Wednesday morning February 23, the older kids were awake and upstairs reading and otherwise quietly occupying themselves when Kitty made it to the kitchen about 9:00. When Adi came upstair a little while later with Shoshan, Rom made sure that she saw the animal activity visible from the south-facing living room window.
Kitty had taken down a piece of the crystal rock formation, that had years before broken off the large piece given to her by her brother Walter, and let Rom get a close-up look. Rom - as well as Yaam and Ofek - had collected many small rocks outdoors on Monday and was very much interested in the very different ones that seemed to be so plentiful all around. (Rom had seen many crystals at the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum the day before and later learned on a day trip the family took on Thursday to a tourist gold mine in the Superstition Mountains, that what Kitty had was a Desert Rose - she'd forgotten the name. As a going-home present on Friday, Rom was given the little piece of Desert Rose, with the understanding that he would let Kitty know more about how it forms.)
From the first morning, the kids wanted outside as soon as their mother was awake and upstairs. The south-facing front porch and walk have the benefit of the winter sunshine and it was there that they enjoyed their breakfast every day of their visit. Kitty hadn't realized how much the porch would be used and so hadn't done a good cleaning of it before the Snirs' arrival. After their breakfast, Kitty provided some brooms to the kids suggesting that porch and walk could be made a bit cleaner for their own comfort. In only a few minutes they did just that, with Rom doing the porch itself. Adi prepares for taking the kids, now that they've eaten, for a bit more exploring outside in the yard while Micky gets a few more winks of sleep.
Yaam, Rom and Ofek (standing) found the sand in the moderate-sized wash to the east of the house an interesting place to explore.
Shoshan and Adi have joined Rom and Ofek, all now in a slightly different spot (down ‘stream’) with a pail of hand garden tools Kitty provided at Yaam's request.
Meanwhile Micky is awake and philosophical discussion continues in the kitchen with Paul (and Kitty too between photo shots :).
A little later that same afternoon, Micky, Adi and all the kids took a hike from our house to the small rocky hill to the northwest about a mile that lies outside the Gila River Indian Reservation. They took with them an assortment of vegetable and cheese snacks and sufficient water - and were well sun-protected (hats and sunscreen). (This same area was the subject of a photo page when Paul and Kitty hiked there for breakfast almost 2 years ago.) When they returned several hours later, everyone was pleasantly "hiked out"; even Shoshan had climbed up the hill to the top, though she balked at the climb down which is always visually more disturbing. More rocks too were added to the box for later sorting and final decisions on keeping.
While Wednesdays had been a regular night to drive to Tucson to Heart-Five for dancing, we thought it would be much more enjoyable to introduce the Snirs to some good high energy dance music and dancing. After dinner and time for stomachs to settle, Kitty and Paul set the car at the edge of the garage entry pad to supply music for an outside all ages "dance party". (We have been unsuccessful in getting KNRJ - Energy Arizona - on our radios inside the house; we get to enjoy the station in Arizona only when in the car since our Internet connection is a slow dial-up and doesn't allow us to audio stream the station.)
It really took no time at all for Micky, Adi, Rom and Ofek to join Paul and Kitty (who after a few minutes ran into the house for the camera to record the "event").
Shoshan enjoyed "dancing" with her mother and Adi incorporated many Israeli folk dance movements into the "partnering".
The energy has been at a significant level for close to half-hour at this point and the participants have really gotten warmed up. Rom follows Kitty in some fancy energetic footwork while most everyone else stays bouncing.
Rom and Ofek displayed some very energetic moves which, unfortunately, were not caught on camera - Ofek could balance himself on his arms with his hands on the ground while Rom did more and different rhythmic jumps and cartwheels. Kitty and others were having too much fun at the time to stop and use the camera. In hindsight, Kitty thinks that she might have enlisted Yaam's assistance in the photographing of this display of sheer energetic dancing fun by Snirs and Wakfers. When commercials came on at KNRJ (about every 20 minutes) we switched over immediately to our CD of Chris Sheppard's Club Cuts on our CD player plugged in outside. Slowing down just isn't our style ;>)
After about an hour of dancing, around 8:45pm, the Snirs took a pause. During that time, at Kitty's request, Micky took a series of photos of Paul and her dancing to some good partnering music - don't remember what the songs were but they were good ones.
Paul appears to be waving Kitty over for some serious dancing - And she's going to take him up on the offer ;>)
Partner dancing to a lively beat can work up a sweat. Some of our fancier moves were not caught, but Micky didn't know what to expect from us - and our camera has an annoying delay.
We like lots of free-form dancing which is what energy dance music well supports. What wasn't caught in these shots was Paul's high kicks and jumps - but while the music was good, none was of that *really* energetic variety.
Micky and Adi were able to do a little dancing of their own together, while Shoshan watched from her car seat.
Although she was obviously very sleepy she forced her eyes to remain open and watch the "festivities".
Ofek came back outside from activities indoors to join in once more, before we all called it quits. Kitty and Paul got a good portion of the exercise they get on their typical Wednesday night dancing and the Snirs got an introduction to high energy dancing. Micky made the comment, "that's a lot of work", to which we laughed and said we'd really gone easy on all of them. ;>) Too bad Jack had to leave the night before - he missed out on a lot of fun, and exercise too. "Dance parties" may be a regular part of guest visits in the future.
After showers all around and the kids fell asleep, the "grown-ups" settled in the living room for some tea and discussion. Dancing didn't wear out our desire to exchange information and ideas. It was somewhere around 1:00am, as Kitty remembers it, that, it was decided that it was time for a good night's rest. The next day was to be an all day outing for the Snirs and the kids would be up early as usual.
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