Passover

We are having a terrific Passover.  Several days in advance, Jordan declared that he wanted to keep Passover, in the sense of eating no leavened bread.  This is not something we attempted last year (at least, not as a family).  I said I loved the idea, but reminded him that he normally has waffles for breakfast every day; did he have other ideas for what to eat?  He said, "Mommy mommy I want to have that Passover stuff, what is it called, charoset!  Charoset for breakfast."  What a great idea!  Apples, walnuts, honey, and cinnamon, chopped together in a sort of a relish; I can hardly imagine a better breakfast, maybe with some yogurt.  That and cheesy eggs, and we're good for the week.

Last weekend we undertook a bit of pre-Passover cleaning, not as much as last year, but still.   I tried to make the most of the fact that religiously required cleaning is much more exciting to our children than just plain old cleaning:  here they are enthusiastically scrubbing spots off the kitchen floor with rags.

For the first night's Seder, we maintained our custom of holding the rituals in the playroom tent, where we can properly recline while pretending to be nomads in the desert.

As if that weren't experiential enough, Dale actually used the days off school to take the boys camping.  They had picnics of Hillel sandwiches and leftover root-vegetable kugel on Pacific Northwest sand dunes.

They kept an eye out for approaching Egyptians.

The boys came home with glowing reports of how much fun it all was, which Dale was glad to hear, because from an adult perspective the experience was somewhat mixed.  Too many places that Google maps identified as parks turned out to be nothing more than a rotten picnic table and a boat launch.  I texted Dale that I thought the Israelites probably had similar problems:  "Shoot, I thought Menachem's  cousin said there was an oasis here, but this is nothing but a wet spot!"

They were only gone for one night (one very, very peaceful night, back here in the house).  When they returned, we headed right down to the large kid-friendly passover hosted by Aaron's school.

And we have several nights to go!