MERRY CHRISTMAS

We had a very different Christmas this year. We didn't travel home, no snow, no cold weather, no family! This is the first Christmas that we have spent away from home. Usually we spend our Christmas Eve having the "Wagstaff Family Christmas Party" and then wake up Christmas morning, open presents from Santa, and then head off to Evanston for the "Erickson Family Christmas Party" I'm so glad to have had such great traditions in our family.
This year we got together with 3 other families who are also here for Christmas. We put together a Christmas party with all of our different families traditions. I think it turned out great!
We started out the evening by frosting sugar cookies thanks to the Chadwicks tradition, and then we had a great dinner. The meal was one of our traditions. We had the "Wagstaff Family feast". Thank you mom for hauling a ham to India with you when you came! After dinner we moved onto another tradition from our family. We played a game where you all sit in a circle and roll the dice. When you roll doubles you get to pick a present from the "pot" or you can steal one that has already been opened. The kids loved getting their presents, and wondering if there was anything "better" in the pot. Each family was assigned to bring enough gifts for each member of their family, and then we threw in some extra gifts. Annie was a little confused when she opened up the oversized underwear, but was even more mad when we re wrapped them and added them into the adult game and someone else opened up the underwear that was hers! After the game we watched "Joy the the World", ate cupcakes and sang Happy Birthday to Jesus thanks to the MacDonalds traditions.

We didn't get to do anything special from the Christensen's family traditions as they just flew in on the 21st and are still in the process of moving in, and trying to stay awake.

I'm glad we are so lucky to have such wonderful friends here, and that they wanted to spend time sharing their Christmas traditions, and letting us share some of ours. It sure made Christmas Eve seem more like Christmas Eve. 85 degree weather made Christmas sneak up on me without even knowing it was near. That and the fact that most people here are Hindu and don't celebrate Christmas at all.

Christmas morning started at about 2:30 a.m. when the kids woke up and wanted to see if Santa knew we were in India this year. We told them to go back to bed, and at about 3:30 they again asked if they could go see. We told them no they needed to wait until at least 6, but at about 4 and again at 5 they were in begging to head downstairs. We held our ground and told them to go back to bed. At about 7:30 they woke up again and came into our bedroom. We woke up and told them we weren't sure if Santa had come, and their response was to tell us what all of their presents were. Of course each time we had told them to go to bed the had to sneak downstairs and investigate for themselves. My favorite lines of the day came that morning as we were asking how they knew what they had gotten. They admitted to sneaking downstairs and Maddie was so excited by all the gifts. She was rattling off what everyone had..."Ellie got a bike and a big stuffed bear, Annie has a rocking horse, Ethan has a punching bag thing, and I got FISH!!! One is dead, and one looks like a cat fish like this!!!" as she made the funniest fish face I have ever seen!

Of course Santa did find us, and spoil us like he does every year!! We also had gifts that my parents had dropped off when they were here. The kids were really excited to open them, but wanted to wait for the Christmas Eve party to end in Salt Lake so that they could skype Grandma and Grandpa while they opened the gifts. "I love technology!"

Showing off gifts to Grandma and Grandpa Erickson on Skype

That afternoon we actually had time to play the games that Santa brought and rest and relax. That was a nice change, but still weird to not be running to the next party! We had Baby and Vijay come over and bring their families, and we took them out to dinner.  We will definately miss some things about India when we move back, but I think I enjoy family and family traditions too much to miss out!

District Christmas Party

On December 18th our District had it's annual Christmas Party. Because I am the Primary Chorister in our Branch, I was asked to teach all of the kids a few songs to sing. I have a set of pipe chimes that our kids have been playing during Primary for the past month. I decided that we would play Christmas Bells are ringing and Silent Night on the chimes and have the kids sing. The did an awesome job. I was very proud of them.

Of course no Christmas party is complete without a visit from Santa Claus.

I loved Ethan's comment after the party...

Ethan: Mom that wasn't the real Santa

Mom: Really? How could you tell? (with a little chuckle in my voice)

Ethan: Because he wasn't fat enough. That and his hands were brown.

I was surprised that the creepy mask wasn't the dead give away. :)

Sports Day at Indus

December 8th and 9th the kids had Sports day at school. All of the kids compete in all of the events, and the top kids compete in the finals on the last day. They had 4-5 events depending on the grades. Ethan and Maddie both ran in the 50 and 100 meter races, long jump, and Tennis ball throw. Ellie also had a 200 meter race that she ran in. Ethan got the bronze metal in the long jump, and Ellie qualified for the 200 meter Relay race. Here are a few pictures of the day that Ellie competed. I remembered my camera the day Ethan and Maddie competed, but I forgot to put a memory card in it. I have a friend that is going to email me some pictures of that day, but in the mean time...

