some pictures from our hike last weekend

pictures taken by the lovely katz sisters...

so pretty huh?

my really low expectations don't seem to be helping

everytime i open ynet (ynet.co.il -- for news and such) i breathe in and say, it can't really be worse that something that's already happened.

nope. it is. and it will be. low expectations for the present and high hopes for the future are hard to maintain simultaneously, but i'm not given much choice in the matter I feel.

well, what can I report. Despite the craziness of war, I've managed to really have some amazing moments the last few weeks. This weekend we went on a hike at 5am near Sde Boker (Nachal Tzin/Ein Hake'ev) which was amazing... I didn't bring my camera since I knew that there was no chance of my pictures being more numerous or more impressive than Idan's. SO... please check out his flickr site to see those goodies. If you scroll back you'll also see pictures of the sunset from near his dad's house (location not mentioned to avoid making it more well known by the general public) which was quite amazing as well.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/idangazit/ - on the side you'll see a link for the "Nahal Zin" pics.

I'll add some of Miriam's pics in a separate post as well.

So after that awesome experience, I came home, pretty much dead from not sleeping, etc. and in the evening went out for dinner with Miri, Ori, Gil and Chen who I FINALLY got a chance to see after a long long time of not. Dinner was amazing - we went to this cute little cavernous place in Jaffo, and had awesome wine and food, and as usual, being with them was lovely. Kitzur, it was a great great weekend and made everything else going on in the country a little bit easier to swallow.

Que mas? Oh yeah, so my ticket to the states is set: September 20th - October 8th. I'm psyched. I think it'll be so so fun to see family and friends and hang out, and in general have vacation time. But I'm sure there will be some elements of culture shock and such as one would expect after returning to the place you grew up and supposidly feel at home in after not being there for a year. I know I've changed and grown and gone through a lot of things and thoughts that have made the Lerone now not the Lerone that visited last Rosh Hashanah... but in a good way. Gotta keep on growin'... (does anyone else know/remember this Sheryl Crow song from the Boys on the Side soundtrack??)

ok, back to work... or whatever form of procrastination i choose next.

better late than never...pictures from the 1 year anniversary party

Idan and Sivan get their groove on... well, sort of.
Leora - my one year anniversary partner-in-crime is smiles all around
Amitai probably didn't realize what kind of "trouble" he was creating when he introduced two of his best friends to one another....

Eilat came from the kibbutz to help me celebrate
Me, Miri and the good ol' boys of Petach Tikva

Sivan and Tiferet
Gali would never miss out on a chance to help me celebrate something or other :-)
Roie, Ruby and Miri -- and a friend of Roie and Ruby's that I was surely introduced to but currently don't remember his name...oops!

Mmmm...hello Mr. Bartender...



So what would you call the Jewish version of the "Asian Blush" -- the "Oy his/her cheeks are the color of Manischewitz" ??
My roomates... ok well Miri is a temporary mostly weekends roomate but this is just a minor detail