We have 2 weeks to go, and Lisa's luggage is already packed and weighed! Do you think she is excited to return home? To help our replacements, the Belknaps, visualize their future home, here are some views of apartment 101. The Belknaps arrive with their 4 kids less than a week after we leave, so we're trying to leave the place spiffy even as we experience a tornado of packing!
So here is the view of our front door.
It opens onto a corridor, partly covered, which connects the lowest level of the Jerusalem Center with the playground via this mini garden spot. These are the east windows of our apartment.
The first thing you see when you enter our apartment is the spacious dining room. There is a large painting of the Jerusalem Skyline by local artist
Shulamit Near, who actually painted from the balcony of the Jerusalem center for 4 summers.
We are blessed to have a piano keyboard; it was sitting unused outside the branch president's office, so we adopted it and bought it a power cord. Megan is getting so good that her songs exceed the width of this keyboard. (She is learning
"All of Me" by Jon Schmidt for the student talent show on Thursday.)
This is the powder room to the right of the front door. We are grateful to have three bathrooms, two of them with tubs.
Here is the living room. Just the right size for everyone to get their own seat. But usually the kids end up on top of each other anyway.
Another view of the living room. The living room opens onto a patio, shared with Megan's room.
This photo shows one of the two patios adjoining our apartment. The bushes give it privacy even though it is right next to the lower gate, a main walkway for students exiting the building.
Returning back inside, Here is the kitchen, furnished with nearly everything a family needs, including a popcorn popper. I love the Armenian tile backsplash, and the seamless counter is great for letting little hands help with cooking.
Of course, my favorite feature is the dishwasher, but I also love the little cabinet that hides the microwave.
This cupboard is called a magic corner; as the cereal shelf slides out, the popcorn shelf becomes accessible by moving from right to left.
Nice to have windows in the kitchen!
Across from the kitchen, next to the living room, is Megan's bedroom. It has a bed, desk, bulletin board, patio exit, and wardrobe.
Here is the main hallway of the house, with functional space for coloring/homework on the right, and computers on the left. We love getting wireless in the apartment.
Continuing down the hall you pass this little lighted niche perfect for the ceramics the kids make at school. Maybe some future family will find the perfect art or tapestry to hang here.
Continuing down the hall is Carrie and Lisa's room. The bedding provided is all white, but the kids brought fleece blankets to personalize and help keep the whites whiter. This room has two beds, two bulletin boards, a patio exit, and a wardrobe, pictured below.
The wardrobe gets pretty full with two teens' worth of clothes, but luckily each bed has a drawer underneath.
Amanda and Emily sleep on bunk beds in the third bedroom, with two bulletin boards, a wardrobe, and a window that opens out to the interior corridor with the tree in the middle. These photos are from last August, which is the last time this room was clean.
The kids love this bathroom with the ducky shower curtain.
This bathroom and also the master bathroom have plenty of storage space.
And for the grand finale of the master bedroom and bathroom, it's back to last August again. There is only one chest of drawers, but the large built-in wardrobe cupboards have plenty of room, unless you love to shop for clothes.
The wardrobe is on the left out of sight, the sliding glass door leads to the second patio (did I mention you get great views of the Dome?), and the desk works great for a teacher dad whose man-cave is 6 flights of stairs away.
The master bathroom is a great plus, with 2 sinks and a mirror in an anteroom separated from the other fixtures.
Eran recently had built in hair dryers installed in every apartment, so you're going to feel like you're vacationing in a luxury hotel.
Until your kids wake you up at 3 am that first day, and your internal clock thinks it's bedtime, but the Call to Prayer insists that it's morning. And soon you realize that you're vacationing on a cruise ship, with eighty twenty-somethings who want to play with your kids and bake cookies in your kitchen, all the while hinting that such activities should earn them extra lenience on your husband's quizzes. So you drive your crew to the "mainland" to see the holy sites, and on the way home, you stop for a flat of unrefrigerated eggs and parve chocolate chips. And don't even get me started on Mary and Martha.
With the help of faculty family members and service couples, this menagerie of student-tourist-pilgrims attempts to weave itself into an approximation of a "one heart and one mind" community.
And just when you think you're going to lose heart or lose your mind, you and your family can retreat into your own 4 bedrooms and wake up fresh the next morning.
Which hopefully doesn't happen before 5 am.