Ellie with her friends...Karolina (Sweden) Ellie (US) Jasmine (US) Ananya (India)

Ellie's Long Jump

It's not just a competition, IT'S WAR!

It was so hot that day, and they were selling Snow Cones. I bought one for  all of the kids, and they melted before we could even think about eating them. At least it ended up being a cold drink of flavored water.  I don't feel like it's almost Christmas time. Tank tops and Snow cones in December are just wrong.

Oh and I also have to pat myself on the back for driving myself out to school one of the days. Vijay had to have the day off for a wedding. For those of you who haven't visited India, you may think..."Big Deal, she drove herself to her kids school", but for those of you who have been here, you'll agree with me that it was actually AMAZING!!! I honked the horn, dodged pot holes, buses, rickshaws, motorcycles, cows, pedestrians, and an occasional goat.

Holland's Visit India November 19-28 2010

So it's about time to post about my parents visiting India, and get rid of the previews. We took so many pictures that the only way to do this blog was through collage pictures. I hope you can click on the picture to blow it up bigger. I tried to not add too many pictures per collage, but some of them I just couldn't help.

My parents arrived on the night of the 18th morning of the 19th. After a long flight and lots of travel, they finally arrived and got to our house by 4 a.m. When they got to the airport, Vijay gave them a big Indian welcome.

The morning of the 19th we let my parents sleep in and then around noon Alan took Ellie, Jake and my Dad golfing. Jake said that Ellie's caddy reminded him of Happy Gilmore's caddy. After golfing they stopped at the corner bakery for some cold drinks. 

Mom and I went shopping on Commercial Street while they golfed. We had "fun" bartering for skirts, shawls and other souvenirs.  We attempted to go Go-Karting that night, but after riding the Rickshaw out there, Mom and I found out it was closed for some grand opening of a club.

Sunday morning we all piled into our Innova and headed off to church. On the way home we again found a camel on the side of the road. Vijay stopped to ask if we could ride it. You think we would have learned after what happened to Tracy and Katie while they were here. This time the saddle thing looked like it was attached better, and Jake was feeling brave! Jake and Ethan ended up having a great ride around the block. Annie screamed when we put her on for a picture, and Mom and Dad were not about to attempt the ride. I don't blame them at all.

Sunday afternoon began our "Amazing Race" around India.

First we went to the ISCON temple. We didn't all fit into our Innova very well as we went to church so Alan, Jake and Ethan decided to ride a rickshaw to the temple.

After the temple we ran to the mall to eat a little bit of KFC and Taco Bell before boarding the train.

We boarded the night train to Hampi. I think Jake's face tells his true feelings about the train. He acted like the train didn't bother him at all. Once I got home and downloaded our video, I found the truth.

This is where we took too many pictures. I cut out a TON of pictures, but there is still to many. While we were in Hampi we walked to many old ruin temple sites, ate at the Mango Tree restaurant, rode in the Coracle boats, and were blessed by Laxmi the Elephant.

We also fed bananas to the monkeys, goats, cows, elephant and small children.

After touring all day we went to the hotel to take a shower and get ready to get back on the train to come back to Bangalore. I think Jake was a little bored while we were at the hotel, but quickly entertained himself with the squirrels that were outside the window.

We arrived back in Bangalore on Tuesday morning and relaxed a little at the house. Dad and Jake wanted to go shopping on Commercial street for some souvenirs and Jake wanted a hand tailored suit so they took a rickshaw to go shopping.

Vijay invited us over to his house for an Indian meal of Chicken Biriyani, Eggplant, Curd, and his new specialty (ever since we introduced it) beef, all served on a Banana Leaf. He was so excited to have us over for dinner, and really happy when Jake wanted seconds. Jake also took one for the team when Vijay served up some Pon at the end. Dad chickened out (Jake took one for the team), and Mom curtiously took hers to go, but Alan, Jake and I couldn't really get out of it.

Wednesday we boarded the plane to head up North. My parents and Jake were on a separate airplane from our family. When we arrived in Delhi we realized that our plane arrived at the Domestic Airport, but my parents plane arrived in the International Airport. Once we figured out that we were in separate airports it made it a little easier to find each other.

Once we were altogether we started our "5" hour drive to Jaipur. The drive ended up taking about 7 hours instead of the average 5. When we arrived in Jaipur we were too late to go to the Amber Fort as planned. Instead we headed over to a textile factory and found out how they make the famous rugs and printed material. They let Ethan tie a few knots in the rug, and let the kids each stamp a piece of material to show how they make the printing. Then we headed to our hotel.

