Right now....

I have been up since 45 minutes, and the rest of the family is still asleep.

To be blessed with such a blissful pocket of time, especially after a night of Garba dancing, where I danced till I got blisters on my feet, is precious!

I had such a good time last night at Garba, I'm still on a high. After 4 years, I danced until I got blisters on my feet. One of the blisters broke, and as the daughter looked at it, said, "mumma bud is coming out". {a minor one, nothing to worry about}.

I came home and took a long, hot shower. Hot water and hot showers are very high on my list of luxuries that I am grateful for. Every single time I step into the shower, I express my gratitude for the luxury.

The cleaning lady came yesterday afternoon and the whole house is sparkling clean today morning.

I made butternut squash soup for dinner last night, and the aroma of nutmeg, cinnamon, bay leaves and the vegetables is still lingering in the house.

It's sunny and warm outside. I can't wait for the kiddos to wake up and take them out for a walk.

I am soaking in the warmth of the sunshine and the quiet in the house as I write this post, and feeling blissful!!!!

Weekending

The last few weekends were filled with activities....garba (3 times), pumpkin patch outing, Halloween trick or treat events (4 of them), apple hill visit, etc - it involved lots of dressing up....driving around town.....clicking pictures.....resulting in happy times and happy memories.

The daughter absolutely loves garba now....she dances to garba tunes every morning and evening in the house....she keeps singing "Sanedo Sanedo lal lal Sanedo" all day.....and this mumma of hers could not be happier to see her daughter share her passion for garba :)!

Here are some pictures from our various outings....

For our annual pumpkin patch outing, we picked a small local pumpkin farm.....the kiddo at first did not like being there....but after the hay ride she warmed up and liked the place....she did not seem too interested in petting the animals or the pony ride....

We went for Garba 3 times.....by the third outing, she was hooked....the music, the colorful outfits, the dancing in circles, sanedo, chhuk chhuk gaadi for kids - she loved it all....

R does not like to wear dresses or Indian outfits at all - her favorite outfit to don is her pajamas or shorts with tees....so for this girl to willingly put on her chaniya choli that matched mine perfectly and let her dad take our picture is like winning the jackpot....these pictures are even more precious for that reason.....

My little man stayed home this year....we managed to dress him up for a few minutes at home and click these pictures....he is too little to be comfortable in such outfits and started crying right away, so I didn't even try to get him to smile or make him sit upright in his carseat (which I usually do to get him to pose).....but hey, this is good enough for this year :)

The same thing happened with Halloween....we tried to put on an outfit and he was so uncomfortable....I could not even get him to stop crying......he had several choices of borrowed outfits, out of which I tried putting on a robot one. Maybe after a week or so I will try again and see if he co-operates :).....

The daughter dressed up as Snow White - and we hit our second jackpot when she fell in love with her dress. She wore it for all her trick or treat outings......and enjoyed looting all the candy.....out of all her loot, she enjoys munching on her N&M's the most :)!

R's camera "happy face" below - if you say you want a picture so give me your happy face, you get this - LOL!

We also managed to go to Apple Hill for our annual apple picking outing.....the last few years mom and dad have always been here with us and they enjoy it more than we do. This year we went to an organic farm (after all, apples are part of the dirty dozen) and it was a good decision....the farm is small, and well managed. It was not crowded, and it did not have any other marketing distractions that other popular farms do. Here are a few pictures.....

That's all for now.....gearing up for the baby's first Diwali and the holiday season here!

Vibha Dandia 2008

I volunteer for a non-profit organization Vibha - which works to ensure that every underprivileged child attains his or her right to education, health and opportunity (http://wiki.vibha.org/Main_Page).

We organize a Vibha Dandia Event every year for our local Sacramento chapter. This event is not as popular as other Vibha events in our area. We did not make any money from this event last year, so we were thinking of canceling the event this year. But a few of us were motivated to keep this event going and gather some funds to do our little bit for Vibha.

The venue was booked and the date was set for 27th September. However, the "Dhol Baaje" band that we book every year had a conflict. Our efforts to arrange for an alternate band were not successful. Our chapter co-ordinator persuaded us to form a band from our volunteer base.

The event advertised a live band, so we had to have one. We found one volunteer to play the dhol and few volunteers who are good singers. The band was formed :)!

We also booked a DJ for the event - the band could not perform for the entire duration of the event, so we decided to do a combination of DJ and live band. I gathered few garba CDs and met with the DJ to co-ordinate the music for the event.

The band started practice only 10 days before the event.We BROKE the dhol we had borrowed during our very first practice. We got it fixed and returned it to the owner. Most of our singers were non-gujju, so they started practising few garba songs and they did a fantastic job picking up the Gujarati Garba lyrics. In the meantime, I contacted the "DHOL BAAJE" band and was able to get a DHOL for the event.

Now comes the day of the event. We had sold less than 50 tickets - TOTAL. I was very very nervous. I got ready around 5pm and reached the venue to help with the arrangements. My nervousness was obvious. Slowly, people started coming. It was mostly non-Indians and NRI teenagers (some with their parents). Around 7pm, we started the DJ music.

I started dancing, along with my sister and few other friends. And then everyone joined. And more people came. And they kept coming :)

We stopped the DJ music, introduced our live band - and they performed. Everyone loved it. Everyone was dancing.

Most of the crowd was non-gujjus and we were giving garba/dandia lessons to whoever was interested.

The event was a huge success with more than 200 people attending. I had to leave around 10.30pm as my parents were leaving for India the next day, but my friends said everyone was dancing and enjoying until midnight.

I came home with a feeling of content - of having made a positive impact on the future of India, of having helped an underprivileged child with his basic rights.

Here are a few pictures from the event: