August 2009

Camping at Memorial State Park: With the summer quickly ending we make a mad dash for our last camping trip. We've been here a couple of times, but considering how accessible it is and the kid friendly swimming hole, plus the old growth redwoods draw us back each year.

Talluto-Vanse wedding: Tim and Jen invited us to their wedding in South Lake Tahoe. Turned out that mom was also heading into town right over that weekend. We skipped town wihout the kids. Unfortunately the 4 hour drive turned into 8 hours because of traffic on the 80, so we were wiped on Friday. We walked around on Saturday, but Tricia was starting to feel unwell. We headed off to the wedding in the afternoon with Audwin. The venue was spectacular and thee company was awesome. We had a fabulous time. Sunday morning, Tricia was feeling much worse and I need to be back home to catch a flight to Philly. A super short weekend, but hey, we had fun while it lasted.

July 2009

A few quick pictures of our new veggie garden: The morning before our road trip I took a few quick shots of our veggie garden because we weren't sure what it would be like after our 2 weeks on the road.

Our road trip begins with Albany, Oregon: We start off our road trip with Albany, we spent a week here diving our time between Tricia's mom and day. The kids loved Mom's cat Boogs a.k.a. Midnight

The Andertons: We went out to dinner with Ingrida and Ken the night of the 3rd. Ken's car was broken into and his GPS stolen. The next day we had Serhat, Sarka, Niranjan & Shilpa come with the kids. Ingrida made this scrumptious brunch. As always it was a fun and nostalgic time.

4th of July block party with Tricia's dad: Let me sum this up with as few words as possible. Kegs in trashcans, jello shots, illegal fireworks, cops, staunch republicans, boxers, public urination. Let me stop there. Ask us for details.

The Griders: On the way to Boise, we stopped at Aunt Judy and Uncle Butch's place in Camas, WA. We had the the whole jing-bang out there along with the kids. The girls got along like a house on fire.

Idaho: It's all true. Potatoes. Period. We were in Meridian for 4 days. It was nice to be with Lisa and Donald, because we haven't spent time with just them. They have a nice home and a fun life. The kids loved the mad kitties.

Concerts in the park: We love the concerts at Central Parl in San Mateo. One of the few things we can do with the kids, that is safe, easy, free and fun for everyone. Eve loves to dance. She's a social kid, so will make friends anywhere. I love her level of confidence. I think we're doing something right.

The kids being silly as always: Some pictures of them playing with each other

Random: A catch all set, with pictures of Tricia, Paul and Dan in a bouncy house, Anupam's birthday and the bottle of wine Eve selected for her baba.

June 2009

Eve goes to Menlo fire station with her class: Eve's class at the German American International School did a field trip to the Menlo Fire Station. It was awesome. All the adults had a fun time too. I now know the difference between a fire truck and fire engine

Summer days: Summer days in the backyard, pool and other mandatory fun activities

GAIS 20th Anniversary: Eve's school had their 20th anniversary. The kids put up quite a show. Eve's "Egel" was supposed to sing, but most were intimidated by the huge crowd. A fun day with face painting, a magician, his rabbit and tshirt painting

Standish-Hickey State Park: We went camping with Issac and Theresa at Standish Hickey State Park, north of Leggett. It was a log drive, but totally worth it. We had a really good time with mini hikes, Eve jumping into the water, S'mores and generally being outside.

A sleepy morning for both the kids: Some candid pictures

Haight Ashbury Street Festival: This was our date day. We headed out during the day rather than at night. We love the bohemian feel of Haight Ashbury, which seems to be fading as the years go by. A nice day out in the sun. There was even a sign in a window saying "Show us your boobs", with a bunch of college boys sitting near it with cameras. As an afterthought they had added "Don't worry, we're gay". No takers.

May 2009

Arjun's school picnic: Arjun's play school Little Hands had a family "picnic" at the school. There was a magician, cupcake decoration, face painting and much more. The kids loved it. Arjun is slowly becoming a boy with quite a personality and sense of humor.

The kids growing up: A collection of random shots of the kids growing up.

Our first weekend not working on the house: We have been working pretty much non stop on the house. This weekend we headed off to the Monterrey Bay Aquarium. A good relaxing day. So worth it.

Tricia's dad visits us: Tricia's dad visits us and we put his straight to work on helping Anupam build a complete closet organization system. 3 days and they had it done. Was awesome.

April 2009

Our first guests: We had been in our new house for barely a week and we had guests. Kristof Sulzer and his new bride came from Mexico. We gave them our room, nad they kept mostly to themselves. We were their B&B for their honeymoon :)

Turning a house into our home: Step one, fill it up with your shit. Step two unleash the kids.

Eve continues swimming: Eve has been taking swim lessons for over a year or so now and is getting much better.

March 2009

Last few days at Ivy St: Some pictures of the kids over the last few days at Ivy St. We lived there for 3 years and even had a baby in that house. Milt's apartment will have a special place in our lives

Our home renovation project: In two weeks we transformed our place. We worked 12-14 hours a day, everyday. The first week, mom looked after the kids and the second week, Madhur. Eternally grateful to both. We couldn't have done it without your help.

February 2009

Our annual pictures: We have been getting pictures taken annually by a professional photographer. Here's another set. The pictures of the kids are particularly good.

A quiet weekend: We have been travelling or doing something almost every weekend. This weekend we decided to take it easy. We had a pajama day where we stayed in pajamas all day, ate complicated meals, which made sure we cooked, cleaned and rested together. At some point we even took Eve for a ride on her new tandem bike. That wasn't too great. My favorite picture is of Tricia reading to Eve. Epic.

Crazy hair day: Eve had crazy hair day at school. Ok, fine, over version of crazy hair was a little tame. Next year, expect colors that aren't readily available in nature and yes, mousse. Lots and lots of mousse. Muuuuuhahahahahaaaa

Visiting Grandma and tasting wine: We try to head up to Ukiah atleast every other month to go see Grandma. Our Grandma and the kids' Great Grandma. What was that? We go there only for her famous lemon pie? Umm... no, we go there for her famous roasts too. Yes, we're foodies and Grandma tickles our palettes. Eve has come to expect Lemon Pie as soon as she realises that we are crossing Golden Gate Bridge. I also got a couple of really good shots of her home. the thundercouds helped.

Family haircut: I have been going Binh ever since I discovered her about 3 years back. She is a nice Vietnamese woman who runs Binh's Family Hair Care. We took Arjun there for his first haircut, Eve's 3rd and Anupam's 320th. Arjun was great through out as was Eve. She even got a lollypop at the end. Me? I got nuttin.

Arjun turns 1!!: Our baby boy is getting older. He has lost all of his little baby looks and now looks like a toddler. We had a special breakfast of Dutch Babies with fresh blueberry sauce. Needless to say he gobbled it all down. As did his sister. Anupam worked from home and then at about noon we headed off to San Jose Discovery Museum. He had a blast out there, crawling, pushing, pulling, throwing and gawking. Eve got to make cookies and Arjun opened presents. It was a fun filled day.

Arjun's birthday party: The weekend after his birthday we threw his birthday party. We invited all of Eve's friends and their parents. yeah, he gets to have his own friends next year :). Tricia had made a train cake, which Eve ate half of while nobody was looking. So Tricia baked another one and keep a very wathful eye on it. The frosting she did was very painstakingly arduous. She used great colors and technique. As you can see from the pictures it was well appreciated by the kids. Arjun of course had so much on his person that he was naked by the end of the day. Literally in his birthday suit.

This is my catchall set: A little bit of everything. Eve fighting sleep, with a painted face, Arjun demonstrating his standing and cruising abilities, a picture of some beer Anupam and Jai polished off and finally a picture of pea shoots.

January 2009

Eve's birthday party: We celebrated Eve's birthday all over again on the 3rd of January. We invited all her friends and their parents over for a fun party. We had all the ingredients for pizza on the dining table. All the kids and adults too turns making their own pizza. We baked 'em and and they loved 'em. The kids had a blast. Custom made pizzas and cupcakes. Of couse, we made sure the adults had pleenty of wine.

All about Arjun: This little boy is all boy. He is curious, throws things things and will chase anything. But he is incredibly loving. He does his thing and then comes over to us flops over on his back and wants something akin to a bellyrub. He loves to eat, play and sleeps easily. Some of these pictures are from Little Hands, a co-op play school.

Ok, this is Eve's 3rd birthday party: No, not her party for turning 3. This is her third party for turning 3. Yeah, this one is at school. I wish I could be doted upon like that. What a life.

All about Eve: Sure, it seems like all the pictures from this month are from Eve, but wait, there's more. These are pictures of her doing what she loves most, swimming and minding traffic. Yes, I said minding traffic. This is a job rotated between students at the school. If you see the pictures of her with the sign, you'll see she means business.

December 2008

Arjun and Eve, candid moments: These are a few pictures we took of the kids playing around home, interacting with each other and being silly. Good fun.

The school celebrates Christmas: Eve's school, the German American International School celebrated Christmas. There were songs, performances and more. It was a very interesting. Eve's class, Egel, is the youngest in the school and they're not quite old enought to become circus monkeys yet. Soon... soon... As a side note, these days Eve is using more and more German at home. She calls christmas trees "Tannenbaums" and butterflies "schmetterling". She even sings "O Tannenbaum" under breath all the time.

A couple of pictures of us: Our baby sitter karen took these pictures after we got home from Anupam's work party. It was about 1:30am and we were pooped.

Advent in school: Eve's school celebrated Advent with the four candles.

