December 2011

Bad Start to the month : 

 

My chittappa passed away last week and i was upset. AJ asked me why i was upset and i said my chittappa went to to ummachi and he immediately asked did he have water in his lungs too, like sridhar. i was stunned. Dont know when he listened to this and i was surprised how he related it to my appa immediately.

 

 

Ja adore tu

Just to show off my very little french knowledge, i told the kids i know French and said Ja adore tu. They asked me what it meant and i said it is something i tell you all the time and Ashu goes "Is it, do your homework?" and Ajay goes " Is it stop troubling me?". Note to self : I really need to say Ja adore tu more often than those two sentences. But atleast i got a little consolation when i said it is "I love you" and they both said, yeah you do say that often :) 

 

 

4-H

 

Ashu got selected for county level 4H - a public speaking contest. All kids who score above 90 get selected for county level. He troubled me so much to prepare, as usual though..And was mad at me for all the inputs, but when i went to pick him up..he came out holding his ribbon and said thanks ;-)

That's his way of apologizing for troubling me i guess :D

Bartering : 

Ashu's school had bartering day where the kids were allowed to bring few small things and exchange with the things that the other kids got. Ashu offered ajay taht he could take something from him and get something for him also. Ajay gave two small cars that he never played with. 

Only because he did not like those. And i guess he was expecting something great in return. :D When ashu got back he gave him a small sticky mouse that you can throw on a glassy surface and it will stick to it. And a cookie and another small car for him. Ashu got himself pokemon collection cards.

AJ threw a fit and took half of the pokemon cards! Poor Ashu got so fed up and gave it to him! 

Why this kolaveri?!

The latest "hit" song why this kolaveri has caught on to aj too. He keeps singing that line and pa paan pa paan all the time and then he asked me amma is this song about temple? I said no and asked him why..he said it says kolaveri...isn't it temple! He got totally confused with kovil and kolaveri. Hope he doesn't speak in tamil in chennai and get dharma adi!

That reminds me..i was asking them to speak in tamil and aj asked me to teach english to the paatis since that will be easier! :) Good point! but anyways, i forced them to speak in tamil and they were really murdering tamil (Esp. aj) and all of a sudden i was singing uppita tamizharai naan marakka maaten and both asked me what it meant and i said uppu means salt and asked them if they knew what tamizhar meant and ashu said pepper and aj said sugar!! *Banging my head*

then again another day i said aj you have to say something in tamil if you need this and ajay said "un peyar enna?" which is the only thing he says whenever i ask him to speak in tamil and gave him one stare and said say something else and he said "En peyar enna"?!! 

Nov 2011 - Funnies

Counting sheep! 

AJ kept troubling me saying that he cant goto sleep and i told him to count from 1 to 1000 and went to do the dishes. He was behind me in few seconds and was making "grrr" sound. I asked him what and he said, "if i have to count till 1000 i will become a grandparent, can you suggest a better idea?!" :D

Troubled/Troublesome?

I didnt goto sunday school with them one day as i had too much work. I asked B to take them and AJ said "Mommy, are you sure you dont watn to come? I will feel so troubled without you" and AShu says " You will feel troubled? Others will be troubled without mommy coming with you"! LOL!

Nov 2011

Birthday party! 

For his mama's birthday, aj wanted to go to india and celebrate it right away! and he got mad at me for not taking him to his mama's party! :D When mama asked him what he got for his birthday he generously said "Pokemon cards" (that belong to ashu!!)

I told B that we need to make sure we highlight Ashu's name in bold, italics, double quotes and what not..in our will :) 

Thankful for self! 

For thanksgiving AJ had written, " I am thankful for my brother, my dad, my mom and myself" :) Ofcourse seeing brother on the top of the list melted the big brother's heart (for few minutes!) 

Generosity!!

I got my new iphone 4S and AJ had been waiting longer for it than me because he got to play cut the rope at my friend L's place and unfortunately it was not available for android..well the free version and i didn't order the full version because i knew i was gonna switch to iphone. So, as soon as my phone came they used it to the heart's content before i even figured anything out! Ashu downloaded HP spells and AJ cut the rope! And then he made some bad choices the next day - he was talking back and in general not listening to anything i said. So, i refused to give him my phone and he said, mommy i am sorry, can i please have your phone. i said no and he said he would give his piggy bank to me and i can take all the money from it. I couldn't stop laughing, but i said, but you don't have that much savings anyway so i dont want it. And he generously says "You have mine + Ashu's savings - all of it, if you give me  your phone". Now that is an offer because Ashu is good at saving and has a decent money in his piggy bank ;-) I told Ashu that AJ offered his savings + ashu's to get the phone from me to play CTR and the look on Ashu's face was priceless. ROFL!

Parent Teacher one/one for both the boys :

They both made us proud!!

Ashu : Ashu's school they have groups based on the level of the students in each subject. Teacher said he is in the highest group for all the subjects and is quite happy with him. She said that there is very limited number of students that go for gifted program and Ashu didn't make it to the gifted program yet, by a tad difference in aggregate marks (they consider tcap scores from prev. year + initial assessments for this year) and she is going to give him additional assignments and take it to the gifted teacher and show that he should be in gifted program. hope that works out :)

She said that she likes Ashu particularly because he takes his studies very seriously, but when it comes to recess he is a typical kid out there. She gave me an example that when she did spelling test, he was making some careless mistakes and even though she knew he could move to the next level, she kept him in the same level and he kept asking her what he needs to do to move to next level :) She said she hasn't seen many kids who cared this much about the levels :)

AJ : is idenitified as gifted child too and is being given more challenging work. Ofcourse AJ's school being a private school, they don't have a separate gifted program and they just give additional work to him. They are doing Kindergarten level work with him already and said they will move to the next level when they feel he is ready. His teachers are pretty stunned at his reading level and also math :D

AJ-ism

A brilliant question : 

Aj asked me amma what is the difference between a truthful person and a liar. I said a truthful person will never lie and a liar will lie all the time. He said.."Wrong! A truthful person will lie only when he goes to sleep and the liar will lie through out the day till he goes to sleep" 

Monopoly: Ashu got monopoly as a gift from V aunty for his birthday. We played it one day and boy AJ could beat our ex-tenant Rex in rent problems! When he has to pay the rent to us, he would just say no and say it is not fair that we keep asking him money, but when we reached one of his squares he would snatch the money from us promptly! If i ever come to know that our ex-tenant Rex buys a house i am sending AJ as his tenant and take revenge!!

