Adira found her voice

So Adira learned she could speak ... or at least make some cute noises - though we are hoping she has the Ma Nishtana down pat for the Pesach Seder.



Everything else is going well here. The weather has returned to its seasonal norm - no more 90 degree days, we are back in the low 60s. We are some how managing to get by with out the support of grandparents and are starting to prepare for Pesach. We are going to host the 2nd night seder here. Though we are sad to not be sharing the holiday with our family, we are looking forward to leading our own seder here - so far we have 6 of us for the evening and I think we might end up with 3 more. In other news, we got Adira's birth certificate last week so her name is officially now recorded as Adira Bracha - next stop US Consulate to get her US equivalent of a birth certificate and her passport.

Purim Meshulash

We finally returned to our rewired apartment on Friday afternoon. Even though there was a lot of cleaning to do from the construction it was really a relief to come back to home. We were getting sick of living out of suitcases and eating out every meal. Though we will miss the breakfasts at the hotel -- delicious! Thursday evening began the purim weekend extravaganza. For those who may not know, Jerusalem residents (walled cities) had the special privilege of having purim "last" for three days. Because Shushan Purim fell out on a shabbos this year the obligaitions for the day which are regularly all done on one day are instead spread out over three days. We heard megillah reading at the yeshiva (cap guns were fired at the mention of Haman) and distributed matanos l'evyonim on Friday. On Shabbos we inserted the Al'hanissim prayer into the davening and read the torah reading for purim. Finally on Sunday we exchanged mishloach manot and attended the seudah. Although it was really a great experience to take in an entire weekend of Purim I think I prefer it all on one day. It is very taxing to have such high levels of simcha over three days. It's also a bit annoying to listen to the fireworks and drunks for three days.

Power Status

Many of you are probably sitting there thinking now that Adira is in the picture that is all our blog is going to be about - how many diapers she wets a day, haw many hours she stays awake for and who she looks like more at any given moment. But wait - something else has happened...
Thursday night I feel like there is a small of something fried, though Aaron doesn't smell anything so maybe it is all in my head. However, about 45 minutes later there is a LOUD pop and the electricity goes. So I start calling different people affiliated with the Yeshiva to figure out what we do about this at 7 pm at night. By about 9 pm we realize this is not something that can just get fixed, but a major electrical issue...so we moved out and are now living in a hotel - I guess we always talked about going on a mini-vacation - we just didn't get to plan the dates.

And for those that think it should only be about Adira - here is one of the latest pics.