Happy New Year 2016

Hello Hello!!!

Wishing you all a VERY Happy New Year!!!

How were the holidays? Hope you all enjoyed some quality family time, and/or had time for yourself. I know some of you took vacations and I hope your travels were fun.

Sorry for the disappearing act last month. I was hoping to write a lot more than I did, but for some reason, whenever I sat to pen down things, I lost my motivation to write. I just wanted to read, read, read and so that's pretty much what I did during all my spare time.

We took a week long vacation to the Palm Desert in Southern California. From hiking in the snow at an altitude of 9000 feet with snow gear and a sled, to off-roading in a hummer at Joshua Tree National Park, we had a grand time. Throughout our trip, I never got tired of the 100's of windmills on I-10, always tuned to the winds, churning slowly, all day and all night long. The sunsets were fantastic as well. I fell in love with this area.

We were fortunate and were able to stay out of most touristy areas during our trip. We had rented a private condo, so we stayed out of the resorts. We also made most of our meals at home, so avoided the crowded restaurant scene. We saw lots of Christmas lights, met extended family, and even spent an awesome quiet but educational day at the local Children's museum.

The kids and I spent a few days after our trip at my sister's house, getting pampered by my parents. My mom cooked, cooked and cooked. We ate and slept, on repeat, during our time with them. She also cooked loads of stuff for us to freeze before she left for India last week. Mum is my star, and whenever I get lazy around the kitchen, one thought about her brings me back to action.

After my parents left for India on the 31st, we met loads of friends in the bay area. Conversations, dining out, games, coffee outings - it was a different kind of fun and relaxation.

When we returned home after 2 weeks, it didn't feel that we were very much in California the entire time. It felt we had traveled several countries and met so many people. We saw snow, rain, desert, new vegetation, Joshua trees, loads of cacti, windmills, tons of airplanes at the Air Museum near SF, rolling green hills and cloud covered vistas during our drives....and so much more. Nature truly treated us this time, and I am very grateful for that.

Our local friends waited for us to celebrate the new year, so once we returned, we partied with them and caught up. Here are a couple of pictures from the party....the kids' gang and a family portrait...

I gifted myself a "kindle unlimited" subscription for my birthday in November, and since then, I've read atleast 30 books, if not more. I stayed up on most nights after the kids slept to read, and after ages, I felt satiated on that front.

The kids are back in school, and I am back at work as of this morning. We are rested, and relaxed, and are looking forward to a couple weeks of solid rain and snow in NorCal. We have more outings planned for later this month and then again in Feb, and I can't wait for summer when I have 2.5 months off this - Sabbatical - can't wait to start planning it!!

What are your 2016 plans :)? I'm listening!!

Giving

Hi there....how have all of you been?

Sorry for the disappearance from the blog. Many posts were drafted but not posted. So many pictures have been clicked and are waiting to be shown off :).

And SO much has been going through my mind these last few weeks. Mostly good stuff, which is nice.

To summarize - we traveled, we fell sick, we traveled some more, we fell sick some more, and when we were not traveling or sick, we enjoyed the local holiday outings. I finally have a winter where I'm BAKING quite a bit. We setup our Christmas tree, and are full-on into the Holiday spirit.

Being non-Christians, we don't really have any traditions. And we may form a handful of them, centered around giving, but nothing more. The daughter goes to school and has learnt many Carols. It's fun to listen to her chanting "Jingle Bells" "Rudolph the Reindeer" all day long. She CANNOT wait for Christmas, as she is eager to open her presents. We have wrapped some and put them under our tree.

So, coming back to the title of this post, "Giving" - a lot of what I've been doing this holiday season is centered around it.

Today morning, I brought homemade breakfast for two of my colleagues at work. Leftover "upma" for one, who is north-Indian, and claims "upma" for be his favorite food. He totally enjoyed his surprise breakfast at his desk. The second colleague, who is a Palestinian, got to try my "banana nut bread" which I baked with almond+coconut flour, without using any sugar or butter or white flour. It was healthy, moist, and had a wonderful flavor from the cinnamon and vanilla extract that I added to it. He LOVED his surprise too.

