Happy Chanukah!

Click for a behind-the-scenes video of a Skype session.

Happy chanukah

In this season of miracles, may everyone enjoy and receive miracles both large and small. Happy Chanukah.

Love Doda

PCL Sponsored in Memory of Mom

Last night was the first PCL (Parent Child Learning) program of this season. I sponsored it for Mom's Yahrzeit.

He asked me to speak last minute. 

Tying into the parsha with the story of Rivka going crazy to give the camels enough water to drink, I told the story of how one year Mom & Dad were driving back from the mountains & saw a bus pulled over on the side of the road. Mom pulled over & it was the Camp Mogen Avraham bus full of kids coming home from camp that had broken down.

Mom made a trip to the next town & bought a bunch of groceries for the kids to eat. (I think I embellished it when I said that like Rivka she made several trips.)

After that I told "The Chicken Story".

May her neshama have an aliyah & may she continue to be a meilitz yosher for our family.

Grandpa is ONLINE!

We got Grandpa an early Chanukah present; a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10" Tablet computer. He now has an email address: grandpakramer@gmail.com. So do find him online & gchat/skype with him.

So far he loves it  & is discovering more uses for it. (& he hasn't used it as a cutting board yet).

SANDY

What an interesting name for a storm that eroded much of the sand from the east coast beaches.  Thank god I am alright and have electrictiy, heat, phone and food. It is still windy and cloudy. A couple of trees and big bracnches fell. My neighbor's car was hit wth a big branch that fell. Ironically this ame car was hit during the tornado 2 years ago both breking his back windshield.  People are out there taking pictures.  NY is really a mess in some places. Go know that mother nature is the worst terrorist. It shut down the lifeblood of the economy (Stock Exchange) for 2 days; subways for who knows how long etc.  Be safe.

Phoenix

I had a wonderful time in Phoenix. The kids are great and happy. The weather is getting cooler and is around 90 degrees (dry heat)  The chipmunks, elves, horses and the other made up bedtime story charachters are doing well and making new friends as I will each week to add to the ever growing story.  My flight went well too.  Go visit.  Thank you Suri Yisroel and kids for my nice vacation.

No More Blue Bags??

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/10/why-not-do-away-with-print.html

Silver Yahrtzeit

I can't believe it is 25 years ago that daddy never came home.  He would be very proud of us and all the grandchildren and great grand children.

Long Lost Relative Living Across the Street

Guten Moed-
So a lady named Beth Samberg emailed me, b/c she lives in our community and couldn't believe we share a last name. I don't have much info yet, and we haven't met yet, but a few crazy similarities.

I think she's from Long Island and her dad IRA(Uncle Yossi's middle name), grew up in the Bronx. Her grandparents are named LOUIS and ANNE.
Doda or anyone know who they may be?

G'mar Chatimah Tova

I wish all the family and Sambloggers a happy and heatlthy new year.

My Inside ASBEE Article

Click here to read it 

Or click here for the whole shul bulletin

Y'all should have a Happy & HEALTHY year.

לשנה טובה תכתבו ותחתמו לאלתר לחיים טובים ולשלום

Strep throat on erev Rosh Hashanah

This is akiva at the doctors office after he threw up on his clothes when they did a throat culture on him which turned out positive. On the whole, he seemed to enjoy the visit.
Everyone have a great yontiv!

Hey Family,

I want to wish everybody Happy, Healthy, Sweet New Year. That we should all have awesome, amazing, meaningful Tefillot. As we are heading into Rosh Hashana one of the main aspects that we all  focus on is asking Hashem to forgive us for all the sins we did this past year. And of course this is a very important time to ask forgiveness, But one extremely important attitude which we must have is to reflect on our past year and to really focus and be thankful to Hashem for the past year he has given to us. And now we are asking him for another amazing year, and that he should once again judge us favorably. And that we should all come to Israel and be Chazanim and doctors and librarians and teachers and occupational therapists and plumbers and carpenters and hotel managers in the holy land of Israel.
שנה טובה ומתוקה
באהבה
מאיר

Shana Tova

I wish all my family a very happy and Heatlthy New Year filled with lots of smachot we could all celebrate  together.    Love Doda

Horoscope followup

is morning I experimented witht the washing machine and washed the rags my cleaning lady used  I placed a towel on the floor and did  wash.  No water. Then I took the stinky sheets out of dryer andwashed them ( I even used bleach)  No water.  Then I washed the towels from the dryer. No water.  I guess my horoscope was really right.  No need for a repairman.

