By now, most of you have probably heard about the huge snowfall that blanketed the Jerusalem area and shut down buses and everything else for several days!  In Tzfat they had a similar situation – Israel really isn’t well prepared for snow and that means that everything stops when it snows (kind of like the south in the US).   We were able to see the mountains surrounding our city dusted with snow – a beautiful sight – but my  kids kept asking, when are we going to get snow?

I love our mild climate here and we didn’t get snow, but not to worry.  Thanks to the busy minds at the city municipality, the children of Karmiel weren’t deprived of the sensory pleasure of snow play!  They had snow trucked in and piled high next to the municipality!   We were fortunate that one of our kids happened to be passing by and noticed it; it was evening when I found out but I knew we better take our opportunity while we had it, since the next day it was likely to be melted.  So we bundled everyone up and went out so they could play in the snow before it disappeared.

When we got there, we saw lots of boys between the ages of 8 and 12, but no parents.  My little kids were a little intimidated by the snowballs flying at high speed and the older kids running around seemingly without awareness of our younger kids’ presence, but eventually they warmed up and enjoyed playing on the huge pile of snow, even ds4, who was the most reluctant.

Yes, all that excitement and fun from one big pile of snow!

Sometime in the middle, ds7 found an iphone, which gave us the opportunity to do

the mitzva of returning a lost item.  That wasn’t so easy since even though I went around to all the boys asking them if they lost a phone, no one was missing one.  I called the ‘Mommy’ listed on the phone and told her I’d found her son’s phone.  She said he was still there but as she was telling me what his name was, the line went dead and I wasn’t sure what she said.  So I went around once more to each group of boys – this time I had more luck since I rattled off several names that sounded like what the mother might have said, and we were able to return the phone on the spot.  Once that was done, I headed home with Yirmiyahu and we had some time to play in the quiet house together before everyone got home.  

Ds14 missed the fun in the snow but he brings fun with him wherever he is, and as soon as he came home the next morning, he danced with ds7, ds6, ds4 and Yirmiyahu all together.  He’s an awesome big brother – at the park yesterday a neighbor informed me about how amazing ds20 is, as well – she said her kids get so excited when he comes home that he’s like a superhero to them – and our kids are lucky to get so much love and attention from their older brothers.  And our older boys are lucky to get so much love from their little brothers!

The snow is gone but the kids’ warm memories remain!

Avivah