Time feels like it's been flying for us! We can't believe that it's just a little over a year since we got engaged and all the excitement of building our life together began! So much has happened since that exciting day, whether you've been with us all the way through or for just some brief amazing moments we wanted to send you an update and thank you for being a part of such a special year!
Back in April 2011, after sharing the news of our engagement with our family and friends in Toronto we headed back to our world in Israel to celebrate and start planning for the wedding!
 | ||
| L'Chaim in Tel Aviv on Tamar's roof top! Preparations of course included getting a wedding dress. I wanted to do it in Israel with a young Israeli designer. I had a crazy hard time finding something in my budget that would still look right and as I was about to give up on the whole idea I happened upon Limor Rosen's beautiful studio in Tel Aviv and she made me the perfect dress.
|
 |
| Final fitting at Limor's studio. |
Just a week before I had to head back to Toronto for the wedding we picked up the dress along with some of my friends and celebrated with cupcakes! I promise although Chaim's carrying the dress he never once saw it until our wedding :)
 |
| We go the dress!! Celebrating with cupcakes! |
I left for Toronto exactly a month before the wedding to get some very last minute things done, including printing and sending out our invitations. It took us a while to figure out the details and we only gave ourselves 4 months for planning.
Back home my awesome friends threw me the most beautiful wedding shower with Susie (in the photo on my right) leading the way and hosting at her home. Thank you sooo much! Since I didn't know where we were headed after the wedding we made it a hat theme..I love hats. This photo is of a group of girls I spent every Shabbat with in my last year of college and two years working for Hillel in London. I'm excited to say that Sarah (second from the left) just got engaged yeyyyy!!
I can't wait to dance at her wedding G-d willing very soon!
 |
| Shabbat Crew at the Wedding Shower |
As wonderful as every moment was since our engagement the highlight still remains our wedding. I can't even begin to express the crazy amount of love and joy I felt on that day particularly at the bedeken (veiling) and chuppah (ceremony)...we were on the highest high. In Jewish tradition a bride and groom don't see each other for a week before the wedding but since Chaim arrived exactly a week before the day we actually hadn't seen each other for a month!
The first two photos below are the first time we laid eyes on each other that day. We both felt like it lasted for at least 5 whole minutes but when we watched the video it was just a few seconds.
Time had literally stood still for us :)
After celebrating the most beautiful sheva brachot and taking a little more time to chill out after the wedding we headed to Italy. Chaim and I still had a lot of work to complete for our M.A. degrees but we didn't want to just hang around Toronto. We decided to find a place somewhere beautiful that was cheaper to rent and live in than Toronto and secluded enough for us to get some real work done. You can read more about our trip in the post below but here are a few highlights.
 |
| Arriving in Campobasso train station, it was pretty late. |
We really spent most of our time doing work as you can see below, the other half the time we cooked and ate really well! While we didn't do much travelling our touring we had a wonderful experience.
 |
| Writing a paper on our patio |
 |
| Studying while waiting for our train |
Since we didn't tour too much we also didn't really bring much back with us. A couple little gifts for family, a very cool wax stamp with our last initial, an album to put some photos in and welll I guess one more extra special thing.
 |
| Reading notes on the lawn by our house in Italy |
:)
Most of you reading this already know...
Although for some of you it could still be a surprise...
YEYYYYYYYY!
We are expecting a new little life to join us soon!
So we've decided to stay grounded in Toronto just for now, unsure of where or when we'll be headed out but we are happy to be here, close to family and our friends here. As you can imagine life is pretty busy, we're about to move into a new place, Chaim is working like mad developing an amazing start up, and I'm doing an internship over the summer with Shoresh among other things that still need to get done, aaaaand we still have some seriously past due thank you cards waiting to get out (sorry :S).
All of this plus baby!
Soooo if you are around in Toronto and we don't hang out much or call, or if you're out of town and think we have forgotten about you, we promise we love you and you mean a whole lot to us!
So send us a hello, come by and visit, we miss you, we really do and we totally would be happy to be pulled out of our place for an ice cream or a drink or just a call to catch up.
So with that we are sending you all our love and hoping to be in touch soon with the great news!
Chaim & Tamar + 1