Chaim in pajamas an glasses at the park

Here you go Miriam

Horoscope

Last night, I did a small wash. For some reason I forgot to close the lid on the washer so the wash cycle never started. When I realized it, I put the lid down and started the washer.  Fast forward, I am in my kitchen getting supper together and I noticed there is water on the floor.  I cleaned it up etc.  Opened the washer and saw it didn't spin. I started it again to rinse an spin  more water on the floor.  The hot dogs I wanted were in the fridge and were turning so I decided to cook them and feed them to the stray cats.  So there went my dinner  I ended up making mac and cheese from the box. (comfort food).
This morning I took the sheets and towels out of the washer and rang them out and put them in the dryer. I put a towel down and decided to put the washer on spin cycle to get rid of the water. It worked no leaks.  I still have to rewash teh towels and sheets.  Now for the eerie part -  I just finished telling my co worker about my washer ordeal. I  then went to read my horoscope in the NY Metro (free paper)  here it is  SPARE YOURSELF FROM CALLING IN AN EXPENSIVE REPAIRMAN BY EXERCISING PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE. IF YOU PLAY IT SAFE, YOU WON'T BE SORRY!  Who thought horoscopes could be right! Scary!

Mitzva boy

Update

A lot of stuff has been going on here in the last few weeks and we have been remiss in telling everyone about it. So here goes:
-  Mindy is feeling much better.
- Our landlord painted a few rooms in our house last week because the paint was starting to crack/peel, but in some places it seems like nothing was accomplished. Oh well.
- In any event, having the painting done prompted us to do some reorganizing in the house. We now have two wooden bookshelves instead of one against the side wall. We got rid of those fancy glass shelves along the back wall and our living room looks much bigger now.
- I started learning Daf Yomi.
- Naomi stopped by on her way back to Israel. Mindy's cousin got married on the same day. The wedding was very nice.
- We got Chaim's vision tested and its worse than Akiva's so we had to get him glasses.
- I start class tomorrow and Mindy starts on Wednesday.

Thats it for now. Happy birthdays to Miriam tonight and Friday!

anti semetic Ipod?

I was playing "words with friends" on my new Ipod and got letters which spelled JEWISH. It fit in but when I pressed submit I received a mesage the Jewish is not an acceptable word.  Should I call the anti defamation league?

catching up

Well Doda is finally catching up to my nieces and nephews. I just got an Ipod touch. I'm still figuring it out and even downloded mostof Gates of Hope.  1 sond didn't quite download and thesongs are in differnt album categories. I guess my next gadget will be a laptop to replace this old computer that takes a very long time to boot up and do anything.  At least I can now play "words with friends" where ever I am.  c'mon play with me.  Itried downloading blogger but I can't seem to remember the password or screenname to sing in correctlly.  I guess I still have a lot of catching up to do!!!!

Cop Banned for a year for switching seats at Citi Field

Why didn't he just slip the usher $2 like Dad used to do?

 An NYPD cop can kiss Citi Field goodbye. A Queens judge yesterday banned Eduardo Cornejo from the Mets’ stadium for a year after he pleaded guilty to taking a better, vacant, seat while watching the Amazin’s play the Cincinnati Reds in May.

 Read more: 

I couldn't resist this one

Welcome Home Esti! (oh & whatshername also)

Homeward Bound!?!?

I took Naomi and Esti to the Laguardia last evening to catch their flight(s) back home. It was a beautiul evening a little breezy but the forcaster were warning of some pop-up storms. Naomi checked and the flight was on time. We got to the airport only 15 minutes later and found out their flight was delayed. The flight before them was cancelled.  The security guard was very nice and let me keep my car at the curb so I waited to find out waht will happen. It took a while and they were trying to rebook them because they would have missed their connecting flight in DC.  After I intervened and asked if they could fly through another airport to get to Memphis, they were rebooked on the last 2 seats to Charlotte leaving at 8AM Wednesday morning.  Esti was a little upset but eventually ice cream at my house and talking to her mother helped.  We sheleeped the suitcases back tot he car and went home.
We got to the airport about 6:40am found a smartcart at the cub just waiting for us unloaded the car and they went in.  At 6:50 I drove to work hit a little traffic ont he BQE stooped to get something to eat in Jewish Williamsburg and called Naomi at 7:10AM and they were still on the security line. I was at work at 7:30am.  Thursday I pick up Ariel from JFK.  I guess I am back to airport duty.