Our hotel in Jaipur was the Heritage Hotel. It was a nice place to stay that had been very decorated. Mom and Dad's room had millions of tiny mirrors that decorated the walls and ceiling. Jake slept in the room with Maddie and Ethan. We had originally planned on our kids having one room, and Jake sleeping with Mom and Dad but when we got to the hotel our rooms were not close to each other so I didn't want the kids by themselves. Thanks Jake for being willing to stay in with the kids.

The next morning we went to the Amber Fort and rode elephants up to the top. Once we were finished at the top of the Fort we decided to ride the "Jeep" back to the bottom. I'm pretty sure Indiana Jones rode in this jeep, but I don't think he had 15 people in the jeep with him. 

We also toured around Jaipur seeing the different places that the Maharaja made to have his wives be able to see the city without being seen. From Jaipur we traveled on to Ranthambore National Park.

We stayed at the Tiger's Den Resort in Ranthambore.  We had a morning Safari and saw a few animals. We were told that this would be the best place to see Tigers, unfortunately the only ones we saw were in the pictures at the hotel. One exciting thing that happened on the Safari was when the Safari bus got stuck in the mud. Annie had fallen asleep in my arms so when they emptied the Canter Annie and I got to stay on while they pushed it out.

From Ranthambore we traveled to Agra to finish off the trip. It was great to see the Taj Mahal. While we were leaving the Taj we ran into Elder Beihner and his family. It is certainly a small world when it comes to the church. They were actually on the same flight as Mom, Dad and Jake heading back to SL.

After seeing the Taj we had to hurry off to Delhi so Mom, Dad and Jake could catch their flight back to Salt Lake. On the way to Delhi we stopped at McDonalds. As we got out of the van we were touring in there was a group of little kids that were begging for money and food. After we finished eating Jake bought each of them an ice cream cone and gave them the left over food from my kids meals. They were very excited to get it.  On the way back to Delhi Mom decided that she would really like to take some Maharaja hats back home. The shop that we stopped in was only selling them for 3000 rupees a piece. Dad came out to me and told me to go in and see how well I could barter. I had to show him my skills, and I think I did pretty well when we ended up paying 500 rupees a piece.

That night we had dinner at the hotel Alan and I stayed at. We didn't worry too much about which hotel we picked to stay in in Delhi because Mom and Dad weren't staying with us. This is the one thing that I regret about the whole trip. The room we stayed in wasn't the greatest, and the restaurant wasn't good at all. In fact, I wouldn't doubt that this is where Mom ended up getting sick. 

All in all we had a great time having family come and visit us again! We can't wait now for the next vacationers to come! Anyone who wants to come is definately welcome!

Elephant ride (preview)

I am only putting on previews because I am going to come back and write alot more when I get time, but until then...

Jake had a successful camel ride. Mom and Dad's elephant ride was a little more exciting!!

Just kidding!! They had a fun ride on the elephant, but Mom thought she was falling off the back the whole time. 

Mom and Dad come to INDIA! (preview)

On our way home from church we successfully road a camel on the side of the road.

Thailand

We had such a wonderful trip to Thailand!!!

The kids had the week off of school for their Fall Break/Diwali. We decided to take the week and fly to Phuket. We took ALOT of pictures so I think the best way to do this blog post is to just give all the pictures a caption.

Our hotel was so fun, it was perfect with the kids. We stayed at Laguna Beach Resort on BangTao Beach. It had a water park and kids club, and it had a baby elephant and Elephant rides.

The first couple of days that we were there it rained most of the day. The kids didn't seem to mind though and swam and played at the beach.

The hotels baby elephant liked to hang out on the beach in the evening. It would climb up the beach sand and roll down a hill. It was amazing to see how smart the elephants are.

On the 3rd day we were there we went into Patong to go shopping. As we walked up and down the streets it kinda reminded us of walking down the strip in Las Vegas. There were many shops and alot of people trying to sell things. One lady brought a HUGE lizard and put it on Ellie's head. Another man also did the same thing to Ethan. I had the video camera rolling so I was able to catch a glimpse of Ellie before the lady jumped in front of the camera when I refused to pay 100 baht for a picture. I wasn't quick enough for one of Ethan though. Most of the nights we ate dinner on the beach. Ethan was so excited that the hamburgers were as good as the US hamburgers. I think he ordered one at every meal. We rode on a Tuk Tuk back to the hotel. A tuk tuk is like a rickshaw only it had 6 seats instead of 3.

The next day we took a speed boat tour out to Khai Islands. We left from Phuket and had a 15 minute boat ride out to Khai Nuk Island. From there Alan, Ellie, Maddie and Ethan were able to jump from the boat and snorkel. I stayed on the boat with Annie. When Ethan jumped in before Alan could jump out to him we saw jelly fish swimming all around him. I was a little nervous that he was going to get stung, but all was well.

