Children in Tow

After the pandemic hit Washington state (first in the nation) in March 2020 we spent a lot of time at home and with family. By the summer, the case load decreased and we wanted to try going on a little controlled adventure to visit the Llamzon side of the family in Orem, UT and took a little trip to Bear Lake to stay in an airbnb.

We went on an unexpectedly arduous hike in the Alpine Loop near Sundance area that was much longer than anyone anticipated but was also quite beautiful. The kids all put in great efforts.

There was an exciting outdoor dinosaur museum type thing we went to near Logan UT that was a big hit. This was just as Meera’s dinosaur obsession had started in the recent lonely months at home during the pandemic.

Breaskfast at our airbnb. The kids just loved this place!

A fun time was had by all in this very shallow and child-friendly lake.

We had the chance to celebrate Georgia’s 75th birthday and Clark’s 35th birthday together which was just wonderful.

Abe had a terrific idea to go fossil hunting in the South eastern corner of Wyoming, which borders Bear Lake, Utah. We even found fossils of 65 million year old fish that we got to bring home!

Back at Lily and Abe’s house, there was much fun to be had. We also went on more local hikes near Orem. It was a terrific week!

At the end of December 2019 we decided to take a week and spend New Years in Mexico! We stayed at the AMAZING Xcaret hotel and visited all the associated theme parks. It was way beyond anything we expected. The hotel provided rides everywhere in buses. Since we are back-logging quite a bit, memories can be fuzzy, so I will try to rely on the pictures! We had a truly amazing time, and little did we know that we would not leave the country again for quite a while. The parks had several areas throughout with automatic cameras that linked with our bracelets to capture and save photos of us! Known as “Xelfies.” Unlimited food which meant Soren had the chance to eat a lot of rice and beans, which he loves. It was really quite an amazing, action-packed, and sun-filled trip.

In May of 2019, We (Clark, Swathi, Mani, Meera and Soren) traveled to Orem as a home base and then down to St. George Utah for an exciting adventure. After we arrived we spent the evening in Orem, then headed down to Zion National Park.

We then went to our cozy airBnB in St. George, a wonderful place if you are traveling in a big group including very young children and grandparents. Everyone had a comfortable place to sleep and I do admire how the house is furnished specifically to be able to host large groups. The kids loved it. Soren especially loved the foosball table, and the bunk beds were adorable.

The next day, we headed off to.

Welcome back to part two of our Fall 2018 superpost! We figured that there was so much going on this fall that it would make sense to break the post up into two parts. We left off just after Swathi had completed board exams and we had moved to our new house at the end of October. Let’s pick up there:

Early November

Soren started his first day of pre-school at Montessori Academy at Spring Valley in Federal Way. Miraculously, his transition was perfect. I was bracing for the worst as he had hidden in my arms during his entire entrance evaluation (not sure what they were evaluating honestly). Despite my fears, he casually walked in and sat down for an activity like he belonged. Very impressive!

Swathi’s mother departed on November 2, leaving us to once again fend for ourselves on all fronts. The dates are a bit of a blur at this point, but the next two and a half weeks were a flurry of activity.

We began interviewing nannies and found one that we really love. Joana is a career-long caretaker from Brazil. She is a two-time grandmother, certified nurse and has a very quiet and loving personality. We are very excited to have her as our full-time nanny!

We found a contractor to build us a back-yard fence that will keep the children penned into our backyard when the weather is nice. We also get a solar guy to install solar power for the house and a plumber to install a child-size toilet in Soren’s bathroom.

We found a home chef to come by our house every couple weeks and cook for us. This is very necessary as cooking was real struggle for us in Pittsburgh when we were both working. So far Chef Anna has been very impressive and made our lives quite a bit easier.

