Thursday, June 28

Highlight of the day for Sima – ordering pizza from Pizza Hut for dinner and having them delivered to the door in 20 minutes. No cooking involved. You just can’t get that in St. Louis. Highlight of the day for the kids – getting their official IBL baseballs signed by the Netanya Tigers and the Petach Tikvah Pioneers players. Yes, we went back for another dose of Israeli baseball tonight. The game was at Yarkon field in front of a crowd of about 75 (including us, but not including the players). The Oberlander kids and Mati (who came back from the water park with us and is sleeping over, more on this later) screamed and cheered and chatted with the players and got lots of foul balls.

For the first few innings, Noah and Mati were rooting for Netanya, and Eitan, Naomi, and Ilana were rooting for Petach Tikvah. Netanya was up by 5 after the first two innings, and Naomi asked Donna to take her to the bathroom to wash off the “Go P.T. Pioneers” she had written on her hand – she was changing allegiances. Donna told Naomi that you just can’t change allegiances without a reason, and Naomi looked Donna squarely in the face and said “I have a reason, Petach Tikvah sucks.” Spoken like a true fan. Naomi had soon chosen a favorite player from the Tigers and really wanted him to sign the foul ball she had chased down. The kids ate Burgers Bar from the concession stand, even after the Pizza Hut dinner. After the game the fans and players mingled. We found out that the players all live in the same dorm, that on Saturdays when they do not play they go on teulim across the country, and on Thursday nights they do not have laundry service. Naomi’s favorite player did sign her ball – he even wrote her a little note. Each of the kids got a ball, and they got lots of autographs. On the way home 3 out of 5 fell asleep in the car. All in all a lovely evening.

The sleeping in the car was also most likely related to our day’s activities – six hours in a water park. Sami and Jaqueline Agam found a water park on kibbutz Shafayim which is just south of Netanya and was actually open, and even better yet, we could get discounted tickets for it. The place was amazing – a big pool, a wave pool, a kiddie pool with sprayers and jungle gyms, and every size and shape of water slide imaginable. Plus lots of shade for sitting and relaxing. All of the kids (and often the adults) swam and slid all day long. Even Ilana, under the careful supervision of her siblings and cousins, went down a really big water slide, repeatedly. Her only obstacle was the Israeli teen age girls next to them in line who thought Ilana was adorable and kept trying to pick her up and kiss her. Ilana did nt like that so much. It was a perfect way to beat the heat, and the day flew by. The heat wave is supposed to break tomorrow. We shall see what actually happens as nothing in Israel seems to go the way it is supposed to...