Five Years!

Last week was the fifth anniversary of our family making aliya (and of my return to Israel). A few weeks before we left Florida we made a batmitzvah for my eldest daughter. This weekend, we celebrate the batmitzvah of my youngest daughter, who was 7 when we arrived here. Feels like a full circle!

I asked my now 17 year old daughter if she could write a guest blog post again this year, but she simply doesn’t have the time. How so? It’s still summer vacation, doesn’t she have plenty of time to laze around doing nothing?

Not really, actually. In fact, I have hardly seen her all summer. She finished school towards the end of June,  having taken a number of bagrut (matriculation) exams. She will take the rest of those over the course of next school year, and by next June she will be done with High School. As soon as she was done with her last exam (and I mean, like they went straight from school), she and five of her closest friends took a bus to Jerusalem, and then another bus to Tiberias, and then a third bus to a beach on the Kinneret where they camped for 2 nights. (And for those of you reading this who live here, it was a quiet beach, where loud music and parties are not allowed). 6 girls, camping on the banks of the Sea of Galilee for a couple of nights. They did a little hiking (a very little), spent time in the fresh springs near by, and spent time relaxing by the water.

Once she returned home, relaxed from a couple of days of fresh air, she immediately began work for the Scout summer camp. All this past year, my daughter has been “Head of the storage room” in Scouts, a title which has led us to tease her quite a bit. But there is really no room for teasing, because all year long she has worked extremely hard to maintain a very orderly store room, take stock constantly, and make sure that everything needed for every trip is always where it needs to be. She spent full days, from early in the morning until late at night at the Scout building, along with other active Scouts, including her 15 year old brother.

On the morning that the leadership went up to get the  campground ready, both my teens were dropped off at 5:15am for their 2 hour bus ride north. They spent the next 3 days building the camp area, and then relaxing over Shabbat. The kids start arriving on Sunday morning. You can read all about the amazing, incredible Scout camp here on my friend’s blog. While my son stayed up in camp for a full 10 days, my daughter returned late on Saturday night, because she had a concert to go to on the Tuesday night. She got back at 11pm on Saturday night, but left at 6:30am Sunday morning, to go back up to the Kinneret for another night with the same friends! She returned Monday night, went to her concert Tuesday night, and early Wednesday morning, returned to Scout camp, by hitching a ride with a parent who was driving up for the day to cook. Then she stayed up there until Friday when the leadership take it all down and come home – the kids all return Thursday.

Since her return, she has been no less busy. As she is already in the process of being recruited by the army, she has spent a couple of days at various army events that she was invited to. Lots of testing, and teamwork type exercises, all with complete strangers. Eventually, all the scores from all these things help the army figure out what role she will be most suited for. In addition, she’s been babysitting whenever she can. And even though Zofim (Scouts) is technically over until the beginning of the school year, for the kids in leadership it’s non-stop. She now has her role for next year, and since being told what she will be doing, she has been busy meeting the people who will be directly under her, or directly above her, spending her own hard earned cash on little gifts for everyone, and fun things for the kids. My son has also been busy with Scouts since camp ended, as next year sees his move into being a leader.

So, when she told me she really didn’t have time to write a guest blog, there wasn’t much I could say!