On the first day we didn't do much but my parents went to buy groceries down the street and they came back with 2 bags in their hands, we thought that was a little crazy because to feed 7 people that wasn't really enough. Then about 5 minutes later these 2 guys carrying HUGE tubs came in and that was our groceries. Also it has been FREEZING when we are wearing the same things as we would in Toronto.

On the second day we made a house for one of Micah's stuffed animals and picked up Jed from his school trip who just cvame from the north. Then we went to burger bar and then went to Max Brenner for ice cream you can see the website at www.maxbrenner.com so we went there just wanting to see what they had to know if we wanted to come back another day and geuss what??? THEY HAVE PARAV ICE CREAM! I don't even know how you make that. I t was so good.

Today we got a new heater for the drying machine and then played a huge game of hide and go seek around the house.

So the day after I wrote the last post everyone did go back to the circus thing except me I wasn't feeling that well so I didn't go but my brother and sister went back and did catching which is someone swings from one side and you swing from the other and you catch there hands while they are hanging by their knees and you are too, swing to their trapeze by holfimg there hands and then go back to yours all while ypur about 30 feet from the ground. Then later that day we went to the airport and went back to Toronto! We got their at about midnight so the next morning we went to the bookstore and then just ran a few errands and then it was shabbat which we had at my Uncle and Aunt's. On Saturday we went to shul and then had brunch at my grandparents. That night my parents went back to Vancouver to check for damage from the renters at our house so when theywent there they first checked the Vancouver house and then they went to Whistler to check that house and then went for a ski which didn't really work because the weather was so bad so went back to Vancouver and got on a plain to come back to Toronto. While all this was happening we were at a different aunt and uncle's sleeping over and then in the morning we went to see Alice in Wonderland. I didn't see the movie because I didn't feel like having to sit srill for that long so instead I went to a plae muy grandfather wanted to take me to buy me a present for my bat mitzvah. So the place was about 40 minutes away but before that we went to Starbucks and then to my Great Aunt Miriam the whole time callingthe jewler to see if he was even open. Finally we decided that since it was Sunday he might be there and he might not be so we should just take the chance. we drove the 40 minutes and then geuss what??? HE WAS CLOSED! so we got back in the car and started the drive home. He showed me there mountain in Earl Bales park which I DID NOT BELEIVE, it was tiny! and then home. the next day was Monday and my parents had gotten home in the morning and then my grandfather wanted to go back to the store. So we got in the car and drove there AGAIN, when we got there geuss what? IT WAS CLOSED. we had noticed on the sign the day before that it was open on Monday but not what time it opens so it only opens at one. so we went back just an hour and a half andwent back at 1 so got there at almost 2. it was open but there was NPOTHING in it the people lock all the stuff in the safes s o had to take it all out first so they told us to go and do something for an hour. there wasn't really anything around there so we went to walk around the dollar store and russian gift shop and the pizza place that was all that was there. when we came back an hour later still nothing was out so he my grandfather just told him to tske out the magen davids because thats what he wanted to get me. We finally picked one but then they wanted it shorter (my grandmother had also come this time). So whgen I got home I packed for a long time and cleaned and then noticed that I had absolutely NOTHING dfor the airplane which is what everyone else was doing while I was sitting in the car. So my aunt took me to a place and we got stuff and then went to the airport. the plain ride was 10 hours and 45 minutes (i think) and landed in Tel Aviv. then we drove to where we are staying here in Jarusalem. Israel is BEAUTIFUL!

 

Today in the afternoon we went to kite beach to the gym which is called Extreme. We go there quite a bit because it is right next to Kite Club and my mom and sister have taken up yoga and my dad has to do the spinning class, because he is training for when he gets back to do a ride from Vancouver to Seattle for cancer. So anyway we came with because Paul, a guy who works there started a circus camp. Paul is the who has been going around to all the fancy resorts and peoples houses to install circus equipment. All they have set-up so far is the swinging trapeze and the trampoline. It was really funny because the Paul is a professional trapeze artist and is trained in all other areas of circus too but the people teaching were not, we have all been trained already for the circus by cirkids/ circus west so we knew everything they had to teach. In the end Paul had to teach us himself and on the trampoline we were all in harnesses and we did back flips and cleaned up our front flips. On the flying trapeze first you climb up a huge ladder and then there is this little platform that you jump off of holding the trapeze and swing while doing tricks. It was so fun and we’re going to go back for tomorrow to do it all again!

 

so for quite awhile it has been cold and rainy but it finally got boiling hot today. I also noticed yesterday that my journals that were posted as pictures did not show up so basically what they said is that every morning we have been davening  which takes about an hour and is ...... quite boring! we have to do this every morning for my dad and then we can do whatever els we want.

probably one of the most exciting moments of the trip was when i figured out that i was NOT allergic to pineapple anymore.

