Millie's birthday seems to be stretching across most of March & into April. We started with her hebrew birthday on Shushan Purim (march 22nd), followed by her english birthday on March 26th. Her party at gan will be this Wednesday (April 2nd) and then finally, her party out of school is on April 6th. Do you think we are making enough of a fuss of her?!
On her English birthday, she opened her cards & presents and in the afternoon we had a chocolate cake. The weather was so lovely, so we ate it outside and Millie stripped off!

Her birthday party in gan was very cute, the usual Israeli songs, games, flowers and dancing, Millie LOVED it! We brought in a tray of cupcakes topped with cream, with little party favour rings planted on each cake. There was something for everyone - football, basketball, butterflies, barbie. Millie of course chose SPIDERMAN! Go figure...



AND!!...
As if that wasnt enough..
We then threw a party for Millie ourselves, at a great place called 'The Little Gym' where we did ABSOLUTLEY NOTHING for 1 and a half hours! A great time was had by all!....

On Monday March 10th, Elinoa received her blue belt in karate. She worked so hard for it and put in many hours of revision, learning all the phrases and vocabulary in English and Japanese. She received an excellent grade, even though she hadnt even taken the 'sparring' part of the exam. We are SOOO proud of her! She has now started sparring too, must get some photos of her in her gear, she looks very tough!

So, the Raanans are on their way back to New Jersey. It has been a truly wonderful shabbat and one we will never forget. We are all so glad that we braved the mammoth journey.



Our hosts for the duration of our stay were just wonderful. I don't think I have ever been made so welcome by total strangers before. We took over their whole basement for 3 days and they were incredibly nice + accomodating.



On Friday night, we ate dinner together with Natan + Orit's close family and friends. There were lots of great divrei Torah, speeches + singing, and of course good food! It was so special to be surrounded by family and we just lapped up the general atmosphere of mutual repect + much love! The kids had a wonderful time with their newly discovered second cousins - Yoav and Yishai seem to have come from the same mould...



Yuval's reading in shul on shabbat morning was really beautiful. He was such a pro- so cool, calm + collected it was amazing. After shul, we enjoyed some more quality time with the family, with a lovely group chverutta prepared by Dod Naftali and then lunch, with more speeches and Divrei Torah. Yuval is a true mensch with such great respect + love for his sabas + savtas, and all his family.

The final round of celebrations was on motzei shabbat when family + friends got together at a local restaurant for a Melave Malka. The highlight of the evening was Yuval's performance - not only did he give a totally flawless + composed speech in perfect English but he played the saxaphone so beautifully he blew his audience away.



The Kandlers of Toronto will finally be returning back to Israel this summer after 8 years of slichut. We are so excited to be returning to Israel ourselves next year and joining in many more wonderful Kandler get togethers.

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So, here I am blogging from my Blackberry, in Canada!
We left New Jersey at 7pm on Wednesday; by 7:32pm we had stopped for a toilet break. I think that's a record.
We drove for about 4 hours and stopped for the night at a hotel in Syracuse, NY. It must be the British in me that marvels over the fact that you can drive for over 4 hours and still only have crossed 1 state!
Thursday morning we set off for Niagra falls, which was only about 2 hours away. From NJ to the Canadian border, we just watch the temperature drop from the 30's to somewhere around 9!!!
When we got to the falls, we nipped out for about 5 minutes to marvel at the ice + water and snap some photos. When I master mobile blogging a bit better, I'll add some of the photos we took. (added now..)
So here we are in Toronto, getting ready to celebrate Yuval's barmitzvah this shabbat. Poor Elinoa is sick with a 102 temperature, such bad timing, and it is snowing outside....keep you posted!!