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday  Chaim.  You are a year old!!1111111

Funny Email from Esti Today

just 6 more days till im HOMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE Dear mother and father a.k.a ima and aba, last night was the camp play that the actors have been working for for 3 and a half weeks. oh did i forget to tell u? i was one of the main characters. jk. im in a very happy and funny mood right now so i might be making a few um i dont know i might be a little hyper in this email. ha ha ha. the play was a midsummers night's dream by william shakespear. im not so sure if u know him but he is a famous author for play thingys and he talks very weirdly. like instead of you he ses thee or thy and all this other languaage i dont understand. a lot of my friends were in the play. anyway back to my world and not language weirdo shakespear. so camp has been really um whatever cuz its over soon. so im really sad that im leaving soon and i love it here can i come back next year? ok so nothin much to say here miss u see u soon love esti as usual. p.s. i really didnt want to wait another day to see u but if thats all we can work out, fine as long as i sleep in malkas house with naomi.

Visiting Day

Can't be visiting day without a downpour....

Post crying picture

More Smilin' Esti

Everyone Check your computers

http://www.vosizneias.com/109355/2012/07/05/washington-malware-may-knock-thousands-off-internet-on-monday

Hello Mudder....

We got an email from Esti....

hi aba and ima!!!! we finallly geet to email u guys and im so excited!!!! ok so i have a list of things i need: more stamps more paper/ stationary more pens i miss u guys so much! can u please come for visitiing day? please please please? mm happy belated anniversary i wrote that on a letter but its probaly wont get to u any time soon. im having a lot of fn in camp i just get homesick sometimes. i get over it quickly cuz i have a trick. i made things for the house in pottery but im not gonna tell u cuz its a surprise. aba did u tell ima the story about how i was inn an airport for 6 and a half hours? (then on a bus for four, plus a plane for 3) it turns out u can have ipod touchs u just cant have wifi on them. if naomi is coming for visiting day, please ask her to bring my ipod. there is a lot i wanna tell u about camp like the activities, the meals, and my bunk but its just so hard to explain! illl try to answer as many questions as i can. btw, i got an email from yaakov, mindy is still in the hospital? i hope she is back by now. please forward this to a lot of family members so they can know what im doing. so the coopers are moving this coming shabbos? im so excited! also can u only email me? letters take too long.thats why when i heard we were allowed to email you i grabbed the chance. anyway, please come for visiting day i really reaLLY miss u. Love u so much!!!!!!! Esti

Bala Cynwd Here We Come

Chasdei Hashem! We signed a lease on a 2 BR, 2 FULL Bathroom Apt in Bala Cynwd, PA.
The lease begins in August, and we are really excited.
Can't wait to have everyone over!

Happy Anniversary

Nothing says "I love you" more than putting it on a blog.

Happy Anniversary

Happy anniversary Adina and Aryeh
Is this your first  anniversary that you are actually celebrating together and without any kids with you?

Enjoy!!!

Update

For those of you who don't know, Mindy's surgery went well and she was discharged from the hospital on Monday night even though she thought it was too early. Sure enough, half an hour after she got home, she began running a fever and had to go back. So she is still at the hospital, but she is doing much better and should be home sometime before she has to go back to work at the end of August (joke). Feel free to call me if you want to know any details that are better left off the internet.
In other news, my computer seems to be busted and I am borrowing Mindy's brother's for the time being.

Email Esti in Camp

Here is a link to a form that you can email Esti in Camp Shoshanim. They'll print it & give it to her. http://pictures.njycamps.org/html/shoshanim.cfm

Update Thursday Night 6/28- I just got an email from the camp that that link to email was not working until now, so if you used it to write to Esti you may want to assume that Esti did not receive it. But they said it is working now. Also you can see pictures that they post everyday. So far, all we've seen of Esti were on Tuesday's pictures.

