And we backtrack. To Wednesday.

So....the great influx began truthfully, on Tuesday night, when my Mom and Hershel arrived. They kept me company while I hot glued just a few more napkin rings and then we all went to bed.

My brother Aaron, his wife Tamar, and their gaggle of little girls (Shoshie, Esti, Shaindy, and Tzipporah, possibly the funniest three year old known to man) arrived at their hosts sometime during the Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, and strolled on over to us after breakfast. I went to pick up my shaitel, and when I returned to my house, I found a collection of Dovi's guys-Yakov, Moishe, Yoeli, and Abie had arrived. They got a preview of my shaitel. Entering your house carrying your shaitel in front of a bunch of 20-somethings? A tad awkward...but hey, at least my beret didn't fall of my head...

We all hung out for a bit until I left with my mom, Tamar, Shana, and my nieces to get our nails done.

Time out here to discuss no-chip manicures. As I type, I STILL have my manicure from the Bar Mitzvah. Yes, almost three weeks later. And it's still perfect. Well except for that it's growing up so you see my new nail growth. But the tips? Perfect. It's shocking to me. Totally, 100% worth the extra money. Three weeks for a manicure? So what that when they take it off my nails are going to be soft and unhealthy? I've had pretty nails for 3 weeks. And I'm happy :)

OK back to the day. Sometime during the afternoon my brother David, his wife Debby, and kids Yaffa, Meira, Adira, and Noam arrived. Around dinner time we had the arrival of my sister Rebecca, her husband Nahum, and their kids Eliyahu, Akiva, Simcha, Nissy, and baby Yitzy...for whom I will go out of date order to stick in this gorgeous picture of him that was taken.

could he be any more gorgeous?

We also got Raphi, Joe, and Benji right before dinner, and later that night Charles and Nachman arrived.

And we cannot forget Benjie's sister Yehudit who came from Israel also, as well as his Bubbie (Dovi's great grandmother) who was in America for almost a month to enjoy two great grandson's Bar Mitzvahs.

So Whew! We were about 40 people for dinner.

So my house looked like this:








Dovi's beloved Ezra and his family also came in for the big day..and they joined us for dinner. It was truly amazing to me that they made this big trip for Dovi the week before Ezra's bar mitzvah. It meant so, so much to us.

Yay! It was awesome. There is nothing more that I love than a house full of people. And that is most definately what we had for the big weekend.