Oh and we managed to fit in our first Diwali in our new home:

Late November

We did Thanksgiving this year at the home of one of Swathi’s senior partners, Sibel. Sibel and her husband are wonderful hosts with delicious foods. Soren was most impressed with the teenagers room where he somehow ingratiated himself. By the end of the night he was set up on the couch with teens eating Cheetos and acting like he belonged haha

Also, Soren had his first experience on stage. His pre-school put on a Thanksgiving show and feast, but he seemed to have gotten a bit of stage fright 😂

Hawaii

After Thanksgiving we took a week-long trip to Hawaii. Swathi’s sister is clerking for a judge in Honolulu and we figured that it would be best to visit before I started my job. Hawaii was either my last or second to last state to visit (not sure about you South Carolina).

November 24, we climbed Diamond Head crater. This is a popular and relatively easy hike to a crater peak overlooking Honolulu. Easy for the child-less, I should say. Somehow, our children were all-stars for the hike. Soren climbed/sprinted most of the way up and down. Meera slept quietly in my arms for almost the whole hike.

We celebrated at the end with pineapple freezes.

November 25, we rented a car and drove all over the Island. We went to the Dole Pineapple plantation and rode the Pineapple Express train. Soren was charmed.

Next we drove through the North Shore and observed a surfing competition. It was all fun and games until a rogue wave almost washed us out to sea with no warning.

We drove up to Turtle Bay and got some good beach time in before hitting up some local food trucks. Garlic shrimp (Giovanni’s) and roast corn were the orders of the day.

We finished up the day with a scenic coastal drive (found the Jurassic Park ranch) back to Honolulu. Picked up truly local fare at the Rainbow Drive in. Loco Moco was eaten.

We arranged a family photo shoot for the next day:

Most of the rest of the week was beach and pool days near the resort. We did get out and try some delicious shave ice. Very Hawaiian.

Also took Soren to his first “movie”. The hotel was playing Coco on a big screen in the lawn. We decided to do a picnic dinner and watch the movie. He spent most of the movie shaking in terror and hiding my arms. Nonetheless, it made a big impression on him and he now talks fondly of the movie.

And with that our trip drew to a close. We returned home with the weekend to prepare for my return to work and a return to life with both of us working full-time. For me, it was the end of almost 10 straight months of days spent mostly taking care of Meera and Soren. Very bittersweet, but excited to shoving off on the next adventure.

Hi all!! It has been a few (err…maybe more than a few) months since our last post. Although the blog has been quiet, our lives have not! In fact, life was blasting max stereo since we touched down in Washington almost 10 months ago. This is the first of a long 2-part post catching up on everything that happened after our world trip ended last August.

A few highlights from that time in no particular order:

• Swathi started her new job as an attending physician at NW Medical Specialties
• Bought a new house in Federal Way after a short (and tight) stint in a Tacoma apartment
• Soren had his first day of pre-school, and then another first day of pre-school after we moved
• Hired a full-time nanny for Meera
• Clark interviewed for and started his new job at the Washington State Investment Board
• Bought a new car
• Took a week-long vacation to Hawaii to visit Sruthi

Life has been so busy that I very well have may have missed an important highlight. Swathi’s board exams!!! Swathi had to study for and pass Oncology and Hemetology boards. See I forgot about that. Also we got solar panels, a home cook, cleaners, new washer/dryers and a new backyard fence. Forgot about those too.

Let’s take a step back and give you a quick timeline. We’ll cover August through early October in this post and round out with late October through November in the next post.

Late August/ Early September

We touched down in SeaTac airport August 29 from Hong Kong. After 3 hours at bag claim, they take refuge in a local motel and celebrate their return to the USA at the Cheesecake Factory. The next day we meet the moving company to unload our effect in an apartment in Tacoma. While the neighborhood was amazing (love that Farmer’s Market), the apartment was smaller than expected.

Also the downstairs neighbors complained about us twice! The building did have a nice rooftop garden for tenants though, so that was nice:

August 4 had Soren his first day of pre-school at Montessori in Motion. We found out he had lice the day before starting and had to shave his head. Despite much trepidation, he quickly made friends and became a teacher favorite. Apparently he is a goody-two shoes at school, if not always at home.

September 7, we bought a new car! It is a Volvo XC90 plug-in hybrid. We LOVE this car. Needless to say Soren threw up in it within 2 weeks smh. Still, it has been really nice and having a second car has been a necessary part of living in PNW.

