Six Years!!!!

 We recently celebrated our six year aliyah-versary! Wow. We're really doing this!!! As the kids were all still in the US on the actual day, we didn't do anything as a family (okay, I sent a Whatsapp to our family group, but I'm not sure that counts as celebrating). 

Work is sloooowly gearing up. Almost all my students are still in quarantine, but I did have one clinic so far. Good to be back in the saddle again!

I'm spending some of my time making meals for families of new olim, because they are all in bidud like my students. Eek--I can't quite imagine what it would be like to make aliyah and then find yourself unable to leave your house for a minimum of a week (predicated on a negative Covid test at the airport right after you land and one on Day 7). Especially since most of these people are doing it with kids. A lot of kids for some of them (I'm making dinner tonight for a family with 5 kids). Many of the new olim are getting Meal Trains set up for them to get them through that first week since oftentimes they don't even have a stove yet, never mind know how to set up an online grocery order (or even know from where to order a pizza)! Our street has THREE families of new olim who have moved in, which is crazy rare (we were the last new olim to show up on our street). The (slightly-envious) talk of the neighborhood is a set of families who made aliyah: the young-grandparent/parents along with three of their adult children with *their* families. WOW. How cool would that be to make aliyah with your own built-in support system of grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins?!

Penina and Ilana came back from the US and, like the new olim, entered bidud for a week, which for Ilana meant missing the first few days of school which, as she notes, are the only fun ones in the beginning of the year. While I've heard of the police calling or checking in-person if people are sticking to their home quarantine, thankfully all was quiet for them. Their big outing was getting their second Covid tests (thus saith Penina, "Why don't we go to Jerusalem to get them? There's no requirement that you go to a place near you and it's the first we've been out of the house for a week". In the end, though, they did go locally). We somewhat gamed the system by paying privately for them to get rapid tests on Day 6 so Ilana could go back to school on Day 7 and not wait for the results of the longer PCR test (Ilana was just vaccinated in July *and* has antibodies, although she was never symptomatic. Penina, meanwhile, was vaccinated twice in January and then got Covid while in the US this summer, poor thing. She's better now. Anyway, for both of them, the chances of testing positive or being a danger to another person were/are quite low).

first day of 10th grade!

Penina left for seminary last night! She's spending the year in the seaside town of Netanya. Her seminary spends half the day learning and half the day volunteering in a group foster care home.

Saying so long to Percy

We're waiting for Chana to come home at the end of this week and trying to figure out if, given Israel's new guidelines for who needs quarantine after flying in, we can figure out a way she's free by Rosh Hashanah next week. Stay tuned ;)

And, lastly, speaking of Rosh Hashanah, I LOVE that I live in a place where even the milk cartons wish you a "Shana Tova", a good new year! Shana Tova, everyone!