Easter Eggs

Not much needs to be said to accompany these photos. Dyeing Easter eggs....so much fun. No matter where we have lived, we pack a couple of the wonderful Paas egg decorating kits. It is one of those family tradition moments that travels with us.

Love the way the concentrate so much on not breaking the eggs and getting just the right color. This year Rachel experimented with mixing colors and ended up with a couple brownish eggs. It was a good lesson for her on complimentary colors and what can be mixed with what.

They let Mama do one egg this year. I have a feeling next year they won't even want me in the room.

Easter Dresses

For those of you who know my oldest, this will not be a surprise. Her favorite part of Easter is the dresses. This year I bought them simple cotton every day dresses. Beautiful but nothing fancy. By Friday, Rachel was upset but had accepted that there would be no new, fancy, glittery dress for Sunday.

Bring on Saturday, we stop at a local mall to get new sneakers for Rachel. (side note: I have never seen a child's feet grow so fast. It's only been two months and time for new shoes.) We walked in the store looking for shoes and ta-da.....there they were. Rachel looked up at her father with pleading eyes and said, "Daddy, please can we try them on." He tried to look stern, but I could see the sparkle in his eyes when he said, "Yes, you may try them on, but I'm not promising we will buy one."

On the way to church, two happy little girls all dressed up in their finest for Easter. Thanks, Daddy :)

Rachel looking so grown up. Where did the time go?

Rebekah in what she calls her butterfly princess dress.

At Easter brunch, Rebekah's school, Intellitots, ran the kids corner with games, songs, a kid type buffet, and an Easter egg hunt.

Best friends...Rachel, Thien-Mai, and Jessica. Not sure how Bekah got her mug in this one.

waiting in India

Driving in India is something I never want to do. I am extremely glad that we have a careful and conscientious driver to get us from point A to point B....and all the in between spots. Nemlal also adores our children, plays hide and seek with Rebekah every day before school,

brings in the groceries, opens doors, runs errands, stays with work men while they are in our apartment, negotiates and bargains at markets for me,

and waits. Waiting is probably one of the biggest parts of his day. He waits while I am at Rachel's school, while I am doing the grocery shopping, and while I am in meetings or at Hindi class. He waits for my husband when he is working late, he waits for Rachel while she is at ballet, and he waits, holding the door, while I talk to a friend I just happened to run into. With all this waiting, I would think he would get irritated and annoyed with our family. But, just the opposite, he is always calm, soft spoken, and one of the most patient men I know. We are very thankful to have found our laid back, waiting Nemlal.

PS...thanks to Cindy and Rusty for passing him on to us :)

Five Minute Friday...On Distance

When perusing what Tai Tai Johnson had to say today on her amazing blog, I found this challenge from Gypsy Mama (http://thegypsymama.com/2011/04/five-minute-friday-on-distance/) to link up with other bloggers and write for five minutes. That's it, just write for five minutes flat. Stream of consciousness, no editing style. She will give the prompt each week. This week's prompt....On Distance.

Clock says 12:59 am....here goes.....

Since graduating high school, I've always lived away from my family. College, jobs, marriage, husband's job, and so on have taken me to ten different locations in the past 20 years. This time the distance seems so much farther than it ever did before. I miss my family while at the same time love where we live right now. Yes, I said it, I really like living in India. I wish someone would finally perfect the time travel thingy so I could go back and forth from the US to India quicker, easier, faster, and without jet lag.

I am so looking forward to being in the US this summer and not having any distance between my family and myself. I can't wait to catch up with my sister, mom, and in-laws. I am so thankful we have the amazing family that we do. No matter how many times we move, no matter how far away we go, no matter how long between conversations....we love each other with all we have and the distance melts as soon as we are together again.

Ooops....it's now 1:05 so I guess this is six minute Friday.

Will try to stick to the rules better next week. But, if you know me, then you know I have always had a little bit of the rule breaker in me.

Chandigarh Rock Garden

From Wikipedia

The Rock Garden of Chandigarh is a sculpture garden in, Chandigarh India, also known as Nek Chand's Rock Garden after its founder, Nek Chankd, a government official who started the garden secretly in his spare time in 1957.

It was discovered by the authorities in 1975, by which time it had grown into a 12-acre (49,000 m²) complex of interlinked courtyards, each filled with hundreds of pottery-covered concrete sculptures of dancers, musicians, and animals. The authorities took over, and the garden was inaugurated as a public space in 1976. It is presently run by the Rock Garden Society.

The Rock Garden is still made out of recycled materials. It is situated near Sukhna Lake. It consists of man-made interlinked waterfalls and many other sculptures that have been made of scrap & other kinds of wastes (bottles, glasses, bangles, tiles, ceramic pots, sinks, electrical waste, etc) which are placed in walled paths.

I guess I need to go back in 60 years so I can get in for free.

Even the above trees and roots are made from rocks.

These swings were the highlight of the day for the girls.

There are over a hundred figures made out of old, broken, and discarded bangles.

Rebekah's preschool graduation

It's hard to believe that my little monkey has finished her first year of preschool. The ceremony was very sweet. They had each child come on stage and tell the parents what their favorite part of Intellitots has been.

Following is the transcript from the video:

Teacher: What is your favorite part?

Rebekah: Health and Hygiene.
T: What do you like about it?

R: It tells you not to eat junk food. (Are we sure this is my child??)

T: Rebekah is like the little angel of the class. Ready to help everybody and anybody.

Then the other teacher says something to her followed by Rebekah's Indian head bobble which she has become oh-so-good at :) It was actually my favorite part of the whole ceremony.

Thursday afternoon Dan called and said that he had to go away for the weekend for some "strategic planning" meetings. He also said that his boss would like the families to go along. Did I forget to mention that we needed to leave in a couple hours? So quick, frantic packing done. Girls fed, van loaded and off we headed to Manesar. It is a small industrial town about 45 minutes south of Gurgaon. As we drove past factories, manufacturing facilities, shops, tent villages, and construction site after construction site, I started to panic. Where are these meetings being held? Did the big boss really expect us to take the family for a fun weekend in this dusty, noisy village? Then we turned off the highway onto a small lane that led to the above. Heritage Village is an amazing retreat hidden away in the most unlikely of places.

The grounds at this "Rajasthani haveli style palatial resort" are located on 12 acres of quiet. The abundant flowers, trees, hammocks and hidden seating areas create a relaxing, calming place to kick back.

The girls thoroughly enjoyed strolling the grounds and gardens. We picked flowers, hung out in one of the multiple hammocks on the properties, and played games in the park.

Rebekah found an old bird's nest which she proceeded to fill with flowers to decorate our room.

The hotel has its own garden in a back corner where they grow many of the vegetables and greens used in the kitchen.

Everywhere we turned there was something interesting to check out.

Add to that the beautiful architecture and Rajasthani decorations and it was a wonderful paradise not far from home.

They even had a playground, cricket court (not sure what it is actually called...pitch, field??), volleyball courts, camel rides, and horse rides.

And, of course, the favorite for our family and where we spent most of our time....The beautiful swimming pool.

If it weren't for the fact that Dan was stuck in meetings most of the weekend, it would have been perfect. All in all the girls and I had a fabulous time and returned to the real world relaxed, a little tanned, and ready to plan our next get away.