Oct 2011

SanFrancisco : 

B had to goto SFO on a business trip. Aj cried the evening B left to Sanfranciso and when he called he said, next time make sure you take your wife and the kids! :) LOL! 

Knowledge : 

AJ  keeps going to school late whenever B is not in town. I have a meeting at 8 and i need to get him ready before that, but he stalls and stalls and somehow we were 10 mins late everyday. I got frustrated and said AJ if you continue to be late like this they will stop you from school and you will have to watch the buffalos and cows that your dad will buy for you.  That means you will stop gaining knowledge and he goes " No..if i watch the cows and buffalos and try to find if they have horns or not, that means i am gaining knowledge" Case closed! 

Tooth problem :

A week back Aj saw my mil's dentures in the bathroom and asked Ashu what it was. That's when Ashu noticed it and explained to AJ what dentures are and why it is needed. 

After two days, i had terrible tooth ache and had to have a root canal. After root canal, i had severe pain and had tears in my eyes. Ashu was terrified,i guess. When B called from SFO he said :DAddy, please take me to the dentist as soon as you come. We haven't visited the dentist in a year. I neither want a root canal or even worse the dentures. ROFL 

Stale Mate : 

Ashu lost the first match at chess club and then next week he lost again and said GRR i am so mad i end up playing with the same kid every week and he ends up winning and he's older than me so it's not fair. Then this week he had a stale mate and was quite pleased with himself and said atleast it's better than losing :) 

He also wants to become like Vishy Anand (Thats how he refers to Vishwanathan Anand). I told him the story of Anand winning all the t.v contests about chess and they called and said you come and take whatever books you want, but please give other children a chance to win :) He was super impressed and now the little dude is impressed too and they both want to become like Vishy! :D

Golu:

 

 

On sat, i went to couple of friends' house for tamboolam and it was both good. I left ashu with his friend H and took only Aj. Aj was pretty upset that i took him to girls houses only. Next day he was even more shocked when i invited my friends for tamboolam. LOL! He was fighting for men's rights!! Kaalam maari pochu!!  He said i need to find something for men to celebrate!!

Sep 2011

Not much updates this month. It was just so hectic getting back to a routine. Ashu started his chess club again and Ajay is getting back into routine as well. I have signed him up for keyboard classes at school along with abrakadoodle. Will sign him up for tumbling when they start it back in October.

 

None of the extra curricular classes have started yet for Ashu except Chess. Will decide what he will be doing once we get the announcements. Apart from the school activities, i am thinking of enrolling him in guitar as he has been asking since the school started.

 

Sunday school started and is in full swing. This time it is little more organized than previous year and am happy about it :)

 

Since Ashu was sick during his birthday week and also the weekend being a long weekend, we decided to skip the party and went with his idea and took him and his friends to watch smurfs. Before that, we took them to chuck-e-cheese for lunch and they didnt want to eat obviously. So, B came up with a trick. We first gave them few coins each and when they were done we said whoever has a slice of pizza will get some more coins and made the kids eat even more than what they normally eat :) They had a blast. After lunch we watched Smurfs. Cute and funny movie. all the kids loved it. The kids were good overall and troubled me only when i was driving. My car had 5 kids and lucky B had only 3 kids in his car. I really thought i would become deaf that day and luckily i can still hear :) They were loud as it is and one kid started with who can scream the loudest contest :-O  Poor Me!! Ashu said this was the best birthday celeb ever..Well, he says that every year anyways ;-)

Happy 9th Ashu :)

Ashu turns 9 today! As i always say it's bittersweet as they grow. Where is the baby ashu? Well, he will always be our baby and that's different. :-)

I still remember what a rowdy Ashu used to be till he was 2. Then he started changing. He got more into reading and less into the rowdiness :) He is now a full fledged book worm. You give him a book and he is the happiest kid in the world. It's nice to see him that way and there are times where it pushes the wrong buttons as i dont see him do anything else :-) I have to push him to get active and get out and play. Given a choice he would rather bury his nose in a book.

He is turning into a fine gentleman with a very generous and soft heart. Sometimes i worry that people may take him for a ride and i teach him the importance of assertiveness. Haven't seen him be very assertive, but i think it'll slowly sync in.

He is a loving elder brother and takes good care of his brother to the extent where the little brother gets annoyed and it ends up in a fight. He helps me with some chores too.

I wish him happiness always and many more to come :)

Aug 2011

Llama Llamas acting in a drama!!

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I signed up both the kids to act in a panchatantra tale "Tiger and the brahmin". D called me and asked if they would be interested and asked if ashu can do the brahmin role. He said, "I am a brahmin, so i am the right person to act as a brahmin" and agreed to it immediately. Then, when she sent the script he wasn't too happy. Brahmin character was throughout the script with too many dialogs. lol.

 

AJ is elephant. the original plan is for him to just stand there and the narrator would say the lines, bue when Ashu was practising his lines AJ just learnt his and surprised everyone :)

 

1-Aug-2011

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AJ got his first certificate in Kumon and he said "Boy, i am so happy..i have been waiting for ever for a certificate :)" Ashu got two already and close to getting his third..but, with little kids they take tests in parts..so it takes more time and he was really worried about not getting one.

 

2- Aug- 2011

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Took Aj for his well care checkup - almost 6 months overdue!! Had it postponed so many times due to something or the other. Last time i postponed because of Aj's fieldtrip and his teacher was asking me if i could postpone since it was a fun trip for the kids. So today when we went late and i told her i had been to the doctor she asked oh is it the one we asked you to postpone and i was quite surprised that she remembered. i didnt even remember i had to postpone because of that. First they poked his blood for bloodtest and aj whispered in my ears that i should never bring him there again..and then the doc gave him a sucker and he was all happy and said he liked that place after all! His doc is real fun. She knows how to talk to kids and made him feel at ease. She asked him to sing a song and he sang abcd and then she asked him to count with fingers and he started counting till 4 and started singing abc again!!

so much attachment to that song...then she asked him to draw mommy and he drew a big square and i was wondering if he's thinking i am that fat and then he drew a thin lady inside it and put a roof on top of the square. Phew! she asked what mommy does in the house and he said she walks around all the time :) I remember when Ashu was 4, he said i do dishes all the time! Thank God neither said i keep yelling 24/7!! 

