Dharma Bee Regionals

Today I am so proud of Avi for winning the regional level Dharma Bee in his age group (a national competition to honor and celebrate Swami Vivekananda's 150th birth anniversary). Both Avi and Neev participated at city level. Avi won and went on to represent North Carolina at regional level today and came in the first place. Now he will be representing Southern States including NC, SC etc. at national level in Chicago. He will get to visit all the prominent landmarks associated with Parliament of world religions including a visit to the Art Institute of Chicago where Swami Vivekananda gave his famous speech. Avi had tough tie breaker rounds for first place. Of all the age groups, this group's performance was most fantastic. All the children had prepared so well and it was evident from the close score. In the end it was Avi against Niveditha. I think there were around 9 tie breaker questions and the audience thoroughly enjoyed the fire round.
It was a great experience and I am happy for my baby ! Congratulations Beta !!



 

First warm day of March 2013- Kite festival

On a warm beautiful Saturday I took the kids to Bond Park for Kite Festival. After numerous unsuccessful trials of flying the kits the frustrations rose up and we headed to the lake to cool our tempers down. Turned out it was a great idea. Feeding the ducks and playing at the beach with pebbles, drawing nonsense stuff in the wet sand mud was excellent therapy while soaking up the sun. Afterwards kids enjoyed hanging from monkey -bars, singing made-up songs. We hadn't packed a change but cleaned up pretty well and enough to stop at Goodberry's for ice-cream before returning home. Welcome spring ! 

Trip to India - Nov 2012 to Feb 2013

This November all of us visited India and returned to USA in February. A dream like trip with lots of quality time with family and precious meeting with two of my dearest friends Gauri and Yajshri. Met them after a dozen years. So much has happened since then - husbands, kids, homes, careers and yet felt like we were just our old selves - thank goodness for that feeling with some friends !
Baba (my grandfather) is 94 years now.  I am so proud of my Dad for taking such good care of him. He himself will turn 71 this May.
Celebrated lots of birthdays - Anurag's , Dad's and Avi's. Anurag enjoyed a surprise gathering and delicious cake by my Brother and Bhabhi ( the real surprise was a firecracker like sound along with flowing shiny confetti on him while he was cutting cake :)) . Dad treated us all with a party on his birthday and surprise of surprises , my Uncle from Sydney joined in the celebration after braving a traffic jam on Mumbai-Pune highway. Even though he was on a business trip, he traveled all that much just to spend few hours with the family. Avi turned 8 on January 1st and had a grand party with the family in Hotel Greenpark Pune with angry birds cake from Four Season's bakery shop (it was the yummiest 2 tier cake ever with white cake on bottom and chocolate cake on top) and a four course dinner. Kids blew bubbles, jumped on trampoline and played on rides. Everyone was required to dress for a wedding so the children looked like princes, ladies like queens and men like kings. It was quite a birthday party Avi had.
We met the youngest member of our family, my nephew Shaurya who is the most beautiful toddler in the universe. Sharp as a knife and cute as a teddy. God bless him !
Avi and Neev got pampered by everyone and Neev has declared my brother-in-law as Ashwin -the Fufaji :) Neev had developed quite a fondness for Fufaji's head and had become his official 'champi wala ' :)
Thanks to our sisters and brothers, we got treated to a lot of great dining experiences and movies (The Hobbit, Dabang 2 , Matru ki Bijali ka Mandola). It sure was a lot of fun !
On the way to Badaun we stopped at Agra and showed the children Taj Mahal,  Khwaza Saleem Chishti's Dargah and Buland Darwaza at Fatehpur Sikri. Very special experience !
It was a trip of a lifetime and it was all due to our wonderful families ! Anurag and I can not thank our stars enough for these special people in our lives.
We are back now dealing with such an extended absence from school (kinda feels like waking up after a  beautiful dream).  Worst comes worst the kids would have to repeat the year. Oh well !

A day at 'Museum of Life+Science' in Durham

Anurag bought fall pass to 'Museum of Life+Science' located in Durham. So far my most favorite museum for children! There are outdoor and indoor exhibits and really neat stuff for kids. We covered the outdoor exhibits last Sunday.'Dinosaur Trail' and Ëxplore the wild' are really great but Avi found "Catch the wind"  most fun and spent an hour navigating his sail boat back and forth. Neev played drums and wind chimes outside,climbed the rope net, and was fascinated by poison dart frogs inside Bayer CropScience Insectarium located in the Magic Wings Butterfly House. Those frogs were so colorful - yellow, blue and geen. A tiny red one was so beautiful, you could never tell it was not as innocent as it looked. I had never seen such giant millipedes up-close before either. My opinion about certain bugs is still Ëwww" but in some cases it did change to "cool".  Inside the Butterfly House we saw the different stages of life cycle of a butterfly - great experience for Avi (even though he could not stop saying Ï already know all about it":)) specially because it  is part of his science curriculum in school. While we admired the beautiful colors and patterns of their wings, one butterfly came and sat on top of Avi's baseball cap. We took it off for him and showed it to him. He was so excited and held the cap entire time inside the house like a pet (showing it off and saying that butterfly loves him because he knows all about it :)). Anurag and Avi studied some carnivorous  plants and Avi even spotted a dead fly inside one. After the lunch  break at 'Sprouts' we explored farmland. The highlight of the day was 'Mist Fountain'. I realized that you don't have to be a kid to enjoy it. Super Super fun!! Can't wait to go again. 

Kicking off Kindergarten at Marbles Museum, Raleigh

We kicked off Neev's Kindergarten at Marbles Museum just like we did for Avi two years ago. Neev will graduate from high school in 2025 and we took his picture with placard in his hands saying çlass of 2025 :) So cute ! He enjoyed playing in Ambulance pretending to be a paramedic and then a patient. Avi LOVED playing hockey on the second floor for almost an hour and then shot some hoops. We had yum luch at Roly-Poly and ended our day with a 3D show 'Under the sea' in IMAX. Great day !