Our Christmas Memories

We had a wonderful Christmas day. The kids enjoyed opening their gifts. After a wonderful breakfast we all headed out for a walk through the woods. It was just beautiful. There was nice snow and the woods were just beautiful. Attached is a slide show of some activities prior to Christmas day and our walk on Christmas day. We then feasted on some delicious Beef Prime rib for our Christmas dinner. Enjoy the photos!

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The Green Christmas

The weekend before Christmas we gathered at Ted's parents in Crawfordsville to celebrate Christmas. Everyone was there except our nephew Jacob who recently enlisted in the Navy. We had a great time visiting with everyone.

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Merry Christmas

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Some photos from London

We have been back in the US for almost 2 weeks and I am finally getting around to post some photos from London. We had a great time seeing the sights and visiting with my brother Scott and his wife Jenny. It was a rushed weekend but we saw as much as we could see! We toured the London Tower, walked on the London Tower Bridge, saw the Parliament and Big Ben, toured Westminster Abby, visited the Sherlock Holmes Museum, rode the London Eye, visited the Marble Arch and walked through Trafalgar Square. London was a really neat city and we hope to someday have more time to see the sites.

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We've landed!

Well, we are back on US soil and it feels nice to be back. And as always I just hope the transition when the times comes to go back to India goes well. The flights went well, a bit bumpy but we stayed in the skies. The kids traveled really well. We had a whirlwind of a weekend in London but it was so much fun. I will share of our time in London later!

Off to the US

Well, as I type the bags are packed and standing by the door...waiting. Our flight leaves in a few hours. We are going to stay in London for the weekend where my brother Scott and his wife Jenny are going to join us! We are so excited to see them as well as the sites of London. Then we will head to the US and hopefully we will be on US soil Monday afternoon. I wonder how long we will wait to stop for some beef burgers?? Millie and Cleo are already off on their holiday to Auntie Margot's and Uncle Bob's. Such spoiled live they live, tomorrow Millie will be snacking biscuits by the pool! So the next blog will be from freezing Illinois!

We have eggs!

Big news is happening again at our house. I now have 3 hens.... and two of them, Gunery and Jumery are laying eggs proudly each morning in our guard shack. This event has been long awaited since I first acquired the chicks from a friend in August. Everyone thought I was nuts to want chickens again, especially for their eggs and not their meat. The rooster has been kept off the property, as least that is what they say. The eggs are beautiful brown and the darkest yellow yolk! I love baking and cooking with them, you know what they have been eating and I know how old they are. One of our youngest guards Aruna has taken a special interest in the hens (thus there names). I tease him that he is their momma as the come when he calls. The hens prefer to eat raw rice. I have been trying to implement a few things like legumes, cracked corn and cracked wheat but these chickens are Indian Chickens and seem to have different tastes and aren't sure what to think of these different foods. My dilemma was where are these chickens going to lay their eggs? I tried to explain to them what a nesting box was and when Raj said he could build one for 20o rupees I was ecstatic! Then one night he called Sundar and asked to be picked up at the bus stop, I think he lives near the bus stop and hope he didn't ride the bus with the chicken house. Oh wait, I was thinking nesting box but instead I got a chicken house. It is really just like a small doghouse but it works great. The only problem was it has some slits in the roof (okay more than a few) so they proceeded to take some plastic advertising signs of some trees on our street. So now our chicken house is also a advertisement for Wavetel, I wonder if they will get paid for the advertising? The chickens don't go in by themselves yet but the guards round them up and close them in for the night. They still lay there eggs in the guard shack in a plastic box lined with paper.

Rain, rain, go away, come again some other day

Fortunately the cyclone has moved and and the sun has come out. Sunday turned out to be a beautiful day and was actually quite hot out! It rained for over one week. I have never in my life seen so much rain, I believe we got over 21 inches of rain. There were lots of branches down but I have seen more winds in the Midwest with less damage so there must be something different with the tropical trees. I must admit it feels a bit like fall, the trees that loose their leaves are definitely loosing them. It just feels a bit strange to walk through the yard with the leaves crunching beneath flip flops!

On Friday Bhaskar and I went out to survey the damage and I was amazed at the damaged. But even as we drove the people still had smiles on there faces and were having fun in the water. Which I can't even begin to imagine what kind of bacteria must be present in the water. Today our gardener was down with a fever and I can't help think that the rain may have something to do with it. Today we went into the city and the side streets have definitely cleared up substantially. Our neighbors maid and family have moved into their spare room as their house is completely flooded. I have read of several people electrocuted when walking through water. I just can't imagine living in a hut during monsoon season (to be perfectly honest, any season). The newspaper showed ladies walking through chest deep water with belonging piled high on their heads. There were also photos of people being rescued by fisherman's boats. And of course there have been many senseless drownings occur as well as walls collapsing on people.

When Bhaskar and Sundar came to work it took them a long time as they walked through at least 2 feet of water while pushing their two wheeler. Bhaskar said on one road where the water was gushing over people were standing catching huge fish. At one point Bhaskar wore his swim trunks to work!

The really cool thing was that the kids had Cyclone days on Thursday and Friday. Although I think the tragedy in Mumbai had an affect on the decision to cancel. So we definitely enjoyed being together on Thanksgiving!



Below is a video taken by our good friends Bob and Fraser who have long drive to work. But the normal hour plus drive was much long than normal these past few days! So enjoy the video taken...they certainly weren't relaxed while the video was being made!




****This afternoon Fraser's wife Helen was telling me that the whole time Ramesh (their driver) was driving both Bob and Fraser were telling Ramesh, "Don't panic." Later that evening when they were safely home Ramesh turned to Fraser and asked , "Sir, what does panic mean?"