In the past week...

...we celebrated Shavuot, about which it says in the Torah, "And thine children shall be hometh from school for three complete days, despite the holiday lasting but one. And thou shall consumeth large quantities of cheesecake."

...we consumed not only large quantites of cheesecake but also large quantities of Donny's famous homemade blintzes. We're machmir like that.

...our air conditioning broke. This naturally happened on Thursday night, once it was too late to do anything about it before the weekend. We did manage to have someone come out and look at it Friday. His assessment: "This is major. I cannot fix this before Shabbat," he said as we slowly dissolved into puddles of sweat. So then,

...we ran around Modiin collecting fans Friday afternoon. All the running around made us very hot. This did not help our situation.

...my very handsome and single, not to mention smart and funny, and also single, brother-in-law came for Shabbat. He was thoroughly amused by our freaking-outness, because he normally survives without the a/c. "You'd think you had no running water," he observed, watching us in our panicked state. He was very helpful in arranging the fans correctly so we had a pleasant breeze all of Shabbat.

...Ariella celebrated her eight birthday with her invite-all-the-friends party. Despite the general exhaustion involved in planning such a party, once it got started, I pretty much sat back and let the girls run the show. Ariella explained the art project (decorating mezuzot), the girls knew the whole drill when we brought out the cake. Those that finished their project early sat around and chatted. They did not run around the room, turning off lights and trying to jump out the window, like children at another birthday party which was once written about here. And, also unlike that other birthday party, at no point were there multiple children in the bathroom with their pants down around their knees. So yay! (This is not to say that we were not happy to throw that other birthday party. Just pointing out what a difference 3 years can make.)

...our air conditioning got fixed! Phew, because the whole "roughing it" thing was quickly losing whatever charm it may have once had.

...we got our new car! (You have to say it like you're on the Price Is Right.) It had been purchased a few weeks ago and was finally ready for pick up. It's a white Mitsubishi Grandis, in case you're wondering, and Yaakov gets to climb in and out through the trunk.

...Donny hopped on a plane to Seattle, via Berlin. Traveling business-class, natch.

...I found out that Loyal Reader and Frequent Commenter SaraK is actually making aliyah! All of those "when I live in Israel" comments were for real! We at aliyahbyaccident wish her lots of luck and good things and English-speaking people wherever she goes. Mazel tov!