While I don't usually like making excuses, this past month we have had good reason. Thank G-d, our lives have been filled with lots of exciting, happy occasions!
Let's start back at our return from Alabama...
We picked up our puppy on the way home!
Liberty Belle Goldstein ("Libby") has now been part of our family for just about a month and she is adjusting wonderfully. She's a labradoodle just over four months old. She looks mostly like a lab right now, but we're told by six months her hair will start getting longer and wavy. We've already noticed growth since we got her.
She spends most of the day sleeping (in very attractive positions, might I add), with short bursts of puppy energy! We have 2-3 training sessions a day, and she's already mastered sit, down, and stay. We're making major progress with crate... she definitely knows what we want, it's just sometimes she wants to listen and other times she doesn't. Although I do have to hand it to her that since the very first night home she has been an angel at night. Whether or not she voluntarily enters her crate, once she's in there we don't hear a peep until morning.
Yoni playing with her in the yard on her first day home:
Sleeping all cute and curled up in her favorite spot:
Sleeping on her panda (gift from Loryn) - her favorite toy!
Libby after her first bath! (I know...it looks pitiful). Unfortunately she's not a big fan of the tub yet...
Yoni serenading Libby out in the yard:
Adorable.
So getting a new puppy alone would make a first week back quite eventful. Well, we decided that it wasn't quite enough excitement for us. Sooooo... we threw a Purim party the second night back (with the greatly appreciated help of the Goldsteins and Deganis) on the Air Force Base. We had about 20 people come out to the party - we read the megillah, ate a lot of food, and did trivia/costume contest. It was quite fun. Yoni's costume was awesome. Here's a backshot (during the megillah reading)... If you can't tell, he's Leonardo the Ninja Turtle.
During the day of Purim, we had the seudah at our house, and different people stopped by throughout the day.
So if my memory's correct, Purim ended on Tuesday night... then that Friday our friend Michael Lebovitz graduated from Pilot Training (Yay, congratulations Mike!). His whole family came in town to celebrate. We went to the ceremony in the morning, then spent the whole weekend with his family. Mike's twin sister observes Shabbat, so she stayed with us and we got to enjoy the company of his whole family for the meal on Saturday and a lovely afternoon of games and walking.
Now a week after we got back, we had a few days to unpack, get our dog comfy, and regroup. It's a good thing we've gotten fairly quick at unpacking and getting settled, because exactly one week later, we were off again!
This time to Baltimore for Frumie and Noach's wedding! We got into Baltimore on Sunday at noon, the wedding started at 2:00 PM, and we left the next morning at 8:00AM. Yet somehow in that time, we had a great time at the wedding, spent a few hours at the jam session in town, visited Mom Mom and Poppy, and gave Shadow hugs. We're so glad we went though, because it was great to see all the family at the wedding and celebrate with the lovely couple. :)
They had a gorgeous chuppah in the sanctuary of Beth Tefiloh:
Daniel and Nili were precious walking down the aisle hand in hand:
I got a few moments with Frumie before the badekkin. I have to say one thing that REALLY impressed me, and will probably always stick out in my mind when I think of this wedding. During the time before the badekkin, guests always go up to the kallah (bride) to get blessings. Well Frumie is the only kallah I know who spent hours before the day writing an index card for each and every guest with a personal bracha. Peshie sat at her side with the alphabetized cards and handed the right one over as each guest approached. Beautiful.
So we came back from Baltimore on Monday, I went straight to work, then got caught up on things a bit before the next big adventure... come Friday we went down to Oklahoma City for Shabbat. Now this trip is kind of old hat for us by now.... however, this excursion was a little different than the norm, because we traveled with puppy in tow. I do have to say, she was a trooper! The nice thing about traveling is the appreciation she gets for the familiarity of her crate. When she's in a brand new house, her crate has a feeling of comfort for her, so she likes to be in there. Victoria was very sweet and let all three of us spend Shabbat at her house.
Then we came back to Enid Saturday night and brought Libby to our friends (thanks Daniel and Melissa!!) Sunday morning - for we were off again! We caught a flight Sunday afternoon to Toronto, Canada! We met Yoni's whole family up there and had a lovely day of tourism, seeing the whole city from the top of the CN Tower! Then Monday night (the purpose of our trip) we got to join in the simcha of Jacky and Dina's wedding! The (Jack) Bengios are good friends in Dallas. Jacky (best friends with Shuki) has been living in Baltimore for many years.
They are Sephardi, so the wedding had some very beautiful, unique customs, such as the white tallit being presented under the chuppah and turning around to the open Ark at the end of the ceremony.
There was also an AMAZING choir singing during all of the special moments. It was nice spending all of this time with the family too. Here's a picture of me, Yoni, Shuki, and Cyrel during the reception.
So there we go - that takes us up to exactly one week ago. Since that time we have been crazily cleaning for Pesach, getting ahead on all schoolwork for the next two weeks, taking a midterm, getting ready to go down to Dallas for the seders, and right in the middle of it all having a well-needed, amazing, relaxing Shabbat just the two of us at home, for the first time in three months.
Tomorrow we finish the cleaning, I have to work for two hours at the tutoring center, and then we're heading down to Dallas.
It's getting really late now and we have a long day tomorrow so I think we're going to call it a night. But we wish everyone a Happy Passover - Chag Pesach kasher v'sameach, and may it be filled with meaning and Joy!
Last night I called in to a really good shiur about the holiday, so if I have a few spare minutes tomorrow I will try to share them.
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