The long overdue update

We have been in Israel over 72 hours and somehow I have not managed to blog about all our fun experiences.
First of all, the flights. Some highlights include:
-Y. losing patience while waiting for the flight to start boarding. So he made a run for it and made it past security and halfway to the plane before the stewardess and I caught up with him. He is fast. I have to say that not much frazzles me when it comes to my kids behavior  but I found this a very embaressing episode because a planeful of people saw this little exchange play itself out.
-M insisting on pulling our carry-on through Heathrow airport on our stopover, even though it was bigger than him and he was running on three hours of sleep. We let him do it for a little while but eventually took the suitcase away because it was taking too long and holding up other people, which led to some howling.
-Our  seatmates on both flights were very nice and pleasant and did not seem to have a problem with our kids. Which just shows it is all about attitude!
-The kids themselves were pretty well behaved. They slept a bit, watched some movies on the iPad and annoyed their siblings at various points, but all in all were about as good as can be expected on 2 flights and a trip that took about 18-19 hours door to door. M had some crying jags on the plane and in the airport but that is to be expected when running on no sleep.
- I was surprisingly patient and held it together for the duration of the trip so yay for me. I had my own little meltdown later that night, when we were finally settled into our apartment, I was super exhausted and the kids were totally hyper and refusing to go to bed. Again, some crying is to be expected when running on no sleep :)

Here is an overview of some of the things we have done here in the past few days:
-We spent a nice shabbos with my parents, two sisters and their respective families. The cousins got along nicely except when M. climbed into my 6 month old niece's crib and woke her up from her nap, thereby ruining her sleeping schedule for the day (sorry again!). Thankfully he did not hurt her.
-Three outings to local playgrounds...what else :)
- My husband and I attended a Yaakov Shwekey concert held at the Sultan's Pool right outside the Old City of Jerusalem tonight. The concert was enjoyable but the ambience and location really made the night. It was so beautiful sitting outdoors, listening to good music and seeing the Old City all lit up...hard to describe.

I am really happy to be here (definitely worth the expense and the long trip!) and looking forward to many more fun adventures...