My fit friend Julie. It was like Israel boot camp, but I could not have asked for a better person to tour with.

When I talked to Julie the week before our big trip, she mentioned that she enjoys walking, and she hoped to walk everywhere in Tel Aviv.

“Perfect, I love walking!” I said.

But then, as I got to know Julie better, I began to realize we were not exactly on the same level with the physical fitness. She walks, and she runs, and she exercises.

Julie is what we call fit. Super fit. I am more like what we call….not fit.

My gut closely resembles this Israeli statue…

He’s cute, isn’t he?

I could not have found a better person than Julie to tour Tel Aviv with. We were already acquainted well enough that I felt comfortable with her, and yet we were new enough of friends that there was no arguing. Ha!!!

Besides, Julie is awesome. She is laid back, intelligent, sensible, down to earth, and an excellent conversationalist, which is perfect because I often have a super hard time thinking of what to say. She also was better than me with figuring out where we were and how to get where we were going, which is important in a foreign country!

Go ahead and laugh. You know I have no sense of direction. And maybe you THINK I talk a lot, but inside I’m working hard to think of all those words.

This is the street in Tel Aviv that runs along the beach.

Tel Aviv Boot Camp

We had a routine that worked well. Breakfast and supper were free at our hotel, so that was what we ate. We had a late breakfast, skipped lunch, and then there was 4:00 tea time at our hotel, with snacks. Then there was dinner at 6pm.

So yeah, we just skipped lunch everyday. We probably did not save any calories though. They fed us so well at the hotel, we were not even hungry at lunch.

Tel Aviv Beach

Alan and I did a little walking on the beach together too.

The Shopping

You know I am thrifty, and Julie is too. I am so easily influenced by who I am hanging out with! I didn’t buy all that much, but we did walk around tons of shops and markets.

We went into Israel expecting to barter for everything. People had told us we would need to barter, and yet, that was not what we found. Maybe it is just different in Tel Aviv, but most everywhere we went the shop owners and workers said, “No, we don’t do that here. It’s just one price.”

I bought these Coca-Cola in Hebrew shirts for my 2 biggest boys.

I scored this entire outfit at the Shuk for only $100 shekels…That’s like $35!!

Funny story:

First of all, several different people asked Julie and me if we were from Germany. ???!!?? Germany? No! America! I found that odd, kind of funny, but also sad, considering Israel’s history with Germany.

But the funny story was the sales guy we met at the Shuk, where I bought that exercise outfit. He was an unusually friendly young Jewish man, probably around 24 years old, a cute, small guy. What I did not realize at first was that he actually lives in Miami, but he was in town for an event and helping his dad in their store that day.

“Where are you from?” he asked us, after explaining the day’s sales to us.

Each time people asked, I found myself not knowing what to call our country. Isn’t that hilarious? United States of America is sort of a mouthful. So sometimes I said America, and sometimes I called it the U.S. or the United States. That was not a sufficient answer for anyone that asked. Every single questioner wanted to know specifically what state we were from.

I move every 2 to 3 years, I do not truly belong to any one state, so my new policy is to claim to be from wherever I currently live.

This particular sales guy laughed when I said “America,” and said, “Well, yeah, I know, I mean I didn’t think you were from Germany!”

Julie and I looked at each other, mystified. Well, the rest of the country seems to think we are from Germany, and even this guy referenced it, so clearly their history left scars.

But he knew we lived in the States because he has been living in the U.S. himself for several years.

We bought this from an arts and crafts fair in downtown Tel Aviv.

We explained to the sales guy where we were from. He said to Julie, “You look like a runner!” Then they talked about running and swimming…Funny…no one ever asked me what sport I participate in……hahahahaha…

I was shopping for a cute exercise outfit, so I picked up Larges, but I’m usually borderline on sizes, so I was glancing around for a fitting room.

“Oh, you don’t need a large!” This sales guy had all the answers…”This stretches, see? You need a medium.”

Flattering, but I actually did not even need to try on the pants. I’m 5 foot 6 with enough hips for all 3 of us standing there. I require the large, and I am thankful I did not consider his advice.

Shirts are a different story. I have to try on every shirt I buy.

There I was, in a foreign country, trying on a shirt, in a storage closet, in an outdoor market area (The closet had walls. The store did not.), with Julie standing guard in the OPEN doorway, with the super talkative young sales guy, waiting outside the closet. He said he was waiting to “snap a photo (of me) and put it on Facebook.”

Laugh. Out. Loud. “Yeah, you are not putting this on Facebook.”

I was in such a hurry to be done with the process that I bought the shirt, without being sure if it fit well or not because I did not want to go out there and look in the mirror long enough for him to get a Facebook photo. (As it turns out, the shirt was far too spandex-y.)

Why do I care about him taking my picture? I am a blogger for crying out loud. My face is all over the internet. Yeah, well, I am a vain blogger who carefully crops out all chubby bits before posting pictures online, and me in a spandex work-out tank? No way was I putting that out there.

That sales guy was hilarious. He talked to us all the way out of the store, as we left, and invited us to come back and see him tomorrow.

I never did make it to the Dead Sea, but I did buy this soap at the craft fair, which was made from Dead Sea Mud.

Gotta love mud.

This was another character that we met. He had lot of jokes.

Okay. Sorry it’s all mirror-backwards, but look how hard it is to read a receipt in Hebrew and shekels!!! If it weren’t for the numbers, we would not even know it was backwards.

That receipt was from a group dinner. Don’t worry. We didn’t spend anywhere near that much.

Ah! I can’t wait to go back someday.

P.S. I lost 3 pounds.

At the Dizengoff Center, a shopping mall exactly like you’d find in America, I found MY store. Yep. April is a cosmetics store.

Julie and I averaged about 9 miles a day, over 20,000 steps. We were sweat-soaked each day when we made it back to our hotel room. If you go for a week, you need to pack like 14 outfits, complete with 14 sets of underwear.

By the time the trip was over, I had definitely built up my endurance. I have been sure to get in at LEAST 30 minutes of cardiovascular exercise everyday since we got back, so this trip was a grand success, in more ways than one!

Be sure to check out my last post on Tel Aviv to learn more about this bustling city!

Just can’t get enough Israel? I wrote a book about the whole experience, and you can click here to buy the book on Amazon.

The post Shopping and Shedding Pounds in Tel Aviv appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Happy Snow Day!!!

  Does anyone else get a bad case of the “blahs” on snow days???  It looks all glamorous and fun in the photos, but after a little while I get the need to get OUT of the house.  I just have this constant desire to be left alone.

  Isn’t that kind of hilarious?  I want to be left alone, but I have a baby, a toddler, two boys, and a talkative husband.  Actually, they all like to talk.  I’m a woman.  This should be wonderful to me, and it IS wonderful, but oh barnacles, it’s winter, you know?

  I finally had the opportunity to sneak out of here for a walk in the snow this afternoon, so I zipped up my winter coat and my cowboy boots and fled the premises.  

It was such a RELIEF to be walking on the freshly shoveled sidewalk, while there was a lull in the “wintry mix”.  It’s really not even that cold; it was something like 30 degrees.

  I noticed a car drive by, and it sort of looked like they were laughing at me….but who knows.  I looked down at myself:  misty glasses from the weather, giant coat, yoga pants, tucked into cowboy boots.  Ha!  Right.  While I feel like an adventurous young woman, to others I must look like a crazy suburban housewife, out walking in the rain.

  I’ve decided to just be okay with that, and I was getting some good thinking done, so I trudged on, quite convinced I could at least walk off some of the Valentine treats I’ve been pigging out on…..until I realized one of my feet was suddenly very wet.  I was only a little over half a mile from home.

  Drat.  I turned around, and that’s about when the sleet started, which suddenly turned into a hard snow, and at this point I felt quite amused with myself.

  I do hope that no matter how beat down and covered in children I get, I will always be the crazy lady out walking in the snow in cowboy boots.

  Too bad those boots aren’t water proof.  Remember when I posted that photo of Joshua with the white finger?  (Click here to see that photo)  Well, I had my very own white toe.  Kind of neat.

  When I got home, I stood in the driveway and just watched the snow for a few minutes.  

This is it.  This is the weather that’s keeping me from the weekend away that I had so looked forward to.  That’s right, my flight was supposed to leave this morning at 9:45am.  I was going to visit my parents,  hold the latest baby in the family, and just un-clench, you know?  The daily grind here is S-T-R-E-S-S-F-U-L.  I can’t explain just how stressful this phase of our life is.

  Just thinking about this vacation has made me giddy, but it just isn’t to be.  A very kind person said to me this week, “Whatever is meant to happen will happen,” and at the time I was like, “No way!  I am leaving town somehow!”

  Denial.  I was living in denial.

  The airline could not accommodate me this weekend, and they had a rule against just booking me for next weekend instead.  I’m getting a refund, which is nice, but now my getaway feels even further away.

  Ah, well, what is meant to be will be.  I’ll make it down south soon, Mom and Dad, I promise!

For now, at least I have my boys.  Here they are, just being boys:

Dan loves being out in the snow so much, it’s hard to get him to come inside!

JD and Daniel, playing in Daniel’s room.  If you can overlook the mess, just look at the wonder of it.  Kids at play.  I love it.  These are my happy thoughts.

Oh, Dan….  Toddlers don’t actually need parents to bend over backwards finding intricate activities for them.  They make their own science experiments just fine.  This one involved playdoh, water, and a water bottle, and the moment Mom wasn’t looking.  Ha!

my darling little mess-maker

The first footprints in the snow this morning were Joshua’s.  

He couldn’t wait to get out there in it.  Our neighbor, Patti sent him back home when she realized he wasn’t wearing any gloves and his coat wasn’t zipped.  Oy.  Thank you, Patti!  I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.  Don’t knock suburbia.  We look out for each other here.  It’s a great place to be.

I was amused, looking out the window at these footprints (of Caleb’s) through the backyard.  It reminded me of those Family Circus newspaper cartoons, where he’d always draw the little boy’s footprints all over the yard.  This is Caleb’s version.

This made me laugh.  The “Keep out.” sign is Joshua’s creation.  At the bottom, it reads, “If letter slide under door.”  haaahahahaha.  So apparently, he wants us to keep out, but if you have a letter for him, he wants to be sure to get that!  The blue character was drawn by Caleb.

Tomorrow Alan’s planning to take the boys sledding.  I’m looking forward to that.  No, I’m not going.  I’m just looking forward to the quiet house.  ; )  Actually, I’m considering making snow angels…..

The post My Sloshy Walk Through a Winter Wonderland appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.