It's just a nice place to raise your kids up.

Yom shishi, 15 Av 5770.

What are your kids doing this summer?

Mizrachi update:  Soldier Boy is raising his adorable baby girl with his bride, and building a business.

Photo credit: her loving Baltimore grandfather, head of KF Productions

Photo credit: same as above: KF Productions

 It is a landscaping and hauling business, and he is very proud of it.  We are proud of its "Yiddishen ta'am."

Stunt Man has decided that he is quite comfortable with his place in the Paratroopers Brigade.

The guard duty shift is long; 
the backpack is heavy; 
the workers are hungry.  --  Pirke Samba"s

Thank G-d, the parents remembered to fill the fridge.






I often say of teenangels that they come home, lift the fridge up, and pour its contents into their mouths, and then announce, "Anything to eat around here?  I'm starving."

Teenangels and soldiers have this in common, with one small difference:

There is not enough food in Israel (or perhaps any other developed country) to feed a soldier who is home on leave.

I'm not discouraging you.

But forewarned is forearmed, as they say. Note to Israeli parents of pre-teens:   Taking out stock in Oreo and Bamba may not be a bad idea.





Yeshiva Bochur has been traveling in the Golan with a good friend from his childhood, Moshe-from-Chernovitz.  They have risen at dawn each day [Ed. comment:  REALLY???], working the fields of organic farms, getting their arms lacerated by the leaves surrounding zucchini vines, which they have soothed with the cooling waters of various waterfalls, after which they drank  the waters of the holy Kinneret... 

Sports Guy has been at the Kinneret all day with his friend Noam (aka "Fish" -- don't ask).  They have been kayaking, swimming, fishing, burning...  (He did use sunscreen, Tante Shalomis.  It just wasn't waterproof.  What can one do?)

And their big brother SamJam is moving with his beautiful family to greener pastures...

Photo credits: ShellDIL  (Don't worry.  That's not their house.)

Meanwhile, the kids of Neve Daniel have been keeping themselves (and their parents) busy.

Mountain climbing is not an uncommon sport for intrepid little Israeli settler kids...

What really makes us nervous about letting our kids go bunjee jumping?  It's the possibility of smacking their little kepis on the ground at high velocity, right?  So -- leave it to Israelis to come up with a solution:  Horizontal Bunjee Jumping.  You heard it here first.

 

It was very cute when he hit the back wall.  But he was not concussed.  No parents were hurt in this filming.

Someone asked us if we are going on any tiyulim (trips) this year.  We just looked around at our neighborhood:  kids playing on wonderful and brightly-colored fairground equipment; boys swimming and climbing and kayaking; parents with never-before-imagined free time on their hands...  (That would be us -- not the parents of the little kids running around in these photos.)  Now I hear Jerusalem is in line to receive the biggest ferris wheel in the world.  My only question is, "Where the heck they gonna put it?"

Well, if nothing else has inspired you to want to live in this lovely country, maybe the ferris wheel will do it.  And if you already want to live here, don't worry: the thing is supposed to hold something like 800 people at once.  I'll save you a seat.

What are your kids doing for summer vacation?  Tell me!  I'm anxious to hear, because I miss you.