Our 5th Anniversary: 19th of December of '08 marked our 5th anniversary and just over 8 years together. We celebrated it over two days. On the 19th, which was a Friday, Tricia arranged a nice dinner with the kids. The day after, we had Karen come in the morning so we could have a day out in town. In morning, we had Eve feed Arjun, which made her very excited. We spent time near Levi Strauss Plaza, Fog City Diner and the little walking paths in that area that go between peoples homes. There are some spectacular views and very non touristy, which for this city is not so easy to come by.

Christmas: Christmas this year was a bit of debacle. The plan was to meet mom and grandma at Aunt Kathy's in LA. Two days before Christmas, there was a snow storm in Portland and mom could not fly out, all flights were cancelled. She was supposed to pick Grandma up by flying into Sacramento and then on to Burbank. So we were in LA with Aunt Kathy, mom in Albany and Grandma in Ukiah. On Christmas eve we decided to drive up to Ukiah, this is about 600 odd miles. Thankfully we had borrowed Jai's car which could actually seat a 3rd adult with two carseats in the back. But Aunt Kathy had to work till 4pm, so we left after that. We were in serious traffic till we hit I-5 about 45 miles and 2 hours out. About half way through the journey and Eve was very sick. The poor little girl threw up all over herself. We stopped at a gas station where they had "lost" the key to the restroom. We cleaned her up, cleaned up the car and powered on. We got to grandma's at about 3am and crashed. The next day we had mom on webcam while we did our gift exchange. Not quite the same... No more 12 hour drives in the middle of the night.

Eve turns 3!: Eve had her 3rd birthday on 31st December '08. Yeah, the party was on a later day, next year really and it was a working day for Anuppam... but we made the best of it. We had a nice breakfast, she opened her presents and then Anupam worked from home till about noon. Then we headed off to the zoo with mom. Eve loves the zoo more and more as she gets older. Arjun was mildly curious about a bunch of things. We had lunch there and then headed off to Buy Rite to treat her to ice cream. She even got to push Arjun around... in the push car.

New year's eve: We had the Schaafs and Malkanis over for dinner. Yup, same day as Eve's birthday. Anupam grilled a full rack of ribs, which turned out ok. He really wished he'd boiled it a little bit first to make sure the meat fell off the bone easily. We had a good time together. The Malkanis had just returned from India and were jet lagging. You'll see that Armaan is up well past his bedtime. In fact he was up well after all of us passed out.

November 2008

Lantern walk at GAIS: Eve's school, the German American International School had a lantern walk through Menlo Park to commemorate St Martin. It was nice, a little cold but a fun event with the family. Eve loved the lantern she helped make.

Eve meets Dr. Fong: Eve has her first dentist visit. We go to Dr. Brian Fong in Redwood City. He is really as are all his hygienists. Eve thought it was a blast. The pictures are a little out of focus

The kids being kids: Some pictures of the kids playing at home and a trip to Trinta Park around the corner

Thanksgiving in Albany: Thanksgiving this year was in Alabany, Oregon. Anupam decided to work from home during the week. This mean we drove up to Albany the weekend before and returned the weekend after. We also saw Bethany and her baby Gabriel. Donald too managed to make it, but Lisa could not.

An Indian feat in Camas, Washington: Aunt Judy and Uncle Butch wanted to have us over, but this was a day after they were going to host Thanksgiving at their place, so we didn't want them to go all out and do a bunch of cooking. So, Anupam offered to be the chef for the night. He put together a bunch of traditional bengali food including Bhapa daal, kosha mangshi, chechki and posto chicken. Cooking for amost 20 at someone else's is hard, but the reward is if the food was loved and then polished off. Both happened.

Old friends in Portland: On our way back from Camas, we stopped in Portland to meet with Sarka, Serhat, Gokhan and his imaginary wife Stephanie. We also met their kids Demir and Kubilay. We did brunch at the Berlin Inn in SE Portland, where Tricia used to work. It was really fun seeing them again. We've been friends for about 10 years now...

October 2008

Heading to India after 3 years: It's been 3 years since we left India. Heading there with two kids in tow. Unfortunately we aren't flying together. Tricia and Arjun are flying on United/Lufthansa SFO-LHR-FRA-BOM while Eve and Anupam are doing SFO-JFK-BOM, on United/Air India with an overnight layover at JFK.

So much food, so little time: We ate. And we ate. Then we ate some more. And took doggy bags. We made sure that we were there for Durga Puja, Diwali and the most festive time of the year. We went to Sweet Bengal regularly to pick up huge batches of Bengali desserts. And we polished 'em off.

A swim at the club: Pia and Vicky had to babysit Vicky's boss's kids. Since it was going to be a quietish weekend for us, we decided to head over to "The Club" for a swim. Eve has been taking swim lessons and she loved every minute. This was Arjun's first time in the water and he was thrilled to bits. He is quite a brave baby. Shay and Aanu of course loved the swimming and did not want to leave even though they were shrivelling up like raisins.

A day out with old friends: We really wanted a day out with our friends. These were people like Ashu, Ashish, Benny, Happy, Mandar etc who we spent every weekend with. We're the only ones with kids, but they were really well behaved. Arjun even took a couple of naps. Happy (Abhilash) brought my old machine, which had recently been getting some love after a near fatal head on collision. Anupam took Eve for a ride on the bike. Arjun was a little leery of the big machines. We were at Citizen Hotel on Juhu beach.

Lunch with the Drivers: Paiti had us over for lunch. They made Dhaansak. We love Parsi food. Yup another meal with friends. Nina was about pop, she's due any day now.

A few uncategorized pictures: A few pictures from here and there. Including some pictures from a park in Bandra.

A weekend in Uran: We used to love Uran. It's still very pretty, but they had no power in the afternoon when the kids needed to sleep. It was quite uncomfortable. We still had a good time.

We walk around in Bandra: We headed off to walk around Bandra to cure cabin fever off and on. It was nice to walk on familiar roads and see familiar sights.

A few days at Goa's beautiful beaches: A few days in Goa. We spent all day at the beach. We ate every meal at small beach shacks watching the kids frolic in the surf. Yup, they were frolicing. Tricia ate all the crustaceans she could. Anupam was wolfing Goan Sausage like it was going out of style. It was awesome. Plus we drank a lot of Feni cocktails. Goa before peak season is very kid friendly. Don't you want to go?

A trip to Kanheri caves: The Kanheri Caves are located north of Borivli on the western outskirts of Bombay, deep within the green forests of the Sanjay Gandhi National Park. Kanheri Caves are sign of Buddhist art and influence India. We've always loved this place. Eve was following monkeys around saying "I'm a monkey too!" and tripped over a tree root. The last couple of pictures have her face owwie.

We take Pia and Vicky out for a night out in town: We took Pia and Vicky for a night out to thank them for their hospitality. We rented a chauffeured car and headed over to some club near Indigo in Colaba. We had a couple of drinks and then headed off to Bade Miyan, one of the oldest shack style muslim food places. Now, don't be fooled into thinking that this place is cheap. If you want cheap, you walk half a block to Baghdadi, Anupam's personal.

We revive bhai phota after more than a decade: Here is a good description: " Every brother eagerly awaits this occasion that reinforces the bond between brothers and sisters and their affectionate relationship. It's an opportunity for a good feast at the sister's place, coupled with an enthusiastic exchange of gifts, and merriment amid the resounding of conch shells in every Bengali household."

Heading back home: Heading back on Halloween. It was long flight back home. Tricia arrived home before Anupam did even though he left before she did, but he had a 4 hour layover at JFK. Eve was exhausted and slept through the JFK-SFO leg.

Eve and Arjun are reunited: The flight back was so long and the two of them missed each other. Like our way to India, we also flew back seperately. Tricia and Arjun on Lufthansa, Eve and Anupam on Air India/United. It's good to be back home

September 2008

Eve and Arjun love ot eat: It almost seems like we are short order chefs all the time. We seem to be cooking and feeding these two bottomless pits all the time. It's amazing how much they can tuck in

Eve and her swimming: Eve loves her swim practice with Tricia. They go every Wednesday for swim lessons to La Petite Baleen in San Bruno, about 15 minutes north of us. She can do her baloon face and close her eyes tight and paddle her way through.

Eve loves football: Eve and Anupam play football every Saturday at 8:30am. She is slowly getting to understand the game and doesn't just collect the marker cones or other nonsense and run like the wind. And yeah, Anupam refuses to call the game Soccer.

Eve and Arjun hang out with Grandma: We joined a wine club at Parducci in Ukiah. They have great wines, plus they're green. This gives us a good reason to visit Grandma on a regular basis. And yeah, we had lots of lemon pie. Lots!

Arjun has his first playgroup: Arjun had his first playgroup. He's 7 months old. The kids were over at our place.

Tricia's timeout: Tricia and Janet decided to head off to Sausalito for a weekend away from the kids. This was was first time Anupam was alone with two kids overnight. Arjun was all of 7 months old and Eve was a hefty 2 years 9 months old. The girls rented a bungalow, went out for drinks, the next day they went kayaking from Sausalito to Strawberry and finally spent time at the spa. That just makes for a relaxing weekend away.

August 2008

Eve and Arjun playing at home: Both our kids just play all day. Yeah, I know all kids do, but I'm not sure why, but I seem to like ours more than the other ones across the street. Arjun has started reconizing objects and makes a useless attempt to reach for them. Eve spends all day being silly. Yup, we are the family circus that Keane speaks of.

Roaring Camp Railroad, Santa Cruz: Janet, Michael, their kids and we headed off to Roaring Camp Railroad in Felton, Santa Cruz. This place has been around for over 70 years and used to be a train yard where logged trees would be loaded to take to mills around the state.

Now, it's a nice area for kids to explore, with wide open space. And yes, a train ride through giant redwoods. Eve was thrilled to bits and had a great time. She was also thrilled to have Lillian with her play, explore, sing and dance. And yes, they did all of that at the same time. It got over too soon. Will we do it again? Heck yeah!

