NEVE DANIEL, Gush Etzion, ISRAEL, The big news of the day is the Yehuda slept through the night!! Good-bye jet lag!! After 3 nights of being up half the night with a very awake 2 1/2 year old we finally got a full night sleep last night. I woke-up and walked to minyan at 6:30, stopped on the way home for some milk at the local grocery store, picked-up our mail at the central mailbox and went home and miraculously found everyone still sleeping. Romi and I were thrilled to have had a full night sleep.

Our first Shabbat in Israel as Israelis was very nice. A family down the street has turned their basement into a shul in which they host a Carlebach style Friday night service with lots of singing and even some dancing and also an early mincha on Shabbat afternoon. We were hosted for all three meals of shabbat with lovely families in the neighborhood and had a really, really nice day. Two quick and cute Sussman kid anectdotes. YesterdayMatan looked at us and asked, ‘Mommy and Daddy, we’re in Israel now, why aren’t we speaking Hebrew?’ We explained that we would all learn soon and that, unfortunately, it wasn’t quite that easy as just arriving! Another Matan story…he is now fully Israeli! I was at minyan when I hear Matan yelling, ‘Daddy, I can’t get in’. The gate to the courtyard around the house was closed. I told him I would be right there and before I could get out the door he was on top of the gate (6 feet high) and on his way down to my side. All of the sabras around me started saying he was ready for the commandos!! Israeli ingenuity at its best…all in a 4 year old. Gotta run…I’m using someone else’s computer and they have to leave. Until we get our lift, we will be using other people’s computers so we are fairly limited in getting out individual e-mails, so for the time being these group e-mails will have to suffice. We apologize, but will make it up to you when we get our computer (hopefully sooner than later). Hope all is well.Love, Romi, Josh, Matan and Yehuda