Rosh Hashanah

Jordan said this was the best Rosh Hashanah ever, and pretty much I agree. We started the fun with a dinner party with friends: Jules and Jess with Ian and Adam, and new friends we met at Camp Kesher, Gregg and Anjali with Moses. The weather was stunningly beautiful; I don't think I've ever experienced such a summery Rosh Hashanah; we could have had a barbecue! But indoors was good too. The kids got along great, the adults got along great, and we had soup from Nana's extraordinary tureen.

Silly that I didn't take any other pictures of the dinner; I guess I was just having too good of a time. The menu included not only the soup (Silky Cauliflower), but also farmer's market apples and honey, pomegranate-molasses brisket, round challah with raisins, green beans, Rosh Hashanah sangria, and apple-honey galette. We dined early so that most of the adults could go to services at 8. Jules volunteered to stay home and put the kids to bed. Ian and Adam slept over. 

In the morning we had challah french toast for breakfast. Then they made a rock band and played baseball. No fights, no mischief, just fun in your underwear.

After an early lunch we got them all dressed up for temple. Adam doesn't care to be photographed, but here are Ian, Jordan, and Aaron ready to go. Don't they look terrific? Jordan requested the tie. If Aaron looks a little off it's because he had a nasty fall right before this... he recovered very well.

I think we all look pretty good!

Temple was excellent; Aaron was utterly delighted to be in childcare once his dear friend Emanuel showed up, and the eight-year-olds, who are expected to be in services with the grownups, were absolutely model citizens. In the middle, just as they were getting noticeably bored, they got to go off with the other 3rd-through-8th graders for special activities of their own. All ages got to enjoy themselves in their own way, and as a bonus, the medium-aged children didn't have to hear the story of Abraham almost killing his son. A good arrangement all around.

Instead of the madhouse children's service in the afternoon, which we have pretty much aged out of anyway, we took everyone to ice cream. The only documentation of this I can offer is empty dishes.

From there, we rejoined the Temple crowd at a nearby park for tashlich, a fun ceremony where we symbolically cast off last year's sins by tossing crumbs into a body of water (in this case Lake Washington). It was an incredibly beautiful day and there was a big crowd. We stayed a long time, letting the kids enjoy the weather and each other's company. Jess and I sat on the side and gossiped with other parents and took in the happy scene.

Dinnertime wound around, and we decided to have pizza at Jess and Jules's house. After dinner we picked plums from their tree. These are the ones I got to take home.

We could hardly ask for more from a holiday!