September 10, Swathi had her first day of work. NW Medical Specialties is a private oncology practice with clinics around the Tacoma area. Swathi is in the Tacoma and Federal way clinics. She likes the new team and work, although it is very busy. We started to notice that her commute times were starting to add up, especially in the direction of Federal Way

Clark and Meera spent a lot of time bonding at home and picking up/dropping off Soren. Clark starts interviewing with the State Investment board. His final day with IBM was September 14 although he had emotionally and mentally departed much, much earlier.

Late September

Casual attendance of open houses matures into more active house hunting. We discovered Redfin (which is amazing) and started spending a lot of time on the app. We quickly discovered that most of the housing stock in Tacoma was built about 120 years ago with knob and tube wiring. Look it up if you are ever bored. We did find our dream home in Tacoma, but it only cost a cool two million dollars. Think we’ll have to wait.

September 22 we walked through a newly listed house in a quiet corner of Federal Way and had a very good feeling about the place. On September 24, Redfin notified us that they were closing to new offers at the end of the day. We scrambled to put a bid in and quickly found ourselves in a bidding war. After some smooth negotiating, we emerged victorious!

September 26, we pick up Swathi’s mom from the airport. She joined us for most of October to help smooth the transition, especially while Swathi prepared for board exams. She couldn’t have come at a better time as we had a lot to do with the move. We couldn’t have gotten through the month without her!

Early October

October 4 I had my first in-person job interview. The role would be to lead the Investment Analytics team at the Washington State Investment Board (WASIB). WASIB manages the $120B investment portfolio for the state, and my team would provide data and insights to the investment officers in the organization. October 11, I had my final round interview and received an offer to start December 3!

Mid-October was a lot of prep for our house closing on October 24 and studying for boards. We were all sick with colds for most of the month as well. Despite all the craziness, we managed to see our friends …. Soren has befriended their son and they even spent one day together at Chuck-e-Cheeses!

Meera was her usual sweet self, but had a few really sad days when he bottom teeth we coming in. She also had a self-improvement project to figure out how to stand. She still hasn’t totally mastered it, but perseveres nonetheless

October 22 to 27 was marathon week. Swathi took her board exams on Monday and Tuesday. We closed on the house on Wednesday. We proceeded to move for the next three days and finally moved ourselves in on Friday. By the end of the week, we were proud homeowners!

Soren liked the house too

Our final international leg. It seemed so far away back when we were planning in spring of 2018 that we, well, kind of forgot to plan for it! That was of course an unfortunate turn of events because Hong Kong is, by far, the most challenging destination for our dynamic quartet of intrepid travelers. Imagine NYC with tropical weather, bigger crowds, more wealth, with an Asian twist. We also chose to go during the worst time of the year!!! I will get into the gory details.

We had to board Hyderabad at 1am to get to HKG at around 9am, so we flew all night and the children were surprisingly spry and awake. We landed and wandered around the ginormous airport until we found our luggage, and since we were starving and it was a little early to check into our Airbnb, we headed to the lounge outside the baggage claim area to rest and eat. We got a glimpse of the best part of HKG: the food!! Even the lounge food was delicious. We got a taxi and got into our airbnb, which was a re-furbished small apartment inside a really old apartment building called a “mansion” (common term for the city). The elevators were small and cramped and we often had to stand in line to go up and down them. We got in, napped, then headed out into the city to discover…intense humidity and intense crowds. We stayed in a fairly busy neighborhood called Tsim Sha Tsu. It was overwhelming. There was no room for our stroller. We ducked into a grocery store and by this time I was starving again so in a moment of desperation, I ordered some food. And of course it was delicious, because practically all food in Hong Kong is delicious. We then wandered around some more and headed back to our apartment where we met up with our friend Adam! Clark and Adam were in the Peace Corps together years ago, and Adam has been living in Hong Kong for the past 2 years. We headed out for dinner at an authentic Chinese restaurant and then headed home and to bed afterwards, exhausted from the little we saw of HKG.

Here is Soren enjoying some tea (quite dilute!) while a chef is cutting us pieces of Peking duck.

