how was your first date oh it was magical say it like you mean it! how did you know that he she was the one? i'm still not sure light is much better hi everyone and welcome back to sonia's prep in this week's video i have a very special super duper video planned because it is my two year youtube anniversary.
i made it two years and i'm so proud of myself and we have here mr prep himself. he was very highly requested to be in this video so i wanted to just um gear this video towards our i guess marriage our relationship and this is a way of me giving back to my followers because a lot of you have a lot of questions for the two of us so we're gonna take it away would you like to say anything i'm actually a little bit nervous. me too i you should see my first video.
whoever didn't see my first video i am super nervous in that video like my body is tense i'm like yeah hopefully it'll be you're gonna be okay all right okay bring it on okay so for the very first question uh people wanted to know where we live and what kind of jobs we have. mr prep? well we live in new york yes we do i happen to be an hr director at a non-profit organization and i'm a registered nurse i work in a school so i'm a school nurse and the next question is how long have we been married let's see if you know this one.
22 years. shame on you. just kidding we've been married for 15 years and we have five little kiddos uh we have two sets of twins nine years old five years old and a three-year-old baby boy next question is do you have any pets um just the five kids.
no no pets we don't have time for pets we used to have fish and um yeah we don't have time for any pets so whenever my kids asked me for a dog or anything i say i need to take care of you. so next question that was very very highly asked on on the channel was how did you guys meet? great question we actually knew each other for a long time our families both went to the same synagogue so we knew each other as we were kids but we didn't really speak we weren't really friends even though we did go to the same school for a little bit um i'm a year older than she is um and as we got older as we were in college we got reacquainted and the rest is history.
yes so we know each other from the third fourth grade so we go really way back. There were a ton of questions on how we dated what it was like what is dating like in the jewish culture how was your first date did you guys meet through a matchmaker and how did you know that he or she was the one. so where to begin we did not meet through a matchmaker we actually met um actually great questions yeah it is great questions um although a lot of jewish people i guess go through matchmaking but we did not and a lot of our friends actually didn't um would you like to well we i mean we kind of started dating way before social media dating there was no swiping left or swiping right it makes me feel really old actually um you know we knew each other from um our community our parents went to the same synagogue so you know there was definitely a family familiarity and um it's actually an interesting story we were both at an event and i happened to see her and her brother who i knew and he gave me a ride home one day and it just sparked my interest i just figured you know i'm ready to date and i'm gonna ask her out and it was pretty simple i didn't really use a matchmaker although i did go to a friend of hers and ask her what her opinion was and her friend was like go for it so i thought i had the green light and the rest is history.
yep and i guess we started to date when i was 19. he was i was turning 20 he was turning 21 so we were still quite young um yeah but it helped that we actually knew of each other we knew the families um the next question is how did you know that he or she was the one and how long did it take and how long did you date for? i knew that she was the one right away.
so sweet it took me a little longer and we dated for about 20 months it was about a year and a half into a year we got engaged you know we were both fairly young we were both in college undergrad and i was 20 years old and then and we got engaged about a year after right and we had an engagement about eight months which is pretty long in our culture usually people get engaged for about four or five months and they have a wedding but you know we took our time again we were young we were in college we really wanted to finish and be really rooted within our career paths before we begin our lives together and there's been no regrets since right of course um so i was still in college when we got married and so was he he was getting his master's in industrial psychology so it wasn't that um we were waiting like a lot of people wait until we have our full degrees to get married we just knew that i knew he was the one and he knew that i was the one so we wanted to get married and be together. the next question was how did you get engaged and how did he propose so this was very very cute um great story yeah you want to say it or should i well i'll say it um so i it's pretty simple i wanted to do something extravagant so i took her on a hot air balloon at sunrise um it was actually very beautiful very romantic we got way up high in the air um i took out a ring and i said will you marry me and it was just very romantic and she had no choice she said yes. of course he would have thrown me off um but it was funny it was actually like the week of my birthday so i had no clue i thought it was like oh a birthday thing you know we're going on a hot air balloon so it was a very nice surprise.
a lot of people have also asked us about our marriage so i have a few questions here. where do you have date nights and how often? how do you make time for each other with five kids?
