The start of Yad B’Yad 2017 was certainly a day to remember!! We all arrived at the shul in Highland Park ready to start the summer. When everyone was together we began with the essentials, dancing, pizza and making new friends. After a delicious lunch and some great dance moves we headed to the bowling alley with our newly assigned attendance groups. Post getting wet from a little rain our groups began to bond and bowl (a bit competitively we might add). Then we went back to our hosts homes to prepare for shabbos and unpack (our hosts were delightful and fully equipped with incredible food). We went back to shul all ready for shabbos and had a beautiful Kabbalat Shabbat. We played human guess who and had a few ice breakers before our delicious shabbos meal which was centered around Jewish and Israeli leaders. Then it was time for circle time where we heard a dvar Torah and sang awesome songs (my favorite was pizza man!!) The night ended with some more snacks from our hosts and fun chills with our friends! Shabbos day, after davening, we split into our learning groups and did an activity about leadership. We learned how different leaders succeed based on their environments and talked about the qualities of a leader. Then we had shabbos lunch, seated in birthday order to mix it up!! We had another circle time and took a break for menucha. We reconvened at the house of Josh Schanzer for an oneg (THANKS FOR HOSTING US! The challah was awesome!!). Then we headed back to shul in the beautiful weather for human bingo and then Mincha. We joined the community for Seudat shlishit and Maariv. We ended Shabbos with a beautiful havdala and some intense dancing. Once we settled down we split up into attendance groups for a crazy game of PANOPLY!! (GO GROUPS 4,1 AND 5!!) We ended off the night with ice cream! It was an amazing start to an awesome journey and left us with nothing but excitement for what is to come.

HEY TO THE PARENTS. WE MISS YOU!

-Abby, Shana and Hannah