Below is an example of how crowded the metro system is in HKG! It seems busy like other cities except…the metro station is HUGE. It is a vast underground system and it is this busy in the entire station! You can pretty much navigate half the neighborhood underground. There are places to eat, shop, everything. It is clean and quite well maintained despite the ridiculous crowds and the hot humid and rainy weather. It is much nicer than the NYC subway. The only fault is that they could use a few more entrances and elevators for those on wheels, such as our gang; it took us twice as long as freely ambulatory citizens to traverse the MTR system. Clark had to use his brute strength to carry Meera+stroller up many flights of stairs on this particular leg of our trip. Check out those muscles****Swooon**** We had to take the stroller when we planned on staying out all day because otherwise Meera does not really have a good place to sleep and it is impossible to carry her for hours in the baby Bjorn in such hot humid weather.

Journey to Hong Kong Island

We got up and accomplished much more this day thankfully! First we headed to N1 Coffee where we indulged in truly decadent coffee to pump up our day (and a chocolate treat for Soren):

We then walked over to the “The Avenue of Stars” which features various film-oriented statues and is usually on the boardwalk by the bay; they were temporarily moved to this park near the water while the harbor area is undergoing renovation.

We headed across the bay over to Shau Kei Wan and walked around the neighborhood and indulged in some local treats. This egg waffle thing is quite common here, but Soren was of course skeptical:

Then we took a tram to Adam’s neighborhood around Quarry Bay Area. There we learned that one of the behemoth old-school apartment buildings was the site of one of the Transformers’ movie shooting. So of course we had to go. I was the scary Transformer and Soren the oblivious civilian!

Clark daringly tried some chicken feet with Adam during our lunch break:

Our lunch was of course delicious! I love Szechuan food! We finished it all.

We then took an extremely long escalator up the mountain that the Central neighborhood is in…actually perhaps the longest escalator in the world!

Then we went up even higher (this time in a taxi) to Victoria’s Peak to enjoy some views of the city. HKG is a gorgeous city of tropical vegetation, mountains, islands, and bays in the middle of which is this dense metropolis of 8 million people. We got to appreciate that, albeit in a foggy fashion:

We returned on a ferry back to TST, where our home is and got to enjoy this view:

Journey to Lantau

We took a day trip over to Lantau to visit the village of Tai-O, the big buddha, the nearby monastery, and the big famous cable car down from the buddha to the nearest MTR station to return home. What a big day!

We first took the MTR to Lantau island and then took an unexpectedly long bus (1hr) that only cost 10 HKD to the village of Tai-O.

Tai-O was a magical fishing village and indeed it smelled kind of fishy! Very beautiful and picturesque. We wandered around and went on a boat ride followed by lunch at a local Chinese diner type place.

We then headed to the Buddha statue and nearby monastery. The view was beautiful from the top.

Here is Meera on the grounds.

Then we got to ride most amazing cable car we have ever seen, called Ngong Ping. We paid a bit extra to get one with a “crystal” clear floor, so you are really flying through space. Some people seemed to be scared (grown adults) of this experience, but our little Meera Vijaya was fearless and quite enjoyed the journey:

Final Day in HKG: main city areas.

On our last day we mostly relaxed and ate a lot of food because really, the food is just so amazing in HKG. In the morning we headed to Kowloon Park, which is just a beautiful amazing inner-city park.

We then enjoyed a Dim-Sum lunch. At this point it started raining pretty heavily and Meera and I were already starting to show signs of illness (upper respiratory infections) so we thought it best to go home and rest for a bit.

We then headed to the Penninsula for high tea, followed by some window shopping, and then a delicious Thai food dinner in Admiralty neighborhood with our friends Adam and Jenny. Of course, right at the beginning of dinner, Meera vomited all over me and Soren refusing to eat any dinner, but such is the nature of travel with children in tow. We could not leave without a dramatic event! But we enjoyed ourselves anyway.

The next morning we headed to the airport for the long journey home via Korean Air to our new home in Washington state. We connected through Incheon (Seoul) airport, which was an amazing gorgeous airport, planting new ideas in our heads about future travels to Asia. Soren was particularly excited to see the Tayo themed children’s play area.

