Visit to the Tekhelet Factory Last friday we visited the Tekhelet Factory. Its located in Kfar Adumim, a bit past Maale Adumim in the west bank/shomeron, just East of Jerusalem. It’s a small company which has resurrected the lost art of dying the tzitzit (the fringes on the corners of one’s prayer shawl) blue. Most…
Read moreView from our apartment
View from our apartment Our apartment is on the 10th floor of a 14 story building. From the balcony you can see the rest of Ra’anana followed by Herzliya to one side and Kfar Saba to the other side. When the air is clear, between the high rises you can see the Mediterranean Sea. And…
Read moreUlpan
Ulpan Val found a company called Ulpan La’Inyan, which offers private lessons. The formal adult ulpan for Val and I doesn’t start until Sept 1. There is a summer session but its already halfway over. And there isn’t one specifically for the kids since they get it during school which also starts Sept 1. So…
Read morewater park on the Kinneret and haircuts
water park on the Kinneret and haircuts The first two and a half weeks we basically had been ignoring the kids while we ran around trying to get ourselves established. So now we are trying to make an effort to do some fun things with the kids, and to do some of the “touristy” things…
Read moreFirst trip to Jerusalem.
First trip to Jerusalem. Israeli expat friends of ours from Phoenix are visiting Israel now for a few weeks, which has been really nice because they’ve been able to help us with some of the tasks we’ve needed to accomplish. And the kids have had some friends to play with as well, since they haven’t…
Read moreWe have Israeli driver’s licenses!
We have Israeli driver’s licenses! The Israeli government made it easier last year to convert your US drivers license into an Israeli one. Basically, they changed it so that if you’ve had a US license uninterrupted for the past five years then you don’t need to repeat any driver’s tests or medical/eye exams. But since…
Read moreWe bought a car!
We bought a car! And if you’ll forgive my snobby Ameri-centric world outlook, yes, its a weird small euro-israeli car. Our first idea before we left the US was to bring our honda odyssey minivan with us. But after doing some research we decided that it would be easier and either cheaper or similar in…
Read morenext few days…
next few days… We spent the first friday night, they day after our arrival, just with our family in the apartment. We had a nice friday night dinner, and went to bed early and woke up early the next day. I went to shul myself because everyone else was too tired to get up that…
Read moreFirst few days
First few days We arrived at the apartment and Dani the building manager met us there to let us in. The van driver helped us unload our 18 bags + carry-ons + cats onto the sidewalk while Dani assured us that they would be safe there while we went up to look at the apartment….
Read moreArriving in Israel
Arriving in Israel The last two days of packing were very rough. We were pulling all-nighters trying to get the house empty, clean, etc, and everything all packed. I made hundreds of trips up and down the stairs carrying boxes, etc. (my apple watch literally said that i had done 111 flights of stairs on…
Read moreThe Move…
The Move… We are finally here – its been a hectic week and I only got the internet working a couple of days ago so I’ve fallen behind on posting. But here are a few more pics from the move: Junk haulers loading the truck. We eventually ended up with three full truckloads of…
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