Part 1 My Trip

When I was seven, I had sticky gooey hands, long scraggly fingernails and stains on every garment I owned. I drove my sister crazy. If a person had held my sticky hand and looked into my eyes and said "stop borrowing your sisters clothes and staining them, she's going to stand by you through some pretty crazy situations and you need to keep her on your good side" I might not have taken the advice but I know I would have believed the speaker. I always knew my sister would ride the roller coaster of life with me. I took that for granted. It was a vague nameless assurance in my heart. When I was 19 I was a slightly plump, aimless and sometimes blonde, sometimes not office girl. I wore borderline inappropriate clothes to my job at an engineering firm and had no plan for my future. If a person had grabbed my arm one pretty spring day that year and pointed at Jody as he stood at the front desk waiting for his job interview and said "he's going to ride the roller coaster with you and you'll have four kids together within the next 12 years", I don't think I would have believed such a forecast quite so surely. But alas, what we foresee never comes and what we never could have imagined does. Which brings me to the incongruous story of my trip to Israel. Through mutual acquaintances I became friends with Jen Bartlett about two years ago. My first definitive memory is sitting in the salon at Jenny's house having my hair done for the spring gala at school. Bart popped in from next door with little hair clips all over her head of wet hair and chatted us up. We discussed what we were going to wear and I darkly asked her if Jenny had already told her I was pregnant. Her face is always an open book so I had the amusing experience of dropping a bomb on her that ricocheted into a million expressions. I'll never forget it. I'll never forget the reactions of every single person I told I was pregnant with Hazel though so I guess that time of my life is crystalized in my memory for ever. Now, if at that point a person had told me that Bart and her husband Doug would someday fly me to Israel and give me the experience of a lifetime just for kicks I certainly would have thought they were crazy. But that's exactly what happened. She had moved to Israel for Doug's work when one day she said "would you ever consider coming to visit?" I said "yes, when Jody finally wins the lottery we'll be on the next flight." She laughed and said "no seriously, if Doug could get you a ticket with airline miles would you come?" I screamed and told her she had to be kidding me of course I would come. She kept asking me if I really meant it and if I was sure so I finally settled down enough to say that I guessed I had better talk to Jody. I found out later why she didn't believe me when I said yes. All of her family and two friends had already declined her invitation. I was stonewalled. I could not believe these people. Of course all of them had been on international trips and they knew what all of the trade offs of international travel were. I, on the other hand was a novice. So, Jody agreed to let me go without hesitation because he loves me like nobody knows how to except him. They invited him as well and at one point I thought he would come with me but then he decidedly declined... just like all of those other people much to my amazement. I like to think that many people declined because they thought it would be impolite to accept the free plane ticket. Maybe they didn't want to be ingratiating. I still find it all puzzling but fortunate for ME! I will admit, there were some difficult moments, weaning Hazel and tearing myself away from her made me cry quite a bit, but something just pushed me through it telling me it was now or never. So, the girl who's seen the ocean once got a passport and hopped on a big jet airplane. I got the best seats in coach because Doug flies all of the time and he bought my ticket. I was so excited I was like a little child. When our plane took off from my Newark connection I looked out my window and practically squealed to the flight attendant "Is that the Statue of Liberty????!!!!" He gave me a tolerant smile and said "yes it is." I was over the moon! A little bonus to my trip I hadn't even thought of. That flight was 6,000 miles. It flew by though. I slept some, read some and boom I was already landing in Tel Aviv. The world was lush, green and beautiful with the Mediterranean Sea glowing blue. I came to the meeting area and there was Bart. She told me later she realized she was about to cry just waiting and hoping I hadn't bailed at the last second (a ridiculous notion). And there they were with my welcome sign, immediately buying me coffee. They pumped me with so much coffee the first two days I was vacillating between arrhythmia and incontinence.

We got into their car and headed straight for Jerusalem. It's about an hour away. Bart and I were like little teenagers sitting in the back calling Doug our driver. I thought I was so funny that day but after being in about 30 taxis in my ten days there, I realized it isn't all that sensational to sit in the back seat and tell a driver to take you somewhere. (more on taxis later!) So we went straight to the Old City and walked through the market where Doug made me try my first fresh squeezed pomegranate juice. Amazing and unforgettable. Then we went down the Via Dolorosa. It was amazing. We saw the jail cell where Jesus was held. A very sobering and real moment for me. I was later to discover that it's simply amazing that it's still there because the entire city has been built on top of several times over. And significant locations almost all have churches built on top of them with little or no access to the actual place. It's a strange thing to go to an old part of the world; to see ruins where something beautiful was destroyed just to make a point and then built on top of and hidden for thousands of years. After that they took me out to lunch. And this was when I realized I wasn't just going to pal around with Jen and hang out with her and see what it's like to live in Jerusalem. They wined and dined me and I still have no idea why but it was impossible to say no. It was incredible and amazing and unforgettable. I had the time of my life. This was the lunch at the Moroccan restaurant. It was a five course meal. After that we went home and ran Harrison to his guitar lesson. I got to meet his teacher and his wife walked down to a cafe with us for coffee. Then we walked to the old city and sat in an outdoor amphitheater and watched the history of Jerusalem in holograms on the buildings in the dark. I loved it. I am amazed just retelling this that I've been blogging for an hour and have only gotten through one day. We tried to get a taxi on the way home but Bart was just waving down random cars instead of taxis so we wound up walking. LOL!

Time Keeps on Slippin Slippin...