And just like that, 10 weeks abroad ended so quickly, and we are back in the USA, this time on a new coast.

 

Welcome back dear readers! Since our previous episode in Goa, we have been taking advantage of downtime back in Hyderabad. For me, that meant tuning up my LinkedIn profile and dropping the occasional job app🤷‍♂️. For Swathi, it was buckling down and studying doctor…things. Soren/Meera were partying non-stop with their ever expanding fan club. And of course drinking tea and napping. Lots of that. Swathi and I also played tennis regularly as the courts were conveniently located across the street from the house in India. We are terrible at tennis, and we can proudly say that after 1 month we have improved to…pretty bad.

The last two weeks haven’t all been business as usual however. Here are a few highlights:

5th Year Wedding Anniversary (Aug 15)
They say time flies when your having fun. We must be having fun, because I can’t believe I’ve been married to my wonderful and beautiful Swathi for five years! Here we are, just a couple of kids, getting married back in 2013:

 And BOOM all of a sudden it is five years later:

We celebrated by going out for shopping and a nice lunch at Manjeera Mall. August 15 is also Independence Day in India, so it was exciting to be in a celebratory mood with the whole city! We were welcomed home with a nice cake  from the family after we got back.

Riding the Hyderabad Metro (Aug 16)
While riding the metro might not initially seem like a highlight, this was definitely near the top of Soren’s India to-do list. Plus, the metro had been under construction since before our wedding (5 years ago – see above) and recently opened. It was about time we check it out. Soren was amused:

Chicken 65 😋 (as often as possible)
On the theme of anniversaries, this August was my 5 year mark for learning about Chicken 65. It is kind of like an Indian version of General Tso’s chicken and I LOVE it. Swathi’s uncle got me Chicken 65 as often as possible. Definitely a highlight.

The Trampoline Park (Sat Aug 18)
We decided to have an outing to a trampoline park for the day. Basically, this was a giant warehouse with different trampoline stations that you can bounce on. They have a free bounce area, a trick jump pit, a basketball hoop and dodgeball station.  Although I was initially worried about popping my ACL, it was very fun:

Also, Swathi decided to hulk out on me in the foam gladiator pit.

It was fine though. I got my payback on the dodgeball court 🎯🎯😎

Steel Factory Shopping (Aug 21)
Went on another outing to the steel factory outlet where they manufacture steel dishes, cups and other housewares. Swathi’s aunt led the way and found us the best items. Steel is actually the perfect medium for little children. The items are lightweight, easy to clean and nearly indestructible. If anyone wants to start an stainless steel company selling these puppies to mama groups you know where to find me:

We also went Indian jewelry shopping and Swathi bought some clothes. We did not have to go clothes shopping for the little ones as various family members and friends kept getting them new clothes.

Marvel Movie Super Marathon!! (like every night)
What started out as a casual attempt to catch up on the first Ant Man movie spiraled out of control and turned into a nightly journey through the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Our final tally of superhero movies included: Ant Man, Ant Man and the Wasp, Black Panther, Thor: Ragnarok, Captain America: Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Avengers, and Guardians of the Galaxy. Best (or worst) part? We didn’t even make it to Avengers: Infinity War yet.

Lakshmi!! (Aug 24)
Our last day in Hyderabad was momentous indeed. It was an auspicious day as everyone celebrated Lakshmi. To make it even more exciting, Meera received a gold necklace from her “Big Ammamma” Lakshmi (Swathi’s aunt) as featured below:

That’s all for this episode. We left for an over-night trip. Join us next time for our penultimate stop on our world tour: Hong Kong🇭🇰🇭🇰!! How will we cope with the children after having constant care-giving family members for 1 whole month!?!

“A vacation within a vacation.”

As if our vacation visiting family and friends in Hyderabad wasn’t enough, we decided to indulge ourselves in…another vacation! This time we headed off to Goa, with our children, my mother, and sister in tow! We debated for awhile on whether to go to Goa or Kerala, and decided on a beach vacation due to Soren’s love for sand, water, and swimming. As it turned out, the state of Kerala has been experiencing a very severe monsoon season, the worst in a century in fact. It has been a terrible natural disaster.

