Meital Adina Zacks

Name Reveal Video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkElO_KPmbI

Meital 

• Meaning: Water of Life (Mey Hatal) – purest of waters that give plants life

• Hope – she is always giving to others

• Hardest time of all 3, Middle name we had for a while

• A few weeks ago, in Kiryat Shmona and Kfar Blum waterfall – it came together. While we have many roots, from London to Detroit to West Virginia, Passaic, Europe, and even Modiin, but the foundation of our immediate family, was in the most beautiful place, northern Israel – defined by water

• Hope – her life (and all of our lives) are calm and peaceful as those waters

Adina 

• Means gentleness

• The Daled and Nun spell out Dan - Uncle Don Kates – who would for sure bend the rules to include her in the Donny club. If you take the letters עדינה and rearrange, it comes out as דני ע״ה.

• We loved Uncle Donny, he was like another grandfather for me. And the three characteristics that defined Uncle Donny most to us were:

o Connection – to people, to his community, to Hashem, even between other people in Shidduchim

o Honesty – he would always tell you exactly what he felt and thought

o Justice – doing the right thing was always so important to him, and he believed so much in the right thing happening, in his life, and even as an umpire (which I was lucky enough to have him ump some of my games).

We hope that Meital Adina carries these important characteristics into her life, as she has quite a legacy to continue.

Scary Moments, and the Miracles of Every Day Life

 This morning, we were calmly getting ready to give the kids breakfast, when Shifra casually tells me that she hasn't felt movement all night. This obviously threw me into a panic, and within 7 minutes, Ayala came and we were off to the hospital. Eitan told Shifra when we told him that we were going to the hospital that if Shifra was scared she should close her eyes and think of something happy. The drive was exhilirating (haven't driven that non-conservatively since before my accident, and certainly not driven into a Tzomet on a red light before but 1. Beit Chanina and 2. we were in a huge rush, and it was only a second after it turned red. ) We sang Hallel on the way to calm ourselves down, but obviously terrified of the worst. 

Baruch Hashem, the monitor showed that all was good, and we were able to breathe. They made us do a long monitor, and then gave her a tablet (sort of Nava and the Pez style), and sent us to a room in another department while we waited for it to kick in. 

The day went by kind of slowly but we enjoyed ourselves with phone games like backgammon and soccer pros, walks through the hospital, reflexology twice, and hanging out, chilling, and here and there, ignoring each other while being on our phones. Ayala also came pretty early in the day which was nice. During reflexology, about 10 seconds into the relaxing music, I fell straight asleep, and the next thing I remember was the music stopping because she had to go. Somewhere along the way, she noticed my snoring. 

Later on, her and her mum went outside, and I took over the bed for a solid hour and a half sleep. It's tough being the man. We spoke to the kids, they are at my parents. Hadar is super excited to be staying in Ephraim's room. She's gonna be the best big sister. 

Around 8 pm, Dov and Limor came along, and we ate at the new restaurant at the hospital. I had a hamburger with assado and fried onions on top, and it was freaking delicious. 

Then they let us know we could go to the delivery room, which is the room next to where Eitan's was (which is good because I want no part of that room - looked like Hiroshima 1945 when we were done in there). We are now at 3 cm, and looking forward to a great night - looking like we will not make it during my parents anniversary but I think thats ok. 

UPDATE: Baby was born, at exactly 3 Kilo, exactly between the other two. I would be lying if I said I didn't get emotional about this one, especially considering our fears this morning. As I held her, the emotions flooded through me, and a couple tears needed to be dealt with. What a miracle. 

Baby Sister Getting Hitched

 Crazy surprising news. Nava is engaged, on the exact date she started going out with her fiance Chuckles. Its exciting, he has felt like part of the family for a long time anyway. My kids already think of him as Uncle Charlie basically. But he is a good guy, they go well together, and really the only downside I can think of is his being a Bears fan. And the Chattan and Kallah's families LOVE each other, from Eitan and Hadar to the brothers, and vice versa, and also siblings to siblings, and siblings to parents, parents to parents, and even grandparents to grandparents -  we are all big fans. The engagement party was beautiful. Thank heavens for Erik Shun, so this was able to happen. Mazel Tov <3

Softball - first real season

 We just had our last game of the season. This season overall was Penticon's best. We were competitive in most games, and got our most wins. On a personal note, I had the 5th highest OBP (.462) and BA (.300), and 6th highest RBIs, even though I was batting near the bottom of the order. But I think the best part was establishing myself as a top center fielder in this league. In the second to last game, I robbed my first homer, against the Segal's team. It was a line shot, where I sprinted, ran, and then jumped as high as I physically could, leapt up, it all got quiet, and then I found it in my glove. In general, each of the last few games (when we didn't have our pitchers so I was extremely busy), I had diving/sliding/jumping catches, saving a bunch of runs. I do need to get better at hitting, especially against faster pitchers. Overall, it was a really fun season.

Manifest

 We just finished Manifest, and we loved it. We have NEVER watched any show like it, but we were so motivated to find out what happened. We loved most of the characters, the entire show, and especially the ending. Big recommend

Kfar Blum

 What an amazing weekend up north we were able to do. I was so impressed that even though Shifra was in week 38, she agreed to go North. 

I love the north, especially the Etzba Hagalil. Once we pass Rosh Pina, my body gets into an internal happiness mode, and everything is peaceful in the world. 

We started off by going to the Yeshiva I grew up in, the northern most yeshiva in the world. There, I got to learn Torah with Eitan - we continued learning about the 10 commandments that we started on Shavuot. He loved learning in the Yeshiva that he sort of remembers, and he LOVED the huge Aron Kodesh. He remembered the place, and it helped that my screensaver on my computer is a picture of a building. He loves to build a Yeshiva with megablocks as well. 

From there, we went to the beautiful Kfar Blum waterfall, and went in the water (well, some of us did). We love that place. The kids were amazed. 

Finally, we got to the hotel, and got our room. All of a sudden, an hour before Shabbat, the electricity went out. Luckily, it turned back on though. 

Shabbat davening was nice throughout in the hotel. And we saw so many froggies that the kids loved. We even saw "Fireman Froggy" jump out of the water to help his other frog friend jump in, who wasn't able to by himself. 

The food was great, especially the Assado for me, and the chicken soup(?!) for Eitan. The salads were great, and we got to have 4 meals on Shabbat. 

Hadar was amazing, she is turning into such a big girl. She had so much fun playing and running and laughing. 

Sleeping was great, we all slept very well at night and during the day. These kids are amazing, and old enough to have lots of fun with at a stress-free level. 

On Shabbat, we were able to walk back to the waterfall for the first time, because while there is no Eiruv, the kids can walk by themselves. 

We went for walks, we went down the slides, we ran around in the lobby, and overall had a great time. 

Perhaps the best part, was the fact that no throw up was thrown up on the ways by anyone on any of the drives.