A new friend

Well I can't say I have been busy exactly. We haven't been doing much other than relaxing and watching Lena have the time of her life.
But, 2 days ago I met someone. He isn't exactly the best looking guy, nor did he smell that great. His love of chicken skin kind of grossed me out. But once he got to know me, he is beginning to think I am ok. And I think he is adorable.
He is about 5 weeks old. We found him inside the engine of a car. He was not too happy to be in there, nor to be poked out with a broom handle. He wanted nothing to do with us. We chased him to a corner, where he promptly hissed and swatted at us. I lured him out from under a cabinet using some chicken. I was the hero of the day. No one could believe I was able to get him out. He was scared and sooo hungry. There are tons of wild cats in Israel. Every where you go, you see at least one if not more hanging out. I think it helps keep the critters down from the nearby farms.
I set him free after we stuffed him full of food and all petted him until I thought his fur would fall off. He ran like his bum was on fire. Some other cats came around and I thought there was hope one was his mom and would take him home. Nope.
So last night I found him again. He was much friendlier towards me this time. He knew I had food. All the adults are laughing at me, saying I must have the happiest heart around to want to take care of a scruffy, smelly, flea ridden kitten, whose ears are bigger than it's head. But once Sammy realizes you aren't going to hurt him, he rubs his little 5oz body against you, meowing the quietest meow, he is your best buddy. He is still skittish and will cry for you if you leave him, then run away to hide.
I go outside in the am and meow. Next thing I hear is a meow in return! I pull out the hot dog and break off pieces and toss it in his direction. Out he comes. A little shocked that I actually returned with more food! He blinks sleepily at me and meows like "hello, boy am I glad to see you!". I made him a little box home. He seemed to think it was ok. I am hoping after a while he will sleep there rather than under the cabinets that are filled with spider webs.
I hope he survives. He is such a little bony thing. I am saving leftovers for him and chopping it up. He will forever be an outside cat, but for now, he is my friend.

Coq au vin anyone?

They say I will get used to it and wont hear it anymore. I want to know when that will be. I am beginning to think the rooster is blind or is an insomniac looking for some love. Aren't roosters supposed to crow at dawn? Not at 9:15. 12:30, 5:00, and every 15 minutes or less from there on out until 9:45?
Why people here are allowed to keep them in their yards are beyond me. Most people here have cages with pigeons ( good eats) or chickens. The people next door have a rooster. At least they got rid of their yappy little dog that thought the air was the enemy. And have seemed to stop constantly yelling at their son, who wasn't doing anything wrong from what I could see.
And can we talk about the humidity? The rooms here have individual air conditioning. So it's an if you are in the room, turn it on, out, off. How ever, the kitchen, and bathroom do not have such nice devices. They are like sauna's 24/ 7. I don' t know how they aren't all weighing 98lbs or dropping dead from heat exhaustion. Yesterday I migrated between this room where the computer is, and our bedroom.
Since we basically came here with very little and there are a million kids to play with, we decided to hit Toys R Us. Yes, they have TRU here in Israel. =) We got Lena a new scooter, and a new drivey car, Stephanie, help me out here, what are they called? She loves it! The floors are all tile or indoor outdoor carpet, so she is having a ball. Huge porch/ veranda outside that they play on. I wouldn't be surprised if she doesn't loose at least 5 lbs from all the play/ sweating and being just too busy to eat. Wish I could say the same. =)

Shabbat

Shabbat. Also known as Friday/ Saturday. It was very interesting to say the least. You would think that an international hotel in a large metropolitian area wouldn't follow the local religious customs. But they do. So does much of Israel. Our first clue was a sign on the elevators that on Shabbat, you can only use one elevator at a time. We rolled our eyes and thought it was weird, but moved on.
It starts Friday at sundown. The automatic door at the entrance is no longer automatic. We attempt to go upstairs in an elevator only to have the doors almost squish Lena. A man next to us explained that it's Shabbat and they set the elevators to only allow one to work at a time. So apparently they try to reserve use of electricity. The next morning the same thing with the elevators. We had to wait a while to get one. Downstairs in the breakfast buffet, they can not make a latte because they cannot use electricity to heat the milk. Okay... Oh, they also signed us in with paper rather than turn on the computer. We head up stairs to see if I can use the internet to check email, the computer is off. The entire town is shut down. Stores are closed. Some arab owned places are open, but the majority is closed.
Very interesting, especially coming from a 24 hour/ 7 days a week state. People work 5 1/2 day work weeks, 7 hours a day. Still comes out to be 40 hours.

