From Tel Aviv to Jerusalem

We love summertime because lots of fun people come to visit! On Friday, we had plans to see my friend Elana with whom I used to work at JCRC (in fact, she has some parts of my old job and I can't say I envy her very much!!). We couldn't decide what to do and ended up just meeting her at the Azrieli Mall. We got there before she did, so we took the kids to Toys R Us while we waited. Eli tried to convince us to buy him a HUGE monster truck for 350 shekels...needless to say, we said no and convinced him to buy a little motorcycle for 20 shekels instead. Simon chose a magnifying glass which kept him entertained for hours. We met up with Elana and had lunch in the food court (Agvania...best pizza in the country!) and then we went up to the observatory on the 49th floor of the Azrieli Towers. There was some sort of private party going on up there, so we snuck into the kitchen area so we could just go to the windows and look at the view. You can see halfway across the country from up there--very cool. We also noticed that on the roof of the mall there was a very cool pirate ship-themed play area with a pool, so we stopped there on the way down to find out when it's open and how much it costs. I'm definitely going to take the kids there because it looks like a lot of fun. After accidentally taking the very long way to drop Elana off, we hurried home to get ready for Shabbos.
At around 6:30, there was a knock on the door and it was Asher. We had this conversation:
me: Hi Asher
Asher: Hi. My dad and Meirav are at shul and I wanted to come play with Simon.
Me: Ok, sure. Does your dad know you are here?
Asher: yes
Me: Are you telling me the truth?
Asher: No. Can you call him and tell him I am here?
I sent him and Simon back to shul to tell Alan that Asher was playing here. They came back with Meirav too and all the kids played for a while. Eli went to bed early but Simon wanted to stay up to eat dinner with David and me. He was being very charming--a nice change from his recent whiny behavior--and we had a really nice dinner all together with lots of interesting conversation that of course I can't remember at all now.
In the morning, the kids didn't wake up until after 8 and we sent them to play in the playroom and David and I slept longer. I got up around 9:30 when there was a knock on the door...Asher again! When I got up, I discovered a nice new border decoration along our dining room wall at just about Eli's height. A nice row of purple circles. Eli denied that he did it, but then helped me clean it up with wipes. It mostly came off. The alien that Simon and Asher drew in Simon's room in pencil didn't come off as easily. I don't know what is up with these kids and drawing on the walls. On Shabbos no less!!
Today, we went to Jerusalem in the late afternoon to meet up with our friend Leah and her 3 kids who are here from DC. David and her husband went to college together and we have not seen them since Charles & Jen's wedding when their oldest daughter was about 7 months old and Simon was 6 weeks old!! Anyway, we met up at the Jerusalem Zoo and had a great time. The kids all got along really well and had so much fun together. We stayed at the zoo for a couple of hours and then went to the mall to get dinner in the food court. The kids were all getting a little hyperactive by then and dinner was a little disappointing, at least for me because I took forever deciding what I wanted and then finally got a felafel. As I was about to eat it, Simon took one bite of his sushi and decided he didn't like it. So it was felafel for him and sushi for me. It was really good sushi but I really had my heart set on the felafel!!
We didn't get home until 9:30, but it was such a fun day and well-worth the late night!