I have been a llergic to pineapple for a long time even thougth it is my favorite fruit but now I'm not allergic to it anymore.

YAY!

One of my other favorite moments of the trip was when we went waterfall jumping. basicallyh what you do is you climb up 27 waterfalls each one increasing in size. We could only do 8 of them because Micah is to young and even then we had to say that he was 8. the first one was about 15 meters and you have the choice to jump or slide down. all of it is natural and they haven't done anuthing to the land you just get a tour guide and he brings you up and you jump down. It was so cool. When my parents came here a few years ago they went to and went on all 27, they sai that the last one was 50 maters high and my dad jumped off and they have the coolest picture of it. 

yesterday Jed left to Toronto. we're going to Toronto on Thursday and then to Israel but Jed has a school trip to Israel that starts today form Toronto to Israel. We will meet Jed in Israel at the end of his school trip and then he'll continue our family trip.

Monday March 1st:

awhile ago we went to visit the shul/ museum here. it wasn't much to say the least, but the shul was pretty nice. they have the same art scrolls as we use which was surprising but they only have services on yom kippur, succot an shavuot and for peoples wedding and bar mitzvah's and stuff, at least that's what the person in the museum said. My dad was learning how to read the Megilla so that he would be able to read it to us on Purim. On the night of Purim we were planning to read it after dinner, but when we were out for dinner our waitress was Jewish. she said that there actually WAS a service at the shul and that she had called about an hour ago to check. Well in the end my dad had to read it anyways. On Sunday we spent most of the day with our friends here Sammy the owner of the hotel's kid and Julie the front desk persons kid. We also caught a frog, which turned out to be poisonous and 2 of Sammy's cats have died from eating the poionous frogs but lucky us we were fine. Also on Saturday it was the independance day and there were huge parades and loud music EVERYWHERE. There is going to be an election here soon and their way of advertizing is they have these cars that are basically speakers on wheels and they go down the streets blasting music really really loud , as in you can't here till a minute later loud. 

Thursday February 24:

Well… I was the next one to get sick. Yesterday we went snorkeling in Sosua. We hired a boat to take us out to these reefs where there were thousands and thousands of fish. It was so amazing and there was fish of all kinds and sea horses, puffer fish and these really cool fish that are dark purple with dark bright blue on the rims of them since they kind of looked like someone flattened them.

Monday February 22:

nosotros vamos a la playa.

Sunday February 21:

Well… every ones sick! There’s a weird stomach virus going around and almost all of us have gotten sick. First my mom, then my dad, then Micah, then Allie and now who knows who’s next. Just hope it’s not me. Other than that it’s been raining for 3 days, and the Kirsh’s are leaving today.

Friday February 19:
For dinner we went to this place called Papi’s. Last time we went there my mom got food poisoning so now my dad has food poisoning (we didn’t know it was from there, but now its pretty clear). When we were walking there it started to pour rain and all of us were just in t-shirts and shorts, then when we got there they sat us at a terrible table. The table was in the very corner of the restaurant right behind the bathroom and garbage pile it smelled very… apatizing, the annoying part was that they had sat 2 families before us when we were waiting and then told us they didn’t. they finally moved us upstairs and there was these three people singing (there are people who walk around the beach singing to people when they are eating dinner) in the intervals of the songs he would quack. We couldn’t understand why he was quacking and were laughing so hard. Then the guy started quacking to Leah and this one time he snuck up behind her and made this huge quack and she screamed so loud, this woman turned around and kept saying “what happened?” but we were laughing to hard to answer. Then we were joking when we said to Leah “go quack her” but she actually did it (keep in mind we don’t know this lady). At the same time as all this was going on we were playing go fish which really didn’t work seeing as everyone was cheating. The lady got up to go to the bathroom and quacked Leah, who screamed again. Leah waited hiding near the staircase for when the lady was going to come up, to quack her. She didn’t come up and had went home or something so we had to leave. On the walk home theres this little bar with a dance floor and Leah went in and was dancing for about 5 minutes. It was probably one of the funniest m0ments of my life!

This is a picture of my baby cousin, Benjamin Reuben Ordower. He had his briss only a few days ago because he was jondist so they had to wait. Even thought he already has a name my dad is still convinced his name is Ari Olympis (Ari after him and Olympis for the Olympics)

This is a picture of me holding Benjamin and Micah annoying him. 

These are  past journals that I forgot to post. 

Thursday February 18:

Today we did a lot of homework and then went to the beach. It was a pretty uneventful day. In the evening we went to Vela where they have a really good game selection and played foozball and darts. when Adam was playing darts he somehow managed to get a dart stuck into his hand and had to go home to get it disenfected. While we were out for dinner my sister stayed home to babysit a little boy named Tristen. Tristen's dad's name is Sasha, their family has a lot in common with ours, he came here to escape the olympics, he lives in Whistler and built the Athletes Village...

