David In Israel . דוד בישראל . داوود في اسرائيل 

The day before I left California, I had the privilege of going to the Get Motivated Seminar with my dad.  The seminar was fantastic.  I felt like it was the perfect end to my time in the States. I I had the opportunity to meet Rudy Giuliani (I even snuck a picture with him) and I was chosen to go on the stage for a dance competition! LOTS OF FUN.  
The day was strange, however, because Uncle Tim ended up in the hospital (following Alexa's 10th birthday party) with some chest complications.  Thankfully, lots of people were praying for him, and praise God, he is feeling a lot better now!!!

The video above is of my grandmother helping prepare the Shakshuka for one of the two parties I helped to host at my parents' house well I was home in California.  A friend from Israel, Tsachi, is visiting his sister in the bay area, and they came up for the weekend.  It was a blast (I have attached some pics from Snowboarding with Tsachi and from the parties).  

I probably won't be blogging for another 3-4 weeks because I am back in California.  I will update the blog when I am back in Israel.  Right now, I just want to enjoy sitting by a nice fire at my parent's house.

My parents (and siblings) are awesome.  Here's one of many reasons why:  They spent $37 to send me a package from the States (which I am adamantly opposed to usually, but I graciously accepted this time)... actually it made me really happy.  It got here on the last day of Chanukkah, much to my mother's delight.  I opened the nine gifts on skype so  they could watch - there was one for each day of Chanukkah, individually wrapped and numbered - plus an extra special gift... a framed picture of me with the president of Israel (click my Shalom tab above to see the photo).  It was really fun to open something.  I had an amazing holiday season, and I felt very loved!

My mom sent several gifts with me to be opened on Christmas.  I was able to open them with them over Skype.  I decided to go ahead and bake them tonight.  I charred most of them, but it was fun anyway - and I ate too many - but that was fun too!

Because I was able to go to Bethlehem last night and didn't go to bed until 4am with class at 8:30, I was totally content after school to spend the afternoon recovering!  I was awakened by a phone call around 6pm my time.  It was my immediate family wanting to video chat me while they had breakfast, opened Christmas gifts and read the Nativity story.  It was so nice.  I really felt as if I was there with them. It was almost as good as being with them.  Then we did it all over again.  I was "with them" while they ate dinner at Uncle Tim and Aunt Michelle's and we played games (including RockBand) over Skype, and then Alexa entertained us with some of her impersonations.  I finally got tired and turned it off at 6am my time.  It was so much fun.