Planting an Emotional Garden...

On our first day in Israel, we had one objective.

Actually, we have only one objective every day, but that's another blog post.

It was to take the kids to see the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site.

Notwithstanding the fact that the Old City of Jerusalem is most user-unfriendly to strollers and needs elevators in a bad way, we made it  to our destinatino.

At the top of the stairs leading down to the main plaza, we stopped to take in the scene.

We pointed out the Wall, the Dome of the Rock, and the hills in the background.

A security guard looked at me and at Paco and asked: "How old is he?"

"Three."

"He won't remember this in a few weeks."

"True," I replied, "but he'll always have a feeling associated with this place and that's what I am trying to create today."

Transmitting emotion to your kids is difficult.

Just because I love the Redskins doesn't mean I can make my kids love the Redskins (why I would even think about that these days is a different topic altogether).

But, what I can do is to create experiences that I hope will generate emotion within them independently.
Israel and Jerusalem are important to the NFO and me.

So, we've invested the time and money in creating an experience for the kids that will hopefully

• create memories (at least for Tonka) and
• the seed of an emotional connection (Tonka/Paco)

If properly cultivated, we hope that these seeds will grow and develop over time.