A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

...the Dutch Hammers actually updated their blog once in awhile! Sorry for the incredibly long delay, hopefully it won't be anywhere near as bad this time around.

Thank G-d, we got through the holidays okay. Sukkos turned out to be nice, since Erez made a small sukkah in the backyard. In the past, we used to sit in the dining room area, which had an openable roof above the table, so it was just a matter of opening the roof, putting some schach up, and closing the gap between the island that seperates the dining area and the kitchen with the wall, and BAM - instant sukkah. But because the roof was damaged last year, we weren't able to do this anymore, so we all sat outside. But personally, I thought it was nice. Thankfully, the weather held up virtually the whole week, and although at one point we had to squeeze 9 people around a table that was mainly designed for 6 people, it was still quite enjoyable.

This past Friday, 2 Cheshvan, was the yahrtzeit of my father-in-law z"l, so we made the trip to Utrecht, a city about 20 miles southeast of Amsterdam. Thankfully, the trip wasn't too emotionally charged. Of course, there were some tears, but we all held up well.

Shosh and I also want to make a quick shout out to our cousin Tzvi, who's getting married this Thursday. It sucks that we can't be there for the wedding - we've been able to make it to the last four so far! - but hopefully we'll be able to see them again for another simcha soon.

Anyway, the next month or so is going to be busy for Shosh studying for her December exam, and I'll be busy still with trying to keep tempers in check in the shul during shabbos ;) Hopefully we'll have some more updates for you soon, and G-d willing we'll put up some more pics of our Israel trip and other photos in the coming days.