Ford Family Reunion at Lake Mendocino, California: The Ford family reunion happened over the 2nd weekend in August. Everybody was there. Even Donald and Lisa made though they had been a little tight with their finances after buying a house a few months prior. It was very good to see Laurel and Jason with their little skunk, Caele^*. The actual reunion was at Lake Mendocino, but we spent all of our time in Ukiah with grandma. I met many people from the Ford side and saw many people again, including Bethany and her preggo belly. Plus, it was good to meet Josh, who is heading over to Tricia's alma mater, PSU.

^* Eve has had a doll for a long time. For about a year or so, before Arjun was born and after she could articulate words, she called the baby "Baby". Then for about 5 months, the doll became "Arjun". After meeting Caele, she now calls the doll Caele. If I get all noisy in the morning, she comes to me and says "Shhh... BABA! Caele is sleeping. Please be quiet."

Eve and Anupam play football: Yes siree. Football. I may pronounce schedule as skedool and z has gone from zed to zee, but calling football by any other name is sacrilege and punishable only by flogging at the post.

Eve and I go play football every Saturday at Beresford Park in San Mateo, This is a father/dautgher thing Tricia arranged for us and we love every minute of it. Plus Eve loves sports. When Arjun is older, I will do something similar with him.

Arjun has his annaprashan: Arjun had his Annaprashan/Mukhebhaat. This is his ceremonial lunch of his first rice. There is a religious aspect to it, but we glossed over that part. Read more in the blog. In the last few pictures in this album, we were watching some Olympic events and the twisty boy was just trying to watch some synchronized diving.

Eve managed to get many barrettes in her hair: Eve is really good at playing all by herself and this day she managed to find the box with all her hair accessories and decided to see how many she could put in her hair. How many can you count?

Eve loves the bath paint/bubble bath/messy-like-a-piggy time: Tricia bought a bunch of very bright bubble bath soap, which doubles as bath paints. Eve loved it and squealed with pleasure as she played with it.

Eve is 2 1/2 years old and gets her big girl bed: So we decided to move Eve from the crib to her own bed as soon as my dad headed back. We have had quite a few people visit and have never really had too many weekends to do fun and exciting things like buying, loading, assembing beds. Today we headed off to the store where Eve... umm... test drove all the beds and chose the white wrought iron one. Tricia favored a white woood one and I liked a gunmetal wrought iron one. Simple compromise. Eve is really good on the bed. She doesn't out of the bed after we tuck her in. She will reach over and read books to her toys and doll in pitch darkness and sometime hang out near the window watching the stars. Usually passes out in 10-20 minutes, after singing herself to sleep. A good little girl.

Eve starts pre school at the German American International School: Tricia and I really wanted Eve to go to this school. This is an International Baccalaureate. This school goes up to middle and after that we'll transfer the kids to another IB school in Redwood City. She loves the school and is always very excited about going. The school's curriculum is taught in German and we hope she is multilingual like both of us. And yeah, Arjun will go there too. The only catch, it's in Menlo Park, so quite a drive for us, from San Mateo.

Sturdevant family reunion in Bend, Oregon (Labor Day weekend): This is the second family reunion in the same month. This time the drive was quite a bit longer to Bend Oregon. We had a very good time with Eve and Arjun being great in the car to and back, as well as at all the events. Read more in the blog.

July 2008

The Mittras being just plain daft: So you ask what's new? Well, it started out with just Anupam being daft, which many people came to terms with. Now after adding Tricia, Eve and Arjun, chronologically in 2000, 2005 & 2008, we are 4 time dafter. Hell yeah!

Trip to the zoo: This is Arjun's first trip to the SF Zoo. We have been members for a couple of years. To be totally honest, he doesn't really care as long as he's fed on regular intervals. Useless kid. Eve on the other hand has little flashes of usefulness. We rode the train and she played with goats. A nice Sunday out.

Eve loves her little trike: Dida gave her a Trike for her second birthday. She likes to jump on any chance she can. Today was one of the first times she was actually peddling the thing. Fatima, our neighbor's kid is pushing her along.

Water fight!: Anupam was in the process of washing the cars because they were just filthy. He tries to only wash them every 6 weeks or so to conserve water. But, this was not a water conservation day. Eve, Fatima and her cousins were playing so he decided to hose 'em down. In fact he plays with the kids in the backyard on a regular basis.

We see Jorge after 7 years: Jorge is a good friend of ours from before we even got together in Portland, OR. This was back in 1999. He is from Brazil. Soon after we left in 2001 for Sydney, he left for France, where he lived with his girlfriend Claire. When Anupam was just starting his consulting outfit in Bombay, Jorge helped with some of the infrastructural areas. He then got a job with Google Ireland and married Claire a couple of years back. We had gotten married and had 2 kids in between. It felt like no time had passed after we'd been talking for 5 minutes.

Breakfast with the Spains: Tricia spends a lot of time with Christy and Eve really likes her son Zachary. Unfortunately, Kevin and Anupam don't hang out as often as they'd like to. Both are workoholics. This morning both families made time to have breakfast together. Tricia did her world famous "Dutch Babies" and they brought a fruit salad. A nice couple of hours.

UCSC Swim Meet: Tricia did a swim meet after about 12 years if my math is correct. She had just started swimming and was taking it quite seriously. She and her septuagenarian team mates actually won a relay medal. Over all it was all about a good day with the family doing what we like to best. Having heaps of fun.

Anupam's dad visits: The last time we saw Anupam's dad was over a couple of days in September 2006 in LA because Anupam had to go there for work over 3 weeks and his dad planned a trip over there at the same time. This time was different, he was there only to vacation and hang out with his grandkids. Arjun, he hadn't yet met. We headed over to Napa, Mendocino and Monterey.

June 2008

Arjun is a growing boy: He just gets older and cuter. Fine, he's ours and we will think everthing he does is cute. In fact he get a little gassy sometimes and breaks little baby wind. I think that is just the cutest thing ever. Men in my opinion are supposed to have gas and I appreciate how he focusses on pushing each fart atom out.

The first 4 pictures of Eve will probably seem cute to you but they scare the crap out of me each time. Click on the link to see why...

May 2008

Coming soon: All these pictures are from trips we took with Jan and Daniela

San Francisco:

Yosemite:

Monterey and Big Sur:

Back in San Mateo:

Napa, Sonoma, Ukiah and Grandma:

Off to Los Angeles to drop them off:

April 2008

Jenny comes over to take pictures of 6 week old Arjun: Jenny Zhao, a colleaue's friend was looking at getting some experience with photographing newborns. I asked her to stop by one weekend and here are some great pictures.

Eve hangs out with her friends: Eve is a social little thing and these are some pictures of her with her friends. Kids having unbridled fun. What could be better?

Some time at home and out with our kids: Spending some time at home and around home with our kids. It's nice to have some time over the weekend when nothing is planned and we head over to places like Seal Point Park in San Mateo, so Eve can get out of the house and expend some energy after being cooped all week with a new born

March 2008

Trish's birthday: Today is Tricia's birthday. This was a wierd birthday of sorts because we had just brought Arjun home the day before and we hadn't quite settled in as a family. Eve and I headed out to pick up some good Burmese take out as well as a nice cake from Burlingame Avenue. Tricia was a little out of with exhaustion, but I made a nice breakfast, lunch and Burmese for dinner to make it special. As you can see Eve loved her cake.

We get to know Arjun: We are slowly getting to know him. He spent the first 3 days of his life under an oxygen mask in a NICU. I had to build my bond, fall in love, hold him and watch him sleep. I was happy to have 2 weeks away from work to get to know my son.

Easter: Tricia had planned for Easter well in advance because we didn't know exactly when Arjun will come. Mom was here and we had a blast coloring eggs, opening gifts and doing the usual Easter stuff. There are a couple of Easter videos if you're interested.

Grandma meets Arjun: Tricia drove up to Grandma's place when he was only about a month old, to take Mom there to meet her. Eve helped Grandma pick lemons from her backyard.

Ashia and the kids: Ashia took the kids to the San Mateo Central Park. Eve as always is a little cautious around slides.

February 2008

Kids playing: These pictures are taken just days before Arjun was born. Eve is with her friends.

Labor and the hospital: I could write about Arjun's birth and out time in the hospital, but I think this blog entry speaks volumes about how we felt.

Arjun comes home!: Again, I would recommend you read the blog entry linked above.

January 2008

Eve turns 2: Eve's birthday is on the 31st of December which though a cool day to have a birthday, si also a difficult day to get her friends together, so she's had late birthday parties so far.

Robert leaves: Robert left Guidewire after working there for almost 3 years. He headed off to Sebastapol to work and live there. Crazy man.

Bath goggles: Eve is a brave overall. She can take quite a beating and keep going. The one thing that freaks her out is water in her eyes. She's wearing swim goggles to her bath hoping that it helps. Nutjob.

Tricia reads books to the girls: We were over at the Wong's and after dinner I noticed that Tricia was missing. I just waited to see if she would come back. She didn't. I walked around looking for her, that is when I saw her on the futon with a half dozen girls reading books to them.

Big belly: Eve is marvelling at the big belly. See the awe and admiration in her eyes.

Lunar Eclipse in Albany, Oregon: Just some great pictures of the lunar eclipse.

December 2007

Eve turns 2: Eve's birthday is on the 31st of December. She woke up to many presents and a hefty breakfast. We just hung out all day because Tricia was uncomforable most of the time. We had a pretty subdued little party at Christy and Kevin's. The kids played and Eve got to blow out all the candles and eat a heap of cake. It was fun day.