"So Papa. How do you like the new IPad I got you?"

This is funny.

Spirit Program from FIDF on Vimeo.

Happy Happy

Happy Anniversary to Suri and Yisroel
Happy Birthday to Aunt Lisa
Happy Anniversary to Mindy and Yaakov
Happy Summer
Happy Birthday to Chana
Happy Birthday to Esti

Stop trashing Kutshers

Here's an article from The Jewish Week with a little interesting history.

Great pictures below from the reunion & Akiva & Chaim. (& Mindy & Yaakov).

A Thousand Words

Click for some of the cutest baby pictures ever taken in the history of professional photography. Or at least much better than the ones we got of Akiva at Wal-Mart. Pay special attention to the ones with the hat.

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday Dad
Happy birthday Helene
Happy Birthday Yisroel
Happy Birthday Uncle Benny

Darkaynu Slideshow

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh4sJo1csW4&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Malka's presentation and pictures

End of the year presentations

Yossi's Graduation!

Happy Birthday Suri!

Teaching Ryan Samberg to Play Baseball

We're Really Proud of Esti

Esti accepted a part in her class' production where she has to ride a bicycle. Only one problem she never learned to ride a 2 wheeler. She borrowed a bike & basically taught herself to ride the night before she had to do it for real. So now, 3 days later, she owns her own bike & rides like a pro.

Meeting Fisch Cousins

Scott and I spent SHavuos in Allentown, PA which is about 1 hour away from Philly. We stayed at his cousins. The community was nice, nothing too interesting to share about it... But it was exciting meeting the Notis family, whom are Fisch relatives. Scott has known this family for years and years, so it was really cool to meet them as relatives. They are a main family in Allentown. The entire community refers to the grandparents as Grandma Cookie and Papa Mike which are Abba, Uncle NAts, Dodas, and Uncle Yossi's 2nd cousins. Then my 3rd cousins, are the kids who have kids my age.
Grandma Cookie asked about Uncle Yossi who visited there several years ago. She is probably in her 70's and is very with-it. I enjoyed talking to her about her billions of cookbooks lining her living room. They also had a blown up, framed picture of the Fisch Family Picture that's on the reunion book.
  They are not going to the reunion this summer, they said none of their close Zweibel relatives are going, but they did go to the 100th reunion.
Hope everyone else is doing great!

Too Much Cheesecake

Actually, I could never have enough cheesecake.  But I did eat my share this Shavuos.  Diet starts after I finish the leftovers. LOL.

Happy Birthday Naomi!

Naomi, happy birthday! How's it going? You should post on the blog more often. We never hear from you. We are looking forward to seeing you in Chicago soon!

Happy birthday

Happy Birthday to Naomi and to Yossie.

Happy Shavuos everyone. Enjoy your cheesecakes

cool and connected

air conditioner for my living room was installed this evening. I thought it had a timer  it does but only to go off not on. But it quickly cools the room so in the hot summer it will work.
Time Warner just finished my triple play so my phone is now internet based.

triple play???

I ordered Time Wrner Triple Play so I could save money.  I will in the long run. The tech came tonight to add the phone nd wirless internet but thre was a mix up and they were going to give me a new phone number. So a tech will come out next week again to have the # transferred.  Meanwhile there was a special which they said I wasn't eligible for but I  managed to get that special tonight due to their error. I now have HBO and other movie channels free for 3 months and will get a visa gift card too.  The computer is still running slow but I am due for a new one so  will get a laptop. Any suggetions? Ialso asked for a new remote.

My Birthday

My birthday was pretty much uneventful. I went with Carol, my downstairs neighbor to Garden World to pick up vegetable and herb plants. We grow them in pots on her deck. We bought 2 types of tomatoes, eggplant, kirbys, pepper and herbs. We planted them in organic soil. Now we water them and wait for the plants to yield veggies.    In the evening I went with girl friend (who has the same birthday) to Red Mango, a yogurt shop, The owner treated us.
Thank you to all who called me.
Yesterday I went out with Marilyn to Dairy Cafe for dinner. I used my groupon coupon.
Today I will go to Haagen Daaz for free ice cream  They are giving free ice cream cones between 4and 8 PM
I also won 3rd place on HAS Afikomen contest  $25 Amazon coupon
I still have to go to Cold Stone for a buy 1 get one free birthday   and Dunkin donuts and baskin Robbins for my freebies too.  Fattening month!!!!

