The first weekend

So I got my quiet vacation off to a nice start by spending a quiet day at the house. Until we decided that Nataly needed to go to the koopat cholim since her stomach had now been hurting for two days straight. After spending some time there she was told she had a minor stomach bug and to go home since she would be fine. So home we went where the movie marathon continued. In addition to movies we ended up watching Israeli Golden Girls, which was hysterical, and what seems to be the Israeli version of Entourage. Chaverim shel Nir, about a real life Israeli standup comic and his friends, is soooooooo Israeli. And hysterical. I highly recommend it if you speak Hebrew. And get Israelis.

The next day I went to hang out with my brother. Hanging out with Donnie is always a trip. He's super duper religious, and his payot are now long enough to curl, but he is still a lot of fun to hang out with. I have no problem with religion, but it bothers me when people think it means they have to lose their personality in the process of becoming more religious. Thankfully Donnie is a Karl and has personality to spare.

So my handyman brother asked me to take some pictures of the various items he has built to use in both his portfolio and in his new ads he is running to get his name out more. When he came to pick me up from Shachar's I was pleasantly surprised to see a little face with curly payot sticking up to see out the rear window. We drove first to the school where Donnie is the woodshop teacher (one of his jobs) to take some pictures of stuff already built, and to take measurements for other stuff that needs to be built. Chananel helped Donnie as much as he could, including being the guy to hold the measuring tape (Needless to say the cuteness quotient was through the roof, and the firt bunch of what is likely to be many many pictures of the kids was taken). After traveling to several other work locations of Donnie's to photo we headed back to their house.

During this day of Karls Chananel had to repeatedly tell and show me that he had not forgotten what I had taught him previously, and the day was full of rocking on. Both in word and gesture. Cuteness definitely abounded. Additionally,cont there were 2 other like bundles of high spirits and energy waiting to say hi when we got back. Watching the boys play together was beyond hysterical. At one point I asked my sister in law "Leah, are they aware that they keep switching languages while they are are talking?". "Probably not" said oh so casually reminded me that while the little bilingual kids of Ramat Beit Shemesh may be an amusing novelty to me, they aren't to the many olim who live there.

A very full day of talking to and playing with the branch of Israeli Karls continued. And was awesome. Many pictures were taken of the boys who (not that this was needed for proof) showed their Karlness by continuosly mugging for the cameras and then demanding to see each picture after it was taken. At one point when I took them onto the porch to play in the mini pool and I was taking pictures of them Chananel goes "Dod Yaron, take a picture of this!" and then proceeds to dump a bucket of water on his head. It was an awesome shot. Then Yekutiel and Pitachya decided they wanted to take turns doing the same thing. Then Chananel decided to try pouring water in his ear. Then up his nose. As the good uncle I am, rather than telling him that maybe this was a bad idea, I decided to let him get some life experience. And wait for the hysterical reaction picture. Which it was indeed. But the really funny part was when he sputtered a bit, shook his head, looked at me, laughed, and then said 'zeh lo haya raayon tov (Hebrew for this was not s good idea)'. I tried not to laugh at him, and was actually successful. For like 10 seconds. He was just as amused as I was though, so all was well.


After this I spent some more time hanging out with Donnie and helping him dig in his wall. Explanation-At the time the excavations began Donnie had 3 children soon to be four. And wanted some more space in the house. So he decided to knock out a wall and start digging into the side of the hill their house is built against. This has been a rather time and energy consuming project, so I helped. We spent hours using a jackhammer style bit on one of his drills, and a mini sledgehammer, to break up a mini boulder we found enough to take the pieces out. After this day of fun but looooooong, I took a shower, ate some dinner, and then crawled into bed to collapse.