Christmas: First Aunt Kathy flew in and soon after Mom and Grandma fly in. It was quite the full house. We mostly spent our time cooking and eating. A lot like what holidays were for Anupam when he was a kid. We bought a honey baked ham for Christmas dinner. Paul and Vic joined us for dinner. Dinner was awesome with everybody pitching in.

Annual family pictures: We do family pictures each year and this year we used Steve Wong again. The pictures turned out really well. Have a look. Eve was quet to start with, as always, but soon enough she came around and was quite the sport. Tricia is about 7 months pregnant.

Team lunch: Nikki organized a team holiday lunch. Yeah, holiday lunch, people are too PC to say Christmas anymore. In the pictures you see Nick, Paul, Nikki, Robert, Kevin, Tig and Casey on the webcam.

Our anniversary: I thought this was going to be an average anniversary. Trish took me to a nice restaurant for drinks and then we headed home... and oh wow. She had this traditional Bengali mean catered. It just blew my mind.

Kids Christmas party: Rachael and Jonah had us and a few friends over for a Christmas party. The kids had a grand 'ol time and got some very thoughtful gifts.

Just a few pictures of Eve playing: Eve playing with Zachary, Lillian and Eliana. Happy kids.

We choose a tree: We chose a tree for the first time as a family. It was nice to go with Eve and have her pick a tree to select from a lot and then the three of us decorated it the rest of the day. She loved every minute and we loved watching her. Her flavor of "help" is usually much the opposite

Bikers need to go too: Eve and I took the bike out for a ride to San Mateo Park. On the way back she announced that she needs to go "susu" (pee). We hurried back and she sat down with her book, all happy and content with herself.

November 2007

Thanksgiving in Albany: Thanksgiving was at Mom's place again, we had the whole family this time. The usual suspects were there ofcourse, but we also had Donald and his girlfriend Lisa join us. Tricia's cousin Bethany was also there for a couple of days. Eve loved her. The live in Meridian, Idaho, a subdivision close to Boise. We had a bunch of our friends over for Thanksgiving dinner including Sarka, Serhat and Gokhan. It was good to see all of them again.

Eve's first haircut: Today we took Eve for her first haircut. Anupam really did not want her to get a haircut because he liked her bhangi (scraggly) looks. She sat quietly while the hairdresser took maybe 2 centimeters off. Anupam is still traumatized

Some pictures of us at home: Just lounging around at home. Eve all wrapped up, Tricia's big belly and more...

October 2007

Halloween: The Halloween Tricia and I did not dress up. In the morning we headed over to Little Wonders and we went Trick or Treating on 25th Avenue with a couple of friends. Eve was a puppy this time and was a little reluctant to wear the costume, but came aroung in the end. After we got back from 25th we headed over to Palm Ave for some more TNT. Was fun.

Eve has a new whatty?: Yup a new potty. She loved her potty from the get go. She has started showing signs of being interested in potty training already. It's pretty cool.

Pumpkin carving party: We threw a small pumpkin carving party for our friends. BYOP. Bring your own pumpkin. We carved, laughed, ate and drank. A good way to spend the evening.

Durga Puja: We headed off to a couple of Durga Pujas. They we only ok. Plus some pictures of Zachary's birthday.

Anupam get a haircut: Anupam goes to Bihn for his monthly $14 haircut. She is quick, always has parking and is friendly. Eve was very curious and wanted to sit in his lap all the way through. Plus Anupam has also been gone on business trips a lot, to Cincinnati and Alburquerque, so she wanted to only hand out with him.

September 2007

San Jose Childrens Museum: Jonah, Eliana, Eve and I headed over to the San Jose Childrens Museum. I had never been there. I thougt that the Sausalito one was awesome. The San Jose museum just amazed me. The kids loved it.

Hawaii: The final frontier. Well, it is for Tricia. See, she's from the 49th state, Alaska, so she's always wanted to visit the newest one. This was her dream come true. We spent 6 days there. Lots of surf, sand and local food. Yes, we ate poi.

Little baby freak show: Every time Eve sees herself in the mirror she points at her reflection and yells FEEKSHOWWW. These are some pretty cool pictures over the weekend of 8th of September of her being herself. Reading, in her sports car, climbing up on things, playing, blowing bubbles etc.

Sawyer Trail, San Mateo: Tricia decided to go biking over to Sawyer Trail over by Skyline Blvd, near the Bunker Hill exit on I280. We must have done about 6 miles on a nice twisty trail. A nice way to spend Sunday evening. Plus the view were pretty cool. Only thing was that we did not prepare for the cooler evening breeze. Brrr...

Chowing down: We invited 5 couples over to our place on the Sunday over the Labor Day weekend. Not too many pictures, and unfortunately none of the spread we made. We had about 110 different dishes for that meal. Even after sending food home with the Schaafs and the Wongs and feeding Jai the next day, we still had tons to freeze. The meal blew everyone's socks off and no we 'aint bragging. Well, we are, but the food was awesome.

August 2007

Visiting Grandma: The weekend before Labor Day, we decided to drive over to Grandma's. Anupam was very excited because he thought he could guilt Grandma into making her famous Lemon Mirangue. Not to be confused with Merengue.

Dida visits Eve: Dida visited us at the fag end of her summer vacation. Anupam had to work over the week, but we had a ball over the weekend. Visited the Zoo, it had been a while since Tricia had gone. Plus we also headed off to Moss Beach at Half Moon Bay. We also had lunch at a popular sea food restaurant. We ended it with a modern adaptation of Mid Summer Night's Dream. A nice weekend all in all.

San Mateo County Fair: Tricia, Rachael and the babies headed over to the San Mateo County Fair which happens at the Bay Meadows, less than a mile from our place. Eve was frightened of the two dudes in the horse costumes but Ellie loved riding the horses. Some of the indoor pictures are quite hazy.

Memorial State Park: 4 couples, 4 kids, average age of the kids was under 18 months. Cold weather, lots of fire and tons of bacon. Heck yeah, we had a ball. The vegetarian couple said and I quote, "I have never been more revolted by bacon than right now", as we saved the bacon fat to fry ham sandwiches in. Classic. And oh yeah, Eve's first ever bike ride. That too under the redwoods. Perfect huh?

Bag baby: See, Anupam is an idiot. So, ok, that's a given. But he takes our child, the apple of our eye, our raison d’être, in a bag. A laundry bag no less and swings her like a pendulum. What does our 18 month old do? She lies in the bag and squeals whee... whee... and as soon as he stops, she continues to lie in the bag and pleads mo... mo... pease mo baba.... And now, anytime she sees the laundry bag, she lays in it and starts squealing! Check out my crazy husband and crazier kid.

Childrens Museum: We decided to head out and spend some time at the Childrens Museum in Sausalito. We've been here a few times but Eve loves this place and it's nice to see her explore different parts as she "matures". Every visit creates new wonder for her. And we got some really cool pictures of the bridge. Why bridge you ask? *We scoff you!*

July 2007

Slide: Eve really wanted to play in the backyard. So Anupam took her out back and today for the first time, she decided to ride the little slide all by herself. These candid action shots show you how much fun she was having. That is one happy little girl.

SF Zoo: Jonah and I decided to head over to the Zoo to give the wives a break and hang out with our girls. We even got the touristy picture taken. We had a grand 'ol time.

Best Friends: Eliana visited Eve to hang out, read books and play for a bit. These girls play really well together.

Trip Home: Tricia and Eve flew off to Albany to meet her mom. Anupam decided not to take any time off from work. Trish caught up with our old friends from Portland. Ingrida, Ken, Sarka, Serhat, Gokhan and others. She also met up with Aunt Judy and Uncle Chuck up in Washington. April too was available to hang out for a bit.

June 2007

We don't have too many pictures from June because Anupam accidentally dropped Pia/Vicky's camera and we replaced their camera with ours. Anupam was very busy with work, traveling to Albuquerque, NM and after that three orders from Amazon got canceled... more soon.

May 2007

Dad's kicked out: Jonah, Jim and I get kicked out. We headed over to the Children's Museum in Sausalito. It was my first time there and it was awesome. The kids loved every minute. Jonah and I even raced our kids in Tonka trucks.

Pia, Vicky and the kids arrive:

The mom's club picnic: Tricia and Rachael planned a huge picnic for the San Mateo Mom's Club. It was awesome, with clowns, singers and other entertainment. Anupam made the picnic and brought the kids to the park with Vicky. Pia went early to help Trish with the setup. A huge success.

San Francisco and the Zoo: We took everyone to the San Francisco Zoo. The kids had a great time looking at the felines, rhinos, giraffes, penguins and everything else. After that we took them to the the lookout to view the Golden Gate Bridge and from there we headed into the city to walk them around near the wharf. After the kids got tired, we headed home.

Children's Museum, Susalito: Now the Chidren's Museum is a great place to take kids. There is a little play area where they can climb hills, crawl through tunnels, hand puppet theater among other activities. We took them to all the exhibits and they loved every minute.

The road trip

Lake Isabella: This was our first stop. It was in the Sequoia National Park and we planned to just camp there for a couple of days before heading towards Death Valley. A very pretty lake and was the primer for the rest of the trip.

Death Valley, CA: Just totally beautiful. Beautiful in a spectacular way. Stark, contrasty and.... dead. Very hot, dry and dusty. The Elantra was starting to overheat as were we. So even though we found a really good campsite, we decided to stay at a hotel.

Las Vegas, NV We got to Vegas a little early because Tricia's mom had flown there to meet up with us. We saw a show, had the usual buffet, gambled a little and walked the strip.

Hoover Dam, LV We stopped at Hoover on the way to the Grand Canyon. It is pretty impressive. We were stuck in traffic for a LONG time.