On Wednesday morning, I'm baking cookies to take to the Retirement Home near the city library. We are going as a group from work, and one of our colleagues has a relative who stays there, and told us that they were a very lonely bunch, with no one to talk with and rare visitors. I can't wait to meet them and make them happy, even if it is just for a couple of hours.

As I do every year, I adopted a family this year for Christmas gifts. This time, it was a single mom close to my age, with a 11 year old girl and a 3 year old boy. The girl wanted "Hello Kitty" stuff, whereas the boy wanted "Mickey stuff". The mama, who was practical, wanted a nice jacket for herself, and some home items. I had a great time shopping for all the gifts. The mama got a really nice Columbia jacket (pink, which was her requested color), and an oversized blanket to share. The kids got most of their requested items. I went above my budget to fulfill most of their needs. It is done anonymously, however, they will send me a letter and hopefully a picture (sometimes,  I don't get pictures) of the family opening their presents on Christmas Day. I'm anxiously waiting :)!

We also have a trip lined up to visit the local church who feeds the homeless once a month. We will go in the first week of January, as December did not work out with our schedules. The daughter will join me this time, and I'm curious to see what she thinks of the experience.

For the daughter's preschool holiday party on Friday this week, we have to pick a gift (voluntary) for her teacher. I will go shopping this week....hopefully I can find something that she really wants but won't buy for herself :). A turtle-neck sweater, with a balaclava (I know she wants one) is on my mind.

I also sent a pair of "golite" gloves to my friend A's mom, who is 74 yrs old, and lives in Wales. They are so lightweight and warm, that she will use them all winter long.

And I just sent out an email to my local friends list for Christmas day brunch at our house, where all the families who join will play the "white elephant gift exchange" game. The gift will be $$ limited and it will be interesting to see what each family picks with the given constraints :).

I have never enjoyed the holiday season so much. And there's still 10 more days to go. I've not been a consumerist (we have hardly "bought" stuff for ourselves) but I've still been able to participate in my own ways in the "season of giving".

What have you been upto :)?

Holidays 2012 - a photo post

I've been meaning to post a few pictures from the last couple weeks of fun times we've had, but everyone in the house is sick, especially the baby who is just miserable.....so I could not find the time, until now that is :).

We had a full house over the Christmas break - mum n dad are here, and sister was visiting with her hubby. The daughter loved all the Christmas lights in the neighborhood as well as a couple other places that we took her to. She got wonderful gifts - a train table that we set up for her on Christmas Eve and a personalized big sister book with lots of fun stuff inside.

We also got a family photoshoot done - didn't spend much time at the studio coz the baby was cranky, but it's going to be a while before we are all under one roof again, so I wanted a memory of that.

The daughter fell sick on Christmas eve, and she was very miserable and cranky. But the baby was okay, so we got him dressed up in his Christmas outfit. I clicked some pictures and did a comparison of both their first Christmas outfit pictures :)....ain't they both so cute and precious :)? and don't they look so alike?

At the studio, they were both very un-cooperative....so we only managed a few shots of both of them...none smiling, but memorable nevertheless....

We had lots of fun moments at home. We did shopping, packing, repacking, cooking/baking, a nice dinner outside, and loads of playtime with both the kids. Maasa-Maasi took the daughter out one morning to a new pretend-play place in town...she had so much fun, didn't want to come back.....I think that's where she brought the virus from and got the whole house sick, including herself!

This is the baby doing tummy time on the bed with me....

He then did potty so I had to change him....but before I put his clothes on, I clicked a picture of his chubbiness.....

 The baby is blessed - grandparents entertain him every minute he is awake.....

This is the daughter on her recliner chair.....taking part in the conversations happening at home....she looks so grown up!

And this is her doing the "Sai Baba" pose upon request....

She dressed up to visit the pretend play center with her maasa-maasi, and wanted to wear naani's bindi....

 And this is both of them...listening to Mozart tunes in the crib.....they both find it very calming.....

We clicked a few pictures of the Christmas lights....

The daughter is very much into gymnastics - I can't believe how tall she is....

I caught the son smiling away in his rocker chair a few times....

And I'll end the post here.....there's tons of pictures but I'm totally under the weather today - fever, headache, earache, runny nose, and cough.....and it's so cold outside.....I have not felt this way in quite some time so I will get some much needed rest!