 

The doctor said that he is way above average for height and average in weight, but when they take the height weight ratio he is really underweight :( I wasn't surprised though. I told her what a fussy eater he was and she gave him some advice. AJ didnt open his mouth. When i came out and asked him if he heard what she said about eating. He said, "Nope"!

 

29-Aug-2011

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Aj got his distinction honor roll cert in Kumon :)

July 2011 - Funny

 

Do i need a second job?

 

LOL! B asked Ashu to shred a big bunch of papers and said he will "pay" $5. Ashu did that sincerely. I got so touched by his sincerity that i increased it to $10. Then, he helped me with sorting toys and i got even more touched and increased to $15 and gave him the money. AJ got super mad and super jealous and said i owe him $100. I asked him for what and he said "I did my chores and you have to give me $100". I asked "What kind of chores did you do?" and He said "I sharpened 3 of my pencils, now that means i get $100" :-O That's why i said i need a second job to pay this kid, if he ever starts doing real chores ;-) Btw, he made a humongous mess on the kitchen floor when sharpened the 3 pencils and who cleaned it? I did!!

 

 

Favors and Sad puppy face:

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AJ made a humongous mess and i was complaining my back was hurting and sweet boy ashu offered to help. I told AJ that he should go and help Ashu since he made the mess and Ashu is doing him favors, he should be nice to him. The dude went and told ashu that amma asked him to do favors to AJ!!!

 

AJ was snatching something from Ashu that belonged to Ashu and i asked him if he needed something what was he supposed to do. I expected to say that he should use nice words like please, but he said " Should i keep a sad puppy face"?!

July 2011

12-Jul-2011 : ImportantKostins!

 

Ashu asked me why we chose to be vegetarians and kind of freaked me out. I asked why..did you eat by mistake? He said : No all my friends asked me and they said chicken is so yummy and asked we dont eat it. Phew! I explained to him and then asked if he feels he is missing something and thankfully he said he is fine about not eating meat :D Kids!!

 

I remember AJ told me he had pepparoni pizza and i got so mad at the teacher because she knows he is vegetarian. When i asked her she said the parents dont order anything other than cheese pizza :) He must've heard it form some other kid!

14-Jul-2011 : Super Happy :)

 

Ashu's TCAP results are out. He's got excellent marks in all the subjects. Mighty proud of him :) His level is Advanced :) Took him to watch HP Deathly hallows Part 2. We both enjoyed the movie thoroughly while dad and aj were having "quality" time at home.

16-Jul-2011 : I had promised Ashu that i will take him and two of his friends to watch Harry Potter Deathly Hollows  Part 2 as advanced birthday gift. He was super happy. But, the other two boys had different plans and it didnt work out. So, i told him we both can watch it on Friday as soon as it opens. But, we had major prod issue today that i had to work. When i asked him if it's okay if we watch it on sat or sun, he said "I am fine even if i have to wait till the DVD is out.. I don't care when i watch it as long as i get to watch it. What a sweet boy!  :)

 

Chicago

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I was on vacation last week and B took 2 days off and we went on a sudden trip to chicago. He woke me at 1 in the night and said let's leave tomorrow!! Ofcourse it didnt sink in for me and i woke up at 9 and got everything ready and we only managed to leave at 1.45 and with few breaks we reached the hotel at 12.30 in the night! Next day, we went to Sear (Willis) tower and Navy pier. They really loved it. We also took water taxi and it was a nice trip as we got to see all the wonderful buildings. Kids enjoyed it. But, When we got off, aj fell down and scraped his knees. And the next day he fell down again and got more scrapes. The whole trip he kept falling or bumping somewhere! :-O The next day we went to Shedd aquarium, and after reaching shedd the boys changed their mind and we went to Field museum. Ashu was the only one who enjoyed it. AJ liked part of it and was really bored and cranky at times. Asking me to carry him whenever he was bored :-O After that we went to our friends' place. We met them after 4 years and had a blast. The kids got all very well and we had a good long chat. They have two daughers close to ashu and aj's age, but i was wondering if they will get along as i have never seen ashu play with girls recently. but, their older daughter was into Harry Potter and that was good enough. They got along very well and so did the little ones. Now aj keeps asking when is ruhi (little one)'s family coming to our place. Day 3, we went to Sri Balaji temple and left. Aj wasn't happy to leave chicago as we didnt get time to visit amazing fun house maze or something of that sort that he wanted to go!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What??!!!

I checked this blog after ages in jun 2012 and realized it really has been ages since i logged into blogger. Both of them, i mean. The last update was in june 2011!! Holy Cow!!
With a panic attack, i looked at my draft and i have a huge update in there....Phew!
Apparently i have been documenting things once in a while and am so thankful for my habit of maintaining a journal of everything about the boys. It may not be everything anymore, but atleast i am still keeping up with it.

I am posting my old drafts backdated to make some sense

So let me start with Summer..

Summer Camp

We signed up Ashu in different camps, but for AJ there was not many options. 99% of the camps are for kids 5 and above. AJ was quite upset, but i signed him up at this preschool where they have cool activities planned for summer. AJ is so fascinated by this school that he wants to continue there. The problem is it adds another 15 minutes to my commute. It's not too bad, but if i get stuck in traffic, i am doomed. Like, last monday it took me nearly 2 hours to reach work..and the evening wasn't that great either. Another 1.5 hrs. Killed my back. And all of a sudden, the little dude asks if i will change him back to old school and i said, yes baby, so you can play with your old friends and he says " but, you can ask their mommies to change them to this school. this school is cool anyways!"

Ashu went to soccer camp and said he is doing really good. He was so tired when he was back at home though. it's only a two week camp, so he was okay after that. but, i will not sign him up for outdoor sports next summer. Fries the kids.

He also went to two awesome camps - Encore at school and the Discover India camp. Awesome, it was.

That reminds me of something..

