Christmas Time!

We've had a little time now to let our Christmas travels settle in and marinade while getting over jet lag and trying to catch up with the pace of life once again. Finally we have a little time to update our blog chronicling our latest greatest adventure. 

It's fitting, I suppose, to begin with this photo since this was the first Christmas that Maya showed any sort of recognition about Santa. Here, as anyone who knows Maya will understand, Maya is quite leary while her sister was all for sitting with Santa.

In the airports she was much more agreeable to the idea of looking for Santa in our explorations and even started looking forward to his visit by the time Christmas Eve arrived.

 To the right we have the best of a series of photos of the two girls posing during Mike and Emily's engagement party at Aunt Barbara's house. What can I say--Maya hates sitting for a picture. We had a great time seeing some fam after such a long trip.

Maya and Naila had a great time with their Grandmas. Nini (Nancy) and Maya spent a whole lot of time together. Here they are putting up some Christmas window decorations.

This was Maya's morning ritual. She loved sitting at the bar and waiting with Rosie as Nini prepared her favorite of the day: Pancakes, oatmeal, juice, cereal etc.

Here are Maya and Nini at dinner--they look like twins don't they?

We had a surprise visit from Burke, Tiff, and Sully, and another one from Joe, Kristen, Tess, and Elsa. We were so happy to see everyone. Maya fell right back into it with both Tess and Sully.

Here is Ranger with his girls. On a couple of nights he was the only one who could calm miss Naila. The became good buddies on this trip.

My new favorite picture of Maya. Her long blonde hair juxtaposes nicely with the bindi to show her worldliness which is then tempered by the superman 's' which I'm sure she intended to demonstrate her selflessness in the pursuit of a better world for humankind.

Once again with Sully in Vancouver (thanks Tio and Tia!). We had such a wonderful ski vacation and the kids had a great time hanging out again.

Sully and Maya loved the cabinet of the TV stand, but we're pretty sure it was Naila who introduced them to it.

Upon discovery, she spent the majority of the rest of the trip hiding from us in there. Every once in a while she invited her sister and Sully in.

Booyah! We had a great day on the slopes topped off by a great time at Merlin's--and some fine Canadian brews too!

Another picture of these two having fun in the water.

When it finally started snowing we were having an adventure walking about Blackcomb Village and decided to make our own little Frosty. What a fun night.

Back in Delhi after a wonderful, inspiring and excting trip. Momma and babe too tired to go to bed.  Enough said.

Finishing up the semester

After Thanksgiving the end of the semester came in a flash. Here are some of our experiences chronicled through just a few photos.

First, these two photos are of the INA market in Delhi. Here are a bunch of chickens waiting to be dinner. It was fascinating to see the assembly line, rather, the disassembly line as they were butchered. There mountainous piles of feet, heads, etc. and closest to the consumer--the meat.

This man is butchering goats. His technique is what impressed us; he has his ultra sharp knife in his foot and uses both of his hands to handle the meat and then slices parts of it using his dextrous toes. This is emblematic of a typical solution to a problem in India creative solutions to interesting needs--in this case, the butcher needed a third hand so he trained his foot for the purpose!

This is a particularly good pollution day lately when I took a run to the India Gate. This is Rajpath, one of the main roads of the area.

The week after Thanksgiving was the culmination of the middle school soccer season which I helped out with. The big finale was a trip to Chennai and a big soccer tournament. It was a great tournament and a great experience overall.  Also fun to see a new city.

 On the first morning before the tourney I took a jog with an obsession to see the Bay of Bengal.

What I encountered was an angry ocean and a potentially beautiful beach that was littered with trash and the morning motions of many Indians.

The run through the city was really cool. Chennai was a city on the move and in some areas it was quite different from Delhi with brightly painted walls, palm trees everywhere and a lot of humidity.

Thanksgiving on the Beach

 We've begun what may be a new India tradition for Thanksgiving. Goa. The beach vacation was everything that we hoped for minus the turkey. We had such a relaxing time on the beach (as relaxing as it can get with two 2 year olds and an 8 month old, that is), playing in the waves and eating delicious Indian/Goan food beside the sea.

 We made the trip with Zachis and the Rugs and it turned out to be a wonderful adventure. We even had some surpises--constant visits from buffaloes roaming the beach, we saw a snake eating a lizard, we swam with the dolphins and saw wild pigs and dogs (of course!).

Here are the two little bits playing together on the beach. They must be searching for crabs.












What a stud! Zach is holding down the fort at our favorite lunch/dinner/all afternoon and evening spot!

