Halloween

Indians don't celebrate Halloween, but our neighborhood has alot of Indian-Americans in it, so we had our own (not so little) Halloween celebrations. We haven't had any Halloween season, or even a fall feeling for that matter, so Halloween happened all in one day. This post has A LOT of pictures of our Halloween. After seeing my sisters blog with the pictures of her kids Halloween activities, our kids kept saying "Take a picture of this and put it on our blog, so everyone can see we did it."

This past week I've been trying to pull together costumes for our kids. I went to a fabric store to buy some "Cheap" material so that I could sew a pumpkin, and shread up some white strips for a mummy. When I went into the store I asked the man for the cheapest material they had. (I didn't want to spend much money on it) He went over into the corner and asked what color I needed. I told him Orange, Green, and White. (I had found some Superman Pajamas for Ethan to wear) He pulled out the cheapest material they had. 100% pure silk!!! I have to admit, I really didn't spend that much money on it, but it killed me everytime I shreaded a white strip of silk. The costumes came out great, and I think I'll end up packing them away for another year.

Our Halloween day started out as every Saturday starts...Alan was off golfing, and I was helping the kids finish up some homework. When Alan came home, he had 3 pumpkins. I hadn't even thought about carving pumpkins because all the pumpkins I've seen here have been about the size of a large grapefruit. He found a few larger ones, except they weren't too orange. More of a tan color. The kids were excited to carve them, and Alan asked our driver if he wanted to help. He was kind of excited, and our maid watched on with a "what in the world are you doing to those pumpkins" look on her face.

CARVING PUMPKINS:

Ellie of course wanted a Kitty pumpkin
Maddie wanted hers with scary fangs

Ethan's is a scary alien pumpkin.

When we got finished carving pumpkins, we got our costumes on and headed over to the Clubhouse for a Halloween Party. Ellie had invited one of her friends from school to come with her and to go Trick or Treating. Her mom also works with Alan so they came over and had pizza and Homemade Rootbeer (yep I searched High and Low and found some Dry Ice) that night too.

I tried with Annie's costume to make her a Princess, but she more turned out to be a big ball of Tulle. Everyone at the Clubhouse thought she was dressed up as cotton candy.

PARTY AT THE CLUBHOUSE:
They had Pin the Broom on the Witch, Trick or Treat bag decorating, Make a Mummy game, and they also had an Indian version of Snowcones. They are called Golas. They make a snowcone in a cup but instead of just putting the syrup on it, they squish it into the cup to make it solid again, then they put a stick in it and make it into a popcicle type thing. They then put the syrup over that.

Tanesha (neighbor), Ellie, and Hannah (Ellie's friend from school)

Notice in the picture Ellie in shorts. We've traded Trick or Treating in Coats for Trick or Treating with Bug Spray. It was about 80 degrees when they headed out that evening.

TRICK OR TREATING:

Alan invited our driver to bring his 2 1/2 year old daughter to come Trick or Treating with us. She was so excited, and he was too. We had an old costume that had happened to make it's way over here.

Laura McGrath, Alan's co-worker and Hannah's mom. They were headed to a costume party after they left our house. She was dressed as "The bride of Death"

Teeth Teeth Teeth

Ethan is losing them, and Annie is growing them!

Ethan was so excited yesterday because as he was brushing his teeth, his tooth that was just hanging on by a thread, finally popped out! OK so it had a little help from Alan, but it's finally gone! He was so excited to get to church that morning and show his friend Rachel that he had lost a tooth. On Monday he couldn't wait to go to school because he knew his teacher would see that his tooth was missing. Unfortunately, I think the tooth fairy forgot we moved to India.

Annie is on the otherhand growing them. She has had the bottom 2 front teeth for a while now and her 2 cousins that are the same age have 6 and 8 teeth. Finally we are starting to see some of the top ones poking through!! They are coming in kind of funny though. She is getting one of the front top teeth, and then the other side the "fang" tooth is coming in. Hopefully the others will follow quickly so she doesn't have too goofy of a smile!

Indian Wedding

Tonight our family was invited to the wedding reception of one of Alan's co-workers. It was a fun event! They had a line, kind of like we would at a wedding reception, except instead of shaking hands and congratulating the couple, you get your picture taken with them. We had our pictures taken with the bride and groom and all of Alan's co-workers. After the line they had a dinner. The kids weren't too thrilled for this part of the night. It was really neat I thought, and I tried it all. Yep, you read that right, all of it. I think I surprised Alan by even eating the leafy thingy at the end of the meal. I'm not too sure what all I ate, and I was pretty sure at times my tongue was going to fly out of my mouth on fire, but I tried it all. I was sitting next to a lady who was trying to tell me how to eat it, but holding Annie posed to be a challenge because they don't use utensils. I was eating with one hand, holding Annie with the other and the lady next to me was holding Annie's hand away from the hot and spicy rice. Finally they brought a banana out and I handed it to her. As soon as she finished it, she was back at my banana leaf trying to get all the food. I don't know how he knew, but Vijay came to my rescue and took Annie outside so that I could finish eating without it all ending up in my lap.

GOA

So I was going to put a slideshow of pictures from our trip to Goa on here, but I'm not that great at creative Blogs. If anyone knows how to do it will you tell me.

We didn't tell our kids we were going on a vacation until we had booked our flights because we didn't want them to be sad if things fell through, so when I booked the flights online, I told them and they started jumping up and down, hugging each other and screaming. Ellie and Maddie went and grabbed our globe, and asked where we would be stopping on our way. It was then that I realized, they thought we were going home. I explained that we were staying in India, but that we were going to go to a fun hotel and to the beach. They were a little disappointed to not be going to Salt Lake, but they were still excited to go on a trip.

