Indoor Ingenuity

It continued to be cold and rainy...

Jonah and I continued to sneeze and cough...

Vera started coughing...

Oh joy!

We decided to go to another indoor playspace - I mean the hell else were we going to do!

I emailed with my new mom buddy... she was going too!

We arrived at Playtown Cafe at 10am when it opened.  Nana had never been to a place like this... it was an experience...

It was a cute place.  Typical indoor stuff: slides, climbing things, little cars to drive, play kitchen area, dress up area, dollhouse, grocery store area with shopping carts, little art (crayons) area, a small cafe to get snacks and a room with AIRHOCKEY?

We played with everything!
Nana was running around and wearing herself out...
The kids had fun.

Jonah LOVED air hockey!  Nana taught him how to play and then he played an 8 year old girl?!?!?! for a while until he got a small injury - he was very excited about the new game!

Vera got hungry and decided she wanted indulge on an entire Mediterranean platter humus, baba ganosh, Israeli salad, pickles and pita bread...)

Our new friends showed up and we hung with them for a while...

When it was 12pm and time for lunch we left. 

We came, we saw, we conquered... to be continued...

Not Such a Sunshine State of Mind...

We arrived in Florida mostly unscathed... although Jonah and I were fighting off snotty yucky colds...

But it was freakin' COLD!!! and did I mention RAINING?!?!?!

My first thought was - did I pack that kaleidoscope???

I did. 

And apparently, Pop has one of his own... we started making plans (we couldn't just hang out in the house for days on end - it is a one bedroom condo for goodness sakes...).

First Adventure: Pop said to go to the mall...

Nana, Jonah, Vera and I journeyed to Coral Square Mall.  It seemed they had an indoor play area and we needed to get our "wiggles" out!

It was a very nice mall.  The play area was good enough.  I ended up making friends with another mom.  She was speaking Hebrew to her kids - her kids were the same age as Vera and Jonah.  We ended up talking and exchanging emails.  She emailed me a list of stuff to do with kids in the area that you could do inside in the cold and rain - how cool is that?  I love moms who are totally cool and help you out!  Thank you Israeli mom - we totally used your adventure list the whole week!

After the play area we walked around and found a TRAIN!!!!  This little itty bitty train.  We bought our tickets and hopped on.  All four of us in this little car that was totally enclosed (it was sort of suffocating...).  All aboard - we started off for the ride.  We went around the little track three times or so and then we were like... ummm... when does it end... Nana and I were a bit perplexed.  Then Jonah and Vera were getting weirded out... as in, "mom are we ever getting off this little train and out of this little enclosed space?!?!" (This is total foreshadowing by the way - to our adventure later in the week...) 

Seriously Jonah started screaming,"I want to get off!!!" and Vera started crying...  We had gone around the little track like 12 times?!?!  The two old ladies who ran the train were totally busy doing who knows what and because we were enclosed in the car and locked in - they couldn't hear us screaming to get out?!?!  Finally some passers by heard us and saw us motioning to get out and they stopped the train... They gave Jonah and Vera stickers as we exited - so the kids were relieved... although we may all suffer some minor trauma from the experience for years to come...

We played by the car strollers for a while.  We also played in the moving rides for a while but didn't actually make them move... we just played on them.  Finally it was time for snack - smoothies for the kids and ice cream for Nana!

All in all (notwithstanding the train ride from hell), it was a pretty fun rainy Florida day!

Everyone slept that night - we definitely got our wiggles out..,

Sidenote:  Vera has totally developed this weird attachment to strangers (think opposite of stranger danger)... at the plaspace she found a young woman (think someone who likes a nanny) and decied she was going to hold her hand and drag her all over the play things... for quite some time.  When it was time to leave she didn't want to let go of the lady's hand?!?!  Seriously Vera, get a grip - but not on some strange lady's hand... oiy... the fun just never sstops!

this is the crazy train rie from hell...

snack time!

A "handy" Valentine!

We are a family of big ideas!  Kinda...

My big idea was to go back to Florida with Jonah & Vera for a week to give Nana and Pop a really special Valentine's Day present!  It was a great plan... and much like great plans - they don't always turn out as expected - but we will get into that later...

Before we jetted off to the "Sunshine" state... we made some quick, easy and cute Valentines... which we forgot to bring with us to Nana and Pop... oh well...

We made hand prints in the shape of hearts.  Jonah & Vera had fun doing it... they especially liked just painting all over the paper and themselves after we finished with the hand print hearts... it is just how they like to do art... and I just go with it...

The next day we packed up and put on red fancy clothes for our journey to Florida.  Jonah insisted on wearing a tie with red stripes because that was what you wear when you are getting fancy... they were seriously too cute for words.

The plane trip went OK - except for Vera screaming for about 40 minutes nonstop - while Jonah was a perfect angel...  Turns out Vera has had a bit of a personality change - she is totally a Terrible Two.  Her favorite (and often only) words are NO and WHY... she is a mischievous as ever and she's got an attitude and facial expression for just about everything... she knows she is about to turn two and is not shy expressing herself...

Hope you all had a very very happy Valentines day!



painting party!!!



on the paper and all over our ands and faces and clothes....



on he way to see Nana and Pop!  All dressed in red for Valentine's Day!

The whole Megillah!

Yep... we heard it yesterday... the whole Megillah - Megillat Ester that is... the story of Purim.  The story of Purim is the story we read on the Jewish of holiday of Purim.  It goes something like this:

Jews in Persia way back when under King A... King A wants Queen Vashti to dance for him and his drunken pals... she says no and is banished (I have always liked that Vashti).... King goes on with business... gets lonely wants new wife...holds a beauty contest to find another Queen... enter Esther... nice Jewish orphan girl who lives with uncle Morty... Morty tells her to enter contest but not tell she is Jewish... she does and wins... there are some side stories.. Morty overhears plot to overthrow King and that is good for them later on... but king's advisor Haman wants to kill all the Jews... he gets the distracted king to agree... Morty tells Esther she needs to step in and save the day... she tells King she is Jewish and Haman has plans to take power from the king and all is saved! 

Jews get dressed up in costumes - often from the story itself or other costumes- and listen to the story and make noise with groggers (noisemakers) when the name Haman is said out loud (he is the bad guy!)... we also drink until you can't tell Haman and Mordechai apart... and send little food packages out to friends and give charity (more on that later).

Yesterday, I grabbed my little crew - Jonah dressed up as Spiderman and Vera was Queen Esther - I was Haman! Vera, Jonah and I went to Adas Israel for the preschool Megillah reading and the stayed for carnival.

We did it all...

We heard the megillah (the kids loved it)
We played some carnival games
Jonah insisted on getting his face painted  and Vera too - we waited 20 minutes on line and the kids actually waited?!?!
We ate lots of pickles and hamantaschen
We then waited on line again for 20 minutes for cotton candy... kids were obsessed with getting it...

That would be Purim, done, done and done!

not surprising, kids fell asleep in the car ride home... pooped out from too much purim-ing...

It was good Purim.

It has been a while since we posted... and well, it has been a long strange trip to Florida and back... upcoming posts will reveal it all!  We always are adventuring and using that kaleidoscope... and it is never dull around here!  We manage to laugh our way through lots of it - with a hefty order of temper tantrums, terrible twos, and crying on the side... to be continued...