Mirelle's new addition

"Now your body is not naked"

Mirelle got a tattoo!!! She has been wanting this for a while and finally did it!! She got the word Karma tattooed on her right wrist on the inner part. It's written in Hebrew and is so small and perfect in black ink. I had been writing it on her wrist in permanent marker for like a month now and we always talk about how Karma is what comes around and goes around.

Anyways, besides that..havent written in a while. But we saw snow on Christmas!!! Dad, Simi, the little ones and Mirelle and I took a road trip to Ramat Hagolan to visit an apple factory where Simi knew the owner and we got to taste big, fat, juicy, sweet red apples that are grown in that region. Delicious! Then we drove to the Hermon Mountain, where it snows here in Israel. The drive was beautiful, just amazing. Scary at times because we were climbing the side of this mountain with almost no guard rail and we were freaking so high up! Anyways, we just played around in the snow, throwing snowballs and freezing our butts off..then came home and rested..went out a couple times this Hanukkah break with Jonathan and Dekel. Went shopping with Mika and got a nice little utfit for the job interview I had. I met with the President of the company Biotis and we talked for a while, think he just wanted to meet me. We'll see what happens, but keep your fingers crossed!!

Going to go now, helping watch the girls and they are going nuts!! Miss everyone that's reading this.

no name

I usually sit here for like 10 minutes trying to think of what to name the blog I am about to write when just now I thought...maybe I should wait until after I write the damn thing!! ...and I still cant think of what to title it...

So last week was fun, we had an ULPAN trip to Jerusalem on Thursday. Mel and I were up by 7 to eat a breakfast of yogurt and bundle up because it was coolllddd and we loaded onto the bus to get going, the bus ride took about an hour and a half or two hours and we first stopped at the Holocaust museum. The museum was amazing, not as intense as I would have expected it to be- I thought the Holocaust museum in Washington DC hit harder- but it was impressive. Definetly bigger and more elaborate with personal stories and visual effects. Mirelle and I were shocked at how long it was taking us to read the informative paragraphs in English, our brains are on overload when we try to speak/read English, I find my brain thinking in Hebrew sometimes. So we walked through the museum and walked around the campus afterward with a tour guide who spoke English, telling us about all these sculptures and monuments that surrounded the museum. We had lunch there outside of the museum sitting in the sun, a lunch that had been prepared for us the night before, from food from the kibbutz cafeteria, and had been refrigerating until the moment we ate it...it was stone cold schnitzel with stone cold corn and stone cold pickles and pita...ewwww! (the same lunch we were served on our last trip to Ramat Hagolan and the same lunch we will probably be served on every future trip we take with the ULPAN) So Mel and I ate the snacks we had brought with us, a green apple, a granola bar and some dry cereal, mmmm.

After the museum we took the bus to the Knesset, which is the Israeli Parliment. The Knesst is where laws are enacted, the prime minister is elected and where the work of the government is supervised. It was abeautiful building, massive and like a maze inside. The works of Marc Chagall covered an entire wall in the Knesset and it was amazing- one depicted the present state of the Jews, one the past and one the future...in that order, maybe because our past links us to the present and the future?

After the Knesset we rode to the Western Wall where we were able to walk around for a whole 20 minutes. Mel and I put notes in the Wall and took pics by it while women stood there swaying and praying. We left shortly after that back to the kibbutz.

black and blue

Today was slow. Woke up at around 6:20 and got ready for work, stepped outside to the nastiest weather ever. I guess it had rained the night before because it was so chilly and wet and ugly. Matched my mood. Made the 7 minute walk to work, that takes me about 10 minutes because of my 5 lb each steel-toe work boots that they make us wear, and immediatly submerged myself in my iPod music and began my robotic chores. It's mind numbing, which I couldn't complain about today. I have so much on my mind
I feel like my head is going to explode. I am constantly thinking; battling with myself. It's tiring. I decided to "take a break from Chris." Things got complicated and I need some time to myself to figure some things out. I feel guilty blogging about my relationship, like the details should be more personal, but I guess whoever is reading this knows me well enough to know that this break up is a big deal. This is a 3 and a half year relationship that I'm talking about...thats a long time to devote yourself to someone to have it end on akward terms. I am faithful enough to think that if it meant to be- it will.

Work was the longest day ever, probably because I couldnt see the sun shining through the windows because of how dark the sky was all day and while walking home on the lunch break it actually started raining on me, I should have just danced. Today just felt blue. After work, I came home and have been just hanging out with people on our stoop, we walked to the Colbo and the dining room during dinner time and got potatos, tomatos, cucumber, butter and zatar and came home and microwaved the potatos and made salad with olives and olive oil. It was really good!! It's 9:15 now and I have to shower and then am passing out. I havent really gotten much sleep in the past couple days, havent been tired at bedtime, really frustrating. Dad is picking us up tomorrow to have dinner and chit chat- should be interesting.

What tha!

So it's Thursday and not feeling better...so stoopid. It's weird, like I'll feel better during the day, but then at night it's on and my throat will be so inflammed and I can feel my inner body temp rising. I've had at least like 6 cups of hot tea throughout the day and have been taking Vitamin C pills, etc..It's almost 9 and I'm planning on croaking here in a min. Gotta get up for breakfast at like 8:45- they have scrammbeled (sp!) eggs on Friday mornings- yay! (sense the sarcasm)

Anyways, Mirelle, Rivka and I spent the afternoon hanging out with Danielle, a girl my age from Houston who just graduated from UT, because she is leaving tomorrow. She enrolled in the 5-month ULPAN program but has been a volunteer here for a couple months already and is just over it. She was the only other girl in my Hebrew class-great. She took us to this really amazing chill spot today where we watched the sunset, it was like in the kibbutz but we were just sitting in a huge field and we could see the whole country of Israel it felt like. An amazing view- really, a sight to see. The picture doesn't even reflect the mountains that were so distant. After that we walked to the Colbo (the grocery store on the kibbutz) and were planning on getting dinner items, but we each walked out with an ice cream bar..go figure. So we ended up on our stoop (porch) making dinner because we are SO over the dinner here in the cafeteria. We cut up tomatoes, cucumbers, avacados and added some chicken schnitzel that Simi made for us that Mika brought to us last night, and it was pretty damn good...and filling.

So, that's that. After Mel and Rivka get out of class tom at 1 we are hitching a ride from Loasha, who is one of the Ulpan directors, to Yokneam which is a city about 10 minutes from here where we can access an ATM and get some lunch (because they dont serve lunch at the kibbutz on Fridays) and then Shiran will pick us up and we will go to the bus station to start our adventure to Tel-Aviv. Shiran works in Tel Aviv and is from here so is obviously familiar with that city so we are in good hands. I'm just excited to branch out a little bit. We are planning on going to this Brazillian party that Shiran knows about Friday night and hopefully, if it is warm enough on Sat, going to the beach to lay out or going shopping..we'll see.

Love!