(hank sharing his sweet rosh apples)

when we moved to boulder we did not join a temple straight away… first we collected a group of jewish (or half jewish) families that we have been celebrating shabbat, rosh hashana, yom kippur, hanukkah and passover with for over a dozen years. this special group has made us feel grounded and connected and has been such an important aspect of our lives in boulder. also, several people in the circle know how to make a proper, delicious brisket, which is my achilles heel, so my kids have been able to ENJOY that signature dish, rather than dread it.

(one of our first hanukkahs together when lu was just a pea pod…)

(and theo was barely old enough to light a candle)

(just look at how BIG the kids all got!)

one of the traditions we established together was walking to wonderland lake for “tashlich” on roshanana, the jewish new year. tashlich, which means “casting away” and is an atonement ritual where write your sin(s) and what you’d like to work on over the upcoming year on a little piece of paper and dispose of it. of course we don’t really throw our sins into the lake because that would be littering and this IS boulder, but we burn them up when we get back.

among the kids, we have the “bigs” and the “littles.” four of the bigs are seniors in high school now and i don’t think it was lost on any of us that they probably won’t be at the lake with us next year. of course, this made for some sappy mamas with heightened emotions. i could not stop squeezing and kissing my big (he tolerated this better than expected) and i DID get pretty teary. (to be fair, i was also running on fumes as one of my children who i will not identify, but was not hank or the big one did something very teenagery the night before which prevented me from getting even a modest amount of sleep. at two in the morning i was just like miss clavel from madeline:

in the middle of the night

miss clavel turned on the light

and said, “something is not right!”

this child did not do anything that i did not do at a similar age, but STILL i was not best pleased and beyond exhausted. it DID give that child good material for the little piece of paper.)

(me and my BIG)

(look at that cheeky madeline!)

(miss clavel and her middle of the night intuition!)

i am beyond grateful for these special people (even that super naughty child) and wish you all a very happy new year! x0x

to read more about the jewish holidays click here or here or here