Last Night of Channukah

Tomorrow is the end of Channukah. It has been very nice. Tonight we had a delicious elk stew, some latkes, and homemade applesauce. Yum. It was a sweet week.

Ready to light.
(BACK: papa, Eli, Raizel, mama; FRONT: Avi, Amirah)

Lit.

Amirah watching the candles.

I think six menorahs is a very nice number indeed. And, yes, Avi's menorah is a t-square. We only got one new menorah this year for Raizel. Avi will upgrade next year.

I drove our car for the first time since December 11. It was actually pretty nice to not drive for 17 days (except the rental in Milwaukee). Not that we do that many miles anyway. The van is going in this week, hopefully on Tuesday, to get the window/rear end fixed. We just need to wait for the part to come from California. The back has a lot of glass in it so we can't really use that part right now. Dean drove into the repair shop to get an estimate and as soon as the van stopped, the entire window crashed onto the parking lot behind him. That got a bit of a laugh. It has a lovely plastic and tape window for now. They offered us a free loaner car, and Dean asked if we could fit four kids in the back seat. No? Oh, well... We'll take it anyway. At least we can do evening trips to the grocery store and the library (where we just returned 150 books). But I guess we have another week or more of not really driving anywhere.

We had a great learning time today. Dean is going to be working six-day weeks for a while to catch up. He's pretty behind at work, and OHSU classes are resuming earlier than usual this year. So, if he works, we learn! It was nice to be back on track and we had a good time. But not having much of a voice is awful. It is better, though. Here's to a snow-free week!