Another first

It has been a busy November with business and personal travel and the first two weeks of December seem to have flown by as well. 

Now that the rains in Chennai have stopped and things are returning to normal slowly, that is weighing less on our mind. That didn't mean things came to a halt here in Cupertino. It has been an interesting week here. 

The little one has been learning the violin recently. However, she is very shy and reluctant to go on stage. Her message to us has been "I want to learn because I like it. Not because I want to perform. So if you force me to go on stage, I will quit". 

With a lot of encouragement from her teacher and us, she participated in the annual recital.

The best part of this for me was to watch her recover even if she made a mistake and smile through the whole thing. Now that she knows she can do it, she seems to be more confident. 

Hopefully this brings out the Violinst 2.0 in her! Given that she saw the other kids from the school perform for the first time, she is definitey inspired to practice more. 

Funny thing is that Jr. now wants to learn violin too and has been making a stong case on why she should learn Violin asap. We are now mulling that over.. 

Happy Diwali

It is always difficult when Diwali comes in a weekday and you are in the USA. They should declare it a holiday at least in Cupertino!

Wishing you all a wonderful Diwali!

May this Deepavali bring you light and joy.

They made the Deepams (Dia's) as part of their art class. The little one is going through the "conscious phase of posing for photos" now that she is a "tween" aka "big girl"! 

As far as I am concerned, they will NEVER be big girls.

They are growing up though. Finally did a collage of them in a third nice dress this year..

Cannot believe this year is coming to an end in a few more weeks. Have to post a lot of thoughts and pictures. Will get to them before end of the year. 

For now, time to enjoy the sweets and savories made by MIL, and enjoy the smiling faces all around! 

Happy Deepavali! 

A quiet halloween

Today we had a quiet halloween. Given it was on a weekend, was expecting at least a dozen kids to show up.. we didn't have a single kid show up for trick or treat this year. Guess that is what happens when the road has no street lights and the few school going kids all move over to the community living complexes nearby to trick or treat with friends.

Thanks to travel, didn't carve pumpkins this year. 

Jr. and the little one did go out with their friends!

apparently her friend  was "thing 1".. the whole thing was lost on me. at least I should have got a picture of her with her friend and captured the "things".

The little one was a cat. 

The kids did their dressing up by themselves and also shopped for the raw materials or reused old costume pieces. Guess they are both growing up to the point where we don't have to interfere in the halloween department. 

The best part of halloween? They came home and said "Appa, we know you like Twix. So every house that had Twix in their candy, we picked Twix. we will put it in the fridge and you can eat it this week!" 

That was priceless !