Abby, Zoë, and I went to Herzalia to meet with Francine, who is the secretary at Kehila (Abby and Zoë’s school in Canada and, next year, Miriam’s also). Francine is visiting Israel over the winter break. We walked on the beach and the girls played on the monkey bars. Overall a very nice morning with sun, surf and good company.

Today we went to a soccer game at the Teddy Kolleck Stadium in Jerusalem. The team is in 2nd place in the **4th** division. A friend of ours, Danny, is a part owner of this team that made Israeli news for being the first team owned by fans. While it was only semi-professional football, we had a nice time, especially since the girls were with their good friends Zohar and Kedem.

Zoë invited some of her friends from school, the apartment complex and tzaharon (afternoon program) for an afternoon of smoothies, pizza, cupcakes and colouring. We started by designing and making personal smoothies with M&Ms, chocolate, ice cream and frozen fruit. After the smoothies, there was cupcake decorating along with some pizza and a cake. All had a great time. We also celebrated the next day when we went to Pua and Baruch’s house for the 5th night of Chanukkah.

Abby and Zoë spent the better part of two hours taking photos of the Furbie toys that we got from Burger King about 2 years ago. Actually, as much as I dislike the toys from those fast food places, these little critters have been a huge hit. Naomi can play with these for hours—sorting them, arranging them, moving them from place to place. Now the two oldest girls took over and did this amazing set of photo shoots with Abby’s new camera (thanks Bubbie and Zaidy).