Whoever said that people with kids have longer life is either mental or they don't have kids. When Ashu went to Discover India camp, he was pretty excited about it because 2 of his best buddies were in that camp too. This camp didn't have after care and we were supposed to pick him at 3. So, B was on the way to pick him and Ashu called me on my mobile from his friend Ro's grandpa's mobile and said,...okay at this point i didnt understand if he was saying or asking because i was in panic mode since i got a call from Ashu ..so he said/asked "Am i supposed to goto Ro's house" My head started spinning because i have no clue where B is at, because i saw him leave on time, so he can't possibly be late and then i am panicking thinking that Ashu is all alone at the temple and i just can't think at this point...So, i asked him where he was and if he was waiting all alone..Dumb question i know..since he is calling from ro's grandpa's mobile. but as i said my brain stopped working after the panic attack. So, i call B and he says he is almost near temple and i call ashu and said dad is almost there and he says i am in the car. So, i assumed he was waiting in the car because it was hot outside. then in 1 minute B calls me and says Ashu called him and said he is already on the way to ro's house and B turned back and called to let me know. But, i was totally confused now and i asked him to go back to the temple to make sure he is not there. So, i managed to confuse him too..then i tried calling ro's mom, ro's grandpa and nobody picked the phone. by the time my hands were so shaky i thought maybe i should stop calling these people adn call 911 to take me to the hospital. so, one last try to grandpa's # and ashu answer and clarifies that he is on the way to Ro's house! I am right now so MAD at ashu for making decisions and confusing us..GRRRRRR! Kids!!!! :P Serves me right...i did that at the exact same age and went to a friend's house without telling my grandparents and there was a lunatic neighbour who locked us out in a balcony to make sure we were safe and i couldn't get out till my friend's parents came. In that 1.5 hrs my grandparents and my dad who had come home early that day went all around mambalam looking for me. So, what goes around...comes around!!

May updates

School closed for both kiddos last week of may. Got happy kiddos here ;-)
Ashu will be going to various summer camps. And AJ to a new school. Ashu featured in the cover page of the yearbook ;-)  :D

Ashu had a great year at school. He made lots of friends and also did lot of new activities like DI, Spelling bee and Chess club. Loved Fun company too.

With AJ, i  cant say he had a great year at school. It took quite some time for him to adjust to the new school. But, once he did, he was quite happy and made lot of friends. Learning wise, not sure if the teachers even noticed that he could read, till i pointed out end of first sem! I was quite disappointed with them and they tried to make up by noting it down at the progress report in the next sem! He continues to learn new things rapidly at home, thanks to the big brother mainly :) He knows more about beyblades than me and daddy ;-) AJ also went for tumbling and art class at school.

Tumbling demo was fun..he did all tricks in front of his teacher and when the teacher turned away towards another kid, he just relaxed and did nothing :D Typical desi boy attitude ;-)

Drama Queen

Summer Vacation has started. I was working from home today and my friend left her son with me too. The kids were busy the whole day. In the afternoon, when i was done with my phone calls, i asked them to play wii. They decided to play "Are you smarter than the 5th grader" and one of the questions was about drama artists and Ashu and his friend were stuck and were wondering which one was the right answer and i came to the kitchen to make some tea and while waiting for it, i helped them with the answer. Ashu's friend was doubtful and whispered into Ashu's ears whether he should pick that or not and Ashu says, "Oh trust my mom. She knows a lot about acting". Don't know where he got that from...Makes me wonder if he thinks i am a drama queen :-)

Cool boy!

Time flies fast..Can't believe the school year is almost over. We moved 12 hours before Ashu's school started. I still start hyperventilating when i think of that time. It was soooo hectic that it still gives me nightmares...Anyways, when someone at work calls me out of the blue for some issues and notices the change in my phone number and they say hey i didnt know you moved to nashville, i say the standard answer...well, it's almost 6 months! Still living in the past :0)

Today, Ashu had field day and he had coloured his hair red at one of the booths. He said he and his friend both did that :) i didnt meet his friend though. He had left for the day already. I loved what they did on ashu's hair. He looked super cool! Today was one of the no homework days too..So, it was nice :)
AJ was kinda surprised to see Ashu's hair and kept asking him questions and i thought Mr.Virat Kohli aka AJ would come and ask me to colour his hair next. Thankfully, he didnt....Yet!

First and Second - What's the difference?!

If Ashu made a bad choice and i said Ashu if you dont stop doing that i will delete Little einsteins or George shrinks he would immediately stop doing it and listen to me!

With AJ - if i say "AJ i am going to delete Cat in the hat if you dont stop doing that"
AJ says "That's fine, i will delete Super singer!" and continues with what he is doing!! :-O

Discipline!

I spent hours on sorting the books and yelled at the kids that they do not mess up the book shelves any more. It was really a huge mess that i almost cried when i cleaned it up. Anyways, i told them that they need to bring 10 books each from upstairs and put it in the book basket in living room and read only those until they are done with them. When they are done they need to take it back, put it in the exact place they got them from and take the next 10 books. I was so proud of my rules! What i didnt do was, i didn't complete putting all the books back in the shelves. I did 60% of it - Sorted in groups according to age. The rest 40% was sorted too, but were piled up on the floor. I couldn't get to it next couple of days as work was hectic. Then, i went yday and the books were strewn all over the room. It was quite a sight, really! I almost fainted because, AJ had pulled some more from the shelves and thrown them across. A humongous book mess. All was done in very little time because we hardly spent any time at the house during that time. I sat down and sorted and put away again. This time 90% was done. I am human after all! Couldn't do any more. Today morning i woke up mad because of this and i told AJ in a stern voice that i was so upset the previous night because of the huge mess he made and what he did was wrong and he says "Why did you go upstairs in the night? You are supposed to sleep in the night"!

Gaaahhh!! What will i do when he is a teenager?!! I know, i will be ordering a wig!!

Here i have to give credit to the big kid Ashu. He did not take any book other than what he picked for the week and when he was done, he conveniently went back to dad's kindle!

Friday the 13th!

Today was supposed to be Field day at Ashu's school and last evening they sent a mail saying that it is postponed due to bad weather forecast. Ashu said, "I knew it!" and i asked how and he said "Well, they selected Friday the 13th, the unluckiest day and it was bound to happen"!

Come to think of it, today was the election results..What does that mean?!

Super singer!

I was a decent singer, i think. I am saying this because i have won some prizes in light music competitions when i was in college and i am saying "i was" because my voice is quite hoarse these days thanks to allergies and also my boys. If one has to call out their names 100 times every day, in a loud voice, what else can be expected? I could sing at very high pitch..now if i try that i would probably sound like a squeaking mouse..I still love music and i sing (and sometimes miss my way) my favorite songs while driving. After i started watching super singer this singing fever has gone up and this week one of my favorite singers sang ennuyire from uyire movie and it just stuck in my mind and i was singing that while doing some chores and i was singing only that song for the last two days and AJ asks " Mommy, is that a never ending song? " What a decent way to say "Shut up"!!

