What next?

Came home from work after a long day. Wife and kids were at swimming class. 

Thought of sitting down for a minute and sipipng some tea. There was a loud ruckus in the backyard. It was like every bird and animal had decided to go crazy at the same time. 

Came to the backyard and was face to face with a FOX! 

It started right at me and ran into the bushes. For all I know it is still there.. The animals are still screaming.

so went out with the only camera I could grab in time to catch the fox.

Called local animal control to report this and they forwarded me to through three different numbers after it went to an information only voice menu and hung up on me. 

Guess if you have so many squirrels, rabbits and birds, the foxes automatically follow! 

It was the size of a medium size Alsatian dog, except it could effortlessly jump a six foot fence. It could glare at me with mouth open and that did scare me! 

We have now seen at least 7 creatures in our backyard that folks don't typically expect to see. As long as tigers don't show up... 

The camera comes out, after a long time!

The girls were dressed in matching colors today. This begged for a backyard photo shoot!

The matching outfits reminded me of an old series of photos that were taken years ago!

Jr. is not the same model that she was a few years ago. She either smiles by covering her face or she has what she calls "smiling my way", which I don't understand at all.

The little one loves to pose, but she is so distracted that her eyes move away from the lens to something behind me or around me in a fraction of a second. This must be the impact of being on the iPad all the time, I tell myself. After calling out her name and saying "look INTO the lens" a few dozen times, get a clean shot if lady luck shines on me.

It has been more than two months and there are two snaps of them in the camera. So we made up for it.  Once Jr. got into it she started doing funny poses for me. These days the sum total of fun in the faces of the two kids seems to be a constant. If one is happy, the other one becomes mellow and vice versa. Have not figured this out yet.. but given time, will figure out a fudge factor in that equation.

The dresses are a little on the orange shade, but the backyard light and lens has the white balance adjusted to make them show up like pink! iPhone photos show up as orange. Now I have a new challenge to work on.. understand what is going on with color balance!

Hope the trend continues and they pose for more photos. 

Festive portrait week

The first two weeks of August are full of events for us. We have the Varalakshmi Nombu function where the women pray for their husbands well being followed by a home stress test for the husbands health with delicious food. The food instantly tests the workings of the stomach, liver, kidneys, pancreas and heart in one sitting! 

This is followed by Independence day wishing to Indian relatives and friends, attending local events in the US celebrating Indian Indpendence day (It is usually celebrated here as Fifteentho de Augusto for most folks with Kingfisher instead of Corona if you get the drift..)

This is followed by first day of school for the kids and all the excitement that comes with it!There is one Target in Cupertino where all the parents descend last minute to finish their back to school shopping and the place is as festive as Mardi Gras! 

Then comes Aavani Avittam where the guys change their threads, the women look gorgeous and the food trumps the Varalakshmi stress test. This one is for real. If you survive this feast, you are on your way to a good year. 

To round all this up there is Krishna's birthday, aka Gokulashtami which involves a lot of deep fried goodies and more great food! It is customary for us to go on some kind of long hike in some national park for Labor day to get back to normal. 

This year the festive season has started nicely. As usual I now have a doctor's visit this week thanks to a jaw locking problem. Do not know what it is with 2nd week of August and Hospital visits. My mom asked me on the phone "Usually you visit a doctor on Aaavani avittam week. Hope you are okay now!" That was Sunday monring and promptly I was at the doctors on Monday afternoon, and as it is with every year, this has nothing to do with the good food! 

This year the kids dressed up nice as usual and posed for portraits!

Here are some of the pictures..

This year they were very involved in the function. They gave the Haldi Kumkum to all their friends and took part in the celebration. This is a good sign if they are learning something from us!

More photos to come, if six pack sundar succesfully does his Aaaviavittam ... The next few days, I will be explaining to folks outside the yoga room to answer FAQ's of "hey, come your thread looks new?!" 

Baby photos? Not anymore...

One house tradition here is that we see "baby photos" from the archives once a week before bedtime to tell stories of how things were during those good old days when Jr. or little one were teeny and tiny!

The babies are growing up fast!

Here are some photos from a backyard photo session this week.

here is one where she didn't know the camera was still rolling.. 

Jr. is a big girl now, almost as tall as her mom and the same shoe size. She is making a claim for some of mom's dresses like the pretty frocks and that was tolerated.. Now she started touching the Jewelry and tensions in the house are high!  You want to mess with the Sheik, fine.. but taking those oil wells.. you have crossed the line mister! ... something along those lines... tension!

She looks exactly like my sister at the same age.. This week I accidentally called her by my sister's name and Jr. was giving me the "What the hell?" look. Had to explain to her that for a few seconds it was like my sister was standing in front of me.. frozen in the eighties. She even stands with her toes bent weird!

Worked very hard to make her smile with lips open but this is the best we got. She is still conscious of the braces. Hopefully those come out soon and we can have Jr. smile like she used to without being conscious of anything.. 

Well, another week has rolled by and I learned a lot this week.. some stuff at work, human relations, cooking, dealing with tweens.. etc. etc. 

Planning to teach them both how to "code" at home using some online guides and free ware. If you have any recommendations for materials or tutorials to help introduce "coding" to kids, please let me know. Was watching a Youtube video where this guy Chamath was being interviewed and he was right on. Teach your kids how to code if you want them to have a nice future! 

Java is going to be the Yajur Veda for Jr. and the little one. Maybe I should turn Java into a hymn for easy memorization and make them sing it?! Yet again, the brain is getting all funky on me.. should go eat something and slap myself back to reality...

Travel week

Another busy week with me being in Los Angeles, Austin with a one day break in San Jose between trips. Was glad to get some rest the last 36 hours.

Came back and the first thing the kids told me was that the bunny infestation is now an issue. The bunnies are no longer the cute little grass feeders. They are putting holes in the tomato!

Today was spent in building a planter, thanks to Home Depot and the "build yourself anything" concept that is so prevelant..

We are happy with the end result. It was an ordeal transplanting the tomato and other plants into this planter from the little pots we had them in originaly. Time will tell if they survived the relocation.

The rest of the afternoon was spent photographing the usual suspects.. the little one, blue jays, etc..

The next week is going to be even more interesting..