so going through the questions i realize that a lot of people want to know how we met how our marriage is like how we make time for each other um you know i happen to take a lot of pride in that you know what we we're young we're energetic so it used to be that we used to go out at least once a week uh and made sure that we'd go on date nights whether we go out to eat or just to go out with friends just to get out of the house to spend some quality time together um it's honestly been a little bit more difficult and as the kids are getting older you know we're trying to get babysitters but we still try to keep to that we go out very regularly spend a lot of time together um it's a lot of excitement we want to be able to get to know each other still there's a lot to talk about and we get very excited when we just get out of the house and spend time on our on our own absolutely so it's definitely something that you do have to schedule because it's very easy to just forget about one another and it's very easy to just get into a routine of waking up in the morning going to work coming home taking care of the kids so just to consciously make it a part of your day to spend time with your spouse. a lot of you also wanted to know who decides what we do in the house who does all the cleaning who does the chores around the house who does the food shopping and why so i do i do do a lot of the chores around the house just because i do it better you know you do a great job too but i just do it better so i'd rather not be annoyed uh but he helps a ton there's no way that i can do this all on my own you guys see how busy my life is and he is a huge part of it he is always there for me and always helping me out he does all the food shopping because he knows how much i dislike it i'm usually home i go straight from work to pick up the kids and if any of you have kids and have ever gone shopping with them it is a disaster so i do not do that and he gladly does it for me i have a whole shopping list that i create i actually did a whole video on how i menu plan and how i have a an amazing shopping list and i'll link that video up above for you so i'm very happy with him doing the shopping yeah i'm actually very good at it i go around the store fairly quickly i know what i'm looking for i know what i need i have my phone with my checklist uh we happen to use google keep yes so we have an entire list of everything that we need so she she'll add things so i'll have things that i know that we ran out of and when i get to the store whether it be costco or a supermarket or a poultry vegetable wherever we are we know exactly what what we need right we go through the list i happen to do it very quickly when i come home i beep from the car and the kids come out they all help me which is great um so i'm very happy to help on that right this is just something that works for us in our family obviously each family is different with how they divide their chores but this is just something that works for us another very highly requested question to be answered was how do you stay in shape with all the yummy foods that you make it's easy you keep eating and you stay around which is also a shape very true um so for me it's just a balance of eating right i usually eat very well during the week and i splurge all weekend or i'll eat very very well throughout the day full day and then at night i'll splurge a little bit um but that's just what i do but i don't deprive myself because just that's just something that has never worked for me as soon as i say i cannot have something it's just on my mind all the time so i let myself have things in increments i actually get this question a lot from my friends my co-workers anybody who's watching uh sony's prep and anybody who knows me the question that i get the most is how are you not 300 pounds your wife is always cooking um so the truth is you know as much as i love her cooking i try to stay away i eat a little bit of the time i try not to over indulge and we try to stay in shape you know i used to go to the gym much more often than i do now but you know staying healthy staying fit taking care of yourself is really important and just not eating everything in sight yes the next question is how do you balance it all job kids house a husband um so i touched upon this in my previous q a video i really it's very hard to balance everything when you have a lot on your plate and i just do my best it's not always a perfect day as what you might see here on youtube sometimes it's a struggle sometimes it's difficult but i think what really keeps me grounded and keeps me sane is just to be as organized as i can possibly be so that i know in my mind what needs to happen what needs to take place and he is very good at helping me as well so that's a huge help in my life honey how do you balance at all life house children day by day we do what we have to do you know it's a it's just it's a pleasure you just gotta do it that's right you just gotta do it that's it there's no excuses um it's also in all in your perspective if you're going to wake up in the morning and think that everything is going to be a drag it'll be a drag but if you have a positive outlook then everything will hopefully come out okay the next question here is what advice do you have for couples who are struggling with shaman bite so that's a very good question by it means peace in the home or harmony between a husband and wife and for me what i feel is so so important between a husband and wife is not to lose respect for one another because i feel like once you lose respect for your spouse it is so much harder to gain it back so i feel like um if you are struggling with strong bite constantly remind yourself of all the good parts in your spouse um for me actually it's learning the love languages you know i have a lot of friends who always talk about what makes uh their wives happy and i i like to give them a lot of my advice because you know from what i understand each person is very different some people like gifts some people like sweet words um so it's very important to learn what your spouse's love languages are and really be able to um fulfill that yeah that's beautiful next question is what was your greatest challenge in life and why so for those of you who've seen my previous q a video you know that we didn't have kids for a little bit we struggled for about six years until we finally had our kids for hashem now we have our beautiful family but it was very difficult to go through that it felt very isolating at times but thank god we are here today with