The monsoon was also active in Goa, but in a much more pleasant fashion I am happy to report. It was cloudy most of the time and humid, with occasional light rains lasting 10-15minutes 2-3x a day. The beach water and the pool water felt amazing – cool and comfortable. It was off season in Goa, so the markets were not as bustling as usual and the resort was not fully occupied, which all suited us just fine. On talking to the resort staff and outside vendors, we learned that Russians are now the major international tourists that visit Goa to escape their long and cold winters. I had no idea!

The plane ride to Goa was only 1 hour long and we had no travel issues. The hotel had a bus that picked us up as soon as we stepped out of the airport. We arrived on August 7th at the Park Hyatt beach resort in the evening and settled into our rooms and had dinner at the resort.

The next few days followed a similar pattern. Breakfast, then beach time, then pool time, then pool-side lunch, followed by more swimming or time in the kids’ club, then clean-up time and dinner. I LOVE pool side lunches…only second to afternoon naps! Here are some of these moments captured.

Here we are enjoying a nice breakfast:

Due to the monsoon season, the beach was rough and windy, but somehow still pleasant. Clark is getting good at taking these panoramic pictures. The sand was very soft and lovely to walk on and play with.

On our third day in Goa, we finally ventured out of the resort. We hired a driver to take us to a spice plantation. We all enjoyed the tour and learned about where our favorite spices come from!

The farm itself was quite beautiful and tropical. We had a lovely time!

Here were are in front of Clarks’ favorite crop, the coffee tree.

On our way out, we stopped briefly to take pictures with 2 friendly elephants. Soren was brave! One of them opened his mouth widely and we were quite impressed. The elephants then retired to their lunch of tree branches and leaves.

On the drive we passed many churches and other buildings with Portuguese design. Goa was a Portuguese colony/terrority for a few hundred years prior to being rightfully annexed by India and is currently the (smallest) state in India. It was interesting to note the Iberian influences as we drove around. I had been to Goa 8 years ago with friends from medical school for vacation, but didn’t appreciate this element as much back then, but after having recently visited Portugal just over a month earlier (where has the time gone!!), it was fascinating to note the similarities and differences. We are very excited to see what Macau, another former Portuguese territory, looks like as we are planning on a trip there while in Hong Kong.

The children had a wonderful time in Goa. Meera started sitting up independently for longer periods of time, and Soren really improved his swimming abilities!

Soren loved going down the slide, and splashing into the pool below:

Meera enjoyed the children’s play room where she had plenty of space to try to learn how to crawl and chew on many toys:

She also enjoyed tasting the many different delicious dishes at the resort:

On the last day, we relaxed at the beach and pool before heading to the airport. I spent an hour walking on the beach, cooling off in the water and listening to my audio book, All the light we cannot see; this was my personal highlight of the vacation. What a trip!!

Namaste and welcome to another episode of our summer 2018 world tour! And what a great episode it is: our beloved sister (in-law) Sruthi makes a guest a appearance, we discover Meera’s true calling in life and we deliver on our previously promised crocs (plus lions, bears and tiger trains oh my).

First, we feature our guest star of the week Sruthi! Sruthi would have joined us on earlier adventures, but she had to be responsible and prep/take the bar exam (booo!). I would also like to note that she managed to stay awake through all of Mission Impossible: Fallout one day after arriving. Very impressive. Anyway, we’re all happy to have her back and she was warmly welcomed:

Another highlight of the week was doing Meera’s first rice eating ceremony. The ceremony roughly breaks down as follows: (1) family gathers to take turns feeding her rice for the first time, (2) determine her future calling in life by letting her crawl to grab various objects. Spoiler alert: she chose a book, a gold bracelet and a wad of cash in that order. Feel free to draw your own conclusions, but I think she’ll be a glamorous scientist that stumbles upon a MAJOR discovery which she then parlays into a new career as a business mogul:

Guess banana farming just wasn’t compelling enough. Also, she liked eating the rice:But we are jumping around. Let’s pick up where we left our intrepid heroes last week: facing lions and crocs and bears…oh my?