Grand Canyon National park, AZ This was our first time here. We had a nice shaded site, with plenty of space for the kids to play. We went for a couple of hikes, nothing too strenuous. Anupam woke up at 5am one day to take sunrise pictures. This was the highlight of the trip.

Mojave Desert, CA We were supposed to stay at a place called "Hole-in-the-wall campground", but on the last minute we decided to stay at a hotel. on the way to the hotel, we saw some military aircraft doing some low level maneuvers. After Eve went to sleep, we noticed she was restless. She threw up 3 times. We think it was something she ate. Anu sat near the window, looking at the pool singing, "Row, row, row your boat"...

Almost homeVicky took these pictures with his camera when we were less than 5 miles from home on the 280.

Monterrey, CA: We headed over to Monterrey to take them to the Aquarium and then walk around for a bit. Monterrey is a pretty little town.
Back Home: We spent the last few days at home with Mili, cooking, playing, eating, cooking, eating, talking about food... you know the drill...

April 2007

The San Mateo Mom's Club meet for Easter: The SMMC met a week early to celebrate Easter with the kids. There are some really good pictures of the kids sitting around with destroying everything within reach. Not bad for 12 one year kids.

Bathrobe and sweatshirt: Eve loves to dress up. I've participated in multiple nurture v/s nature discussions, but this seems to be more of a nature issue. We don't push her to be girly, but she is. She wants to wear hats, hair bands, necklaces and her mom's clothes.

Anupam is home from Wisconsin over Easter: Anupam has been in Wisconsin for a couple of weeks now and will be there for another week. He came home over Easter weekend to veg out. The work in Wisconsin is draining him physically and mentally. Well, it does not take much to drain him mentally.

Another visit to a children's museum: We have an annual membership to all the children's museums in the US. We plan to visit as many as we can as we travel to different states. Each museum has age appropriate display kids can play with and learn from. These places are great.

Always in a good mood: Eve is not about 15 months old and she's always in a good mood. She wants to play and be played with all the time. Anupam rough houses with her and she loves the picking up and thrown down games. She is also playing with her car seat. She sits in it and says "Buh-bye", ready to be taken to her next adventure. Rachael has a little wagon that the kids sit in while being towed. Lastly, Don is playing with Eve. She pushes a big ball at her and she pushes it away and laughs very hard. The joys of parenting.

March 2007

Feeding the Guinea Pigs: Eliana, Rachael & Jonah have a bunch of guinea pigs at their place. Eve thinks they are "doggies" and loves to stare at them endlessly. She'll look at them and go - "Doddy" and make the dog sign by slapping her belly.

Visiting Ukiah: Grandma had gone with mom and Aunt Kathy to Donald's graduation in Phoenix, AZ. On the way back grandma and mom flew into Oakland, where we picked picked them up, drove up to Ukiah, spent the night there and drove mom to the airport the next day so she could fly home to Albany.

Playing with Eliana: Eliana has lots of toys in her backyard, so Eve likes to visit and play with her out there. They are as happy as can be when playing with water and sand.

Flavia visits us: Flavia was an exchange student at South Albany High and was hosted by Trish's family many moons ago. They became good friends, but Flavia went back to her home in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. These days she lives in Austin, TX after finishing her masters from UT and will start her PhD this summer at UF near Tampa. We had a really good time. Anupam was very busy with work but we managed to go out off and on.

Bubbles in the bath: Eve hated bath time for the longest time ever. These days she loves it. She plays with her bath toys which include an elephant and a sting ray. Plus she wants us to blow "buddle" at her. We have a bubble blower that is the joy of her life.

Fun and joy all over: Painting the wall orange and other random colors at the children's museum. She is also wearing a cape while checking out the oft mentioned guinea pigs. She can be spotted at "Little Wonders" sporting her wings.

Black Butte: Jai visited us and came bearing gifts of beer. Beer drinking then ensued. I left the bottles on floor forgetting about our monkey who only wants contraband. She found the bottles and proceeded to parade them around the house. Excellent parenting from Anupam. After that, time for dinner.

February 2007

Painting: Eli and Eve played with paints at Rachael's place. Eve was a little hesitant to start with and found the whisk more exciting, but warmed up after some time.

Spaghetti: Sucking on spaghetti. This has turned into Eve's favorite meal. Because of the sucking she spreads the sauce all over the mouth. She loves every minute of her meal. Thatsa onea spicy meatballa!

Wine Tasting: Rachael and Jonah introduced us to this little vineyard near Half Moon Bay. It's kinda cool. You carry your wine bottles and they refill them for you. This is table wine, but not too bad for the price. Shut up, you snobs.

Another trip to the Children's Museum: We are now members of the Children's Museum in the Bay Area which gives us access to almost a 100 other chidren's museums all over the country. These places are awesome. If you have one in your area, take your kid(s) there, they'll love it! Eve and Eliana did.

Music makes the babies come together: Trish has been taking Eve to a music class over the last 6 months. Here our little baby plays with instruments and other musical toys. At home we have a Bongo, a Xylophone and other percussion instruments.

Splish-Splash: Eve and her best friend Eliana who she calls "NaNa" take a bath together. We were over at the Wong's for dinner and the babies love a bath together. Eli is as happy as can be but Eve decided to steal the spotlight

In her chariot: Eliana pushes Eve around who sits like a little princess in her little chariot. They are at the Little Wonder playyard.

Monterey, California: We decided to take a nice 4 day trip to Monterey, CA which is about 2 hours south of San Francisco. It was little cold, but we took a nice leisurely vacation. The hotel we stayed at sucked, but hey we barely spent any time there. Eve loved the aquarium. We just loved the time away.

January 2007

Driving back from LA: We drove back from LA and Eve decided she wanted to stuff her face with crackers. So much like her mother. And some more of her at home. We enjoy taking all these pictures.

Australia... reprise:

The next few pictures are from our trip to Australia. We did not do 2% of the travel we have done in the past because of Anupam's work schedule and the fact that he was needed back in San Mateo the as soon as his Sydney engagement was over.

The flight there: This is Eve's first international flight. The last time she flew international, she was -3 months old, when we flew from Bombay, to Germany, onto Switzerland and then to the US. She was perfect on this flight and wanted to talk to everyone. Even the jet lag of 19 hours did not affect her too much.

Manly Beach: We are off to Manly beach with Anna and her friend Cecilia. We saw Anna last in 2003 during our wedding where she sang a "From this moment on" during the ceremony.

Attack Mode: Eve discovered that we were keeping all her clothes in the TV cabinet, so on a daily basis she would climb into it and one by one, toss all her neatly folded clothes out. When she would see us laughing at her, she would be like... "What?"

Walkabout: Anupam was getting done with work around 4pm and getting to the hotel by about 5pm. We would take a walk in the Darling Harbor, Circular Quay, The Rocks and around the downtown area.

Barbecue with old friends: Anna Pai, our friend from Australia who we hadn't seen since 2002 organized a barbecue at Jessie and Will's place. We met up with Alejandra, Hatice, Savio, Sri, Naveen and others. Eve was passed out in her car seat for the first hour but entertained everyone after that. We think both Alej and Naveen's spouses are fake... made in China.

Bush life: Tricia took Eve to the Sydney Aquarium and the Sydney Zoo because she has started appreciating these educational trips. Anupam was sadly at work and these pictures are all that he saw.

Copacabana: Shaney and Nick took us to Nick's cottage in Copacabana a little village on the central coast of New South Wales. Unfortunately Trish, Eve and I were really under the weather. We were popping fever reducing pills like candy. All in all we had a really good time. It was very nice spending time with Shaney and Nick.

Buhbye: This is one day before we left Sydney to head back to San Francisco. We wanted to see Anna one last time. These pictures are at Anna's place in Rozelle. We also did Eve's laundry there. Hmmm I wonder what Trish's real reason was.

2006

December 2006

Eve and Santa don't gel: Christmas is coming up and this is her first Santa viewing. Did not go as well as we expected. She wailed like he was going to treat her like one of the Elves. So far she hasn't liked too many men with facial hair. Haven't exposed her to women with facial hair. *Shudder*

Our little basket case: If she can play with/in/on/under/around it she will. Here she demonstrates her different moods in a basket.

SMMC Christmas Party: The San Mateo Moms Club had their Christmas party at Rachael's place. Lots of kids dressed in Santa costumes. A little gift exchange, where Eve got a CD with music about cows. She loves it. There is a song about "Cows in ber-mooo-das". Awesome.

Eve's birthday with her playgroup: Eve's baby play group came over to our place to celebrate her birthday. I came home from work over lunch to hang with the kids and their moms. It was interesting to watch the group dynamics.

Playing around the house: These pictures are collected over all of December. She likes to carry things around. The picture of Tricia and the bridge is from our anniversary. We did not take any other pictures, but went to Chow in Castro for dinner. The next set of pictures are of Eve playing with a piece of cardboard tube. She played with it over several days. Tricia took the last set, Eve had found her way to the pantry, pulled out the raisin bran cereal box, emptied it on the floor and proceeded to shovel it in.

Christmas in Los Angeles: We headed off to LA on the 23rd of December to spend time with the entire family. Read the blog for more. These pictures are over 10 days with us doing a lot of things. As always the first grandchild/great grandchild was the center of all attention and she loved it.

Evelyn Suchitra Mittra turns 1! We are still in LA and we celebrated Eve's first birthday. We had almost all the people we wanted there. Mili/Rahul could not make it because of some other thing they had to go to, Tina/Sameer were in Vegas and Anupam's dad did not manage to make the trip. Eve was not at 100% because she hadn't slept, but Tricia made an awesome "Kitty" cake. Yep, it took a while, but the decorations turned out awesome. As always Eve got tons of gifts. Anupam says: I'd give my left nostril's extra long hair to be that cute. Ka-CHING!

