Lag B'omer

Last Wednesday night and Thursday was Lag B'omer. Work wasn't closed or anything, but there were festivities all over. On Tuesday at Eitan's music class the teacher taught a whole bunch of new songs about Lag B'omer. It was cute. Or would have been if he understood what was going on. And on Wednesday night there were bonfires all over the city, in all of the parks, backyards, etc. The whole city smelled like fire.

Thursday however was the day we really did something for the day- Wednesday night I had work, and Eitan had sleep, and Ami, well, is stuck with us lame-os. Thursday afternoon the neighborhood Chabad hosted a kids event. It started at a playground with some drummers, and they gave out flags and hats to all the kiddos (which Eitan wore for a grand 5 seconds). They whole group walked a couple of blocks on "parade" to a local school courtyard/play area where they had a bunch of bouncy houses (!), music playing, more drummers, with a drumming circle for kids to play with, and bbqs with hot dogs.



Drumming from mimi rozmaryn on Vimeo.


It was fun for kids, maybe a little better for kids a bit older then Eitan, but you know, he likes to party and can have a good time where ever. The bouncy house fun was very short lived - I think the bigger kids scared him a bit, so he stayed at the entrance, but the drumming circle was so fun for our future musician. And he liked hot dogs too. His first...and last for a looong time. Those things are not healthy.

And of course, pictures...

Latest Fun

It's getting warmer, the days are getting longer. Yesterday it was up to 86 degrees, and HOT in the sun. I've been trying to keep inside for the hottest parts of the day, naptime is from 12-2, so that's easy enough, and playing lots of games right after until we take an afternoon excursion.

In the Rozmaryn house Eitan's most recently been entertained by:

His blocks or BOPS that he got as a present over Pesach. He carries them in their case to me when he wants to play, and watches me stack them one by one. Sometimes he'll even add one, but really likes to watch. It is NOT okay for me to stack them sideways, the little engineer in training lets me know. They have to be in size order only and right side down, always. After I build a tower he'll just watch in, and lightly touch it. Ami tries to show him the fun in knocking it down, but he doesn't seem to really care for that. Maybe he is mine, after all.

Eitan's also all about climbing into the bottom of the stroller. He'll climb in, hang out, get bored and scream because he can't get out. After a few times we started storing the stroller folded up, but it was cute while it lasted.

And lastly, lots of reading! Eitan likes to pick out a book, or  BOOP and hand it to me. He does NOT always have the patience to sit through the whole thing. That's another Rozmaryn resemblance. Or maybe just being a one and a half year old...

Here's a go at a current favorite, Chica Chica Boom Boom, a Chanuka gift from his cousins Liat and Itai (Idat) and Uncle Gadi and Tia.





That's what we've been up to! What have you been doing? Other then getting a pool membership for the summer (doing research...it's a MUST) what are some ideas for keeping cool when it gets brutal?

More Bakeries!

Last week Ami read an article about some of the "bests" food-wise in Jerusalem here. Obviously, we got right on that the next day tackling two. Because you know, me and bakeries, we're tight. Marzipan, duh, but the other four. Hello.

The first, Gagou de Paris was written up for the best Eclairs. Ami LOVES eclairs. Like LOVES. Which is weird, because he's not a dessert guy, at all. He even one made them from scratch after a particularly inspiring episode of Good Eats.

The bakery deemed to have the best Eclairs the best was a french place on King George Street in town. It's actually 14 King George if you're planning a visit. But maybe don't. They had lots of different beautiful treats. Mini eclairs that looked adorable, but to Ami's dismay were not filled with custard, instead some caramel-ly stuff.

I had a lemon meringue tart. And unlike Ami, I AM decidedly a dessert person, and couldn't even finish my tart. The pie crust was pre-bought, a disappointment (it tasted chemically) and the meringue was kind of grainy and too sweet. And it's a big deal if I say somethings too sweet.

The third dessert we sampled was a strawberry creme thing. Ami liked it, I was neutral.

The biggest problem I had with the bakery was that it's pareve. I mean, that's a good thing sometimes, but you know, if you're going to have really great desserts they're usually dairy.  The great thing about our discovery of this pareve-ness was that while Ami was at the counter with his first eclair, he ate it and then said, "oh crap", to which the guy behind the counter said knowingly, don't worry, it's pareve. Only in Israel my friends.