Tuesday, February 16:

Today when we woke up we did our daily morning service, which takes about an hour, then we went to kits beach. The people who came yesterday’s names are Kirsh, Marta, Ben and Leah, they came with us to kite beach because their dad (Kirsh) kite boards. He didn’t have a very good start though because he launched it wrong and put a whole in it. Since it was not a very windy day people were flying pretty big kits (someone had a 17!). My dad and my brother Jed both had lessons. Last year Jed had Lilo as a teacher but this year he has someone else because Lilo broke 2 of his knuckles, last year my dad had this teacher who did this sport called underwater hockey. Under water hockey is basically where there’s a big pool with hockey lines marked on it, you have like a 1-foot stick and you swim and try and hit the puck in the net while holding your breath. At the beach we buried Leah and then sculpted her a big pregnant persons body.

Saturday February 13th,

Today is my birthday! In the morning we did a Shabbat service and then had breakfast. Later on we went to the beach and all got sunburns from being out in the sun the whole day. For dinner we went to a place called Lax. this weekend is the Kite Boarding for Kids (kb4k) charity event so they had this big thing at Lax, there was a big Red Bull tent (Red Bull sponsors a lot of extreme sports, kite boarding included), a fashion show of the places that donated things, a band and even more stuff. It was a great birthday and now I’m 12! That brings with it a lot of responsibilities.

What i've done so far...

Viernes Febrero 12^th :

Nosotros vamos a la playa Kite Beach, nosotros traemos una mochilla con nos ropa y el jeugeutes. Nosotros tambien nadamos en la piscine. Lo esta divertido.

Thursday February 11th:

Today we had a sleep in, and then Micah and I went swimming. We went first to the cold small pool, then the big cold pool, then the hot tub, then the cold pool. We swam for about 3 and half hours and then came home and had lunch. After that we went to Kite Beach. Kite beach is mainly for kite boarding and sort of for windsurfing, it is basically the windy beach. My dad is learning how to kite board, but there wasn’t enough wind so we went to this place where they have a gym and yoga studio so my parents could do that while we were on the beach.

 

Wednesday February 10th:

Today we went grocery shopping and then spent the rest of the day at the beach and getting used to everything. We went out for lunch to a place called Claro, and out for dinner at a place called Voy Voy, it is the restaurant of a place called Vela. Vela is the place where you can rent equipment for all kinds of water sports, but mainly windsurfing.

Tuesday February 9th:

Today we flew to the Dominican Republic to the airport in Puerto Plata and then drove to out hotel in Cabarete. We are staying at a place called El Magnifico.           

Here is the link to the website:

http://www.hotelmagnifico.com/                

We went for dinner at a place called Cafe Pitu where they mostly serve pizza and fish.

Monday February 8th:

Today we went to Casa Loma. It is this beautiful castle that a man named Sir Henry Mill Pellet. He made a fortune by harnessing the power of Niagra falls and then making the first electric street lamp. He planned for it to be huge with 100 rooms and for it to only cost him 250,000$ although the normal house then cost 2,000$. He started to run out of money, and the house that was supposed to only cost 250,000$ had already cost him 3.5 million dollars. He was forced to borrow money from the bank and ended up three million dollars in debt. The city didn’t know what to do with the unfinished castle and decided to finish parts of it and put it on display as a museum. Sir Henry and his wife Lady Mary only got to enjoy their castle for about 10 years before they had to move out. Lady Mary died of a heart problem, and when Sir Henry Mill Pellet died it was the grandest thing the city of Toronto had seen in a long time. There were 1000’s of soldiers and people lined the streets to say their last goodbyes to him.

Here is the link to the website:

http://www.casaloma.org/

Sunday February 7th:

We went to visit my Aunt for most of the day (she just had a baby boy). While most of my family was visiting my dad was busy sleeping on the couch, and my brother Jed was busy getting into trouble. He had decided to go to my cousins Yeshiva for the day (it is a very serious Yeshiva, and they have school every day except Friday and Saturday. There school goes from 7am-6pm but on Thursday form 7am-9: 30pm.) He managed to get himself expelled from a school he was just visiting.

Saturday February 6th:

We didn’t do much because it was Shabbat. Most of my family went to Shul and then we had lunch at my Uncle’s and Aunt’s.

Friday February 5th:

Toronto! We stopped in Toronto for a (5 day) pit stop. All of my dad’s side of the family and most of my moms side live in Toronto, so we visited with family for about half the day and then started preparing for Shabbat, seeing that it comes around 5:20 here.

This is a trilingual blog so I will be writing in English, Hebrew and sometimes (very rarely) Spanish.

Because of technical issues the pictures will be coming soon