My baby is walking and pretending to talk. My five year old is cracking me up. My seven year old is amazing me with her drive and motivation. My ten year old makes me want to cry with thankfulness that she is starting to believe in herself. If I tried to blog the last two months it would be epic. Ah, I like that. This will be an epic post. Two days before we got in the van lock stock and barrel for a trip to Arkansas for Christmas, we finally put an offer in on a house and... got it. It took nine months looking at houses, rearranging our priorities, compromising and tenaciously holding on to the hope that we would be able to find the right place for our family. And so we did. It is two houses from the park and community swimming pool, has a double oven and gas range (mommy so happy!) and plenty of room for our brood. It's within walking distance of the Rec Center, Library, ice cream shop, school, Walgreens and the gas station. Then we went to Arkansas for a fun filled week on the farm. I did not set foot off of the farm the whole time we were there unless you count me wading in the river in freezing temperatures. Not nearly as tolerable as I remember as a child. It was so good. We are so thankful for family and love and another beautiful Thanksgiving. Daniel's family was the only thing missing from our fantastic visit. Prior to finding the house, Eden was piddling at school drawing pictures of cakes and folding post-it notes into fancy shapes. I had found out about it at Halloween and then subsequently had the most horrible parent teacher conference of my life. By Thanksgiving we had become convinced that the school did not have Eden's best interest at heart when they declined my request to move Eden to another class with better supervision and a teacher who was invested in her. We were about to close on the house on December 21st and after multiple meetings with staff at the school and even a letter to the school board, we started to wonder if crazy as it sounds we should move the kids to a new school mid-year. I visited the one in our new neighborhood and fell in love. It's a tiny little charter school. There is only one fourth grade class with 20 students. The teacher Mr. Bunge is fantastic. There are two second grade classes. Kait's delightful teacher Ms. DeBord only has 16 students. Then Nick's class with the wonderful Ms. Krashoc only has 14 students. What has happened in my children since this very sudden and extreme move can only be described as magical. Nick has found a joy of learning that I used to dream of. He comes home bursting with information about the sun and moon and Martin Luther King Jr. He is exuberant and excited each day and tells me how he loves his teacher constantly. She told me he works very easily for her which was not happening at the last school. Kaitlyn is doing wonderfully. Her only prior struggle was spelling and the spelling curriculum seems to be much better. She is doing very well on her tests and her teacher identified this struggle within two days of Kait entering the class. Eden is transformed. She has become diligent (she forgot to do her homework once and Mr. Bunge said "let's not let this happen again" and that was all she needed.) She is very proud of what she learns. She is in love with the classical math curriculum. She learns interesting math concepts and is given time for them to become concreted in her mind. She got a 100% on her spelling test and the spelling words are very challenging. She seems to take great pride in all of it which just never seemed to happen at Flagstaff. They each do their homework independently (even Nick) which also never happened at Flagstaff. The kids also now have time to read or be read to each night because they are home an hour earlier than they used to be and get to leave for school 45 minutes later than they used to. They wear uniforms which is very nice for me. And so... I will gloss over the horrible move. Moving is always awful, there's no way around that but when you add the whole "Christmas Season" Mommy with the flu and a double ear infection and three kids switching to a new school that requires uniforms you have HELL! It was bad. Really bad and I hate to say I did not sail through the badness with grace. I kind of tumbled and crutched and limped through it like a wounded animal. This brings me to the now. Now, I am leaving for Israel in precisely 4 1/2 days and it is so exciting I can barely stand myself. My dear dear dear dear friend Bart offered me frequent flyer miles to come visit her which is kind of like winning a vacation or something and I just can't wait to see her. I haven't see her for five months and it will be so fun! So fun I can't even imagine! I think maybe I should set a goal of blogging at least five times while I'm there so I can go back and relive this over and over. Forget that it might rain the whole time! If it does we will bake scones, drink coffee and feed Bedford these strange treats I picked up for him that look like... poo. I can't help but fret about being stopped by customs and having to explain why it looks like I have two giant bags of freeze dried dog poo. Bart's husband Doug told me to just say "Everybody poops" and I just might have to. Anyway, apparently Bart intends to drag me all over the place. I can't wait! My fears and dreads? Hazel without me or is it me without Hazel for 10 days?! How will that go? Jody without me and me without Jody for 10 days!! How will that go?! If it's awful I am certain Jody will never let me go anywhere again. Hazel is a little devil. I'm sorry but she is. I cannot think fast enough to prevent the deviltry she thinks up. We were losing our mind in this new house with the trash can out in the open. She was like a raccoon. Tipping it over, pawing through it for a crust of bread or an old piece of pancake. It's awful to look up from scrubbing a toilet and have your baby walk in munching on something unidentifiable from an unknown source only to discover your trash can has been upended. She quiet, purposeful and completely devilish. The whole time I was pregnant I asked God for her to just be like Kait or Nick, I just couldn't handle another Eden. Of course I got an Eden on steroids so I guess that means I can handle it. Not good to know. I never wanted to find out if I could handle this. Nick is hilarious. 1.He's sitting at the counter and says "Mommy, did you know bears eat worms?" I say "No! Did you learn that at school?!" He tips his head to the side, and twists his mouth rather sardonically and says in a light knowing voice"No, I learned that in your tummy!" 2. I'm attempting to install the cabinet trash can and he picks up the instruction sheet and looks it over, flipping from the Spanish side to the English side in a very knowing way and says "Oh, I see... it looks like Daddy is supposed to do it." I say "Why?" He says "because the hands in the pictures on the instructions are bigger and harrier than yours." 3. I'm chopping mushrooms (for the first time ever) to make a mushroom sauce for our meat and Nick strolls in. He says "Mommy, are those mushrooms?!!!!" I say "yes". He says "Are you going to disguise them as chicken in our dinner?!!!" I say "yes". He says "I knew it!!!" and leaves.