November 2006

Hands on baby: Eve eats with both hands all the time. She manages to shovel everything she finds into her mouth. She reminds everyone of her mother. :-)

Bum chums: Eve and Eliana went to the Central Park and sat in the swing while Rachael and Trish pushed them. Happy little babies. I love watching the two of them together.

Pushy: Eve and Eliana are playing at Eliana's home. Eve things Eli has way more cool toys than she has. Eliana is pushing Eve around.

Bag lady: Eve has learned to pull things out and toss them all over the place. Here she is playing with the laundry bag.

Little Wonders: Eve and Eliana go to this baby school called Little Wonders. Anupam hasn't managed to visit during school days on Wednesdays, but Eve loves the place and the babies she interacts with.

Life is a playground: Our baby monkey can spend hours playing all by herself. She is a very secure little baby who can explore and talk to walls, couches, sinks, doors, her father and other inanimate objects all day.

Messy: I have no idea how Eve manages to get food all over the place. She usually rubs the food all over her high chair, her face and in her hair. So much like her mother and her pishi (aunt) Pia.

Bath time: Put the baby in a bathtub and she can play with cups, shampoo and everything in between for as long as it takes us to get the squirmy baby reasonably clean.

Albany, Oregon: Tricia and Eve went to Albany while Anupam was in England for work. The plan was to celebrate Thanksgiving with the Sturdevants on the day and again the next day with the Fords. Grandma and Aunt Kathy also headed to Albany, so the family could be together.

Thanksgiving day(s): The Mittras headed to Washington, about 3 hours north of Albany to Aunt Judy & Uncle Chuck's for Thanksgiving. Eve had a very good time with Melissa and Bailey. Tricia's dad was there too. The next day they celebrated it all over again in Albany.

Back Home: I saw Eve and Tricia after almost a month. As always, Tricia did was she does best. Forgot things at her mom's place. RAM, camcorder and other random things.

Leeds, England: Anupam visited Rajiv and Loren in Leeds. They had a pretty good time. Rajiv tried to poison Anupam with a creepy red drink. The bastard!

York, England: Rajiv, Loren and Anupam, headed to York for rememberance sunday. York is a very interesting little town that is over commercialized. But then again, show me a nice and accessible place that is not.

London, England: Loren, Rajiv, Ronaldo, Ruch and Anupam spent a weekend in London. He visited the city after many years. They had a blast. Check the blog for details.

October 2006

Lemo's: The three of us went to Lemo's for Halloween. This was Eve's first Halloween and we had to choose from a couple of costumes we bought. Eve loved all the pumpkins there and decided to lick as many as she could.

Baby monkey: Our little monkey girl now wants to play all the time. She will crawl/slither/cruise over to any place and start babbling. It's awesome watching her grow and learn. Here are some pictures at her best.

Clint visits us: Tricia's dad Clint visited us for a few days. Sadly not long enough. Anupam regrets he had to work so much during those days. He had a few people he needed to work with who had no other recourse. But we did manage to spend some time together.

Little Wonder Halloween Party: The three of us went to a Halloween Party at Little Wonders school. Eve was a little bumble bee again and crawled all over the place. As always she spend time wowing people. Tricia was a flower and Anupam was a bee keeper... awwww... such a cute family! Shucks! Anupam is pretty cute isn't he... NOT!

Mom's Club Halloween Party: Tricia and Eve went to a Halloween party at a a friend's place. You can see all the babies at their silliest. Who doesn't want to shame their babies early in their lives.

Pumpkin Patch: Tricia goes with her friends to the Pumpkin patch in Half Moon Bay. The babies had an awesome time.

September 2006

Pool babies: Anupam set up the pool for the babies to play in. Emory and Eve, both were a little tentative to start with the pool. Well, it was cooling down too. Eve bear crawled around in the air filled pool.

Los Angeles: Anupam has to make a business trip to Los Angeles for most of September, so they decided to make it a family trip. We met with Anupam's dad, Mili, Rahul, Aunt Kathy, Tina and Sameer. We had a lot of fun out there.

August 2006

Baby Plumber: Eve's diapers are hanging low and she knew I was taking pictures of her, so she kept turning to look at me. She had a grand 'ol time drooling in the couch.

Copy cats: Eliana visited us and played with Eve. Trish was saying that more than play with each other, they seem to copy each other. I guess the pictures tell the story.

At home with friends: After the 2 barbecues and during all the traveling I have been doing to Florida, DC and LA, we had a barbecue in our backyard with our friends. It was nice to kick back and relax. Jai had some work done on his teeth, so he decided to pass.

Wine tasting and a barbecue: We went wine tasting with Rachel, Jonah and Eliana. We did a small barbecue at the vineyard. There were quite a few people on tour busses but we had a corner to ourselves, grilled meat and had a fabulous salad topped off with wine from the same place. Rachel and Jonah made these brownies that were to kill for.

July 2006

A happy camper:After a long time we went camping. So, ok, this was car camping, but this was also Eve's first ever. She was and no pun intended, a very happy camper, as you will from the pictures. There were about 14 babies there and we had rented the entire campground. We had a great time hiking in Muir woods.

Kneels and keels:As always we spent time playing with her, after work. She has been learning to kneel and reach for people. She tumbles quite frequently and easily. We put her in a her toy basket and she was quite content in it.

Parents 'noon out: One of our friends had a barbecue at their place. It was nice to see the same people after Eve's Annaprashan. Unfortunately, I spent so much time chatting, I missed out on the burgers so had to eat tofu and beans or something.

Mom visits us:Our car had been up in the Portland area for the last 5 months. Tricia's mom drove it down to Ukiah, where grandma lives, cause she wasn't sure of driving into San Francisco. We met her there and drove the car down here.

Medu vada boy: Ashu, the Bangalore based medu vada hole maker visited us. We did the usual city tour which included the wharf, Ghiradelli, Del Monte Square, Golden Gate Park, Golden Gate Bridge, Sonoma vineyards etc. He had spent a month in St. Pete, Florida. The funny thing is that, I was headed there a couple of weeks later.

Creepy crawly:She has started crawling all over the place, she is a little slow and unsteady and more often than not, nose dives.

Mukhe-bhaat/Anna prashan:Eve has her Annaprashan. This is an old Indian tradition of giving the child the first meal of "solid" food at 6 months. There is some religious significance, but don't really care about that. We made a lot of Bengali food which isn't common at all. It went down pretty well. Eve had a blast with all the people there.

June 2006

Leaving on a jet plane:Eve's first flight. Trish and Eve fly off to Portland from San Jose Airport. I am heading to Washington DC for a week, so it makes sense that Tricia too heads off someplace. Madhur visited Jai soon after that.

Num-nums: Eve has started getting solid food and holds her own sippy cup. I'm not convinced she recognizes it as food, but she certainly plays with all of it.

Dressed up:Eve wears her first skirt. Finally she looks like a little girl rather than a run of the mill baby. As always she is thrilled to bits. She spent a lot of time bouncing, so taking pictures wasn't easy.

Swiss invasion:Jan & Raphie came to visit us from Schaffhausen, Switzerland. They had rented an RV and drove coast to coast. Trish showed them around, since I had to go to London, Ontario for a client visit. It was good to catch up with them after so many years.

May 2006

A walk through Central Park: This was a nice warm Saturday so we decided to walk a few blocks to have a look at the Central Park. It was full of people playing with their kids and pets. Barbecues and other good stuff. We walked through the Japanese garden which was no great shakes, but heck, we have been to REAL Japanese gardens.

April 2006

Family visit:Anupam's dad visited us for the very first time ever. Since he is a commercial airline pilot he flies to the US all the time, but this was his first trip to the bay area and Tricia showed him around since Anupam was very busy with work. They had a great time.

Eve in San Mateo: Eve is getting used to our apartment in San Mateo. She has become very curious and has started reaching for everything. She has also started showing expressions of joy, sadness, inquisitiveness and boredom.

Hotel days: We were at the Wingate Inn, a small hotel close to work, but not too nice a place, but it did it's job. Eve was quite sick there and we suspect mold. We moved out as soon as we could.

March 2006

Moving to California: Anupam had started interviewing and accepted one of the offers he was made. We really did not want to leave the Portland area since we had so many friends and family there, but such is life... right? You can see pictures of Eve passed out in her swing while we were loading our truck.

Snow weekend: We spent a nice long weekend with two other couples and their little babies, both girls, in Sunriver, Oregon. We had never been there in the winter and it is quite pretty regardless of the season. That weekend was one of the snowiest in many years. And we owe it all to... *drum roll* global warming!

Snow in Albany: It snows a little bit in Albany, Oregon but this year it came down like it's nobody'd business. Too late for christmas, but what the heck, snow is always nice. These are just pictures from the front door and of our backyard.

Lil Eve: We took a few pictures of Eve going through all her moods. Nosey little monkey.

Baby Class: We took a baby class at the Linn Benton Community College. A one day affair that taught us how to massage our babies. It was quite a lot of fun. Idiots that we are, we forgot Eve's blanket. She was lying on a little spit rag of hers.

Eve's first party: This was Eve's very first party. We met a few old friends and made a few ones. The party was at Vasi's place who used to be my house mate.

Hiking with Ingrida and Ken: We went hiking with Ingrida and Ken to McDowell Forest between Albany and Lebanon. Ken though we were going for a walk in a park and this was not even intense compared to the hikes that we are used to but they were quite exausted by the end. From there we headed to Vasi's party.

Trish's birthday: 1st of March, Trish's birthday. I planned a day in the town of Newport, Oregon, a nice little place which has spectacular views and the main reason we went there. Mo's Clam Chowder. Yeah we drove a couple of hours just for a decent meal. Plus Trish bought 500 pounds of salt water taffy.

