Special Israel Edition

It was a nice day today…nice because the weather was good, nice because there was much resting going on, nice because we went to lunch at the best falafel stand in the world, and nice because we had a great dinner tonight. I suppose that the majority of the day is fairly self explanitory, so I’ll skip straight to the dinner.

Rena arranged for a dinner celebration that was three parts: 1 – Ezra’s 1st birthday. 2 – Guy’s 7th birthday. and 3 – Savta’s 90th birthday. They all happen within just a few days of each other, so it was really nice to get together with family and have a great dinner by the seashore.

SPECIAL ISRAEL EDITION

Well, Israel precisely. And that travel time was mostly by design…4 hour plane flight from Denver to New York City, then almost 24 hours in New York City, then 12 hours to Tel Aviv. Actually my math was wrong – that’s more than 40 hours.

We have made plane flights similar in length to the Den-Nyc trip before, so nothing major to report there. We planed a layover in NYC to break up the long trip for Ezra (really for ourselves), and booked a hotel at the airport – by the way, the Fairfield Inn JFK is a really nice place to stay if you ever need a hotel there.

The morning of the 10th, we had planned on going into Manhattan for a while, but after doing some math, realized that we would only get to spend about 45 minutes down there – no worries, we went anyway. We took the subway from the airport all of the way to lower Manhattan and walked to Ground Zero. The subway ride was entertaining, since we started in Queens, went all of the way through Brooklyn, and ended in Manhattan…and the riders of the train seemed to change with each borough.

We were able to walk to the “10 House,” which is the FDNY station that sits literally at the base of the former WTC buildings. While there, we spent some time at the bronze memorial to the fallen FDNY members that lines the side of their firehouse. It was the first time for either of us to be at Ground Zero, and the emotion of the moment was as real as I imagined. I think that it’s almost cliche to say that we were most struck by the size of the emptiness.

After a subway ride back, a short nap for Ezra, and a short trip back to the airport, we met up with Dave and Mary Jo – our travel partners for the trip to Israel. They have not previously had the opportunity to go, and we thought that it would be really cool to experience it with them sometime…so it worked out that this was the trip.

We boarded the plane with little difficulty from security (which is a story from the previous trips on El Al that we will be glad to share with you in person sometime), but with some confusion over Ezra’s seat…which we though had been booked as a separate seat, but turns out that he was listed as a lap child….a lap child for 12 hours overnight….oh boy. We did manage to block out a seat between Ahna and I and we kept our fingers crossed that they didn’t assign someone else to it – it worked, we were able to get on the plane with Ezra’s car seat and were able to keep the seat between us for him.

Ezra fell asleep for the first 45 mintues of the flight, but then awoke for the next three to four hours, during which he absolutely refused to sleep…mostly because there was way too much to look at. He finally fell alseep after the dinner service, and when they turned out the lights, and he stayed asleep for pretty much the rest of the flight (except for the last hour to so).

I got to thinking that airplanes and casinos must have hired the same person for some consultation on the overnight periods….because they both do a great job of setting the environment to be such that you have no concept of time: from the lighting, to the movies, to the services at any hour, it really is hard to know if you should be going to sleep or eating breakfast.

We got into Israel in the middle of the afternoon and were met at the airport by Yuval and Rena. We went back to Rena’s apartment for some rest, then to my grandmother’s  – Savta in Hebrew – apartment for some light dinner. We all retired for the night, and slept for a good 10 hours…we might have beat the jet lag in one night….yea, right….

All this week storms have moved in in the late afternoon and early evening….today was even more intense with hail and great thunder and lightning. The pictures in this post were from Friday afternoon, and were taken on the way to the park. As we were driving on the interstate, I was taken by the enormity of the clouds and the forming storm: in the black box is 14,000+ft Pikes Peak; which looks like a small bump compared to the cloud formation. Luckily, we still had time to hit the park for a little while before the rain came down.

From in front of the fire station this afternoon….

Today we say ‘thanks.’ It’s not just another day off (partially because I have to work), but it’s a time to remember all of the sacrifice made by generations of people and families protecting who we are as Americans. We put our political differences and opinions aside, and honor our fallen soldiers. I found a really interesting and poignant plug-in for Google Earth…you can find it here. The picture below is a map of the fallen soldiers from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. You can see photos of the soldiers, learn about how they died, visit memorial websites, and explore the places they called home as well as the places where they died. It’s really worth some of your time…

In what was the first of many-to-come days out, Ezra and I joined Joe and Barrett in an adventure up to them there hills. I first must tell you that Barrett is 3 months old, and this is only Joe’s second day of being the daytime provider. We started the morning by heading to Black Hawk and the casinos. Yea, seriously….the degenerates that we are. Really, we went over there for the cheap breakfast and to start the day off on the little-bit ridiculous side of life. After a filling breakfast buffet for 2.99 each, we headed towards a short hike.

We decided on a trip to St. Mary’s Glacier which consists of about a mile of hiking (including a short trek through some snow) up to a mountain lake that is borders by the glacier. On the trip up the hill, I think that Barrett and Ezra conspired to provide Joe and I a pretty good parenting test: really poopy diapers at 11,000 feet. We managed, and we fed the boys up at the shore of the lake, after which we packed back up and headed back down the hill.

The last destination of the day was actually the inspiration of the day….a stop at Arapahoe Basin. Joe and I needed to pick up our mugs (it’s a mug club and the season is ending soon) and we needed a little mountain-side fix. We weren’t able to go skiing, but we did enjoy sitting on the deck and having one last beer for the season. When we got there, we ran into none other than Mr. Scott Russell, who had come up on his own and was hanging out with some new friends that he met. It was the perfect conclusion to a really fun day. Both boys did awesome all day long!

Pictures courtesy of the camera phone and include the views at St. Mary’s Glacier, chillin’ at A-Basin, and a joint diaper change on the tailgate of Joe’s pickup.

As the summer storm season has begun, it’s my hope to be able to capture some good photos…..alas, hopes were not realized the last two days when great lighting/thunder storms rolled through Castle Rock. I was at work both days, and after deciding that “oh, it’s alright, I can leave my tripod at home – nothing will happen” I had to settle for just looking (and then responding to lighting strikes all around our first due). This photo is about all that I could capture between everything else going on. It’s standing on the front ramp of the station at about 4:30 on Monday afternoon.