Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Austin and Anniversary






Pictures, in reverse order from how they happened, of course.  For full albums, check out my Facebook page (but you have to "friend" me to see it).  In any case, the bottom picture is from my day at the Norwich Spa, when I relaxed and my hair did too.  Then some highlights from my trip to Austin, TX, when I visited Shira and Nathaniel.  It was very cool to be at the Whole Foods Headquarters and nice to eat at restaurants where I felt the food was really gluten-free.  The top two pics are from our anniversary - Adam and I just got back from Newport, RI.  We stayed at a lovely B&B where the room was nice, very warm, and the innkeeper was nice, very warm, and a bit of a helicopter chef (as in, she hovered on top of us while we ate breakfast!). But that's OK b/c she made good food and understood my GF needs so that's good.  On Monday night we walked around and found a nice restaurant right on the water. Turns out it was restaurant week in Newport so there were great deals! The first day we sat at breakfast until almost 11 AM because there was a nice couple from New York and we were just chatting forever. But I managed to get through the entire time there without letting anyone know what I do for a living - that made the conversations much easier!   We started our big day of touring on Tuesday by trying to go to the Touro Synagogue only to find out that they had just closed it the day before for months of construction! Oh well, next time I guess.  We spent the morning walking around the shops etc, and then went to the Breakers for a tour (of course realizing we left the free tickets at home in Hartford!). The Breakers tour was nice but the guide was rather boring and uninterested.  That's OK. We were still impressed with the magnitude and beauty of it all.  We went back to wandering around downtown and then went to the Opera House for an afternoon movie.  We saw "Rachel Getting Married" which we thought would be cool to watch on our anniversary. Let me make this very clear: it was the worst movie we'd ever seen!  Only watch it if you really enjoy being seasick.  It was so disturbing and actually made me want to puke!  Actually, the shaky camera aside, it was...........no, it was horrible! If you've seen it, I'd love to hear your opinion. I don't need every movie to have a happy ending - just SOME ENDING. It was lame. But it got us really talking about life and resolution, and how even if the resolution is bad, at least there's something. This movie just turned over a million stones but didn't follow any of them through.  Everything, and I mean everything, was left up in the air. It could have gone in a lot of wonderful directions, instead it just went down the drain. But anyway, as you can see, I'm not too annoyed that I spent several hours in an unheated slanting opera house watching the world through a shaky camera. :)

Tuesday night we wandered for a long time before finding dinner.  We finally ended up at a diner-type place that served amazing fish. Wednesday we took a beautiful walk on the Cliff Walk and then drove home. It was just so wonderful to be away!  Happy Anniversary to us!  Tonight we watched about 25 minutes of our wedding DVD (just the highlights, none of the embarrassing moments) and soon we'll eat our wedding chocolate (we didn't have a wedding cake, but we gave out chocolates, so we've been saving some for our anniversary, but were too stuffed last night).  Looking forward to the next many, many anniversaries!

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Sukkot

Our sukkah began as 12 boards, each weighing 50 lbs, that Adam and I dragged from Boston.  So here we are with our friend, David, with the boards lying around the picnic table Adam built, contemplating how to build this thing.



Then we were joined by our friends: David, Ray and Craig, and Adam from across the street.  After an hour, the sukkah was built!  It's beautiful and was a great way to spend sukkot with family and friends. 





And a final word of relief that I'm finally learning how to post on this blog and get the words and pictures in order! Barukh Hashem!

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Simchas!









Yaffa and Ravid's L'Chayim (otherwise known as the night the Garber Girls all wore black and white) was a lot of fun.  Nice people, nice food, nice to be together.  Visited Becky and baby Talia - so cute and so much hair!  Then Adam and I went to Rochester for Marette and Jared's wedding.  More fun, dancing, and good times.  We are exhausted! So no more words, just pictures! Worth a lot, they say. Enjoy!

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Fun at Ramah






Some pics from our visit to Camp Ramah New England.  Adam playing with Tikvah.  Adam playing with Yehuda (Rosh Mishlachat).  A beautiful guest house, a wonderful time.  Happy kids.  Very nice.

Red Sox game 2 and lots of fishies!






Adam and I went to the aquarium on July 28 and enjoyed the fishes.  Then we went to the Red Sox again for one of Manny's last days.  Sadly, we lost.  Hence my sad face and Adam trying hard not to laugh at me!
We also saw Pearl H. who balances food and drinks on her head!  Amazing!

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Our Trip to Israel - July 2008









B'chol zot heeganu lamrot hakol! - We arrived, in spite of it all!  The journey to Israel was OK.  Following a great win of our beloved Boston Red Sox (curse reversed!) against the Twins, we drove from Boston to JFK for our flight.  Some guys asked Adam to join them for Mincha – thank goodness for my blackberry b/c that’s what he used to daven!  It looked like there weren’t going to be a lot of people on the flight, but now we realize they just must have been hiding somewhere.  Anyway, our seats were right in front of the bathroom, which meant they didn’t go back all the way.  That was annoying. Then a religious woman came and was supposed to sit in our row.  The only way that could happen is if Adam and I sat in the middle 2 seats (we were in the row of 4 in the middle) so that there was a nice guy next to him (who was making aliyah) and this woman next to me.  She was nice and it was fine, but I was annoyed of course.  I really wanted to tell her that the great act of kindness she had been paid (by me) was by a Conservative female rabbi.  But I held back.  She probably figured it out.  My favorite moment of the trip was when she went to the bathroom and took off her hair. J We landed, found our luggage, and found a sherut to Jerusalem (which we had to be the last stop, to our great luck! OY.  But it was a great free tour of Jerusalem’s neighborhoods!).  Our hotel (Dan Pan) is fine.  Our view is of Mapu Street – where I stayed with my family a few years ago!  Our first night we went to Ben Yehuda Street, where Adam had a schwarma and I had a felafel.  A great welcome to Israel!