Above left: the red snapper that we commissioned to be caught. Our chef went out at 4 am and either caught of bought the fish and spent the day marinating it and then cooking it for us.

Above right: a very happy Bernie after dominating the Red Snapper.

Maya wasn't loving the big waves of the ocean so Laura suggested that we move down the beach to a little stream/tide pool. Of course her suggestion worked to perfection adn opened Naila and Maya to the pleasures of the beach!

Mommy knows best!

At left: Maya is playing with her 'bucket'. Delinquent parents as we are, we forgot the beach toys. No matter, a coconut husk works as a shovel, bucket, building block and much more!

Above right, this is one of my favorite pics of little Maya.

This is the other major activity of the vacation. Here Zach, Adam and I all caught the same wave and Julie caught us in action!

We'll have to do it again next year.

Naila turns 7! (months) and some other happenings

 It has been a while and we/I feel a little bad about it. The truth is we have had a semi long lasting technical issue to deal with. The computer where we keep most of our pics suddenly decided that it didn't want to have a functioning button on the trackpad.  Thanks to an awesome tech department we have a temporary fix--just enough to update the blog and back up the computer.

Anway, these first two pics are of our newest little one in the clan. Maya loved being included in these photos of Naila's big 7 month photo shoot. It was the first time that

Maya's favorite spot! I think she spends more time in our bed than we do.

 I can say that I saw Maya smile on cue. Normally she is shy for pictures or at least aloof to the whole process. This time when we asked her to 'say cheese' she was more than happy to oblige.

 This has to be one of our very favorite highlights so far this year. The Karmapa Lama came to our school for various activities and during a question and answer session Laura got up close and personal with a book signing. I didn't know before this visit, but teh Karmapa Lama is seen as the 3rd most important figure in Tebetan Buddhism (the first being the Dalai Lama and the second being another Lama who hasn't been seen since he was captured by the Chinese some 20 years ago when he was a teenager).

I had the chance later in the evening to go and play basketball with him--but somehow I let that pass me by. Next time!

 The week before our encounter with His Holiness, we were at Oktoberfest at the American Community Support Association. They put on a fun party and we were happily surprised not to have to wait in those horrible beer lines that seem so frequent at beer festivals. An army of waiters

 walked around and topped us off any chance we gave them!

To the right is a typical Sunday afternoon with the Al Morenos. We get together for lunch as often as possible, usually 3-4 times per week, but also have made it a habit to share some great company and tortilla española on Sundays!

 Here are some other pictures to help illustrate our lives here: At left is our dining room and the table set for a Sunday tortilla feast.

 Maya is still "all in" for anything having to do with water. She loves baths and depending on the day demands that we take her swimming at the pool. No more baby pool for this toddler--she has taken to jumping into the water, holding her breath and kick, kick, kicking to find daddy or mommy.

 Here is a picture of the girls' room. Laura has done amazing things with decorating--from sleeping arrangements to painting the walls, to a hand painted tree (jk), laying carpet, and finding a rocking chair. This is almost as good as it could possibly be and the girls seem to like it...unless that means that it's bedtime.

 You may think this is a funny picture to begin my trip to England, but you'd be wrong. This is how the bathrooms are identified in the airport in Delhi. Which do you fancy?

 I didn't take many photos of my trip but the highlights were: I got cold for the first time in 3 months, I learned a bit about the IB, I loved seeing the English countryside, Julie (the French teacher I was with) and I got to go and hang out with some of her English friends, I saw the bombed out Coventry Cathedral, I went running in the cold morning mist while breathing clean air,

and then we got to go to London for 2 hours before our departure.

 In London we took full advantage of our time going to the oldest pub in the city, Salisbury Pub, and then having our final meal of England at an Oyster bar. It was a bit of a mad dash to the airport but I found it to be worth it.

 While I was gone, Laura took on the Herculean task of being a single parent. To the left you see a mock up of what the community thought of her as a parent--a real GIANT.

Actually, this was, I think, an effigy of Ram who fought off a big time Sri Lankan god and helped his people in some major way...or maybe I have that reversed, how should I know, I wasn't even there.

 There were the obligatory fireworks and then as in any good celebration, they burned it down!

This is a fairly typical reaction from Maya--distressed ear covering. No, it wasn't that loud.

These two photos are some great ones that our friend Julie took. This is our ayah, Anita.






Maya has taken to transporting Rosie around liker her little baby.


That's it for today. Overall, life is great and we're very happy on our adventure in India except for two things that seem to be conspiring against us. There has been a sudden onslaught of pollution that has the city quite socked in making us think twice and secondly, the more we talk with friends and family back home and miss out on all of those wonderful community building events, the more we miss home.