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 ;-)