Birthday marathon, stage 2: Videos from Mevasseret

Here are a couple of videos that Liya took in Mevasseret.

Vimeo.

Vimeo.

Birthday marathon stage 2: Mevasseret

Mikael's birthday this year fell on the festival of Shavuot so we had a long weekend to really enjoy it. After the coffee shop, we all had a nap and then headed out to Mevasseret for a holiday dinner plus birthday party. We're getting worse and worse about pulling out the camera, but Yoel did us the favor of getting the birthday moments down on film.

Cousin Netta, who made the lovely cake, helped Mikael light the candles.

First we had to put the candles on the cake

Then Mikael's favorite part: the actual lighting of the match and then using it to light the candles.

We even  had birthday sparklers!

Mikael got two gifts from the Donchins. One was a great book. The other was a wooden train set that I had played with as a small child and then Dror had played with after that and then Yael and Netta.  It's still in quite excellent shape and brings me a smile because I remember it quite vividly.

Tamar, Yael's daughter was also at the birthday and enjoyed the cake. Here she is with her Savta Milka.

Dinner at Mevasseret

Mikael sat at the table like a big boy this visit and also showed off his new ability to climb stairs. This scared Yoel and Liya silly, but I thought it was very cool.

 

 

 

 

Mevasseret: Mommy Liya

Liya says that a naive reader of the blog might think that I do most of the caring for Mikael and that my family is always over to visit and that things I care about are generally over-represented. She's probably right. Here is a token picture of Mikael's mom who also came to Mevasseret and also had a great time with Mikael while we were all there.

 

Mevasseret: the space alien

On Thursday, Miles had a 2 year birthday party for the Aikido dojo and he brought party favors. Among the party favors were these very weird toys that look (somebody said) sort of like a virus or may be a space alien with lots of tentacles. After testing that even grown men had a very difficult time ripping the tentacles off, we let Mikael play with it. He really thought it was fun. Liya demonstrated that you can get it to stick to the ceiling as shown in the last picture.

 
 
 
 

Mevasseret: Doda Milka

Milka only really got in on the act after Mikael had been cleaned of all remnants of sweet potato. It's really great to see how much she takes to Mikael and how happy it makes her to be holding him.

 
 
 

Mevasseret: the cousins

Pictures of Netta and Gai and of Yael and Yiftah (looking as tired as any parents of a new born). These few pictures represent a lot of time that everyone spent playing with Mikael.

 
 
 

Mevasseret: Aba Opher

Eventually, Yoel had to go try to clean his clothes off a little bit, and Mikael moved over to me. He kept eating sweet potatoes and spreading them all over everything.

 
 

Mevesseret: Dod Yoel

At first, we started dinner with Mikael in the portable crib. However, Yoel took pity on him and brought him to the table. When he started making grabs for Yoel's steak, we looked around for other food to offer him. Eventually, we settled on the baked sweet potato. Mikael actually did very well with it although food did get everywhere (including on dear Dod Yoel).

 
 
 
 

Mevasseret

We didn't take many pictures this time. Basically, we all seem to know the drill. One difference is that we've started carrying Mikael on the hip in the Ergo carrier. You can see both me and Liya demonstrating the new technique.

 
 
 
 

Milka and Mikael

 
 
 

Yoel and Mikael videos

Here are videos of Mikael entertaining my uncle or vice versa. You decide.

Mevasseret One More Time

Friday evening in Mevasseret are a family tradition. Dod Yoel and Doda Milka just got back from 10 days jeeping around the mountains near the eastern shores of the Black Sea in Turkey, so we got to see lots of slides of beautiful green mountains. Mikael was a hit, partly because he is getting more interactive. I didn't catch the smile on camera, but Yael and Netta seemed to have gotten one. There was also a great bit (shown on video) of Yael and Iftach singing songs to him.