Ripped Off in Herzliya

To re-cap the week...on Sunday afternoon we went to Hod HaSharon to see Ilana and Adam who were here from Connecticut. Simon and Eli freaked out when we got to Ilana's cousins' apartment because they had a dog, but they calmed down when the dog was put away in a different room. We walked to a felafel stand nearby to get some lunch and realized that it was way too hot to eat outside, so I walked back to get the car and we all squished in (Adam was a very good sport about being squished between 2 carseats) and ate in the air-conditioned car. The we drove them to the airport and Simon really wanted to go on an airplane too.
Sunday night, David and I went out for dinner to New York New York with Abby, Jonny, Debbie and David. We had a great time and ate tons of food for cheap. All in all, a great evening!!
Monday was Simon's last day at Gan Frieda:( Lauren asked me to pick up Meirav since Asher was still sick, so when Eli and I went to pick up Simon and Meirav, Meirav burst into tears and said "I don't want to go in the car with Eli because he will scratch my face." How sad is that??? I convinced her that it would be ok because Simon would be sitting in the middle so Eli wouldn't be able to reach her even if he did want to scratch her face which he wouldn't. I hope she gets over her fear of him since they are going to gan together in the fall!! He has actually gotten much better over the past week or so and has been behaving very well. Hopefully I didn't just jinx it.
On Tuesday, Simon spent the first morning of his vacation watching Abby and me work out with our trainer, Jonathan. Simon thought it was very amusing and today he asked me "is that exercise man going to come to our house again another day? He was so fun and funny!" After that, Simon and I went to the mall because I wanted to get a new cell phone since Cellcom sent me a thing in the mail that said I could get a new phone cheap in honor of our one-year anniversary together. Isn't that nice of them? Verizon always made me wait 2 years. Sadly, my long sought after iphone isn't available here so I settled for an LG that really wants to be an iphone. It has internet and radio and tv that supposedly only costs an additional 20 shekels per month over what I was already paying so we'll see if that's actually true when I get the bill.
Of course it took forever in the Cellcom store but Simon was a good sport, probably because I bought him a big bag of candy as a bribe. We went from there to pick up Eli who then napped for most of the afternoon. Then Eli and I dropped Simon at Chaim's birthday party and then went with Natalie, Kovi and Shayna to get felafel for dinner. I got Eli 1/2 a pita with hummus, felafel, tomatoes and fries. He meticulously picked out and ate all the fries first and then ate the rest as a sandwich very nicely. We went back and picked up Simon and then hurried home for baths because Natan was coming to babysit. Eli answered the door when he came and said "oh, hi Datan!" Then Eli was playing with his tool kit on the floor and he patted the floor next to him and said "sit Datan!" David and I went to Meatos in Tel Aviv for dinner with Judah and Karen who we hadn't seen in months. It was great to see them and catch up and the food was good even if the waitress totally rushed us through our meal!
Yesterday morning Simon and I went with Sharon and Oren to the big gymboree in Pardesiya. The boys had a great time and Simon only spent about 5 minutes playing PlayStation so I was happy about that.
Today, Simon and I went with the Frieds to Herzliya. Natalie had heard that there was a gymboree-type place with bumper cars in the mall at the Marina. The kids had fun but it was the biggest rip-off EVER. You had to pay separately for literally every single thing. 9 shekels a kid for the bumper cars that lasted about 3 minutes. Then another 9 shekels a kid to go in the gymboree part that of course they wanted to go in and out of a million times but weren't allowed. And then Natalie got yelled at for going in with Shayna because apparently pregnant women aren't allowed in! We wouldn't let the kids go on the merry go round or the train ride because it was too expensive!! So they played a few rounds of air-hockey and then we went outside to look at the boats and eat lunch. And then Simon and I came back to Ra'anana to pick up Eli.
We hung out while Eli napped and then when he woke up we still had about an hour before Playball, so I decided we should go out for ice cream. Artico is about a 3 minute walk from our apartment and for some reason when Simon asked me if he could ride his bike, I thought that would be a great idea and I thought it would be a good idea for Eli to take his little car. BAD IDEA. We made it as far as the shul (which, remember, is NEXT DOOR to our building) when I decided we needed to go back and trade in Eli's car for the stroller. As we were going back, we saw Katie and her girls (our old neighbors from Shai Agnon and our only primarily Hebrew-speaking friends) and Katie and I made plans for the 4 of us to go out next week so that was an added bonus. We got the stroller and finally made it to Artico. Simon was so cute riding his bike like such a big boy. Anytime the sidewalk went uphill even a tiny bit, I had to push him because it was too hard to pedal. The boys each got blue ice cream--it is "sky" flavor...not kidding, it is called "shamayim" in cones with sprinkles. They were melting everywhere within 2 seconds, so I sent Simon inside to ask for a cup. While he was gone, a little girl decided to come and sit with us. Simon came back with a cup (which he proudly told me he asked for in Hebrew) and didn't even notice this random girl at our table. She told me that her name is Eden and I said it's a pretty name and she said "I know, everyone calls me Gan Eden" (as in the Garden of Eden). She is 5 and her big sister is a waitress at Lemongrass and her big brother was sitting at the table next to us. That was her whole life story.
David met us as we were walking home and he stayed home with Eli while I took Simon to Playball. They painted while we were gone and Simon doesn't like the picture that they made.