Purim Celebrations Begin

Purim is more than just a one-day holiday here. From the beginning of Adar (the Hebrew month in which Purim falls) the schools start doing fun things for the kids and they tend to come home from school in some sort of costume. One day, I picked up Simon and he was wearing this (it's a little blurry because I took it with my phone):

We came home and Eli was already home with Marcia. Eli's cheeks were painted with big red circles in the middle and I noticed a hot pink skirt-looking thing on the table, so I asked Marcia if
Eli had been wearing that. She said that when she picked him up, he was indeed wearing a hot pink skirt. Frieda said that Eli absoutely refused to wear whatever costume she had made for

the boys and insisted on having what the girls had. David had happened to be home when

they got home, so he took this picture, but unfortunately it didn't come out that great:

On Thursday, I had to go up to Zichron Ya'akov to deliver something for work (long story--I'm not actually a delivery-girl!!). Basically, I volunteered to do it because Zichron is only about 45 minutes from here and it's supposed to be beautiful and I'd never been there before. My friend Rachel came with me and we had a great time. The weather was amazing and we had brunch at an outdoor cafe and then walked around the shopping area going in to all the cute little stores. I bought the kids wooden letters of their names to hang on their bedroom doors. Here are pictures of Rachel and me and of the pretty main street in Zichron: