Going to the Red Sox Playoff Game / Raking Leaves 2008

How lucky are we that Uncle Mitch has access to Red Sox tickets from his work?! The boys of the house (all except for little Zachie) were psyched to take the Train into the City to meet Uncle Mitch on Columbus Day for the Playoff game. The most excited was Jonathan, to be taking his sons to Fenway Park. It wasn't their first time there, but it was still a thrill. You can see photos here of the boys ready to walk out the door (and their Little Sister " I wanna go red sox game") all geared up.

And the next exciting activity of the week was Raking leaves (or should I say, Blowing leaves!) Last week Benjamin's friend Aidas was over the house and they asked if they could use the blower to rake leaves. The week before when I picked up Ben from Aidas' house, there they were, raking his yard! So, I can go along with this newfound excitement for "blowing" leaves, right?! Today, Joshua was Commander of the Leaf Blower and looked incredibly cute wearing the sound-reducing Earmuffs. See for yourself... So what if we didn't get many leaves up off the ground; we (me included!) had a great time blowing them around. Take a look at the Post-Blowing photos...Everyone is pooped out!

Florida...Here we come, here we go!

My sister and I came up with a crazy idea, that is, we decided to use my Delta ticket which was going to soon expire, to take the two little ones to Florida for a 4-day weekend. Well, we have had better ideas than this one, let's just leave it at that. We did have a great time and managed to make it to the beach once, to the park once, and out for dinner twice. Also, I took the opportunity to see a movie by myself and Robyn did the same thing. We had to take turns in order to watch the little ones. The movie was a kinda strange love story. It was called Elegy and starred Penelope Cruz and Ben Kingsley. Samantha was not too fond of takeoffs and landings and could be heard screaming at the top of her lungs, "NO MORE AIRPLANE, ME OFF!" Ah, well... such is life when you venture on an airplane with 2 under 3 yo. We had a chance to meet Great Zaide (93 yo) in Fort Lauderdale before we left from the Fort Lauderdale Airport. Samantha really was on her best behavior with him. Robyn was a good egg during the trip and changed diapers, fed the kids, played, and just generally did whatever was needed. Thanks, Schwester! Here are the photos...

L'Shana Tova 2008

Yesterday and today we have been celebrating the Jewish High Holidays (the New Year) and next week on Wednesday night and Thursday until Sunset, we will observe Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement). We have joined a new temple (as you may have seen in an earlier post when we went to the New Member BBQ- how appropos!) in Canton called Temple Beth Abraham. It is a conservative synagogue with a tight-knit community comprised of the whole age spectrum. The Rabbi is named David Paskin, a young husband and father, and a generally wonderful human being. A real mensch, you might say. I enjoyed Temple services immensely this year, as the boys were in their own Youth services and the little ones were in babysitting most of the time. The sermon was quite inspiring. Rabbi David spoke about joy and the imperative written in the Torah that we rejoice all the days of our lives. How right he is that we don't embrace joy enough! This year I am focusing on this very concept, being joyful for ALL of God's blessings, even seemingly little ones, such as a good night's sleep (well, allright, that is not a little one in my world!) Thank God I awaken every morning, able to take on the day with all of my faculties intact. I can face the world and go about my day doing the things that God has intended me to do and being the person that He has intended me to be. I am living my dreams EACH day~ having the family I have is something I could have previously only imagined. Life is good. If you do nothing else today, please take one moment to thank God for all that he has given you. We are the lucky ones! Check out these smiling faces...