After snorkeling at Khai Nuk Island we boated over to a small island called Khai Nui Island. We spent the day there snorkeling and playing on the beach. The water was so warm and clear you could see the fish from the beach. The kids fed the fish bananas and built sand castles. 

We spent the next day hanging out on the beach. The girls wanted to get their hair braided so all of the girls went to the ladies on the beach that braided hair while Alan and Ethan kayaked, wind surfed, and tried scuba diving in the hotel pool. They also played at the beach catching some waves until Ethan got stung by a jelly fish. That put a damper on the beach the rest of the trip.

I had the camera with me so we didn't get many pictures of all the fun things Alan and Ethan did, but we did get some of the ladies braiding hair. At one point Ellie had 5 ladies all braiding her hair at the same time.

Saturday night we went to a show called FantaSea. It's an elephant show with magicians, acrobats and fireworks. They wouldn't let cameras into the theatre so I wasn't able to get any pictures of the elephants doing tricks or the acrobats. The show started at 9:00 at night and had dinner and a carnival type area that we went to. Ethan won a stuffed frog at one of the games and was on cloud 9 all night taking "bug breath" to the show. I was actually shocked that all of our kids stayed awake until we got back to the hotel at 11:00 that night.

Sunday we decided to get some family pictures taken.

The week was over all to soon and we were on the plane back to Bangalore.

It was so beautiful there and we are glad we decided to go!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Halloween time

We carved our pumpkins and went to meet at the Club House for a Halloween get together with the neighbors.

As I said in my previous post Annie HATED her costume!

 Vijay brought Sravia and Srinadi to our house that night to go trick or treating, and Lakshmi came this year too. She and I hung out at the house handing out treats while Alan and Vijay took the kids out. It was like playing charades to talk with her, but we were able to communicate a little. She also said "Madam, Trick treat" when kids would come to the door. 

The kids got to go trick or treating around to a few houses in the neighborhood. They came back with so much candy again this year that we decided again to let the kids have 20 pieces each and then we donated the rest of it to the orphanage. I like the idea of getting rid of all the extra candy. Hopefully, we can keep this tradition, and find some place in the US to donate the extra candy.

Halloween just wouldn't be right if we didn't have witches brew so like last year, we made some yummy Dry Ice Root Beer.  This is one of Vijay's favorite traditions I think because he started in along with the kids about a week before Halloween asking if I was going to make that "good Root Beer Juice"

Halloween Preparations

This Halloween I tried to be more prepared than last year. I knew that I wouldn't be able to find costumes in the stores here so while I was home this summer I bought some patterns at Walmart so that I could have a tailor make some.  I guess I waited too long because when I went at the beginning of October to the tailor he told me it would be ready on November 15th. When I asked why it would take so long he said "There is Dussura Festival, Dewali Festival, and we are taking off for the Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid Dispute. Thus, I ended up sewing them. As I got them out (Witches, Bears, Cinderella, Snow White) I asked the kids which ones they wanted to be. I guess I should have consulted them when I was buying them because Maddie was the only one who wanted to be anything in any of the patterns. Ethan wanted to be a ghost, and I thought GREAT! that one is easy. I finished cutting the hole in the material and he tried it on then said. "Where is the mask?" I said "I thought we'd paint your face white and put some white color hair spray in your hair." Not good enough. He came back with. "Never mind mom, I'll just borrow Kavel's ghost costume." I told him to go to Kavels house and get the costume so I could see what he had in mind. This is our creation.

Maddie decided that she would be the witch, and I was glad to at least use 1 of my patterns.

I think that after the Witch costume was finished Ellie wished that she had chosen it. The pattern also has a joker on it, and Ellie already has plans for next year.

The other "girly" pattern that I bought had Snow White and Cinderella. Unfortunatly it's not cool anymore to be a princess. Especially when influenced by the girl across the street who is anything but girly.  Ellie decided she wanted to be Cosmo. HUH?!? How do I make that. Well, after talking to my sister Kelli I decided that I would sew some furry arms onto an old jersey shirt. I pulled out the biggest jersey shirt that Ethan has, but only to find out that it's a size 5. I creatively recreated the shirt, and whola!

She has a brilliant idea that she will carry her BYU Cheerleading cat with her. Because it's "funny that she is a cat, and the cat wants to be a person."

I'm pretty sure that no one here will even know who or what she is. This morning as she left for school I think that she realized this and asked Alan to print off a picture on the internet of the real Cosmo.



There is one boy in her class that is a member of the church, so she is pretty sure that he will know who she is, and there is another family that has 5 boys that goes to Indus that is from Lehi area, so I guess there will be a few.





There is a neighbor who was selling her old Halloween costumes from Costco, so I bought Annie a frog. Hopefully she'll wear it. We have yet to keep it on longer than 1 minute. Maybe she'll wear it long enough on Halloween to at least get a picture.