Happy Holidays!

The Holidays

I've been in the US almost 12 years, and to be honest, I've never really enjoyed the holiday season much. It's usually a depressing time, with dark evenings and cold nights, no family around, no traditions to follow, and not much to do outdoors.

Over a period of time, I've gotten used to the weather atleast.....infact, I can even say that I quite enjoy wearing my coat and boots and stepping out everyday. I have even tried skiing and snowboarding - I hated skiing but loved snowboarding. I've tried snowmobiling and snowshoeing as well, and I quite enjoy being out in the mountains during this season. Although, given a choice, I would take a flight back home to see my family anyday...and I've done that many times.

This year, however, feels different. It's the first time we have the daughter around during the holidays (last year we were in India and she was only 5 months old) and I feel excited, happy, eager to do things that everyone does during this time. To begin with, we ordered custom stockings for everyone - mine needs to be put up but the rest are up :).

Next on the list was the Christmas tree. I don't like to spend much on things that cannot be used year round, and occupy space in the garage. I'm not much of a consumerist, and lately, I have been going the minimalist route on everything (more on that in another post). So I wanted a Christmas tree, but did not want to spend much....also we could not get a huge one coz the daughter would get to it, and with the lights and ornaments, it would be hazardous. I was discussing this dilemma over lunch with a colleague, and he generously offered me this tree that was lying in his garage. Its PERFECT - it's small, has lights (fiber optic strands) that blink and change colors, and it sits pretty in the corner of our family room. The daughter is smitten - she loves the color "blue" and waits for the lights to turn that color, and also says "blink blink blink" all day. She insists we keep the lights on ALL day, and we gladly oblige :).

We took her for Santa pictures last weekend, and she was extremely cranky when we first got there. So we stepped aside and let her play in the toy area, and she fell in love with the pretend-play kitchen, and was back to her smiling personality :). The red dress gives such an Xmassy feel - I love it :)!

We also took her to the holiday lights show at the Folsom Zoo. We saw Santa (again :)), billions of lights, a bear mascot (who she called "Pooh") and lots of nocturnal cats playing in their pens. A lot of zoo volunteers were around, and were educating us about the animals. A couple cool things that stayed with me:
- How do you know whether the animal is a prey or a predator? It's from the eyes. If it looks straight, its a predator. If it looks sideways, its prey.
- Cougars (or mountain lions) - They have one of the best BMI's of all cats. They are ambush predators, and hunt mainly deer here in California.

Here are a few pictures from our zoo outing:

It's also funny that the daughter calls Santa "Baba". We have taught her a morning ritual of doing jayjay to Sai Baba's picture in our family room, and bowing down to him. She can also say "Sai Baba". Now she thinks any bearded dressed up man is Baba, and Santa perfectly fits this thinking of hers :).

Now coming to the gifts. So far, we've bought many small but useful gifts for the daughter. We have 3 books, a hat+mitten set, a couple wooden puzzle sets, and a toy. She's getting few things from her maasi (aunt) and close friends of ours. Her naani-maa has already shipped her a box full of custom-tailored outfits.....they are so cute, I wish I could wear them :). I know she's spoilt rotten by everyone, but looking at the infinite amount of joy she brings into each of our lives, she deserves all of this, and much more.

Last couple nights, she's been a laughing riot before bedtime. I had tears of joy looking at her - giggling, laughing, giving kisses, doing stunts - just being so content and happy - last night, before she went to bed. Our ritual is - after masti-time, I hug her tight, softly whisper a prayer in her ears, and she falls asleep by the time the prayer is done. I can tell from her breathing how soundly she is asleep. And I only leave once she's into deep sleep, her breathing has settled, and she's at peace, and looks content. I can never get tired of admiring her beauty or simply just gazing at her while she's asleep. Its absolutely my most favorite thing to do. I find it irresistible to not eat her up at that time.

It's only this profound happiness and joy that the daughter brings into our lives is going to make the holidays so special this year. This is our real gift, and our choicest blessing! Everything else is just wrapping paper around it!

Happy Holidays 2011 - from our family to yours :)!