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We are at the Great Wolf Lodge in Pennsylvania at the moment. It is without doubt the most exciting hotel for kids you could ever imagine. Not only are there themed rooms with wolf dens for kids equipped with bunk beds & tvs, but there is an indoor water park, an interactive magician's quest throughout the whole hotel, an amusement arcade, a spa just for kids, a starbucks, gift shop, kids club and a magnificent talking clock that performs a bed time story play at 8 & 9pm every night!
Yesterday we took the kids horse riding in the snow. It was incredible! Unfortunately I left my camera behind in the car just to be safe so I didnt manage to get a photo of Millie fast asleep on a horse throughout the 45 minute ride in the woods!

[this space is reserved for my trip to England]

Yoav had his chumash play & ceremony a few weeks ago. It was an incredible performance that brought me to tears (for all the right reasons!). It was so beautifully choreographed and put together, and you could see how much effort everyone had put into making it so well polished.

In a performance of a song of Avram Fried's, where hashem offers the Torah to all the countries & all but Israel say 'yes', Yoav & his friend Ezra played 'England'! Here he is with his Union Jack and very dapper suit...

We had to go get some administrative things sorted last week, and had to pull the kids out of school early so they could come with. James wrote notes for Elinoa & Yoav to give to their teachers, and then he put his pen away. A few minutes later, I found Millie hiding in the food cupboard, crying. When I asked her what was wrong, she just said "I HAVE A TEACHER TOO!"
Bless her, she's such a real person and we forget how she understands everything that goes on.

Wow, how did i forget to post this to the blog! - a couple of weeks ago, we took the kids to a 'Playhouse Disney' show. It was really for Millie's age, but we all got a kick out of seeing her get excited!
She really does think she has met Mickey Mouse, Pooh bear, Little Einsteins and Handy Manny. I heard her talking to her friends in car pool saying "I saw Handy Manny..and Mickey, and Minnie, and Goofy & Donald. But Daisy wasnt there - she was sick!"
She got such a kick out of seeing the whole arena pat with the Little Einsteins to help Rockets take off (if you havent seen little Einsteins this is kind of lost on you, but youre also very lucky so its ok!)








During the break, we did some cool light experiments with the camera..

I had such a 'great' parenting moment yesterday I just have to share.
I left home to pick up Elinoa and Yoav from school yesterday, but there were delays on the way due to road works. I got to their school about 10 minutes late & we were the last to leave the car park. I dropped their friends off home and we arrived home pretty late.
After moulding 4 sets of 7 candles into the chanukiot, lighting the candles, giving out presents & playing with them, I realised that it was almost time to leave for Elinoa's karate lesson but I hadnt made supper yet!
I threw some sausage rolls in the oven and cranked it up to 400. 20 minutes later it was time to leave and the rolls were only just ready. Thinking fast, I grabbed some brown paper sandwich bags and sachets of ketchup and VOILA! Supper in a bag!
I am still laughing about it now, how appalling am I? The kids must have thought I was a raving lunatic.
Here are some Chanukah pics of the kids...




(Millie's picture was taken when she came home from gan the day before Chanukah with her chanukiah, warpped in red cellophane, that she had made from crayons)

Ooops, am slacking again with the blogging thang...
Well, Grandma Dianne & Stuart came out for a Thanksgiving visit at the end of November. Unfortunately, they got food poisoning on the plane on the way here and were sick for most of their trip! We also had tickets for The Color Purple on Broadway, but it was cancelled due to a strike!
So, very few picture to post here..
We did have a lovely shabbat together & a very fun trip to Madame Tussauds & My Most Favorite Food in NYC (sadly, without grandma)

Its official! Millie is toleit trained! We got off to a shaky start, but she is now officially the proud owner of Dora & Elmo knickers, and a Mickey Mouse watch (her choice of prize)...

Ok, i'm slowly catching up!
Millie was shabbat Ima a couple of weeks ago - it was so so cute. The kids were all so well behaved. The Abba & Ima made their chicken soup (see photo), had their challah, grape juice & snack, lit candles and then they all danced around banding cymbals, shaking marakas and singing "shabbat shalom HEY!"
Millie has such a good time that she cried when she heard it was someone else's turn the following week :(
Grandpa Jack came to visit us & we all had a great time, the highlights being Build a Bear & The Lion King.