Getting ready to go to Israel

By Dr. Yasmine Kalkstein
Hello friends.

I decided to rejuvenate this blog after sort of abandoning it for Facebook (sorry...).  Facebook is just so easy from a mobile device!!

But it seems people are interested in following our adventure to Israel this summer...
So...I'm in the middle of preparations now...well, actually I've been preparing for weeks.
It went like this;
decided to go to israel...couldn't find frequent flier tickets....decided not to go....decided to go again....decided to go with a stop in London....frequent flier tickets still cost too much in fees...Adam has a moment of weakness and decides we'll just pay for non-stops...yasmine = super happy.

i find an apartment....4 weeks before we leave, i lose the apartment (not my fault)...my parents, who are coming too but staying in jersusalem lose their apartment the same week...a week of full-time work finding an apartment.
got 2 apartments (have to switch midway)...spend more money, but it's done.
got rental car...find out that rental car place doesn't exist....closed 6 months ago!  finally get another one (spend more money to do so).

Despite the fact that all our money is now gone, we are excited to be living the zionist dream for 7 weeks.  Well at least one of us is! Can you guess which one?

So, we are living in Modiin, Israel (cool new urban area!) and the kids will be going to bilingual camp.

It's been a busy spring as usual.  Sivan has become quite the artist--her teachers are really impressed with her creativity as one teacher put it "she could be anything".
Sivan's choice remains "singer and songwriter".
She's obsessed with reading chapter books (or rather having them read to her) and loves bugs and worms (she tries to save all bugs and dig up and love all the worms she can find).

Matan is our little clown--he loves to make people laugh and is generally good natured, although is starting to show the ability to throw some really good 2 year old temper tantrums.  He turns 2 on June 21.  He loves his sister more than anything--and she fortunately, generally reciprocates.  Matan has an incredible vocabulary now for his age...and speaks really well!  He loves the color orange (really, obsessed with that color), anything with sugar or lacking nutritional value, balls, trains, cars, helicopters, and airplanes.  He is good at destroying a house in seconds.












"Talk" to you from Israel!

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