for my record

Activities kids surprised me with:

Anvi ate 'bombil's.. i.e a fish called 'bombay duck'. This is actually an acquired taste. My 3 yr old liked them and ate a couple. Was then saying 'gimme bombil '

Urvi's grandma told her to to get the clothes out of the washer so that they can be dried. In marathi, word for clothes drying is 'su-khaYla' and 'su' means 'to pee'. This messed her up.. she was wondering why the clothes should be taken out and one should pee on them.


More stories - but I forgot about..

all the airlines

Looks like every time I take a different airline to visit India. I wil try and list the different airlines. Whatever happened to airline loyalty??

2009: Cathay Pacific (to be completed)
2008: Eva Airlines (unfortunately - they shut down their service to Mumbai)
2007: Korean Airlines (This is the fastest way to get from San Francisco to Mumbai)
2006 -- none - Anvi was born
2005 - KLM / Northwest (The airline I have flew the most with)
2004 -- none - Urvi was born
2002 - Lufthansa?
2000 - KLM?
1998 - when I got married - came on Singapore airlines.
1998 - KLM ?
1996 - KLM
1995 - Delta
..... and more.. My first flight to US was on Delta, KLM always provided good connections when I was in Omaha. So many trips and I have not tried to use any of the miles..

4th july

Long weekend is over. We had a blast. The Fremont 4th July parade was almost in our backyard - It was on Warm Springs Blvd.. so walking distance. We carried our chairs and snacks and walked over. The parade was almost 2 hrs and well organized. Baloons, cars, bikes, fire engines, etc all made their presence.
Had family friends over - and then we did a bbq. bbq had good variety and we had good fun. Relaxed for some time - and the little ones had a nap. Then - it was time to relax in the pool. Couple of hours in the pool was great - the water was warm and the kids had a blast.
Then a cup of tea - and then we picked up sandwiches from Subway and headed for fireworks at Milpitas sports center. Found street parking and then carried sleeping bags to the grounds. Got a good place at 8.30 pm .. and enjoyed the show. Kids were tired and fell asleep by the time we rolled back home at 10.30pm.

Was a nice relaxing 4th..

bbq

Gas barbecue grills win from the convenience point of view.
After doing several coal bbq's over the years, I have switched to a gas bbq now.
We had an inexpensive bbq that we got 6 yrs back - but that totally killed the joy of bbq.

This yr we upgraded to the weber 310. Its a smaller grill - but sufficient for the family (plus a few friends) The net effect is that we had a record 3 bbq's in the past week. We do simple menus that include burgers / suasages etc. But the convenience is terrific.
Lesson learned : dont go for the inexpensive bbq grill + get a gas grill (unless you have a real lot of time on your hand)

Fruits in California

Fruit overkill!

Current stash of fruits at home:

• Watermelon
• Bananas
• Rasberries
• Blackberries
• Peaches
• Nectarines
• Apricots
• Apples
• Plums (house tree)
  

Here are my options:

• sell some of
• give some away ( I will be giving plums starting tomorrow)
• go on a fruit diet
• make shakes... but these berries and stone fruit are not very suitable.

I am hoping these will not go waste..

Urvi's Question

Mothers day 2009: We watched the IMAX movie "Everest" at the Tech museum. Was decent. Urvi found it hard to concentrate on the movie. In the movie, one of the narrators mission was to install/keep a GPS device on Everest to monitor the mountains movements. Urvi got that part. As the movie was ending, she asked me "Where is the GPS?". I told her - it is on the mountain. Next question: "Why did they not bring it back? Did they forget their GPS on the mountain?"

Hmmm. Innocence!

Anvi logic

Santoshi was changing the bedsheets of the bed. Anvi was trying to help in every possible way. After Santoshi was almost done,
Anvi: Now its my turn. Lets change the bedsheets of my bed
Santoshi: We already changed the sheets of your bed 2 days back.
Anvi : ??
Santoshi: You wet the bed - and then I had to change the sheets in the middle of the night.
Anvi : So, mamma, did you wet your bed?


And I was almost rolling with laughter.......