Summer Festivities

This postg is written several hours before we set out on our more-than-20-hours-long journey to Israel, for our first visit since we left on our way to New Zealand seven months ago. We will soon meet many of our readers, however due to our expected hectic schedule there is no chance for us to orally communicate most of what we're going through. Hence, I (Giora, who has become the official bulletin-writer of the family...) decided that another monthly update is in place.

Summer has recently hit Pittsburgh full-force. The past two weeks were disastrous, with about 30 degrees (Celsius) and awful humidity. Additionally, unlike in Israel, rain, thunderstorms and grey skies are almost the daily standard. Pittsburgh, probably as well as most of north-eastern US, is most definitely not blessed with pleasant weather. However, hot and humid as it is, the atmosphere in the city is of a continuous festival. Or at least this is the way we've been experiencing the past two weeks. Festivals, carnivals, parties and other types of outdoors events take place, seemingly every day and everywhere. It sometimes looks as if the city's inhabitants are trying to compensate themselves for all those freezing indoor months, and for us this is great fun.

To mention a few of our recent activities, we attended a circus, a Chick Corea concert, an Israeli Shavuot celebration and more. Interestingly, we took the bus to some of these attractions, which at times seemed to be of greater excitement for the girls than the event itself :-) I wish I had a camera with me, to document their ear-to-ear smiles that lasted during the whole ride. Prior to the heat wave and the festival attack, our weekends were filled with hiking in some of the fine nature spots around Pittsburgh. We are still, in a sense, holding on to the spirit developed and maintained during our fabulous trip in New Zealand, including camping in a tent (to the great delight of the girls) and spending a lot of time amidst forests and lakes. Fortunately, Pennsylvania turns out to have an impressive number of state parks,with numerous hiking trails and campgrounds, some of which are really beautiful, even with our newly created New Zealand standards…

The girls are terrific, and are both now fully acclimatized to their new environment. Noga completed her pre-school daycare, and when we'll get back from Israel she'll spend her days in a summer day-camp. This is essentially daycare for the summer, though with activities that make it sort of "kaytana". She is chatting fluently (in English that is) with the other kids, and is definitely over her tough start. As we previously wrote, she indeed had language-related difficulties through the first 3 months or so. As much as it was tough to see her then (I think there is nothing as frustrating as seeing your child experiencing social difficulties), it is pleasant to see her now, loved by her class mates and tightly connected to them.

Hadas, who didn't have any rough start, is as comfortable in daycare as she was before, and is extremely cute (yeah, I'm repeating myself, I know...). She recently started her potty-training, so far with impressive success, in which she (justifiably) takes great pride. Language-wise, she is becoming more fluent, in two languages–a real miracle. Hilariously, due to a Russian-American teacher, her English is at times colored with a Russian accent. A few examples: van-two-three, or vait, or vatch ;-) Furthermore, she is fully absorbing the patriotic American education aimed at her at daycare: in front of my astonished eyes, in their end of year party, she cheerfully sang with all the other kids the American national anthem, as well as other patriotic songs. Here are a few lines forexample:"...For purple mountain majesties, Above the fruited plain!America! America!God shed his grace on thee..." Need I say more?!

Best of all, though, is seeing Hadas and Noga's relationship. They have become truly good friends and really love each other. Sure enough, there are still those typical sisters' small fights now and then, but for extended stretches of time one can find them playing together in their room, building trains, setting a make-believe table, dressing dolls etc. It's a real delight for us to see them so close and loving. I'll conclude with a few words about us, the parents. Anat's research is definitely progressing – she started running a big experiment, and is very busy with it. Additionally, she's studying Spanish furiously: 4 times a week she has to hurry in the morning for class, she has homework, quizzes etc. A real student…My long, slow job-hunt so far bears no significant news, and the bottom line is that I still haven't found the job I'm after. There are spikes of frustration from time to time, but in general it doesn't affect my daily mood. This is so both because I believe I will eventually find something that will be satisfying (or, alternatively my current job will improve in this sense) and because I explicitly don't regard it as the most important thing. Familylife and leisure time are definitely of higher priority for me nowadays, and as I tried to communicate in the above paragraphs, these are truly wonderful.

This is it. We have some packing to do, during which we might at last realize that we'll be going to Israel shortly. As I said, we have a hectic schedule in the coming 10 days, but nevertheless planto have LOTS of fun. We sure will !!!

See you all shortly,
Hadas, Noga, Anat & Giora