Thursday, May 7, 2009

Welcome Home!

We had a great second week in California. So busy that I barely had time to check my email, let alone write here. We visited with a lot of people, lunch and the park with Tia Luba, amazing steaks with Shmuly, Micki, and Mendy, Orange Delight with Aliyah,  lunch and a great shmooze with Tia Olga, a very exciting visit to Tante Russia with Tia Miriam and Arielle, and much more!
Tante Russia is my grandmother's aunt. She is the sister of the woman I was named after, my great grandmother, Chana Berdicewsky. Between her and Benny are 5 generations!! She was so happy to get to meet Benny!! 
We had a great bbq at Gardner Park, or Pan Pacific as they pretend to call it...nice turnout of people! 
I was pretty worried about the way back home. Going out, I had help, which was amazing! Firstly, Burbank is definitely the way to go, everyone is so extremely helpful there!!! I got the only empty seat on the plane so that I could bring on the carseat. Benny didn't take his morning nap so he fell asleep like 20 minutes into the flight! Everyone around me fell in love with him and offered a million times to take him and give me a break (I thanked them all but politely turned down the offers). The flight attendants all came to talk to him whenever he was awake! I let him crawl around the aisle for a good 20 minutes and he ended up eating with me and playing for a bit and then going back to sleep until we landed! In the middle of all that, we did have a diaper explosion and of course forgot to take the change of clothes from my bag. Had to wake up the nice guy sitting next to us to get the bag. Brought the wrong bag. Woke Mr. Aisle Seat up again. Got the correct bag. Changed the little monster who does not sit still for ANYTHING! 
All in all, California was great, the trip was great (a bit long but great), there were a few celebrities on the flight with us - Neil Patrick Harris, Juliette Lewis, and one other guy I can't remember his name...
Shuky made the most AMAZING lasagna for me for dinner and we sat and ate our delicious food with Benny at home finally! Not long after, we were sitting on the couch, just watching some stuff on our laptop. I pulled out all of Benny's new toys for him to play with and tire himself out with. All of a sudden, Shuky started yelling and pointing to the door. Water was gushing in from under the front door. I grabbed Benny off the floor and ran into the bedroom. We kept Benny on the bed and ran around like madmen, grabbing electronics off the floor and any valuables we saw...Shuky called our landlord who came running down instantly. At this point, we had realized that this is very special water we now had in our large indoor pool. This was sewer water, with proof of residency. Not to be too disgusting but we now know what our neighbors have been eating for the past few days! Ok, so maybe that was too disgusting. 
It went from the front of our apartment well into the back. Stopped through the bedrooms to say hi. Ruined all of Benny's new toys. Stuffed animals, food sets, a million pacifiers that were apparently under our beds (been looking for those!!). My box of maternity clothes got all wet. We had towels that were drenched. Blankets that went for a swim. It was a mess. We packed up what we needed for the night and my mom came to pick us up. Today, we went back with masks and gloves and tried to clean up as best as possible. All the clothes and linens were thrown into garbage bags and dropped off at the local laundromat. We moved all the surviving things into the other side of the basement (our landlord has a little studio-type apartment that they use for the kids and guests). A cleaner came in to the apartment when we finished and chemically treated the entire place. We will be temporarily residing at 770 Lefferts once again until after Shabbos, at which point we will see if the chemical treatment was succesful or if the place needs more work done. Yay us!
In the meantime, for anyone who has not yet heard, Shuky is officially a student once again. We will be moving back to Postville in the first week of June (or sooner, depending on the status of our apartment), g-d willing, and come August 20th, Shuky will be in college. Our goal is to knock out our first two years in Iowa and then move somewhere with a school that has a good program for Shuky (computer science) and a good school for Benny!
It was amazing seeing everyone these past two weeks. It's great to be back! 

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