Innocence

Today AJ told me "Mommy, i made a "surprise" gift for you at school"
Mean Mommy said : "like what"
AJ spills : a paper flower and a mother's day plate

Ashu and Mommy : Muahahaha (*very wicked laughter*)

Ashu gave me a cute heart already..Will post the photo on mother's day..

Sunday School

AJ went for shloka class and Ashu for tamil and they both really enjoyed it. Last sunday was the annual day and AJ's class performed a number rhyme that goes One one one God is one... His class started with 15 kids and towards the end there were only 5. all boys and we decided to dress them up as Krishna or Rama. Aj picked Rama since his middle name is Sriram! I wrapped his bow and arrow in gold wrapper and made it look nice, but forgot to take it to the temple! *bangs head*

Anyways, once the program started they were all taken aback to see the crowd. Even the loudest boy was kinda quiet and we could barely hear AJ as well. They recited the rhyme without missing anything though :) I could hear AJ since i was standing behind him (behind the curtains, ofcourse), but B said he could barely hear him..it was like mumbling :-) They looked cute though :D

Next Ashu had picked Paalum theli thenum and he did it solo too. He did quite good, especially considering the fact that i taught him only 3 or 4 days before the function. One funny thing was, he recited two lines and his teacher who was also on the stage moved closer to him and he abruptly stopped, looked at him confused and when the teacher asked him to continue he did. I asked him if he forgot, but he said he was confused as to why his teacher came near him and if he made any mistakes :) He recited it very well, but his face looked as if he saw some ghost. Guess both boys have little bit of stage fright :D Atleast they aren't as bad as me :D

Hair Style

After the world cup cricket fever, the kids are still so fascinated about the players..Ashu who was a hardcore Sachin fan has moved him down to 2nd spot and moved Dhoni up to 1st placel since he hit the winning shot, with style :) And they also like Suresh Raina, especially him being part of CSK plays a major factor in it.


One day, they wanted me to style their hair and i tried and with Ashu it's difficult as he has very thick hair and it is straight too..so i managed to get a mohawk and told him he looks like Suresh raina. So, AJ wanted to look like Raina too and i tried and with his curly hair, it got all spiky everywhere and i said he looks like Virat kohli and AJ was very happy about it :) But, i have created a monster...everyday in the morning he spends about 10 mins looking at his hair in every angle to make sure he has spikes!! :-O and sometimes he is not happy and gives me feed back that i didnt do a good job!! Then, yday he goes "What kind of hairstyle does dhoni have?!"" :-O I think he was hinting for a change of hairstyle!! If i have to spend 10 mins on hairstyle for a boy...Thank God, i dont have a daughter!

At school, when i went to pick him, his teacher told me that he was so happy about his hairstyle :D

World Cup

Oh what fun it was! Ashu has been interested in cricket since last world cup. I was on maternity leave and my dad was here and we both didnt even miss ireland or bermuda matches..We watched every single match, fully and Ashu learnt about the game and got totally into it. Next in 2009, when we went to india, my brother took him and B to watch CSK v KKR at chepauk and that got him more interested in the game. He is also a huge fan of Sachin Tendulkar (or Sachin tenduklaar..as AJ kutty says :D)


This time my bro went to watch 3 matches in chepauk and when i showed one picture of him at the stadium and told Ashu this is where he watched CSK match..AJ got mad and said that my bro needs to take him to chepauk stadium too..So, now my brother is in trouble. He has to take him to the stadium soon :) (Right now, he is sitting beside me and saying "That's good!" and he is the one who wanted me to write this as well!)

Btw, he doesn't know that Ashu has a CSK flag ;-) Oooops! now he knows and he is screaming.."I didnt get a CSK flag" :)

Ashu got to watch only part of the matches, but that was good enough to keep him all excited. For Finals, we had friends come over and ofcourse his best buddy H was there too. They had a sleepover on friday and didnt sleep till 12.30, so i didnt wake them till 6 as SL was batting first. They didnt care either. They went upstairs during most part of the match and i was thinking he wasn't watching the match, but they both watched it upstairs, probably because we were all too loud :) He was super delighted when india won. AJ too. We all screamed so much out of joy and it was fun to watch the way AJ reacted. He was jumping in joy...

Another interesting thing for the kids was they got to see my cousin Prasanna on t.v. Now, they know him since i tell them stories about my childhood and all the naughty things that me and bro did with Prasanna and his sister. And they love the story where Prasanna sang My name is billa when the teacher asked him for his name. When appu mama told me that South Africa has hired him as their technical manger and i was looking for him during SA match and showed him to the kids. They have seen him in 2007, but do not remember him. too bad they got knocked out in QF! Ashu was a little bummed about it, but he was super excited for India :)

To Ajay, it is all another WII game, i guess because he kept saying " My favorite character in indian team is Gautham Gambhir" LOL! He seems to like Gautham more than Sachin, probably because of the name? :)

This worldcup was memorable for two other reasons! One, the epic war aka semifinals between India and Pak was on my birthday. Super exciting and what more can one ask? A billion people celebrated my bday ;-) And even better...when india won the cup on Janani's 10th birthday. Doubly special because she enters two digits and that is made memorable by the indian team. Awesome! I had so much fun with my friends on FB as well :)

Right after the match we went to PF Changs to celebrate. Even though we were too full, we didnt want to skip or skimp on the dessert. Everyone ordered individual desserts and it was not shared. Well, B shared with me..but mine was a giant dessert that couldv'e fed the whole family :) AJ had choc mousse, Ashu and Me ordered chocolate dome each and i ate one and B and Ashu ate the other and couldn't finish it. Well, i couldn't finish it either..but i ate more than what they both ate together! :D

We came back home - all of us, with friends. None of us felt sleepy and were chatting till dinner. I had lot of leftover from breakfast and we didnt have to cook again. Ate dinner and finally hit the bed at 11...What an energy the win had created!

Chess champ?

Ashu started chess club in november. They dont have formal training, but they learn practically. The play games and the instructor helps them improve by giving pointers.




First a flash back - My dad told him about my second cousin who is/was the junior state champion in chess and ashu told him that he will be the next junior champion. Let's see :-) He used to tell my dad that he would play long distance chess with him like the airtel ad.



