand, which I thought was a sure sign that our luggage was not going to make it. By some miracle, it did!
The flight was long and bumpy, but the kids slept for a good part of it, so all was good. Simon watched DVD's for the first 5 hours straight until the DVD player died and then he slept for the next 5 hours and then was just up for the last hour. He really liked a new DVD that TK got for him about Franklin the Turtle. I had told Simon about the DVD one night when I was putting him to bed and I told him that Auntie TK got him a new DVD about a turtle named Franklin who plays soccer. About 10 minutes after I told him that, he said "does Franklin the turtle play soccer underwater?"
We arrived in Israel around 10:30am and were home by noon. I couldn't keep my eyes open, so I took a nap for 2 hours while David entertained the kids. When I got up, he took Simon to the park to ride his bike. Simon said "I need to ride my police bike because my Hot Wheels bike we left at Boston because it's too big for me and I can't reach the petals. The police bike is my right size and I will have the Hot Wheels bike when we go back to Boston."
We went to the mall for dinner at the food court so that we could all get different things and it would be quick. Simon really wanted to sit at one of the little kids' tables that has 4 tiny chairs attached to it. David and I squished into the chairs and Eli sat like such a big boy in his chair too and ate up all of his noodles. After dinner, David took Simon to play in the castle for a little bit and I took Eli to pick up the new wedding bands that I bought us for David's birthday that weren't ready before we left.
Both kids fell asleep in the car on the way home from the mall (less than 10 minute ride) and Simon was MAD at the mention of having a bath before bed. Despite his huge fit, we bathed the kids and got them to bed before 8:00. David went to bed around then too and I stayed up a little bit and watched Ugly Betty (I'm going to be very busy now that the new season has started of all my shows). The boys woke up around midnight (Simon told me this morning that it was his fault--he said "I woke up and decided that I wanted you so I decided to cry and that woke up Eli.) and were up for about 1/2 an hour and we ended up having Eli sleep with David and I slept with Simon. I guess that worked because we all slept until 7:30, but hopefully tonight everyone will sleep in their own beds.
This morning Simon was happy to go back to Gan Frieda. He went with no problem and when I picked him up Frieda said it was as if he never left and he had a great day. He came home wearing a birthday crown, as were all of the kids, and I asked him why and he said "I don't know...I think it is someone's birthday." Frieda had said something about crowns and why they made them but I didn't fully understand and was hoping that Simon would enlighten me, but I guess he didn't understand either!
Eli had a good day too, although Bettina said that he did a lot of shrieking (he really needs to learn to talk) and didn't eat very much. I think he is getting more teeth because he hasn't wanted to eat anything that requires chewing for the past couple of days. I gave him pudding and soup when he got home and he ate that. He also got his hands on an orange crayon and you can see the results of that in the picture!