Sweets for Soldiers

Did you know that Israel uses a different calendar than the rest of the world?  They count their years all of the way back to Creation.  For us, the year is 2012 and for Israel the year is 5772.  Interesting, isn't it?

Israel celebrated their Independence Day April 26th, but the rest of the world observes their day of Indepedence as being May 14th.  This is due to the difference in the way they count the length of their years.

This is very captivating information but also helpful to understand why we had a two-week time frame that we spent congratulating Israel and their soldiers on their independence.  During those two weeks we stayed busy passing out these:

For those of you who participated, these were your notes to the soldiers!  And let me tell ya... you really touched the soldiers' hearts with your words of encouragement and support.  The Jews just do not hear that they have friends.  Unfortunately, that fact just is not widely published and they are genuinely grateful to hear that we really do love them and support them.

Israel, we support you!  We love you!  And there are a lot more people out there just like us.

My children enjoyed having a very active part in showing their support, as you can see in the pictures below.  On this particular day, they were able to go room to room, bed to bed, soldier to soldier to pass out their goodies.

I took oodles and caboodles of pictures that I would love to share with you, but I just can't.  We were able to see, touch, and experience all kinds of amazing "guy stuff," and I know I have several men who read this blog and would really enjoy it if I could embellish on those aspects.  However, for safety reasons which I am sure you understand, I do not want to give one itty bitty piece of information or even the slightest peek of Israeli weaponry to the wrong side.  Therefore, just suffice it to say that it was, as my children {especially the boys} would put it, "so coooooool!"

I have also been thinking how happy I am to bring all of my children safely home with me each night. I watch my little boys play with plastic soldiers and listen to them make machine gun sounds as the little plastic soldiers fall over, and I think of how grateful I am for the innocence of their childhood and the fearless nights that they lay their heads on their pillows each night.

And it is all because of soldiers who lose sleep each night to keep our borders safe.

{Above: my favorite picture of the day}