July 29: Hyderabad Zoo Park 🦁🐅🐻🐊
So let me start by saying that the Hyderabad zoo DELIVERS. Tired of lethargic bears that mope about? They have HIGHLY motivated bears. Hippos? Got one lurking. You want crocodiles? Here are like 40: The park was actually so big that we had trouble covering everything in one day. We somehow missed the tigers! Closest we came was this tiger themed train around the zoo. We wrapped up the day with a trip to a Biriyani house in old Hyderabad on our foodie cousin Balu’s recommendation.

July 30 – Aug 2: Lazy 😴
Lots of laziness going on here. Having trouble recollecting now, but days were something like this: coffee, lunch, tea, nap, dinner, bedtime. Exhausting, I know. Also this happened: Soren also spent some time figuring out how to pedal a real bike on Tejas’ bike:August 3: Sruthi!
Plz refer to top of post. Sruthi showed up. Children rejoiced. Mission Impossible was watched. Nap.

August 4: House Hunters Hyderabad
Went to view an apartment Swathi’s mom had purchased as an investment. I was expecting something nice, but this place was very nice! Don’t believe me? My video walkthrough took 3 minutes and I still might have missed some rooms! The property itself was lovely and looked like a resort.

Most important however, Soren got his first ride in an auto rickshaw after the walkthrough. Another important step in his quest to experience every mode of transport ever:

August 5: Lazy 😴
A day with no photos 😮! We spent the day visiting with Swathi’s mother’s lifelong friends from school. Meera was charming as always. Soren hid from the company, but was eventually lured out with toys/presents.

August 6: Rice eating
I know, I know! We already told you about everything the rice eating and how Meera decided against banana farming. But…we saved some good family photos for the end:

All righty, that’s it for this episode. On the next installment, the gang heads to Goa for a vacation within a vacation.

Hey all, we’ve been in Hyderabad with family for almost a week now and will remain here until Aug 24. Aside from a side-trip to Goa (Aug 7-11) we’ll likely spend a good amount of that time putzing around the house and eating delicious food. Hopefully, we’ll also be better about posting now that we have some down time. Our readers (our mothers?) are hungry for content and we will deliver!

Meera has been the star of the week as streams of adoring family and fans stop by to meet her. Our aunt and uncle are two of her biggest supporters:Soren meanwhile has re-united with his little running buddy from last summer: Tejas! We thought the two take some time to warm-up, but they recognized each other immediately and jumped right into play time:

It has also been nice to just have the whole family together with no agenda for a while. Now that we’ve moved out of our Pittsburgh apartment, this is probably the closest we’ll have to a home until Tacoma:
On to the 🏃⬇:

June 24-25: 🛫 Barcelona to Hyderabad🛬
This journey was our longest travel leg so far. After a 7 hour flight from Barcelona, we landed to change planes Dubai. It turns out, DXB actually has the largest terminal in the world and we got to hike almost all of it for over an hour as we transferred! It is so long, in fact, that they set up free ice-cream stands mid-way to keep up morale for weary travelers. This is true!

I’ll let this picture do the talking as to the journey itself, but let’s just say that it was…tiring.

After stumbling delirious off the plane, we recuperated around the house. Young Meera even ate her first real bites of food. Let’s just say she was a bit confused:

July 26-28: Hot jet-lagged mess 🤪
These days are a bit of a blur staying up super late and sleeping in. Think most of the days (for my part at least) was spent staring blankly into space while taking slow sips of coffee. We went for a walk by the tennis courts on the 26th as our big activity. Swathi and I even got a tennis game in later in the night!

On the 27th, Swathi and I rallied to go all the way to the mall to watch Ant Man! I feel like I relate to Paul Rudd. Soren stayed home to play with his toys and  Tejas.

Spirits and bodies had started to recover by the 28th. Soren and I even managed to get to the pool for a swim with Tejas and his father. Meera meanwhile had taken quite a liking to food. What a good eater!
That’s all for this episode. Preview for the next installment: crocodiles!