The little one has been learning the violin for one more year. She has definitely grown in confidence and has improved in spite of not practicing enough (we agree, her teacher agrees and most importantly, she agrees!)
Here are some photos and a video snippet from the Winter Recital from the Music school.
There was a big surprise at the recital! Haik, who had come to the US to play on Sunday to a sold out concert came to encourage the students.
Imagine you are warming up in your schools playground and suddenly the gym teacher says "kids, I have a little surprise for you. Usain Bolt happens to be a family friend and he is here to show you how he runs the 100m and will also answer questions on how he trains and anything else you might want to ask him and you can take pictures with him after the recital! " In violin terms, that is what happened !
The kids loved it. They also saw "how easy" it was to play like that if you practice for only 25 years!
We enjoyed the evening with the little one doing her recital without mistakes and Haik's little cameo. Next year, if she practices well, the little one might be going on to doing more nuanced pieces. We wait with bated breath...
but the little one.. she makes us realize every minute that she is growing up.. this one is not creeping up on us silently. She makes a bold statement with her presence every waking minute.
While it was a big day for Jr., the little one had her own big event in the morning.
They had a "Clap out" for the fifth graders on their last day at elementary school. In case you are wondering what a Clap out is.. here it is!
There was also a small display of the kids and their projects..
Her teacher made me cry by telling me what a sincere and hard working kid she is.
I begged her for a selfie or photo with her, having rushed straight from the airport to the clapout.. but she is going through a "Nofie" phase. Grandma managed to get a snap..
Finally after 9 years we will not be visiting this school that frequently anymore.. we will still go biking in the track around the playground every now and then or go say hi to the teachers on teachers day, but as far as this family goes, we are officialy out of elementary school!
We are now be back to the middle school, with the little one.
Jr. is still my junior and the little one will always be our little one!
They have grown up and I was thinking of new nick names for them, or maybe it is time to just start mentioning them by their name going forward?!
- we did not have to chase after them or worry about them getting lost as they had cell phones with them
- they eat faster and by themselves
- they don't need to be accompanied to the rest rooms
- and they were bold enough to go on "single rider" passes to bypass the long lines.
Granted, going as single riders kind of defets the "family" aspect of it, but hey.. we stay in the same line till the ride point.. then we split up into differnt cars and we are usually within one or two cars in each ride. Once inside the ride, it is all dark and dingy for the most part and you are screaming your head off.. except for the little one, who missed squeezing daddy's hand during the rides we were okay.
We started off the day with the usual pictures at the entrance..
moved through the park and did as many rides as we could. We did stand in line for 40 minutes to go "as a family" in Space Mountain .. so we could buy the photograph they click at the end. We are so familiar now that we pose for the camera on Space Mountain.
We ran back and forths, got fast passes where we could, split up to do different things every now and then.. basically let the kids decide.
we watched two parades and parallel processed one parade while standing in line for "it's a small world"!
Then the kids decided to wait in line for 60 minutes in Toon town for a 60 second ride while San decided to stand in line for a little over an hour to get a picture with Mickey... for old times sake!
I was torn between the two and did neither. Just sat at the fountain and took pictures for passers by..
Selfie sticks are banned in Disney.. and it is so sad to watch 8 people try to fit into a selfie. Did my bit of social service while watching the kids inch their way to the top of the line for their ride. Lot of good karma in that one hour in Toon town!
The kids knew I was mad after their ride because the sun had set and daddy had told them that toontown looks amazing just before sunset as the colors come alive! after receiving a little lecture and promptly forgetting that lecture, we moved fast to exit the park.. at 6PM.. that was a first!
Good Karma sometimes doesn't come back right away. I took the picture above of the kids, then went stood there and asked this lady to take a picture.. we got this back. For some reason, she decided to do her own thing.. we are happy that the family was in the frame!
then came the best part. As part of the package ticket, my darling wife had got us this pass for "dining with characters" at Goofy's kitchen in the Disney resort. The kids took a short break to dress up and we went for dinner..
we had the time of our life watching them be so happy!
You can see from the video that the highlight was Goofy's kitchen..
We had shared iPhone photos from Disney on FB.. Had to come home to get this one from the Canon.. This one is going to be framed.
Next time, we should just skip the park and stay at the resort (we have never done that) and just have breakfast, lunch and dinner with the characters.. more fun.. more smiles!
One weird thing on this trip.. There were no desis in sight in the park. We were joking that someone must have sent a memo to all desis telling them that 30th was a no Disney day or something and we missed the memo! We saw maybe 3 or 4 desi families in the park all day.
This year Jr. got a visit from her "not so secret santa" and got a new Alto Saxophone to celebrate the holidays. Her old saxophone had a rod and screw drop off after her last school performance. The part is in back order till end of January. Given she has other performances coming and the fact that she has wanted to graduate from a student saxophone to a professional grade one.. we relented! We are also tired of doing the pickup and drop off from her school because she has to haul this large saxophone case to practice. From February she can leave the student version in school and practice on the pro instrument at home!
These instruments are expensive. So this is the last one we are buying her. They tell us this will last 10-15 years. We have nicely informed Jr. that she will be buying her next saxophone with her own paycheck!
So far she loves the sound of the Yamaha YAS 62-III. It is also lighter than her student version. Why a student version will be heavier is beyond me.
The Christmas holiday has started today.
The kids were practicing their music this morning and with a lot of censoring I am pleased to announce that this version has been approved for the blog..
Our entire family wishes you a very merry Christmas and a wonderful holiday!
The last three weeks of December are going to be different this year. Given all the work travel, going to take it easy and rest. Doesn't mean we don't get to do some fun things in the house with the kids..
For starters we decided to bring out this birthday gift and actually try it out with the litlte one.
Diffusion is a slow process.. the little one learned "patience is a virtue" during the experiment.
This was time zero
Ten minutes
close to an hour later
this was a few hours later
then we decided to "help it" by creating some localized heat near the ones that were not growing.. but that went only so far.
The final stage was not far from this one. There was one drawback to this kit. We lowered the stand into the bath of chemicals with a hook. When the crystals finished growing, they went into the hole for the hook. So we could not remove it out of the bath successfully.
The little one was very disappointed, but for a few seconds. Once she realized the crystals were broken and there was nothing we could do about it, she promptly said "oh well. we had fun while it was growing. now clean up daddy" and went on to watch Netflix.
So that part of the experiment where the experimenter is also responsible for the cleanup... failed!
Sunday, November 6, 2016 at 11:49AM 
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