Day 2

It's our third morning. We all took drugs last night in an attempt to get some real sleep. It worked, kind of. We went to bed at 12:20 am, slept until the God forsaken rooster woke us up at 5am. We stayed in bed until 6:45.
Thursday morning Lena and I woke up at 3:30 am. Happy happy joy joy. We got ready for the day and let Jay sleep in until 7:30. He got up, showered and we headed down stairs to enjoy the Le Meridian's buffet breakfast. I wish I had a camera for this one. If the people of Israel can do one thing, it's eat. My goodness. I honestly have never seen such mayhem over food. There is everything from pancakes made fresh in front of your eye's to pickled herring. (gag) After we ate, we went back to our room and put on our swim suites. We walked down to the beach, picked a nice spot and enjoyed the Mediterranean Sea. I have never in my life been in a warm water ocean. It was weird! There was very little sea weed, which is nice since it gives me the heabie jeabies. Lena enjoyed the waves, and learned how to ride them.
Now Israel is filled with people from every walks of life. We saw naked 2 year olds running around and we saw extremely religious people covered from head to toe swimming. The old Jewish ladies crack me up. They stand around in their ill fitting swim suites, with their swim caps on and think they look like the hottest 20 year old anyone has ever seen. There are no body issues here. One of my favorite moments, besides watching my child giddy with glee over playing in the sand, was when we went to the outdoor showers to get the sand off.
Here is a visual. 80 year old man wearing a speedo washing off his private parts. I haven't laughed so hard in a long time. The women were pulling they're tops out to wash the sand off them, it was just so funny and refreshing to not care about your wobbly thighs.
So we got back to the hotel, took real showers and figured we would get some Felafal for lunch. Got in the car and 2 seconds later, Lena is sound asleep. She stays that way for 7 hours. Can't wake her up. She is a complete goner.
I tried my best to stay awake. Didn't work. I crawled into bed about 2:30, woke up at 5, went back to sleep at 5:15, took a shower at 6:30 and woke back up at 8. lol
We decided to come visit Jay's mom here in Baka. Food is awating. We eat, Lena plays and then we crash.

Where do I begin?

I had completely forgotten about this blog. But now since we have embarked on a huge journey in life, I think it would be a fun place to keep everyone updated on things.
As you may or may not know, we are in Israel. We aren't quiet sure how long we will be here.
We just survived our 3rd night. We have jet lag from hell and are trying to adjust to the time change, which is a 10 hour difference from Nevada.
Monday, August 11th, Grampa Mark drove Lena and I to the San Fransisco Airport. Jawad aka Jay from here on out, was already in Israel waiting for us. He arrived earlier than us to try to get things ready for our arrival. He succeeded in some parts, but just didn't quite hit the mark on others. Like getting over his jet lag before we came. =) He was just too excited and had too much to do to bother with sleep. So now we are all struggling to get caught up.
Here is what occurred the first day we arrived.

The flights were all great. We flew British Airways, one step above coach. Very nice.The airport here in a nightmare. I hate it. As soon as I landed I thought, I never want to come through here ever again. lol I had dressed up all pretty with some nice shoes. Boy was that a HUGE mistake. My feel swelled up on the flight and it was painful to walk. You have to walk about 1/2 a mile through the airport to get out. People here are the rudest pushiest people I have ever met. If you stop you WILL get run over, they don't care what your age is. And they don't apologize. We got through customs and went to find our luggage. I was really hoping Jay was going to be able to meet us before getting it, but nope. So I am standing around a baggage carousel waiting. I had gotten two carts and set Lena up to guard them. I warned her about the people and sure enough some guy walked by, hit one of the carts and knocked it into Lena. He never said sorry or anything.
So I stand there for a good 15 minutes waiting for our bags. Nothing. Then the conveyor belt stops. OH SHIT. I started to panic. Then I realize that it's not from our flight! So I grab Lena and start running around trying to find the one for our flight. NON of the things say our flight. I am on the verge of tears, sweating like a mo fo and trying to protect Lena and what little bags we carried on. Finally I deposit her and run around checking ever carousel. ( there had to be over 500 people getting there bags, plus about 50 of them were at the lost luggage thing.) I spotted one of my bags, yelled to Lena to stay put, and got the bags! One hour after our flight landed!
Anyway, Finally get out of there and see Jay! His brother and nephew were there to help out. It was so nice! We got flowers and lots and lots of hugs to go around. =)
So we walk to the parking garage and the elevator is shut down! lol So Jay walks up the stairs and gets the car. We load up and head to his moms house. She and lots of other family members great us, then we are shoved into seats and giving food! lol Food cures all right? It's so muggy that my dress is now wet and clinging to me. Lena is so freaking excited she is running around like a chicken with her head cut off. We checked out our new diggs upstairs, very nice! They bought an entire bedroom set for us, installed an a/c unit in our room. So we hung out for a bit, let Lena play with some kids and threw a bag together and headed here to Haifa. Jay has a hotel room waiting for us. It's ON the beach. You walk outside and down the steps and there is the ocean. SO NICE! We can hardly walk at this point. OH, we had to stop and get Lena a car seat from Toys R Us. lol We sleep for about 6 hours and decide we had better get up. We took showers and went down the block and ate on the beach. GREAT food. Then went to Super Cell, a grocery store ( it's now 9:30pm) and got some food for the hotel and toothpaste. lol Came back to the hotel and went for a walk on the boardwalk. We ended up back at the hotel about midnight and we were all asleep by 12:30. Lena woke up at 3:30 wanting to come into our bed. woohoo. She fidgeted for a while till I told her to go watch the i-pod touch. She wouldn't stop pestering me, so here I am, at 5am awake.
Jay has finally gotten some MUCH needed sleep.