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Summer 2005 קיץ

Hit Counter Visitors since August 13, 2005                                                           Click here for the story behind the pictures

Click on any picture below for a larger version      לחץ תמונות לראות תמונות יותר גדולות                                  Summer 2005
                    (otherwise known as "You Can't Miss it!")

    After seven more years of toil, Michael began his second sabbatical from work during Aaron and Joey's summer vacation from Portland Jewish Academy.  While the first week or so was mostly taken up with chores, we headed east near the end of June and stopped first in Chicago to visit the family Kaminsky.  You can see the change in the children over the past three years by checking out this link. 

  We spent a fun weekend hanging out and visiting downtown Chicago, then Aaron and Joey piloted our jet to LaGuardia in time for our annual BBQ at the Pennsylvania abode of their grandparents, David and Sandy Didner.  We also spent some time in Queens with the Liao's and our young cousin Benjamin.

  Michael FINALLY made it back to Israel after seventeen years of promising to do so 'בשנה הבאה'.  This time Pam, Aaron, Joey and Jon came along and we had a very full two plus weeks of adventures.  On July 6th it was finally 'next year' and we boarded a flight for Tel Aviv where we began our stay with the Blitzers in  בני ברק (B'nai B'rak), which Pam says is a great deal like a Taiwan town with all the little shops on the street and such.  (of course, there are a few differences, at least in clothing styles☺).  Apparently some of Moshe and Ruthie's children visited that first day but we were so jet-lagged that only Aaron was awake at the time.

    Next we stayed at Pnina Jakubovicz's place in מודיעין.  On ערב שבת we celebrated Edit's birthday on the Tel Aviv beach.  The next evening we went with Vered, Zachi and Re'ut to יפו.  We then spent a day in Jerusalem, which we followed-up with a full day tour of ירושלים later in the trip accomapnied by a very nice tour guide that knew about all sorts of out of the way places and helped us get into the tour of the tunnels under the Western Wall מנהרת הכותל מערבי. It turns out that this was a major example of how wrong the 'You can't miss it' maxim is.  We took several detours trying to find our way to the Yaffo gate, or any gate for that matter.  In fact, we had trouble finding it the second time too.     ↓

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  On Monday July 11 we piled into the rental car and began the long drive to Eilat אילת.  We had an unexpected rest break in the southern desert when the road was closed by the army for a military exercise.  We waited in the brutal heat for close to an hour and then were rewarded with seeing 8 missiles shot off less than a mile away from us!  When we finally got into Eilat, we found that the instructions which indicated we couldn't miss the Club Med hotel from the main road were wrong as we are VERY talented at missing things like that.

  We enjoyed the Red Sea and the boys spent a great deal of time swimming there and in the pool.  Jon went scuba diving just over the border.  We were disappointed that the kid's camp was boring for the children since the counselors felt it was too hot outside and just had the children play indoors the entire time.  But we found some activities to entertain ourselves anyway. 

  Next stop was the Dead Sea where we did the obligatory floating. (Of course, we had difficulty finding the Meridian Hotel, even though we theoretically couldn't miss it.)  The boys found it painful though (as did Michael when he got water in his eyes despite the goggles,) and preferred the pool thereafter.  No trip to that area is complete without a visit to מצדה which was a definite highlight of our touring.

  After passing back through רמת גן and more fine dinners at Rivka's and Sheffy's we headed north with a too short visit to Moshe and Naomi Birenboim's house and then on to visit Henia and Reuven and the entire ברדה clan.  Rami was extremely generous with his time and expert knowledge of many areas of interest.  We took a day trip to Banias, took a drive by hot springs in Tiberias, and a trip with both Etti and Moshe Berda's families to the סחנה natural pools, where very creative use of inflatable chairs was employed.

  A really big portion of the trip for Jon was the Dance Festival in Karmi'el. He danced for days (and nights of course) and stayed a few days longer while Mike, Pam, Aaron and Joey headed back south for that second trip to Jerusalem, stopping by חיפה and the Bahai Gardens.

  We stayed a few more days with Pnina and then Moshe and Ruthi, where there was a grand gathering including many, many Blitzer grandchildren.  One of the last events was dinner at Yossi and Edit's.

  Alas, the time to return to the states had come and we went back to Pennsylvania for another few weeks of Fawn Hill day camp.  The boys swimming had improved so much during the summer that they were allowed to go off the diving board (many, many times).  Michael played a mixed doubles match with Sandy and lost a tough one in three very long sets.  But there was a lot of tennis this summer despite arthritis difficulties (for Michael, not David or Sandy).

  We also made time to visit Ron and see the site of his soon-to-open restaurant in NYC before finally returning home to Portland, Oregon. 

We enjoyed the annual neighborhood picnic and, before the summer ended, we made a trip to Salem to visit the state fair.

Currently we're enjoying the rest of the summer riding bicycles and just having fun. 

As always, please drop us a note letting us know how you're doing at didner@yahoo.com.  Really, we would like to know.  Or just let us know if you appreciate getting these e-mails or would like off the list.  Thanks!