September 2012 Updates: Pretty girls ready to celebrate the High Holidays!

The BJE sent a sachet of honey for Rosh Hashana, so the girls enjoyed the tradition of dipping apples in honey. Alma learned to say “Shana Tova”!

Hahgoot brought apples and honey and pictures of Rosh Hashana symbols to school. It was a roaring success! When I came to pick her up the kids ran over to let me know they loved the tradition and everyone had to tell me if they loved the honey, the apples, none or both. Her friend Jasmin now insists on having apples dipped in honey for breakfast! So we are certainly bringing some Jewish flavours to the neighbourhood...

We also had a big Rosh Hashana dinner with friends, this time at Rebecca’s home in Winmalee. The girls helped with the preparations: They made Rosh Hashana cards and licked the whipped cream when I made cookies for Debbie’s family and a honey cake for Rebecca’s family.

Alma enjoyed getting dressed for the big dinner, in a dress she got from Eli’s mum, Delfina. She insisted on putting on her boots by herself, of course...

At last we arrived at Rebecca’s home. The kids tried to keep busy till the food was ready and we could sit down for the blessings.

Nadav did a great job blessing on the wine and on the exotic fruit

And after some more apples in honey (the kids never seem to tire from this...) we enjoyed Rebecca’s amazing cauliflower soup. The girls LOVED it!

After the first course the kids went off to play, and the adults could enjoy the main course with some (temporary) peace.

Hahgoot and William got along very well Alma got along with everyone and of course came back for the dessert – homemade fruit sorbet! And Barak enjoyed talking about books with Rebecca’s mum, Rona, and her sister, Alex

Hahgoot enjoyed the BJE studies for Sukkoth

The girls built together a Sukah in the yard! It was great team work. They made a S’chach from eucalyptus branches, Aussie style

There wasn’t enough branches to cover the Sukah so we went out to gather more in the strata’s driveway

The girls worked together to cover their little hut, and enjoyed watching the wind blow their windmills around (it was Hahgoot’s idea to use them as decoration)

After a quick break for chocolate milk, the girls made Mexican paper cuts for decoration

Alma made some collages and then went to play in the sandpit. Hahgoot kept working hard, and added Hebrew words with stickers.

The proud girls eating ice cream in the finished Sukkah

In our next presentation: Hahgoot’s progress report