Week in Review

1. A lot of furniture shopping (see below post). I still need new bar stools and dining chairs to go with the table we're getting, and some type of small ottoman or two for the living room. The Wayfair app is my new best friend.

2. Booked our flight to Israel for Ben's Bar Mitzvah trip in June. The tour we're going with through the Temple quoted the group airfare rate as $1,794 per person, which would have been almost $9,000 for the 5 of us. No, thank you. I booked the same Newark to Tel Aviv round trip flight using credit card reward points for $5,200. Now I just need to figure out how to get us to Newark. I think I can book a cheap flight for around $1,000 and if I wait a few months I might have another $500 or so in reward points I can use. It's a little annoying not to be able to check the bags straight through, but our flight to Tel Aviv doesn't leave till 10:45 PM so we have all day to get there and check our bags through to Tel Aviv, and on the way back we get into Newark at 4:15 AM so we have all day to get through customs and re-check our bags for the flight home. Shouldn't be too much additional hassle, and the savings ought to make it well worth it.

3. Packing for our first trip to Philadelphia in over four years! And our first non-summer trip, so I'm realizing it's going to be in the 40s and scrounging around for long pants for the kids. It's also the first time we've flown to Philadelphia instead of driving. We're staying with Mike and Kathleen and looking forward to a great Thanksgiving week! We're heading out tomorrow so I have a lot to do still to finish getting ready!