February 2006

Some pictures of the monkey: These are some random pictures of Eve while were were playing with her at home. Some of them are quite nice, as she is sleeping or playing.

Uncle Cliff and Beth visit: Uncle Cliff came down from Kodiak, Alaska to visit Bethany, his daughter. They visited us for a couple of days.

Grandma and Aunt Kathy: Grandma and Aunt Kathy visited us over 5 days to meet little baby Eve, who was just about 2 months old then. We had a good time cooking for each other. Aunt Kathy and I worked on our coin collection. More fun!

Eve's First Hiking Trip: 5th February, Eve is 5 weeks old. We took her hiking to Peterson Butte. We got there at about 1pm. It was a great day, after so many weeks of rain and grey skies. Anupam strapped Eve on his chest, after we made sure no wind could get to her. Trish wore the diaper bag and Dad had his backpack with food and drinks. Dad also had his friend's dog with us. The hike started out easily, but the gradient was quite steep. Read more here. The picures are here ->

Horse Butte: This is our second trip to Horse Butte. This place is a half hour drive from Albany, towards Lebanon. An easy hike. It was good to leave home and walk for a bit. Eve, Trish and Mom had some errands to run. After the hike, we drove over to Peterson Butte to check out the hike there. It was cold and blustery by then and we saw a bunch of RC enthusiasts there.

Mom's Pictures: As always I have taken some of Mom's pictures and put them here. Some of them turned out pretty good. I like the one with Eve in the "Snugli" chest pack and with Trish on her chest. There will more here by the end of Feb or early March.

My Pictures: Just one picture here right now... but, there will more here by the end of Feb or early March.

January 2006

Mom's Pictures Trish's mom took some pretty good close-ups of Eve. There are some of her bathing and of course lots sleeping. All of them are at home. We didn't go out too much besides grocery shopping and to Dad's place. Our Pictures We took lots of pictures of our little baby as she has been adapting to her new environment. There is one set where I took about 10 shots of her many expressions. Those are quite interesting. There are also pictures of our "Open House", when a lot of friends dropped by to meet our new baby. Eve slept almost through the enrire thing except with Cyndi and Bhaskar. We have some awesome pictures of her here... well (sheepish grin), we think so!

2005

Evelyn Suchitra Mittra. Born: 31st December 2005

The birth: Our beautiful baby girl was born at 1:31am on New Year's Eve... And yeah, we call her Eve. Cool huh? You can read about it here. and

December 2005

Preparing for the birth: These are pictures from December. We are preparing for the birth of our baby. We have no idea of the baby's sex. We bought a crib, a bassinet and so much more. We have been going to midwife called Carol Severson and a natural birth coach called Linda Harris. On the 18th, we got stuck in a snow storm up in Portland, when we went for dinner to Ingrida's. On the 20th, Grandma arrived with lots of Christmas gifts for all of us and the baby. Aunt Kathy arrived on the 23rd with more gifts and smiles. We had a wonderful Christmas with the 5 of us at home. All the gifts for Trish and me, revolved around food. A George Foreman Grill, a George Foreman Rotiserrie, a baking book, a huge set of knives and so much more. We were sad to see them leave.

November 2005

Reached Albany: We reached Albany on 2nd November. These are pictures from that month. We went for Thanksgiving to Aunt Judy's place, up at Camas in Washington. We also had our baby shower, where we had some pretty fun games, thanks to Ingrida. Trish joined the water aerobics class

October 2005

Switzerland: Trish went to Schaffhausen to meet Daniela and Jan. We did not finish naming these pictures for many reasons. There are some pictures of us flying with my dad to LA. Yeah baby, we flew first class all the way. Our camera's CCD stopped working. That was later repaired by Nikon USA, in December, so we have no pictures in LA and the rest of the pictures till Trish was in labor was taken by Trish's mom's camera.

Balls:Anupam started playing Squash in about March and his game has slowly improved. The Americans call this game racket ball. The rules are quite similar.

Mallu "Foods":Tricia threw one last party and the usual suspects showed up. We had fondue, goan sausage, and Happy brought Mallu "foods". We became "brethers" and Benny "Ungle" styled Tricia's hair.

Portraits:Pia, Vicky, Tricia and I have been talking about taking studio pictures in forever, so we finally took the plunge. We went to a little studio in Khar. They were ok... not great. We went to "Oh Calcutta!" later, for dinner.

Leavin' on a jet plane:People are leaving and so are we... goodbyes are happening left, right and center.

September 2005

Babies:Tricia took a few pictures of Aanya and Shay. I would call Shay from Hyderabad, while I was there on a contract, and he would chat with me, in baby talk.

August 2005

Tricia Re-branded: Happy and Chief came over for the usual... a few drinks. We plastered a sticker on Tricia forehead. Then we bottomed the bottle.

Ashutosh's Birthday: A week after Anupam's birthday, Ashutosh invited us over. We had a ball. Anupam was the bartender as always.

Pia delivered Aanya: Pia was supposed to deliver Aanya on the 8th of August, but due to some complications, she had to have a C-Section. Due to the complications, Aanya was put in ICU and we could not touch her her about 24 hours... but when she came to us, she was a pretty fragile little thing. As I held her, she promptly did some potty. Welcome Aunt and Uncle!

Rinku & Naval's baby: My childhood friends Rinku and Naval had another baby, who is yet to be named.

Lohegad Ride: This was probably one of the most eventful rides I have ever been on. Rain, flat tires, engine trouble, dead battery and tons more rain. We will never forget the chap who tried to make Tricia pay the foreigner fee to enter the fort. Steph almost started frothing in the mouth and called him a Pakistani and spent some time tugging at his beard.

Mandar's Pooja: Mandar's folks arranged a pooja at their place to celebrate the safe return of the riders who rode to Ladakh for Endurance 2005, our annual club event. Good times, great food...

July 2005

Anupam's B'day: Anupam's birthday was on a Tuesday and he travels Monday through Friday, returning only for the weekend to Bombay. On the 24th of July, 2 days before Anupam's birthday, Tricia arranged a surprise party. Anupam knew something was up, but did not guess it at all. We had a fabulous time. Friends came from far and wide.

Paratha B'day: Paratha called and told us it's his birthday, so it was very simple. Bring a couple of bottles of good vodka and you are welcome to drop by our place. Mandar, Happy, Ashu, Benny and the gang were around. We went got ourselves some kababs and drank all the booze. Another happy evening.

Madhur & Jai's Wedding: Trish and I were very happy to get a mini break to head to our friend's wedding. Joy and sadness was a mixed serving here. The happiness prevailed. We had a fabulous time, though we do regret not getting to spend any time with Madhur. Well, time is not of the essence here. Do read the blog entry. The pictures are here ->

Fondue again: Pia, Shay and Vicky dropped by after a very long time for fondue. We had a fabulous time eating, chatting and playing with Shay.

June 2005

Walking in Bombay: Tricia and I love to walk. This day we drove to Marine Drive, the southern tip of Bombay and walked for a bit there. The weather was nice. I got a few nice pictures, but some of them are a little out of focus. Next time...

May 2005

Elvareen's Birthday: We celebrated Elvie's birthday a few days late... but better late than never right? People showed up by about 6pm. I had spent the entire afternoon cleaning the place. Our maid has been MIA for about 2.5 weeks now, so our place has been quite messy. Read more in the blog.

Kelva: Another weekend, another destination. This time up north. We headed to Kelva. This is about 120k from Bombay, towards Gujarat. I drove, since we had a few pillions and no bikers for them... for shame! After a good breakfast en route, where Rajesh found a resort owner, we landed a cool resort, on the beach. Consumed plenty of beer. Joker was cursed by daaru-devta (the lord of hooch) for breaking a bottle of beer. We had a meaty sumptuous lunch of meat and then headed home after walking on the beach and in the water. A good way to spend a Sunday.

Durshet: At Preethi's wedding, we decided that we will head out of town for a weekend. I had heard of the resort at Durshet, just 110k from Bombay. I called and got a dormitory reserved. We were 13 people there. 8 from Tricia's office, Mahipal's wife, Ashish's friend, Happy and Ashu Joker. Read about it in the blogs.

April 2005

Preethi's Wedding: We drove a long way to Preethi and Richard's wedding in New Bombay. We hit tons of traffic, we all but missed the wedding ceremony. Infact we were also scraped by a bus on the way there. All of Tricia's colleagues were there. We toasted, danced, took pictures and had a fabulous time. Infact we were the last to leave. Thanks for having us there Preethi!

Bombay by night: 10th April 2005, Tricia, Afshan, Althea, Elvareen, Bruce and I headed to the city around midnight. We started slowly, took a bunch of interesting pictures, but the police did what they do best. Hassled us for no reason what so ever. But we continued regardless. The pictures near Crawford Market were very interesting, with the people cooking "Khichda" for 6000 odd people. We got home around 6:30am... fantastic! .

January 2005

Mumbai Marathon: 16th January 2005, Tricia, Venkat and I ran the Mumbai Marathon. The blazing sun was a bit much for most people who were complaining that the start should have been earlier than the scheduled 9:30am. It took Tricia and I, a little longer than expected. In the last 7 kilometers, Tricia hurt her ankle and foot, which slowed us down... but
we finished it.

Agra: Tricia's dad arrived on the 22nd of Jan and on the same day we flew to Delhi, from Mumbai, where Rajiv met us and drove us to Agra. The next morning we woke real early and got some amazing pictures.

New Delhi: This is one city I have never really liked too much. Bad attitude. Too many Punjabis I guess :). But I have some really good friends out there in Delhi. All the monuments were closed for security reasons (Republic Day).