Happy Birthday Doda

Happy Birthday Fran (& Willie Mays). Hope you have a great birthday.

I'm Alive!!!!!

Hey Beautiful Family,

Hope everyone is doing well!!! I've realized the time has now come for me to post another blog. I need to apologize for being so bad at keeping in touch with everyone and I apologize for my future failures of keeping in touch as well. So first of all, I have once again reached that point of life where I'm feeling pretty confused about  what's gonna be in the near future and I'm constantly having thoughts rolling around in my head of what I should do. This past Monday I started a Safrut Stam course in the yeshiva, it's something I've been telling myself that I've wanted to do for about the past year so I finally got off my feet and put together a little group in the Yeshiva and finally got the course started. So far it's been a bit boring and it's not a cheap course but If not now, when. So as of now I do plan on continuing this course until around Tisha B'av and hopefully by then I will be an expert scribe who has written one Megilla. It was a bit difficult for me to decide to start this course because it basically means that I won't be able to get a Summer job. Well I could, but it would have to be doing things like cleaning and stuff. Also, I hoping to start an SAT course in June. I've been trying to study for SATs on my own over the past few months but I havn't been well disciplined and I find it difficult to understand the material so I decided I should look into a course. (I'm hoping to get a 1400 on my SATs so I can be accepted to Tel Aviv University to start studying Physical Therapy. I actually spend this shabbos by a family where the mother is a Physical Therapist and she was telling me a bit about it and how she really loves it.) This is a very expensive course, but once I get out of the army I can use what is called my Pikadon, basically some sort of account that I will receive from them that can be used for studies, to pay for this course. Right now, I have to pay for the course on my own but retroactively I will get my money back, b/c I am still officially a soldier until January 2014. Speaking of which that brings me to my next problem. I have pretty much decided that I don't want to stay in Gush next year so I'm looking for something to do. I have been highly considering going back to serve as an active duty soldier to my old unit, and then I will be done in 8 months. And truth is, it's much less than 8 months, since I can request one month of Ulpan, one month of traveling abroad to visit family, and the last month is spent at home learning how to adapt back into society. The question is, do I really want to go back into the army???? HAPPY BIRTHDAY DODA!!!!

hope everyone enjoyed hearing one piece of the puzzle from my life,
all the best,
with tons of love,
Love,
Meir

Shayna's Bat Mitzvah weekend

Aunt Helen met me at work and we started driving up to Uncle Nat. The traffic was so bad just getting out of my area, trucks, traffic lights etc. Well we finally made it to the Whitestone and it was pretty smooth sailing to CT from there. Shabbos was nice, we rested and then Nat drove Worcester and we checked in around Midnight. We got to the Bat Mitzvah and Shayna lained and davened very nicely. No Musaf this time. The reception was set up beautifully with green and purple her colors. There was some mixup with the Kosher food and the caterer so we pretty much ate a cold salad and lox provided by the kosher caterer. The weather was rainy. The kids were dancing and having a good time. Cousin Miriam came in and looks good and sends regards.
Larry and Nat decided we should leave around 2:30PM and we did taking Aunt Helen with us (in Larry's car) The weather was horrible but we made pretty good time back to Stamford. We met and ate at a nice new resaurant called Kosh. While were there in walked cousin Leiby's daughter Judy and her kids (they live in Stamford) Nat introduced her to Aunt Helen. We hada nice cousin's dinner and got time to talk and eat.

I got home around 8:30PM and the weather was getting even worse. Aunt Helen got home around 10:30 PM as her access a ride car was late but the driver got her home safely and knew how to bypass the Belt Parkway.

Pesach in Memphis 2012

Click to go to the rest of the pictures

More Pesach

Strawberry Picking



Staten Island Ferry/Statue of Liberty

Pesach in Memphis 2012/5772

more chol hamoed