Post-Pesach

Posting (quite sheepishly) very late for Passover, but I can't let it go by because we had SUCH a good time when my Auntie Paula, Uncle Steven and cousins Jen and Shmulie and their kids Sela and Coby visited.

It was SO special having family we are super close with come and visit (Jen and Shmulie's house is our de facto NY stop and we love spending Shabbos with them.  In fact, when they left, we told them not to worry if they left anything here because Shalom Shachne, Batsheva and Chana would be at their house for Shabbos in only three weeks for Chana's college graduation [woohoo, Chana!])

Here is Auntie Paula ("AP") in front of a painting that her father brought back after visiting Israel in the 1960s. 



Me: "AP--I heard that Grandpa Jack brought this painting back on his lap on the plane". 
AP: "Well, the way I heard it, the painting was rolled up in a tube".
Me: "Oh.  That's kind of disappointing.  I liked my version better!"

Anyway, there was lots of family bonding time:

And we did some pretty unusual things  (By the way, Sela was a natural :)

And some usual things for Pesach.  Like eating a lot!

It was so nice to have family here and let the pressure of "what are we doing on chol hamoed that's totally awesome and amazing because we don't have Sundays here, so there's very little time off aside from these intermediate holiday days, so we better make them count"--let that all just go away with the answer of "We're visiting AP, US and the cousins today".  And that plan always made everyone very, very happy.