Yday, he said that they had a challenge. There were split into groups of 2 and were asked to do chess mate in 3 moves and he and his group mate did that and they both won a dollar each :) Sweet! Now, this makes me think we have a budding V.Anand at home..That's what mommies always think, dont they? :)

Big island..small post :)

Didnt do much in big island and that was the plan. Offlate B and I have decided that we should keep sightseeing to a limit and relax on vacations..Vacation should not be making us want for a vacation after vacation (OMG, this sounds like Visu dialogue!) Anyways, we said only two things in Big island. Volcano park and goto a luau and hang out in the resort. This time no cooking also. First day we went to see the volcano. Ofcourse there was minimum activity there and we could not see the lava flowing. It was fun though and useful for kids. They loved it. It was wierd..It was hot that day and there were stretches in that place where it was cold..we needed a jacket and as usual we didnt have one :)

From there we went to Hilo to eat. Hilo was a cute little town and by the time we reached it started drizzling and i was quite hungry and forgot to take any pics of that town. It was a punjabi restaurent and the food was very good. very less masala and just the way we like it. Next day, we just went to the nearby shopping village and did some shopping and were just  hanging out in the resort. Kids loved it. And finally we said, okay let's go watch the luau and guess what, we needed reservations and that had to be done atleast a day earlier..so out of two things we wanted to do in Big island, we did only one :) Overall it was a fun trip.

Maui

After AJ's birthday, B just booked the tickets to Maui during kids spring break time which was also about 10 days before my birthday. My early birthday gift. One of the birthday gifts ;-)

As usual, no planning..and everything was done in hurry burry..First he books tickets just couple of weeks before the trip..and then the hotels couple of days before the trip. As usual,it turned out to be a great trip...
Better than planned ones :-) Only gripe was we didnt get good deal on airfare or hotel, but that's okay..(what else can i say?! )


Next the flight trip was really excruciating for me. I slept for just 2 hours before the trip and was sooo sleepy and tired as i was travelling during the crucial period of the project. Then, my feet were killing me. God knows why!! And 8 hours in the flight from houston to honolulu, i thought i was going to die by then....then, i removed my boots and felt much better in a while and fell asleep on and off and even managed to watch Tangled. Having two boys, this was the only opportunity for me to watch Tangled and i didnt miss it :) Cute movie :D So, by the time i reach honolulu i was dead tired and my feet were killing me and i really thought it was a big mistake to come to hawaii and was really grumpy for couple of hours! :D But, it turned out to be good. Thank God!

We reached maui sometime around 4 and went straight to the resort, taking one quick stop to spot some whales at a scenic stop. Ashu said he saw one..Me? Enakku pagal-laye pasu maadu kannukku theriyaadhu. I did not see anything! :D We went to the condo, it was pretty spacious with a large patio and kids were very happy. Within few minutes we saw the sunset from our room. Perfect! Then we refreshed and went to the resort beach. It got a little dark by then and it was warm when we went there and it cooled down pretty fast. We came back and went to a nearby indian restaurent to have dinner. Kids slept on the way and refused to wake up..so we made it to go and as soon as i came back, i slept as i couldn't keep my eyes open. jet lag, you see..so all the dinner we bought was our brunch the next day. The next day, we all got ready after brunch and just went around. no plans for the day. We thought we can go for whale watching, but it was too late to reserve tickets..so we just went to Lahaina mall and walked around Lahaina Village and did some shopping. Then we went to Lahaina beach and spent some time there. Kids loved it. From there we went to safeway and got some basic groceries and stuff and i made some quick fix dinner for us and we slept early so we could goto Hana the next day. Drive to Hana was nice..with several scenic stops. There was a nice beach suitable for surfers and we?!, we just watched the surfers for a while and moved on to the next stop :) Surplus supply of mango juice and mango flavored thingies are what i enjoyed the most. We stopped at Eden Garden and saw peacock. He danced for us for good 10 minutes. He wasn't scared of us, not even AJ ;-) He really didnt care about us, is the truth! Whatever..It was a pretty pretty sight. The place was nice. Then we made several stops on the way and saw different kinds of trees and it was nice. Green on one side, blue on the other side. Beautiful drive, especially if you are not the one driving :-)

Hana beach was one of the black sand beaches there. It looked ancient to me. Wasn't too impressed. All kids care about is beach..they dont care what colour the sand is or they dont even care whether it is a clean beach or not..It was cold and AJ was shivering, but it didnt stop him. He kept running away from me and towards ashu to have fun in the water. They just refused to leave the beach. We left on time so we could get back to the hotel early so we could plan the Haleakala trip which required us to get up at 3.30 to watch the sunrise. Totally worth it. Kids did not trouble us and woke up at 3.45 without whining. I thought i was gonna faint. We drove, we were mesmerized and on the way got our breakfast, came back and slept :) In the evening we just went to the resort beach. Next day was whale watching..Me and Ashu were sick and went inside and slept. I was sick within 5 minutes and ashu in 15 minutes probably. He saw one whale before coming inside..Me? Nothing. I didnt care at that point. AJ? totally freaked out..he came running with me and didnt dare to look outside. Whale-avadhu vaalavadhu? Finally towards the end, everyone came running towards my window and me and AJ took a peek and saw one bi....g whale. How lucky, eh? Poor B was all alone watching the whales and taking pix for us to see later. LOL!

Then we were off to Big island..

