Taking advantage of the ceasefire – off on a family camping trip!

It seems everyone is speculating about what will happen with this ceasefire with Iran.

Me? I think it’s just an opportunity for both sides to reload and move their military assets into place, and don’t expect it to be quiet for long. I hope I’m wrong, and am grateful for every day that life feels more normal.

But whatever is or isn’t happening with the war, my husband and I are taking advantage of the ceasefire to go camping with seven of our children, ages twenty and down!

All forests, beaches, nature reserves, etc have been closed due to the war, and entrance is forbidden. So it wasn’t until Saturday night that it occurred to me to plan a camping trip for this week would be a possibility, since with the ceasefire in place, camping locations are now open.

The older three boys will only be home for this week before heading back to yeshiva, and due to plans that were already in place, we only had one option for the trip – Weds/Thurs, returning Friday morning. The problem was, the twins had visitation scheduled for Wednesday evening, so we wouldn’t be able to leave for our trip until Thursday morning.

I requested to move the visit up to earlier in the week so we could go away for two full days, and the changed was approved, after a number of calls on my part. In the end, their father didn’t come so it was a ten minute video call instead of a longer in-person visit. You can imagine how relieved I was when I got there with the twins and was notified of the change, that we hadn’t given up our full camping trip to accommodate what ended up being a short call!

The older three boys (20, 18, almost 17) did a bunch of preparing for the trip today before setting off to Beit Shemesh for their second siblings gathering tonight. This is a gathering for the oldest nine siblings – no spouses or children – time for them to connect and be able to share in a way they wouldn’t feel comfortable doing with spouses around. They did this for the first time in the summer and my three teens all shared with me how meaningful and special it was; all of the siblings agreed they want to continue.

They’ll come back late tonight – and I agreed to pick them up from the bus (much later than I’m usually awake), since the connecting buses will have stopped running by the time they get there – so we’ll be able to get an early start in the morning.

Since our vehicle can’t fit us all, we’ll need to make a couple of trips there with all of our camping gear and people, and therefore I didn’t want a location more than forty minutes away, to keep the driving manageable. We preferred a forested area, ideally with some water around for fishing. And of course, access to bathrooms and drinking water. (Not an option in many places.)

I found what looks like a great option for us, the one thousand dunam (250 acre) Yarden Park, near the Jordan River. I hope to come back in a few days and tell you it was as good a fit for us as we hoped!

Avivah