Rest of Chanuka

Oops, I kind of forgot to post about the rest of Chanuka. I think I left off with Wednesday night. On Thursday, the boys and I picked up Ducky at her hotel and we drove up to Haifa to go to the Science Museum there. It took a little over an hour to get there and was so worth the trip. The museum was amazing and perfect for both kids. There was so much to see and we all loved it. Ducky liked the dinosaurs the best. Eli fell asleep the second we got in the car to come home because he was so exhausted. Simon spent the drive home playing a game with Ducky that involved him saying that he was thinking of a word and it had 3 letters (or 4 or whatever the case was) and she had to guess what the letters were. This sounds like a great game but he is 4 and has no idea how to spell. So what he thought was a word wasn't necessarily a real word. But it passed the time.
Thursday night, Sarah came to babysit and we went for dinner with Ducky and Papu and the Tobins. We went to a place in the port in Tel Aviv that had really good food. I mostly liked it becuase there were beets in everything and I love beets! Then we went to Max Brenner for dessert...mmm, chocolate!!
Friday we were supposed to go to the Hungarian restaurant in Tel Aviv for brunch. I got up early to go to the supermarket and left David with the kids. I got a call from David while I was at Supersol saying that he had just spent the past 20 minutes throwing up and that he was going to bed. I got home and found Simon playing on the computer and Eli was nowhere to be found. I quietly went into my room to ask David where he was and David said "he's right here" and then I saw him lying very nicely under the covers with David with his eyes wide open. I asked him if he wanted to come with me and he said yes. I think he must have heard David throwing up and it freaked him out because he just seemed a little freaked out for the next couple of hours. Because of all the vomit excitement, we didn't go to Tel Aviv. Ducky came here and took the kids off my hands so that I could cook for Shabbos and then later Ducky and I took Simon to pick up Papu from the hotel.
Shabbos was very nice. Just us for dinner Friday night where David read aloud to the whole table from the potty book that Ducky and Papu had brought for Eli. It was one of the funniest things I'd ever heard. All about poof elephants and sewer rhinocerouses and the poop police.
Abby, Jonny, Jake and Emily came for lunch. I had set the little table for the boys, but sadly Eli and Jake were both sleeping while we were eating. We let Simon sit at the big table rather than sit all by himself at the little one.
After Shabbos, David and I went to Modi'in to go to Adam's birthday party/housewarming party. It was fun to see all the cousins and there was really good food.
On Sunday, it finally was a beautiful day. Ducky and I took the kids to the zoo in Rishon Le'Tzion, which was not as good as the Safari, but fun nonetheless. Eli dropped the map into the kangaroo cage and Simon got really upset and made me take him back out of the zoo to get another one. From there, we drove around for a while trying to find a place to eat lunch and then we went to Beit Shemesh to see Medinah and her kids. I hadn't seen her in YEARS and it was so much fun!
From there, we went to Jerusalem to have dinner with Abi and Abe and Kenny and Antoinette and to meet Nina for the first time--she is already 16 months old so it's kind of pathetic that we had never even seen her!! David and Papu were supposed to meet us there, but David ended up not being able to leave work until much later than he originally thought and there was lots of traffic so we decided it wasn't worth them coming all the way in. We ordered from Burgers Bar and had a very nice time. Simon took a liking to Nina and showed her how to play his little video game. We didn't get home until very late, but that didn't mean that the kids slept late the next morning, unfortunately.
Monday was a yucky day, weatherwise. We really just hung around the house mostly. Papu took the boys out for pizza and ice cream and then later Ducky came with Eli and me to music class. All too soon it was time for Ducky and Papu to leave to go back to Boston:( Chanuka vacation went by so quickly!
The boys were very happy to go back to Gan Dafna and Gan Frieda...I will catch up on what we've been doing since then in the next post because this one is way too long already!!