Four!! :)

Boy! I thought i had not updated my food blog only and came here to see the last post was in Feb. Missed updating on baby's birthday :-O

AJ turned 4 in Feb and we had his birthday party at a kids play place that he selected. His friend J had it there..so obviously he had to have it there :-) It was a little expensive but very nice. And we were lucky because the adjacent room was not booked during that time and they opened it up for us and we ended up having a biiiiig room for ourselves. Kids had a blast and Pizza was very good. I didn't do a squat for the party except getting the cake from outside. I asked them to take care of the return gifts also. Usually we used to by age appropriate return gift for each gift, this time it was hectic and i got the generic gift pack they have.
Had to compromise somewhere :)

We celebrated three times as usual - star birthday, party day and actual birthday. Actual birthday, we went to a friend's place and cut cake there. He enjoyed  that small affair a lot :)

I am going to back date the posts to make sense ;-)

Valentine's day

Both kids had parties today, but they didnt want any parent volunteers at aj's school. Thank God! They usually pick the same time and make me feel guilty one way or the other :) I had volunteered at Ashu's school. The organizer had planned for bingo and Ashu won bingo (1 row) and got a lo...ng candy. Then they did the final round where they had to have all the rows filled in and whoever won was supposed to go out with the teacher for pizza lunch and could take two of their friends. Guess what, 5 kids had same sheet and they all called bingo at the same time :) Ashu was one of them. Since there were 5, the teacher decided to take the whole class for pizza lunch now :) Ashu was extremely happy since he won twice :)

AJ said they decorated cookies with sprinkles and ate it. He also was happy with his valentine loot bag. Quite a number of candies :) Ashu also shared his bingo candy with him and made him happy.
Yday, i asked both the boys to write their own Vday cards and Ashu had to do only 20, whereas Aj baby had to do 32!! After 20 he fell asleep and i finished the rest. Today morning when he saw that everything was packed, he asked me, "Are you sure you wrote AJ and not Vidya?" :)

B dropped him today and before he left to school, i told aj that he will have lots of fun today since they will have a party and will have lots of cookies, cupcakes etc and he added " and a special cake for the birthday boy" and i asked "who?" and he goes "Me!!!" Then, i told him just because his birthday is in Feb doesn't mean they will have a cake for him for any party in FEB,. He grinned sheepishly and left :D

Dream Vs Nightmare

Last week (10-Feb) AJ woke up crying. B, Ashu and I were all in the living room as it is a snow day and school was closed. B and I both decided to work from home and ashu woke up early too, so he was reading a book in the living room. When AJ woke up crying, i got scared he fell off the bed and got hurt and ran inside, but he was sitting intact in the bed and crying. I asked him why he was crying and he said because you, daddy and ashu left me and went and i tried catching up but i could not. I figured out he had a bad dream and it must be becasue he saw the trailer of home alone in sun t.v. So, i told him, dont cry aj, we are all here..it is just a dream. He was still crying and corrected me saying "Mommy, it was not a dream, it was a nightmare!" LOL!




This reminds me of the time when ashu corrected me..When he was 4, he used to be very careless and bump into things or drop things and break them and then say "Ooops, it was an accident". My dad thought it was really cute and he started doing it on purpose. One day, i got annoyed and said, "Ashu, if you do that one more time, my foot will meet your butt and i will say Ooops it was an accident" and he said, "if you say that and then if your foot meets my butt, that wont be an accident, it will be on purpose"!!

Ofcourse, my dad thought it was cute too!!

Jan Recap

In the last few months, i have missed capturing lot of the cute things the kids say / do, in this blog and i dont remember them all.

That's what you pay when you dont update the blog regularly :- (



Harry Potter :



After we came back from orlando, ashu has taken after harry potter now. B downloaded the whole set in kindle and he is done with all the books in two weeks!! It was really funny to watch him..Any free time he got he was stuck to HP. weekends...HP..and luck favored him and he had 6 snow days in that two weeks too!! Even though it was cute, at one point i got mad at him and told him to limit to kindle to couple of hours in the week ends now. Otherwise this boy will forget how to talk!!! He only reminded of me of my childhood friend's cousin who would come all the way from bombay for summer vacation and would not talk to anybody. Her nose would always be buried in books and she was older than us by 3,4 years and would look at us like we are a bunch of disgusting pests running around, making noise and disturbing her :) I dont want ashu to turn into her. I want him to be balanced!



MLK Birthday :



When the schools were closed for MLK birthday, i asked AJ if he knew why the school was closed and he said, yeah, i know..it is Martin Luther King Junior's birthday. He said Luther like L"u"ther and not L "oo" ther. And all of sudden his face brightened and he ran to his daddy and said, Daddy, come let's goto chuck e cheese, we need to throw a party for Martin Luther King Junior's birthday!! Nice!!





Random :



One of the snow days, i was testing ashu on the tables and AJ was upset and said he wants a test too. Ashu has taught him 2 tables and so i gave him some questions randomly and he said Mommy, i dont want random, give it in order. I was quite surprised. Not sure, when i knew the word Random and this dude is already using it :)



Spelling Bee :



Ashu didnt get selected in school spelling bee. Actually he did really good when we tested him at home, but we didn't know they would time him as well. Lot of parents didnt..so none of the 3rd graders made it to the final round. It was anyway a practice for the 3rd graders as most schools have this only starting 4th grade.



AJ really has a chance at spelling bee..when we tested him with 3rd and 4th grade list he did awesome! My bro even tested him with big words and when i broke them he did awesome :)



Math whiz :



I think i have mentioned before that AJ was doing addition real well till ashu introduced multiplication to him. One day, janani decided to test him and she asked single digit addition and he did good using his fingers. It was funny that when she asked little bigger one where he had to use both hands, he put the phone between his legs and counted :) Janani was super impressed with him and then asked him if she can ask big numbers and he got excited and said yes. She went with 10 + 10 and he said 20. He knows those..

Then she asked 40 + 40 and he said 80..then she asked 100 + 100 and he said 200..that's it, Janani was praising him so much..and now he got all excited and everytime someone wants to tlak to him on the phone he goes test me in addition or two tables! but, what janani doesn't know is..if she had asked some other two digit numbers his answer is a constant 75. LOL!



Best Friend :



Ashu's friend Rohan's mom called me on saturday (29th jan) and said she will take them both to watch HP.. After i dropped ashu at rohan's house AJ was pretty upset. So i made brownies for him and when the movie was over, she dropped them both at our place as she had to run some errrands and that was the first time AJ actually met Rohan. AJ was trying to strike conversation with him several times as if he came to play with him and not Ashu. It was really funny. B and I were laughing so much..After rohan left, i asked AJ who his best friend was so i could tell him he can have aplay date with him / her and he says "Rohan is my best friend" Ashu was soooo ticked off when he heard that. LOL!



The way AJ said was so funny..as if Rohan and him were jenma jenamama friends...he just met him for the first time!!!



Solar System :





Ashu had to do a solar system project for the school. They said no kits allowed. So, he had this great idea of making the planets with play dough and then hang it on a rod. He started with it and AJ made a huge mess to it. Ashu was extremely upset.Then i also thought that it may be difficult to present as ti would get heavier when it dries off so i told him to check with his teacher if he could do two dimensional model and teacher was fine, so i gave him foams and he did a good job. He said that his teacher liked it. I did help him, but i wanted it to be his idea and it came out good. I didnt take a picture..I should if it is still in good condition. I saw aj playing with it yday!!