Jaipur: Jaipur is one really pretty city with plenty to see and do. We did not have too much time, but we were at this hotel called Kailrugji. A very eclectic place which used to be the couple's home. The food is to die for. Probably one of the best hotels I have put up at, not just in Jaipur, but across India. The train back to Bombay had one seriously flatulent couple.

Jawhar: Jawhar, is a small village on the way to Nashik. The road there is awesome. All highway for 2 hours and the next hour was only twisty-turny mountain roads. This place is called the "Mahabaleshwar" of "Thane". Interesting comparison. Jawhar is very quiet and very very happy. My dad in law took walks by himself, and was soon joined by villagers, who took him on a little tour. My dad, Pia, Vicky and Shay also joined us.

Bombay: We spent a few days in Bombay and did quite a few things. Spent one day walking around downtown Bombay, where her colonial past is very apparent. Had dinner with our friends, was a pot luck, but Clint snoozed. You snooze, you lose :). The next day we took my motorbike and rode around. Visited the Borivali National Park, Bandra Band Stand, Carter Road, Juhu Beach and got back to get him ready to pack and head back to the safe sanctuary of the US of A. ;-)

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EOY

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December 2004

Gholvad: We went here for our first wedding anniversary. A tiny, charming, village about 150 kilometers north of Bombay. We visited this place earlier with Sameer and Manoj.

Afshan and Tricia set up the Christmas tree. They had a ball while Amit, Mandar and I watched.

Christmas 2004: Lots of friends. Fondue, Kirsch and mashed potatoes were our contributions. I made my usual alcoholic concoctions. Ashu brought chinese, Afshan some excellent Pulao with chicken, Mandar & Abhi got a their mom's food. We pigged out and played a bunch of games on my PS later.

November 2004

Work: Tricia took some pictures of her colleagues and buddies at work. Work? Yeah, she works at Stream, just got promoted and loves her job. Here are her friends.

All of us decided to visit Thamma, Anupam's paternal Grandmom. She met Shay for the first time. See how thrilled she is. Four generations in one room. Now that is pretty cool.

Diwali: Tricia makes her first rangoli with Farah. Alisha decides to put the color on her face

A barbecue with some friends at our place. As always, another piggin session, with my traditional colored drinks "Jungle juice".

October 2004

Ganapatipule: We did a long trip from Bombay to Ganapatipule to Goa and traced the route back. Have a look at pictures of one of the nicer beaches outside of Kerala. Spent 2 days there. Tricia did all the blogging

Goa: We had a great time in Goa. Spent a week there. Our hotel was very nice. A one bedroom apartment with a fully functional kitchen. Shay, Pia, Vicky and Mukti joined us later. Beaches, sunsets, long drives and lots of feni.

Back To Ganapatipule: Took a stop at G'pule on the way back. The Indian Navy and the US Marines were doing some joint maneuvers. We drank champagne watching the sunset.

September 2004

Janmastami at Ashu's: Tricia, Venkat and I headed over to Ashu's place in Juhu for Janmashtami. I have done these things in the past as a community event, but never part of a family. Plus, we had a promise of free food :-) Have a look at the blog for more details.

Some Colourful Pictures: As I came home one day from work, I saw the sky was looking great. I pulled out my trusty Nikon and headed to my balcony. I shot off some pictures. Have a look at the results. The buildings in the frames are post monsoon, so very mildewy... Welcome to Bombay :-)

Kelva Beach Ride: The ride to the beach was on mud "pagdandi" through a forest. Very Pretty! 250 kilometers of highway through winding country roads. Was a lot of fun with some great people. It was a good way to celebrate 2 things. Venkat's birthday, he is all of 16 now. Secondly, the 19th of September is the day I had first asked Tricia out in 2000. The blog. The pictures ->

Barbecue at Ashu's: We had a barbecue at Ashu's. I was hoping that it would be a dry day, but it was not to be. We fixed a plastic sheet and got ready. I made 5 kinds of marinades. 3 American and 2 Indian. Was an amazing time. Tons of meat. Bruce, Ashu and I kept some for later.

Trigger happy with Shay: Shay, Pia and Vicky dropped by on Sunday for lunch. The toss up was between Hyderabadi Biryani and a barbecue... the raw meat won. We ate more meat, still have some left over in the freezer

August 2004

Farah's Birthday: Anupam returned from Hyderabad after almost 3 months. Pia dropped by with Shay and Mukti. We headed off to the new mall in our suburb, much to Anupam's horror, he was also dragged along. He carried Shay through the shops, so that was a welcome distraction. Vicky met us there and then all of us came back to our place for another Biryani meal. We picked up a gift for Farah, and incidentally, Vicky had a cake from "The Club", so that was good too.

Lohegad: Tricia bought a car, so we decided to take her for a nice long test drive. We headed off to Lohegad Fort on the 22nd of August. The drive was good. Read the blog if you want to know more.

July 2004

Hyderabad: Anupam spent a LOT of time in Hyderabad. Initially he hated it. He disliked the attitude, the driving, the people, pretty much everything. He had his school friends out there to hang out with, to avoid getting bored. He had a great time with them, even though they are vegetarian teetotalers... ;)

Golconda: Tricia, Naval and Anupam went to Golconda Fort, near Hyderabad. It is in ruins, but the architecture is very impressive. The Telangana area has boulders that make up the landscape... these boulders have been used cleverly to design the fort.

Anupam turns 30: Anupam came back from Hyderabad for an extended 4 day weekend for his birthday. The party was on the 24th of July even though his birthday is on the 26th. The party was good, friends came from all over the place. Khichda was served for dinner. The next day we spent at home. The 26th was a good day. We went to the Orchid Ecotel for a nice breakfast, went out shopping at a new mall near our home, then we went to the IMAX to watch Spiderman 2. The dome is great. The evening we picked up Pia & Vicky, took them to Taj Landsend, to the Chinese restaurant. The food was magnificient!!! No pictures though...

June 2004

The Pune Ride: A lot of fun. We rode the 200 kilometers to Pune on the 5th of June and back on the 6th of June. We left at about 11:30 and got to Pune late in the evening. Bruce's bike gave him some trouble. Spent 2 hours in the scorching sun. That evening, we went to Nandu Parathas. No beer, Pune sleeps early. The next day we went to Pune Club Meeting, after that, lunch and beer at the German Bakery and Prems respectively. We headed back towards Bombay at 6pm and stopped a few times for rain, over heating, Lonavla, so I can take pictures and finally dinner of chicken handi.

Biryani Lunch: My first visit from Hyderabad. Called a bunch of friends over for some of the famous Hyderabadi biryani.

May 2004

The bikers meet at Kanheri Caves in the Borivali National Park. We discussed the Pune and the Goa ride. Made fun of Venkat



Scapbooking and Candied Apples were the order of the day. Kushboo, Karishma Pia and Tricia worked on the scrapbooking of our wedding album. Unfortunately the caramel became too chewy but the kids had a good time.

Dinner at Pia's with the Maneks. Lt. Col. Manek was dad's classmate from high school. We had lots of meat my kinda dinner. Shay was the center of all the attraction.

We had wanted to have Mr Basu (our wedding conductor nee acharya), Ms Acharya (The singer) and The Drivers over for dinner for a while. Tricia made swiss food, with Fondue, Chnopfli and Schnitzels. Dessert was a Thai "Mango and Sticky Rice", something we learned in cooking school in Chiang Mai.

I borrowed Pia's Playstation and most of our friends love it too. Tricia will only play games like Need For Speed, while I like the blood and gore stuff like Tekken. Tricia was kicking Chicago aka Rajiv and Farah's ass. You can see that the house was going through some work in some of these pictures.

April 2004

These are some pictures of Shay at his parent's home, over the whole month. Lots of their friends are there.

March 2004

I threw a surprise Birthday party for Tricia. Tons of people showed up. Friends from more than 12 years back... was good to see them. Good food, cocktails, beer and bikers...

Some more pictures of Shay. Be prepared to see lots more of this.

We went to a Vintage car rally, with my bike club. Awesome machines.

February 2004

We ran the Mumbai Marathon on the 15th of February 2004. It was something we had wanted to do for a while. But it was god damned hot! My housemate from Uni was visiting, so Bhaskar came along and very nicely took pictures.

16th of February Shay (Pia and Vicky's son) was born. I was in Pune on a business trip. I saw him on the 28th for the first time. A little cutie.

January 2004

We got marrried in court. Another nightmare. I thought we can just get our wedding legalised. But no baby, this is India, we have to do things the difficult way or not do things at all. Even though I'm not a practicing hindu, by law I am. So my wife and I will be subject to civil laws of the same religion. Soooo, I had to get Tricia converted to hinduism!! Then we got married in court. I wanted to get a picture taken as we sign the document, but was told, that the registrar does not like cameras... so PUT IT AWAY. Jennifer, Joe and Ignatious were our witnesses.

I flew up to Delhi to meet an old friend, who I hadn't met for over 4 years. Debauchery was the theme of the trip. I had been married for 7 days and went off on a vacation all by myself. ;-)

26th January is our Republic day. Tricia and I had a long weekend. We made plans with our Yezdi Bike club to ride up to Daman, which was supposed to have good beaches. The ride was great, about 200 kms. I was averaging 70+. We left really early, so I could really pep the bike. It was quite cold, so my fingers were freezing. We got to Daman by about 10am. We checked into a really overpriced hotel. Let me summarise Daman. a) Too many loud Gujjus b) Cheap beer c) Too many loud Gujjus d) Good sunsets e) Too many loud Gujjus f) Bad beaches g) Too many loud Gujjus. I guess you get my drift.

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EOY

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