The next "best" we had was the best Challah in Jerusalem at Pe-er. Luckily for us, the best place is actually two blocks away from our very apartment. Pe-er on Shmuel Hanagid. It's right parallel Burgers Bar, one street behind. I'm being generous by street. It's more like a back alley, and that's the only establishment on the block.



 


What it lacks in clarity of location, it makes up for in charm. Seriously, is the place oozing charm, or what? Okay, so it's totally not stroller friendly, but the seating area is adorable, and the bakery area charming as well. It feels like a secret.

Eating and being strolled around is exhausting !

Um, and the Challah, yeah, it's really good. Really really good. Totally worthy of their nomination.

Anyways, that was our Friday adventure!

In Case of a Bad Day:

Take Eitan's advice and SMILE.

That balloon was a gift from the folks at the Orange store yesterday. And here in Israel, orange is not just a fruit, but the name of a cell phone company. Now, you might ask, why is an Israeli phone company named Orange- in English? No clue...but it is.

And they gave it to him for having such good behavior while Nina was taking care of some business. And by good behavior I mean demanding to be let out from his stroller and running around the store like a crazy man running into the employee only section and trying to knock down all the displays. Greeeeatt.

But once the balloon came into play, well, the whole afternoon turned around and it was all about big laughs and peek-a-boo.

Enjoy!

Yom Haatzmaut- Airplanes, BBQ and Flags

Being in Israel in Yom Haatzmaut is all about the Barbecues, or mangals. People go to popular parks as early as 5am to stake out a prime spot.

We decided to skip the chaos of the parks and have an afternoon barbecue at Esty's - complete with a gas grill and an amazing front terrace that overlooks the Kenesset. It was a beautiful day, warm, but breezy and not a cloud in the sky.

There were four planes there. And awesome photography :).

On Yom Haatzmaut the Israeli airforce shows off their moves with fly overs around the whole country. It's a good thing it's a small country. Around noon the planes started overhead in amazing formations, coming close together and diverting, etc. It was amazing. Eitan was so excited he was just bouncing up and down screaming Airplane, which sound more like eh-pane, but we knew.

The barbecue was great, delicious and we learned that Eitan seriously likes chicken legs. At a barbecue back in Kemp Mill a couple weeks ago, he couldn't get enough of chicken cut up that Gadi was feeding him, but here he upped the ante and just took hold of the pulkey himself and went at it. And he wouldn't put it down for anything. It was hilarious. Especially as I remember that while I was pregnant with him, even the thought of a chicken bone would send me to the nearest barf bag.

And of course, this city was covered in flags. Big ones on buildings, weird vertical ones with long blue stripes and a small star in the center (that just looked off to me), as I mentioned before, flags on car windows, and for the first time I noticed flag "cases" for the side mirrors on cars. Now, these seem crazy to me because they overhang onto the mirrors a bit, and from what I've seen of Israeli drivers, well...they need all the mirror they can get.

In Honor of Yom Haatzmaut

So no pictures of flags, fireworks or people dancing in the street, although we heard it all last night. We're headed out in a bit for a BBQ, of course, but for now I want to post about one of our favorite things in Israel, the strawberries.

They've been in season since Chanuka, and from what I understand the season's ending now, so goodbye strawberries. You've been a great snack. And so much better then the strawberries we have in the US. So yay Israel!

In order to make up for yesterday's lack of photos of Eitan post, here are some shots of Eitan enjoying lots of the last batch of our shuk "bawbeies"

PS- Just a scene from our house now, no pictures...Ami woke up and saw the Caps (DC's hockey team) won last night/this morning for us in OT, game 7 of the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs sending them to advance. He proceeds to scream OT, OT, OT, and Eitan repeats OT OT OT...his friends in NY call- they're out celebrating, and he's now wearing his Ovie jersey, taking shots of vodka with them for breakfast.  It's going to be an interesting day.

Nesting?

It seems that although we were gone for three weeks, the ledge outside our bedroom window was occupied, because we found (and by we I mean Ami) the beginnings of a bird's nest. Over the past couple days we've seen one bird "mommy" sitting on this little pile and another bird "daddy" bringing over more supplies.

Which is awesome because we hadn't seen them for the first couple days we were back, so thought they got scared off. But no, they're hanging out, mostly in the mornings making sounds like "ho ho ho ho". Come and visit and you can hear my imitation in person, or just come hang out in our room and hear the real thing.

They do get scared off when Eitan screams or when we get too close to the window (like when I took this picture, sorry bird!) but seem to come back a bit later. So that's cool.

Mommy Bird

Nest is all the way right in a shady spot under the leaf branch!