Long weekend of fun with friends

It all started with the potluck dinner at our place on Friday with our 'Shakha' friends (Shakha means branch in Hindi and I am referring to our local branch of HSS - Hindu Swaymsevak Sangh where we go every Sunday evening to do yoga , play games and learn about various aspects of Hindu religion and culture). Yum dinner of Chole Bhature, Medhu Vadas, mango-peach salsa, vegetable Pulao, Raita and Kheer was followed by a really enjoyable session of piano and songs by some very talented friends in the group. Great evening indeed !
On Sunday we joined same group of friends and  'Kishores' (teenagers' group in HSS) for a day camp in Umstead Park. The kids went on a 3 miles long hike, did 'Charcha' (discussion) on various topics such as ways to stop companies to patent what has always been common knowledge in India about benefits and medicinal usage of plants and trees, what can be done to stop cow slaughtering and increase the milk production in India.  Kids showed a lot of interest and participation. After Pizza lunch and some games Anurag gave them 'Baudhik' (a talk ) on the life of Swami Vivekananda. A few Kishores were going to go to a sleepover afterwards and somehow everyone in the group got invited for this dinner. An impromptu plan turned out to be a feast and fun with a game of table tennis, piano, singing, 'antyakshari' and dumb-charades. Neev started 'antyakshari' by shyly singing Vivekananda song in his honey voice and got a round of applause by everyone. My sweet child hid his face but I could tell that he thoroughly enjoyed the attention.
All in all a great long weekend of some good discussion and fun with a great bunch of people !!

Avi's first Chess Tournament and win

Last Sunday on July 21st Avi participated in his first chess tournament and came in the first place after playing 3 games and winning them all. His USCF rating is 911 as of today. Its a great feeling and we are so proud of him. In the next tournament he will be up for a really tough challenge. Congratulations son and good luck for the next tournament !

Sunny & Musical Sunday

Feeling quite accomplished after finally spreading the mulch in the lawn, cleaning the garage and vacuuming two cars, all in a 92 degree hot day. Naturally a reward was in order and it turned out to be a music video evening at home with our Harmon Kardon surround sound system. Gotta love my hubby for setting it up few years ago. The choice of the music today was an hour long sound track of 'Lord of the rings' , another medley of it performed by Lindsey Stirling, sound track of Star Wars, movie trailers of 'Man of Steel' and Gregorian's 'Unforgiven'. If you are wondering, in my family I am a minority and hence the chic flick sort of material never gets played on family nights :) Our 8 years old has a way of surprising us and the latest one is his memory of all the sound tracks with different scenes in trilogy of 'Lord of the rings' . I have to say, I quite enjoyed myself watching my boys listening to the music and saying things like , 'oh that's a shire song', 'that's when Smeagol found the ring', 'that's when Aragorn was leading the army'. Avi has finished reading 'Lord of the rings' , watched the trilogy 2 times , has done 'Star Wars' marathon session with his Dad last summer and recently checked out the latest 'Star Wars Ultimate visual Guide' from the library which weighs a ton. I don't know which term is more respectful 'Nerd' or 'Geek' but I know I have one in making already (following into his Dad's footsteps). I am not the one complaining, in fact I am quite a fan of "Big Bang Theory's" boys :)

We finished the session with Anurag's favorite 'Unforgiven' by Gregorian. Its originally done by Mettalica but Anurag loves this version. After you get over the trance and struggle to figure out the lyrics, you realize its pretty deep. The chorus goes like this -
What I've felt
What I've known
Never shined through in what I've shown
Never be
Never see
Won't see what might have been
What I've felt
What I've known
Never shined through in what I've shown
Never free
Never me
So I dub thee UNFORGIVEN

Give it a listen, its not something you might enjoy the first time but like a lot of things we come to love, it grows on you !

Crafty Saturday

Waking up at 8 AM today to take kids to Home Depot's workshop was totally worth it. They made one of the cars from 'Despicable me 2 ', painted it blue and decorated it with stickers. We have been taking advantage of these 'build and grow' workshops by Lowes and Home Depot this summer. Boys built a Monsters Chest from 'Monsters U' couple weeks ago which was really neat. For mother's day Lowes had a project of creating 'Sweetheart frame' in heart shape. What can I say, I don't mind the loud thuds of hammers around me at all when I see my little builders at work in their cute aprons and work goggles.
Thank you Home Depot and Lowes !

Laughter Crackers

Scene : Summer afternoon and Avi, Neev playing 'Sorry' (board game) with Mommy. Each time Neev draws a sorry card, Avi bribes him to not bump his pawn in return for a million prizes and every time Neev obliges him. At some point of time I tell Neev , "Avi is taking you for a ride Neev" and Neev responds , " its okay Mommy , I quite like the rides. I get to scream at the top of my lungs" .

Last year Neev's teacher shared this with us during a conference-
Once while reading a book and trying to engage Neev, she asked him a question about the story and Neev said, "but I did not raise my hand".

He is really the funny one in family :)

4th of July 2013

We Celebrated America's birthday in spectacular style at Cary’s Booth Amphitheater with patriotic performances by the Cary Town Band and the North Carolina Symphony.

We were disappointed that there were no boats to watch  from the Triangle Model Yacht Club on Symphony Lake but may be we were late and they had already sailed.

Music combined with family-friendly activities, national anthem sung really well by Miss NC 2012, good food, some familiar faces from kids' classes and a dazzling display of fireworks made 4th of July really nice but most of all it was spreading the blanket by the side of the lake and spending some great family time appreciating all kinds of freedom that this amazing country offers which made it special.  Happy Birthday America !

Mindblowing Architecture

Check out the architecture of the buildings in the pictures ! Zaha Hadid has designed buildings which make me feel that I am watching a delicate symphony of Ballet and Martial Arts . Also watch the videos of Zhang Xin's interviews . In her words "where there are problems, there are opportunities" !

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/07/02/business/richer-than-trump-or-oprah/index.html?hpt=hp_c3