Israel Dinner with Friends

Adi (a previous Intel planar engineer, now ST Microelectronics/Intel JV - Nuemonyx) picked me up with her boyfriend Daniel (another F28 engineer who works in Intel Labs with SEM/TEM work). They took me to a great place, that I cannot pronounce (along with the wonderful food we had). We had a great time...started with some bread with different dippings, and a liver spread..beets...pickles...tomatoes....Adi had a beef meatball and rice dish, Daniel had a beef stew with couscous, and I had chicken schnitzel with rice.....what a wonderful meal! For desser, a chocolate crunch dish and a custard like dish with cherry sauce! Spectacular with a doubleshot of espresso! We talked about the world politics, levels of Jewish belief, Oil, Intel, and I learned that my meal was Kosher. Daniel....extreme gratitude for your wonderful humor and your acceptance of my new Hebrew word (I made up). Its a combination of "Shalom" + "Sababa", which means cool...it is now = " Shababa"......Thank you Adi and Daniel for your hospitality and friendship......

Tel Aviv - Israel Days 1&2

Hi there from Tel Aviv. It is warm here...not unpleasant...just humid and about 85-90. Friday and Saturdays are "the weekend", and Shabat for the jewish begins with a certain time printed in circulation (like tides) and followed to the minute. In Tel Aviv, the beach sand is nice (hot) and is covered with umbrellas and people playing sand games, laying out, smoking, eating, swimming in the incredibly warm sea. I got in on Friday around 6pm. I quickly rushed to the beach and fell asleep on a towel for 1hr. It was nice, about 75 at that time, not too bad...and the nap was great! I walked around the beach promenade a bit, walked about 3-5 miles throughout the city, and landed at an ice cream shope right on the beach! Wow, was that good! After sleeping only 4 hrs, I woke up and had breakfast, very good assortment at the Sheraton! Again, walked around looking for suntan lotion, sunglasses, and airborne (thought I had a cold coming on). Found all of that - dont ask about the exchange rate...3.3 sheckels to the dollar, meaning the suntan lotion was about $30! Things are very expensive here in Israel currently, and the dollar is weaker than ever. I visited Old Jaffa today as well, and got super burnt! I am a lobster (post to follow). I am missing my family...called the clan and they are doing well.

Boston, Crawling, Walking and other Tricks

Well, I see Jason beat me to a post, but I figured I should do some 'back-blogging' to catch up on all the crazyness we have go going on.

First order of business is Boston - We went 2 weeks ago to Boston for Jason's Graduation (he's not done till Sept - don't start celebrating yet!). It was beautiful and we really enjoyed visiting the Babson campus in Wellesley. Jason enjoyed seeing where he 'went to school' :) We also had a great time in Boston and got to visit the North End for yummy pasta and had clam chowder a few times. We also got to see my friends from college - Addie and Katie. It was great to see them. Addie graduated from Tufts that weekend as well.

Jacob did great on the flight there (I was nervous becuase 2 days before he was diagnosed with a sinus infection and croup, and I had both boys by myself since Jason flew out the day before). The flight home was a different story - no one in a six row vacinity from us was having any fun for the middle 2 hours of the flight!

See below for some pics of our trip.

In Jacob news, it has been a crazy 2 weeks of new 'tricks'. He started blowing kisses a few weeks ago, which is very cute and he also does pattycake by himself when you sing it. Unfortunately he does not do these tricks on demand, so I haven't been able to catch a video. Last week he started waving bye bye (also very cute but still un-captured in video).

BUT THE BIG NEWS - The boy can crawl. I was thinking he never would, but as I'm sure he will often do, he has proven me wrong! Last Wed he started crawling - I do have a video of the first crawls. Note, he is not very happy about this new adventure. This week it is better and he has made it down the hall and across the room, but he's still not thinking it's great all the time.

AND THE BIGGER NEWS - Last Thursday (yes 1 day after crawling), he took 3 steps by himself. We are up to 8 steps by himself so far and he is quite good at going around furniture and anything else he can hold on to, so I'm certain more are coming soon. It is so cute because he knows when he does a good job and is really stable and he'll smile and laugh and get really excited when he gets to the destination. It's been fun to see him gain confidence. This is another thing I promise to get on video this weekend.

Becuase I have not been good at getting the video done, I have included some bonus pics of him just being cute, to appease the masses till the real good stuff gets video'd.

Memorial Day Weekend - Pacific City

Pacific City 

We had a great time this weekend, spending three nights at the Thousand Trails park in PC.  We found a great spot close to the pool area, store, and family area.  Ethan and Jacob went swimming a few times, ice cream treats were daily afternoon snacks, and Suzi's biscuits and gravy still rank #1 in my book!  We drove on the beach and I had some fun showing Ethan how to create "donuts" in the sand...fun times....  Here are some pics!

A day in the Life of a Jewett

Well, I'm going to start by apologizing if our posts are spotty the next 2 months. This scheudle we are dealing with is crazy. I thought I'd put it down so you know where to find us when you think we have dissapeared from the earth.

5/3-5/4 - Jason School
5/5 - Jason another steroid shot in the back
5/6-5/13 - Jason in Japan
5/12-5/13 - Suzi in CA (Jacob will be with Connie - I didn't forget about him)
5/14 - Jason in Boston
5/15-5/18 - Suzi, Ethan, Jacob in Boston for Jason's graduation
5/23-5/26 - Another trip with Harry in Pacific City
5/29-6/5 - Jason in Isreal
6/6-6/7 - Jason School
6/12-6/17 - Everyone in Colorado
6/20-6/22 - Everyone in Seattle
Wooh! Can it get much crazier?

Besides the craziness, I do have some very cute pictures to share. The pics of Jacob are from a friend's 3 yr b-day party. He really loved her little kitchen. You will notice his crazy hair in the last picture, it is his most commented on feature.

Last weekend Grammie and Grampie were here, Jacob had a great time with them, and I think they both were pretty sad to leave his smiles. Right after they left Jacob started walking around the coffee table and couch to his toy box and walker and across the room. So, we're getting closer to some serious walking. He also had a very horrible cough/cold and we had a rough week overall. But he's on the mend now and back to eating his mass quantity of food, like normal.