After I had told the kids because it was all confirmed, things started to fall through. We didn't think we were going to end up be able to go because the online company that I booked our flights through cancelled our flight about 24 hours before we were going and we couldn't find any flights for a reasonable price. I called the travel agent who had booked our hotel in Goa and told her what had happened. She told me that I needed to call and tell the online company that they had to get us on a flight, or they had to pay for the hotel. I thought it was hopeless, why would the company really care, how would we really make them pay us for the hotel. Anyway, I decided to call and give them an earful. They told me they would see what they could do. In the meantime I had the travel agent calling me to see if we were really going because she had to cancel the hotel if we couldn't go. A LONG STRESSFUL day, and a few calls back and forth with the online travel company, and they had us on flights to Goa. The only downside was that the flight going to Goa was at 6:15 in the morning. It takes an hour to get to the airport from our house and with 6 of us we wanted to be to the airport early to make it through security and onto the plane without too much trouble. Our driver told us he thought we needed to leave by 3:30 a.m. so Alan told him to be here by 3:00 a.m. so we could be there on time. The driver took the car home with him that night so he could be here early. Our alarm was set and we were packed and excited to go! The next morning, we were awakened by our doorbell. We rolled over, and it was 4:00 a.m. WE SLEPT IN!! Our alarm clock didn't go off! As we ran around the house getting kids dressed, the driver was throwing suitcases and the stroller in the car and we all piled in and raced off to the airport. When I say raced I meant that we actually drove around 50 mph. (With pot holes and speedbumps, people here drive around 25 mph tops.) We made it just in time to race through security and right onto the plane. By 8:30 we were at our hotel and changing into swimsuits.

We stayed at the Park Hyatt Resort on the the beach. It was beautiful! We got a package that included our meals and all. They had 3 swimming pools that were connected by small waterslides. Our kids had a blast!!

We were there for 4 days and each day had almost the same routine. We would wake up and go to breakfast. Alan would take Annie back to the room for a nap and I would take the others to the pool. When Annie woke up Alan would bring her to the pool and we would play. When the kids finally got hungry we would either order the food to come poolside, or we would go up to the buffet. After lunch I would take Annie back to the room for a nap, and Alan would take the others to the beach for the afternoon. Once Annie woke up, I'd head down to the beach. When it got dark we'd head up, shower and go to dinner. The kids loved it! They also had a kids play group, "Camp Hyatt". Ellie, Maddie, and Ethan went to that one afternoon and had fun there. They made bookmarks, played games, and watched a movie. We had such a relaxing, fun weekend, and we definately want to go back.

One afternoon Alan and Ellie rented a board, and as Ellie says "caught some waves" She loves to spend time one on one with Alan so when she was the only one who wanted to board with him she ate it up.
There were so many star fish on the beach. Every wave would bring in 2-3 more. The kids collected them all and would bring them over to show Annie.
Some pictures from the resort
Looking out towards the beach from the pool

All Annie wanted to do was get in the water. Everytime I picked her up, she would cry until I put her back on the sand. We walked up and down the beach and as soon as a wave would come in and hit her she would just giggle.
After an early morning, a morning at the pool, and an evening at the beach Ethan couldn't even stay awake for dinner. The kids all played hard and crashed hard every night!

Another update from India

I've had a few people want to see some more pictures and video from outside our housing complex. So, here are some pictures that don't have much explanation. Some of the pictures are a little blurry.

OK a little explanation. Everyone here hauls everything on motorbikes. The kids were all trying to say who had seen the craziest thing on a bike. Maddie won when she said she saw a goat on a bike. I think I come in second with the man hauling a ladder.

Most people here ride motorbikes. It's not unusual to see a whole family on one. What you can't see in this picture is the baby the woman is holding. I'm going to try and get a picture of 5 or 6 on a bike. I've seen 5 once, but didn't have the camera ready. It looks alot like "The Ranch School Bus", but on a honda 90 not a 4 wheeler.

Accessory or Necessity?

So...Ellie for the past year has been telling me that she needs glasses. I doubted her because it all the sudden became that she needed them as soon as I got my new glasses. I know how she loves accessories, so I felt like she was just wanting something that she thought would be cute to wear. Well, lesson learned on my part...I got a call from her teacher at school saying that Ellie is having a hard time reading the board and she thought it would be a good idea to have her eyes tested. (Why couldn't any of her teachers at Driggs have been as observant?) On Thursday I pulled her out of school and went to the Sankara Eye Hospital. $3.00 later, we had a prescription for glasses, and $75 dollars later we had 2 pair of glasses, and a really cute and pretty happy girl. Her first comment was, "WOW, India is Beautiful!!" Just wait until she sees the US!!

These are the glasses that the optical shop recommended for her and were a grand total of $20 so we went a head and got them, but...

These are the ones that Ellie really wanted. They said that they didn't recommend them because the are wire framed, and kids break them easier. I thought they were cute, and they too were pretty cheap here so she ended up with 2 pair. I guess it's always good to have a back up.

Who looks the most alike?

So we had Annie's 1 year old pictures taken here. They did a great job. I had many to choose from, and then I came across my other kids 1 year old pictures. OK...so Ethan never really got a 1 year old picture taken, but this is one from when he was 1. Who do you think looks the most alike?