A perfect Shabbat

Last Weekend, Caryn and I went away together alone for the first time since we had kids. We went to the Jerusalem Gate Hotel which is right by the entrance to Jerusalem (hence the name). Gali cried once in the lead up to our departure, and Ilan cried twice, especially right when Uncle Jonny was picking them up. Fortunately, lollipops helped ease the pain. Tiki on the other hand was very quickly out the door, excited to go, and happily waving bye-bye to us. Every day since, she has talked about going back to Uncle Jonny's house. Once the kids were gone, Caryn and I got a bus at about 2:15 to Jerusalem. We got to the hotel a little after three and had about an hour and a half before Shabbat to relax. We unfortunately went down for service way too early, and once they statred, they were way too long as it was Sephardic. We had dinner at about 6 and ate quickly, doing the whole meal in about 30 minutes. The food was not bad, but nothing to write home about (or blog about). We got back to the room about 7 and played Scrabble, which was a lot of fun and something we have not done in a long time. The score was 328-308. We went to bed around 9 PM and got 11 hours of sleep, which is more than we get in 2 nights sometimes. The next morning, I went down to daven (pray), and for some reason decided to have coffee. Boy was that good, and it made me hyper!!! Shacharit was a little crazy, as it was Sephardic, but they certainly know how to have fun. It seemed like the entire Torah reading they were throwing candy. After davening, I went back to the room and we relaxed for about an hour before going down to lunch. Lunch was not good, but I had brought cookies from home, so I was prepared. We had a very relaxing afternoon, talked, went for a walk over the new bridge, and just generally relaxed and enjoyed ourselves. We difinitely need to do this again.