Small, small world

I parked outside the home we were going to for a Memorial Day BBQ.  It was a very quiet, out-of-the way street.  Xander got out of the car and ran across the street to see a gecko. I pulled him back with an admonishment, for a car was driving down the street right toward us.

The car slowed to a stop and the passenger window rolled down.

A congregant sticks her head out.  "Don't worry, Rabbi, we won't run over him!"

More photos

Sunset at TBO the other day.

Spontaneous love from Xander in the form of an acrostic poem. :)

Once he saw Xander's art, Ari wanted to contribute too.  

What Connor was doing while his brothers were hard at work drawing.  That boy can eat!

And we have internet! So here are month-old pictures...

Mom got Xander a set of science experiments.  One of them is everything about bubbles.  This particular activity is using soap and food coloring to make bubble art.  All 3 boys were fascinated.

More bubble art.

Me for our casual "Yom Haatzmaut" (Israeli Independence Day) Shabbat

Mother's Day brunch with the two littles.  That same day I had lunch with X at his school.  Man the elementary is big!  I was shocked by the noise level.  The ECC is much more manageable.

More science experiments.  This is red food coloring, oil and water.  Mix it all together then watch it separate.

Toddler tantrum.  Why?  Because we left the car to go inside the "old house," not "new house."  (He was very obsessed with "new house" until we got to it and it's not nearly as organized, and now he wants to move back to the old one.)

Me helping Xander find the adverb in his sentence. 

Internet coming soon

I hate posting from my phone, hence the lack of updates.  Next week the Internet should be set up. Religious school has ended. And the workers should hopefully be out of our house by next Friday  (for this round at least).  Updates to commence soon.

We are in

There is a sea of boxes in the house.  I'm learning to surf rather than drown.  Consider us explorers in a cardboard swamp.

As yet unfinished

And... the movers aren't done. They're coming back tomorrow.  And the painting isn't done.

Aargh.

Next week, this will all be over, yes?

A very full week of pre-move-in house maintenance

We closed on Friday.

Sunday we finished our diagrams of where to put our furniture.  Pool cleaner and gardener were set up.

Monday the roof was fixed.  Sprinklers were fixed. Tree-trimming completed.  We picked laminate for the bedrooms.  The house was cleaned.  Trip to Goodwill.  FPL and water/sewage was changed to our name.

Tuesday was more house cleaning.  Went to paint store, picked swatches, got paint quote.  Laminate person came to give us an estimate.  Mold inspector.  High impact windows estimate.  Info sent over to city for pool screen.

Wednesday was mold remediation.  A/C fixed.  Bedroom floors were ripped out and laminate put in.  Estimates for front yard fence.  Took out all shelving from closets.  Minor crisis when they pulled up the carpets for the laminate and found what we thought was evidence of termites; called inspector, called termite people, turned out to be red ants, called pest control.

Thursday more laminate.  Mold remediation finished.  Shelving attached to garage walls.  Pest control sprayed outside of entire house.  Bought more paint.  Permits for the screen was submitted to the city.

Friday the laminate was finished.  The mold remediation meant that we had to do more painting than we intended, so we picked even more paint.  Chose hot water heater. Cleaned out air conditioning ducts and air conditioner, got new filters, installed UV light.

Tomorrow, Saturday, they should continue painting.  Follow up on A/C issues.  Pick up the water heater.  Schedule connection of internet at new house.

The plan for Sunday: Finish painting. Purchase replacement flood lights on outside of house. And breathe, since no other vendors work then.

Monday: Pack.
Tuesday: Move.
Wednesday:  Install attic ladder and drain pipe for the A/C.  Plumber to fix spigot and install new water heater.  Electrician to unattach electric car charger from old house and put in new house, ground pool motor, install new flood lights.
Thursday: Go to high impact window showroom.
Friday: Remove ceiling/light fixtures from old house and put in new.

And in four weeks when the city approve our permits: put in screen and add gutters to roof.  Put in fence.  Change all windows and doors to high impact.

And then we'll be DONE!

The moral of the story is: Thank God Jonathan is good at project management.

Random lovely email from Xander's teacher

Hi - I have to tell you that Xander has truly grown up so much this year.  He gets his planner down according to our plan that he can move up.  He lets me know that he has finished it.  He solves his own problems at recess if there are conflicts in their games.  He has so matured and seems so much more confident and able to handle himself.  Ms. Young

p.s.  I just wanted to share that with you.  I complimented him and told him how he is handling himself so maturely.  He beamed!!!!

The littlest

Spider-sauve

So proud of himself for opening up the closet door and climbing up to the second level.

Zichron Livrocha

Jonathan's uncle John died yesterday in Placerville, CA.  He'll write later about it, either here or on Facebook.  But if you read this, feel free to send him an email or give him a call.  He's very sad.

Hurricane watch

Connor and Ari and I were listening to the Frozen soundtrack in the car.

At one point, the "Do you want to build a snowman?" song goes into instrumentals, and the music gets heavy with bass and sweeping violin.

"This is where Elsa and Anna's parents die," Ari commented.

"That's true,"  I said.  "It was a very bad storm."

"But why did they die?  Why didn't they use the watch?" he asked.

I explained that the movie was set over a hundred years ago, and that in those days, they didn't have satellites in the sky to give us information about hurricanes.  People only knew a storm was coming when they could see it with their own eyes.

"But... couldn't they tell it was time for a hurricane from their watches?" he wanted to know.

His innocence was adorable.  Of course!  A hurricane watch.

We spent the next five minutes discussing the concept of watching to see if a storm was coming, versus the object that tells time on your wrist.

In the end, he got it, and we moved on to the next song.

The abundance of nature

Growing up in southern California, I always knew we were in a drought.

When I was a child, there were spots on the radio saying to turn off the water when you brushed your teeth.

We always timed our sprinklers.

Showers were better than baths because they used less water.


As an adult, it got even more pronounced.

Our neighbor in Sacramento "turned us in" to the city and we got a threatening letter from them, because we forgot to turn our automatic sprinklers from two days a week to one.

People are transforming their grassy lawns into desert oases.


But one thing I had never noticed until I moved here was... nature.  And spring is more like in the movies than it ever was in CA, Israel (again, desert), or even Cincinnati.

For example:

- Butterflies are everywhere.  Like, you look at a bush and there are 10 or 15 of them swirling around.

-  A duck and her ducklings were in our street the other day and followed us home.  Osher got very fluffy and upset that they were in our yard.

- I've spoken of the many geckos to be found in all places.

- Our soon-to-be-new house has a full-size iguana living in the attic.  No joke.

- Three weeks ago, there was this HORRIBLE noise at night. It woke Jonathan and I up, we thought someone was jackhammering at 3am.  It went on for days.  We mentioned it to a neighbor who nearly fell over laughing.  Apparently it was frogs mating!  Who knew. But then yesterday, Ari and I found probably 15 baby frogs swimming madly in our pool trying to stay afloat in the chlorinated water. Adira said that that was a direct result of all the noise.  We saved the frogs, and considered it our Passover miracle!

Jenga towers

Xander built it all himself, oh so very carefully.

Ari watched and literally spun in circles beside him.  

Xander loves math and science and organization; Ari is learning to read, and does addition with Xander, but also makes up his own dance moves and words to songs, and is incredibly socially aware.  It's amazing how they can both be so smart in different ways.