Snow play!

We only have a few days left until we head to Florida, so we have been enjoying the last little bit of the NE snow that we can. Here are the kids at the playground. We get there at about noon when the sun is out and the morning chill has faded somewhat, and generally, the playground doesn't have any tracks except for a few squirrel prints here and there. Maya and Jonah love to slide on the snowy slides and make snow angels and send their little toys down the slides to be buried in the snow below. Banchi gets all frisky in the snow and chases sticks and squirrels and runs around like a puppy. But...alas, about an hour is all that we can take, it gets COLD here! Especially when you have to walk very far, like two days ago when we set out to go to the Brooklyn Children's Museum.

We timed our bus well, only having to wait 3 minutes or so. We bused to Manhattan, had some lunch at a bakery then hopped on a subway for the relatively long ride to Brooklyn. We get off there, climb up the stairs to the street level and start our 6 block walk. And wow, was it ever cold. The kind of cold with wind that takes your breath away and makes the kids say "I want to go home!" or "I can't walk any further." We muscle through it and arrive at the museum. We are excited, it was supposedly the first children's museum in the country and looks like it will be really cool. Weeellllll....I swear I checked their website and it said "closed Mondays" not "closed Mondays AND Tuesdays". But, it was closed. They took pity on us and let us walk around for a 1/2 hour to check it out. And indeed, it looked like a lot of fun, so we will definitely go back, maybe on a Thursday.

Lucky for us, this museum is only 6 blocks from the Jewish Children's Museum, so we set off again. Glad we did, it turned out to be so interesting! The place was hopping with families who spoke fluent Hebrew, Hasidic Jews with long sidelocks, and in general a lot of people who knew a lot more about Jewish holidays than we did, but we had a nice time. Exhibits included a play kosher supermarket, a computer simulated bow and arrow game (Jonah's favorite), assorted ways to test your knowledge about Jewish holidays and foods, and Maya's favorite was a computer program where you chose different courses of food from different countries where Jewish people live and compose a menu for Seder dinner. Then at the end, you can print out the recipes you chose. Over the past year for school, we have been studying Ancient History, including several topics relevant here--it was cool for Maya to see exhibits about the Exodus and the plagues and how Jewish people reflect back on slavery in Egypt by consuming bitter herbs and unleavened bread for Passover.

Last night we had dinner guests! The first time in a month and a half...it was so lovely. We had our landlords Dan and Melinda and their little boy John who is 5 over. We made chicken soup, salad, bread, a lovely plate of antipasto and a dessert recipe from the Jewish Children's Museum (poached fruit with whipped cream). The kids had such a fun time playing, they got all tuckered out and Jonah fell asleep while we read him his book that night.

Must be off and start packing those boxes up again. They come pick up our short term stuff Saturday, and we will be left with only what we can take on the airplane for our trip to Florida.