Day Two - Celebrating the Fourth

A hodge-podge of pictures tonight...no energy or brain power left to weave a smooth-running commentary through it all.

Jeff emailed again! He had arrived in Tel Aviv and was in the home of our good friends Yacov and Natasha (see below for a picture of them and their daughter Nichol who wasn't even born when we left Israel). A few days ago, someone asked me whether I felt a tinge of jealousy that Jeff was getting to return to Israel and I wasn't. Although I would love to go back to Israel, I know that this just isn't my season for getting to do that, so I didn't feel too jealous. But I have to admit that when I see this picture, my jealousy level goes up a notch because I would so much love to be with these dear friends again!

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One of the activities of our morning was making a paper chain to count down the days until Jeff's return. Josiah made it before David awoke, and he wanted to put 19 links in the chain so that both he and David could go ahead and take one off today. :) We're down to 17...


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Today was Independence Day, of course...and David apparently got the memo for he apparently decided to declare his independence today from any kind of parental authority in the issue of eating. Sigh. Why does he do that??? The particular food item that was the issue this morning was...ready for this?...blueberries. Yep, blueberries. He likes blueberries. So why, oh why, did he refuse to cooperate and simply eat them, choosing instead to sit at the table staring at them while he could have been doing all kinds of more entertaining things, like going outside, reading stories, or even watching a Bob the Builder movie? I've started reading Have a New Kid by Friday by Dr. Kevin Leman (and I REALLY like it), but the first chapter didn't give me the magic solution I was hoping for to avoid such contests of wills. It did give excellent principles, but I can't seem to figure out the specific application to this persistent situation with David. I hope tomorrow goes better in this area.

Anyway, back to Independence Day, I took the boys downtown this evening to watch our town parade and enjoy the festivities there. The rain held off wonderfully for the parade, but started to come down while we were getting some food from a local vendor afterwards. It was kind of fun to walk in the warm rain and enjoy getting wet. :)

Here are some scenes from our local parade, similar to thousands of parades held across our country today:

~ of course, these little flag-wavers were the best part of the parade for me! :)

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One more picture before I end: the pic of the day of Israel. This is Tel Aviv, a modern city with a beautiful beach along which I walked countless times during our years there. This particular picture was taken on a family outing on April 16, 2005, when Josiah, sporting cool shades, was a toddler of 2 years and 10 months. The very next day, David was born. :)