New Year!

It is still january, so i think i can post about new year! :)


Last year on new year eve, ashu wanted to stay up late and i let him. He waited and waited and when it was 12 and when we wished him Happy New Year, he said That's it and was disappointed and went to sleep. He was way too sleepy to have any excitement at all.

It reminded me of an episode of Arthur. This year, AJ decided to join the fun too and we were watching t.v. and at 11, they were showing new york and the ball dropping at the timesquare and the excitement caught on the kids as me and Balaje were doing the count down too..And then when they showed nashville at 12, they both were jumping with excitement and AJ ran up the stairs and stood midway and he said mommy it is 2011 so i climbed 11 stairs. This made ashu crack up! :) This time they were pretty excited about new year since they were both up :)


With new year, they went to school for a week and the schools were closed for 4 days the next week. They had a break after the break..Lucky kids..now, why would the offices not do that too? It snowed quite a bit and the snow stayed up for the whole week..It has never happened before..The temparature usually rises in a day or two. Anyways, instead of sulking, we built a snow baby. B was not in town. If we had one more pair of hands, we would've built a snow man! :) Kids had a blast outside and they wanted to do it every day, but i was not ready to let them do it everyday and fall sick. So,i got boxes of snow inside and they were playing with it, using cups and pans as moulds. They had this colours kit that their athai had sent a while back and they added colour to the snow and were mixing colours and experimenting. It was a fun activity for them and i could work form home peacefully :)


After the break, when they had school the next week AJ asked, "Are they not cancelling school today?" My kinda boy!! :)

Break is never enough!! :)

Phew!

December was hectic. Had to wrap up so much before the xmas shut down. Was not well the week before the break and that made me even more desparate for the break :) The break was good. We drove to florida..Went all the way till Key West. It was beautiful..and we didn't do a whole lot. We decided to take it easy and do things at our own pace. Everyday we got up only around 9.30 and it was really refreshing :) Only thing is we couldn't go on any of the boat rides as it was too windy and they cancelled them all.


As usual, we left without any plan or any hotel reservation and we reserved on the go and found a resort in keylargo. Most hotels/ resorts were booked and this was one of the few decent resorts that came up in hotels.com. Resort was okay, but the room was really small. I was little bummed about that..but then we hardly stayed in the room..so no one other than me cared about it.


We stayed at keylargo and drove to Key west next two days. The drive was beautiful. We took so many scenic breaks. Beeeeautiful drive and even Keywest was so beautiful. If Chennai was maintained well - atleast the besant nagar tiruvanmyur area, it would look like keywest. Sigh! We spent some time in the resort too before we left. They loved it as there were lot of hammocks :) They also loved throwing stones into the water!! Boys! It was in 70s and very nice. We even had icecream in December. There was one flavor called mamey and the picture of mamey they had looked like mangustan and tasted awesome. but, when i searched in google it says mamey is sapota. i dont think it tasted like sapota though. We got a carribean fruit cake there and they had used rum so it tasted like it was made out of benadryl..so that went to the dump straight.
We also got cuban plantain chips. Awesome again. So spicy and yum. We got lime and chilli wheat puffs. Loved that too. I ate so much of it..it's all sitting in the waist now :-( The kids didnt like it..but we both loved it.

On our way back, we went to Miami and spent a day there. We went to the south beach and kids had a blast. It was a little chilly, so we asked them to not goto the water..but they still managed to get all wet!! The beach had a nice play area for the kids as well. If we had not had plans to goto Orlando, they would've refused to leave that place. We left in the evening and reached orlando that night and going to Orlando during xmas break is a BAD BAD idea. It was toooooo crowded. Like Pondy bazaar and ranganathan street during Diwali time. We went to islands of adventure and universal studios (took park hopper) and felt so lost inside. Horrible!!!  We went to Jurassic park ride and then to Seuss world and then decided to goto universal. We saw Shrek again and this time AJ finally enjoyed it and didnt remove his 3 D glasses :) Then we went to terminator 3D and it was okay and we wanted to goto MIB, but we stopped for the Macy's parade and it was time to go back IoA as we had taken the return ticket for Wizardly world of Harry Potter, one thing that Ashu was desparte to see :) We skipped MIB and  went back IoA and there was a lon.....g queue in front of the WWHP. There was no meaning to the return ticket. no one was checking anything and it took some time to enter the Harry potter world..after that there was a longer queue inside to goto the castle and the ride. We made a mistake and got into that queue and midway aj asked us to carry him. I really felt that if i had stood in the line at Tirupati, i would have got some punyam atleast. 1 hour in the line, i started hating it already..but being a parent isnt that easy right? Didnt want to feel guilty and continued and somewhere close to 2 hours we finally made it to the castle. It was pretty..they had the talking pictures just like the movie. Fascinating. There wasn't a whole lot, but whatever they had was good. They even had HP, Hermione and Ron show up on the balcony (Laser, i believe) and while i was waiting at the child swap room with aj who was pretty upset because they said he cant go on that ride as he didnt meet the height requirement, B and Ashu went on the ride and B said it was awesome. Ashu looked quite scared when he came out. I had the option of leaving aj with B and going alone on the ride, without having to wait in the line, but i freaked out at the thought of going alone and left. I think i should've gone..too late to think of it now!! Will i ever go back to IoA? I doubt that. AJ was crying so much since he couldn't go there..so we took him back to Seuss world and he was so happy when he went on the Red fish blue fish ride and the cat in the hat ride. It was also funny that he didnt get scared at the jurassic park ride. I screamed bloody murder at the drop and ashu was scared too. He didnt admit it, but when i saw the picture they took just before the drop, he was clenching his teeth and the expression on his face was priceless..AJ was sitting quiet as he had no clue what to expect and i think before he realized we were down anyways..Or maybe he is okay with those kind of rides! We will find out when he is little older.

We decided never ever to go back to orlando during holiday time. We saw the mad rush and cancelled our plans to goto Magic kingdom and returned home. Ashu's friend who also went during that time said that they couldn't even get tickets as it was full!!

Overall the trip was good and relaxing..didnt have the heart to come back home to the 30s.. It was in 70s in keywest, you see :)