our lovely family um and well in hindsight you know everything works out for the best we really truly believe that and uh it happened to be a blessing in disguise you know we were able to strengthen the foundation of our marriage we were able to travel get to know each other better um and of course we appreciate our beautiful family ever more now right i think that a lot of people ask me how are you always so calm around your kids even though i don't see it but i guess that's like coming you're never calm it's edited videos she's always commenting the videos you know i'm gonna have to do bloopers just have a camera and follow you around the house actually i think people really appreciate stop it the next few questions are everything related to the shabbat and cooking so i have here where do you where did you learn how to cook and what is your favorite meal so i touched upon this in my first q a as well i learned how to cook from my mom from my mother-in-law from watching food network from different cookbooks but i really didn't get so much into it until i was like 14 years old the first thing i learned how to make was like a soup because i was like the easiest thing my mom said and then it just evolved my palette evolved i was always curious to learn new recipes and to do a beautiful tablescapes so and then what's my favorite meal i'm a very simple girl if i'm home alone and i want something to eat i love to make myself some french fries with some garlic and dill and i just love it so i'm very simple with that that's like my favorite go-to thing to do shai you wanna how did you learn how to cook i don't know how to cook not at all um i mean i know my way around the kitchen you know it has to be things that you enjoy um actually a lot of our friends don't necessarily know how to cook and that's something that you get it's a question that you get sometimes right um is it something that you uh feel obligated to do or is it something that you enjoy doing i love i love cooking and i think i think you could see that through the videos that i truly enjoy and that i'm not doing it because i have to and that's why we're such a good pair because i love to eat so i like to cook and he loves seeds match made in heaven how do you decide what you're going to cook so i decide by asking my husband what he wants by asking my kids what they want because i actually want the foods that i cook to be eaten i know some people who just cook whatever they want to cook no matter what their kids or their spouse wants i i don't do that i really literally ask them what do you want to eat and i have a whole rotating list of menus that i have and i try to make them happy by cooking what they like to eat you know actually many families cater to different kids to ask them what do you want to eat and then make different things at night um and we don't do that yeah we're very i'm very impressed with sonia you know she sticks to her guns we make one meals and if the kids say they don't like it we just say simply nobody asked you right and we don't have to try it and then if they don't like it they eat just a slice of bread with whatever cream cheese or whatever they want but they do have to try everything what is your husband's favorite and least favorite meal that you make be careful with this one i like everything she makes good answer no i'm not so picky i mean there are some types of foods that i just don't like um you know just as a palette thing but i you know i happen to pretty much love everything that my wife cooks you have a favorite i love pasta yeah he does he's a dairy guy i love dairy um anything with pasta really so this question i guess they maybe didn't see a few of your videos the shino had a cook so he doesn't really know how to cook but he he can make something for himself and he actually did a few videos i'll have them linked up above and below for you guys to see and he did such a great job thank you yeah and actually i got a lot of feedback on them you know i don't really know how to cook it's not one of my fourth days and i can do it i can get by i can definitely feed the kids so they don't starve if someone's not around but our fridge is usually stocked there's always an option we also have um some frozen items so there's always something and i'm able to uh make what we will do but i do know my way around the kitchen you know for those of you who don't know i happen to love to bake i've been baking ever since i was a kid i have a lot of different staples uh some of them were debuted on sony's prep um and hopefully there'll be a few more yes actually leave me your comments down below do you want to see shy cooking more in the kitchen no no no no no don't comment about that why um what is your least favorite meal to cook so my husband loves things with dough like he said pasta he loves pilmeni and manti these are all like bucharian dishes that are so super hard to make at least i feel so um and for those of you who don't know what montia is or they're similar to dumplings but they're homemade yeah they're homemade soon she'll make a video on it and you'll get to see it and i'll get to eat it i don't think so so those things are just hard for me to make because they're tedious and they're time-consuming so i would only make it if like my grandmother was around or my mom or my mother-in-law were around to help me so those are like my least favorite things to make have you ever thought of making a cookbook i have so many questions on this and absolutely he's like my cheerleader always telling me you got to do it you got to do it i just don't have the time right now but that is definitely something that i want to do in the future when i just have a little time to breathe right i think you should do it one day one day we're gonna do it and next question is describe a day in your life it looks like you are incredibly busy and do you stop sleep do you stay up all night and cook so no um i don't definitely don't stay up all night and cook we wake up in the morning pretty early right 6 30ish shy goes to shul for services he does his morning prayers i wake up at around 6 45 6 50 i get myself ready i usually have the kids clothing prepared from the night before so when the kids wake up they know exactly what to put on and then shy comes home he takes over getting the rest of the kids ready with breakfast and i am out the door by 7 15 so i can make it to work on time did i miss anything no no yeah um what is your sleep routine like so um it's not that great but it's not terrible i usually go to sleep around 11 11 30 and i'm up by 6 50.
