Welcome to our Family's Journey

After many sleepless nights (thanks great grandma for staying up and talking!) and endless paking and planning, The Herskovits family (Herskovitsi?) said lihtraoat (not goodbye..lihitraot translates to see you soon) to family and freinds on july 11, 2011.  we boarded the plane at JFK and took off on our jorney to Israel along with 240 others also making aliyah along with us.  The whole experience was both difficult and emotional for everyone but extremely fulfilling and inspiring as well. Nefesh B'nefesh was really on top of planning and making sure everything went smoothly, from arranging all of our paperwork, handing out coloring books and crayons for the kids on the plane, helping with carrying our way too many pieces of luggage and checking on us very frequently.  We really lucked out with the best seats on the plane, with Ilana and Yedidya sharing a row of 2 seats right behind business class.  Yedidya had a seat and a bassinet so he was real comfy and enjoyed the variety of his seat choice. The girls and ezra sat directly behid us in a row of 3, allowing ezra to have tons of legroom since there was no seat in front of him.  Happy husband+kids=happy flight! The girls watched cartoons on theri individual tv screens and took a 3 hr nap. Meemer got yelled nat for standing on her head on her seat, and fell off her seat a few times while sleeping and got stuck under the row of seats,yedidya was super happy but super wired and slept only for an hour and a half at the end of the flight. shalhevet was so great on the plane and the girls really enjoyed that special gum from grandpa H and princesss books from grandma G. After a very long flight, we arrived at ben gurion airport at 7:15 am. You may have oticed on the video of our aliyah on nbn.org.com that Ilana and the kids were not with ezra when deplaning..Ilana was told to go ahead..and ezra meant to wait byt the door, but Ilana messed up so...we ddint but we did exit the bus as a family if it makes you feel better (it makes me feel better!) The celebration and greeting in the airport upon arrival was amazing.  we have never seen or experienced such a thing.  Everyone was dancing ans singing adn we felt like celebraties! the girls got lotsof facetime on the nbn video and they even commeneted about the cute olim!. we had a lot of people come greet us in the airport upon arrival includidng randia nd jhonny and nati mass, moshe greenberg, eliku bitanski and ...more. We had a huge celebration with baked goods, coffee, cappichino, ice drinks, frsh friuit accompanied by speakers and a ceremony.  After some more paperwork..we headed in our complimentary taxi ride to jerusalem where we will be staying and touring around in the next 3 weeks. meemer and yedidya fell fast asleep on the way home and were very difficult to wake up.. shalhevet woke up and helped ezra bring the luggae upstairs while Ilana waited with the kids downstairs. We got a late start on the day but finally woke up meemer, shoved her in the shower and went out to eat icecream before dinner as a special treat! the kids got bubblegum icecream in a cone (yum!) and the adults got a belguim waffle freshly abked topped with 2 scoops of icecream,whipped cream and chocolate and maple syrup...yuuuuuuuuuum! We then headed back to the apartment, got ready for bed and had big apple pizzma which was delicious but expensive.  The first night here, shalhevet slept from 6:45 til 10:30!! yedidya slept from 7 til 11:15 with a 2 hour break in middle of night and temmima..well..she never sleeps why would it be different here? the lazy bum kids were happy and wanted to start their day, meemer was miserabley tired..shes sleeping now but keeps waking up ..yay meemer! any way, today we walked to the old city pretty much gone beside temmima..but...well ge there soon..we missand love everyone very much and cant wait to see you and sopeak to you! with love from the beautiful city of yerushalyim, Ilana Ezra, shalhevet, temmima and yedidya herskovits