April Fool's Day

I don't know what my obsession is with April Fools. I love this day. I don't know if it is because my mom used to play little tricks on us when I was little, or if it's because Alan is so busy this time of year that he never realizes what day it is. I am able to play the same little trick on him every year and it usually works like a charm. Unfortunately, this year apparently I'm too predictable. Alan checked his underwear before putting them on, and my kids asked me first thing if I was going to make "soap" cookies. I told Alan my plans for making breakfast for my kids...I was going to make faunacookin (I have no idea how to spell it) and instead of sprinkling sugar in it, I was going to sprinkle salt. I made breakfast and Maddie caught me in the act. I told her to be quiet and see who got that one. I asked who wanted the first one and no one did. Alan was already eating a good one because he had to leave for work. I set it aside and made the next one a good one for Alan again. Before I had it finished he asked if the one on the counter was for him. I told him he could have it if he wanted it, thinking he would know what I had done. NOPE! After one bite he was bent over the garbage can spitting it out. I GOT HIM!!

The Mall and Annie

Today I ventured out with Annie to the mall. I usually leave her home with Baby so that she doesn't get touched too much (everyone here wants to hold her or pinch her checks and she HATES it), but Baby took today off. I had to go and get a present for Maddie to take to a birthday party tomorrow morning.

As we waited for Vijay to come with the car I snapped a few pictures in our front yard. Annie was playing with Ethan's rock collection that has been placed by the front door for easy access. Don't ask me, Ethan's idea. He comes home from school everyday with 2-3 rocks in his pocket.

The garbage man came.

Then I had my daily flash back of the "Back to the Future" Libyans

When Vijay got there he loaded up the stroller for me and realized it was full of Lizards. I was able to get a picture of the last one before he got rid of it.

At the mall we got all of our shopping done for the day and Annie saw these little rides and wanted to get on.

As I watched her I realized how big she is getting. I remembered the day Ellie wore this outfit. I was in the hospital having Maddie and my mom brought her to the hospital wearing this outfit. I can't believe how much she has changed since we have been here.

If you can't tell I'm loving my new camera.

Water buffalo

I know that I have mentioned before about the cows and how they wander the busy streets of Bangalore, but have I ever mentioned the Water Buffalo?

These are also commonly wandering the roads.

After snapping the picture of the babies, I noticed that the mother water buffalo was starting to look angry so I jumped back in the car.

One day a month or so ago Alan was on his way to work and one charged the car. Vijay had to swerve out of the way and barely missed hitting it, or having it hit him.

Shopping on Commercial Street

Yesterday I went out with Jennie, the wife of one of the EY coaches here. We decided that we needed to go bartering so we went to commercial street. I learned a few things from Vijay. 1-When they tell you a price always offer back 1/2 what they say and 2-Once you come to a price, only give them part of the money they ask for. Sometimes they accept again lower. Even after learning this, I'm not any good at it.

We decided to get some Joolry. That is one thing about Indians. They wear ALOT of "Joolry". It is usually in bright colors too. Everything here is so vibrant with color.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

So I'm a day late posting...

The day before St Patrick's Day I told Baby that we needed to make a green dinner and that I needed to find Green food coloring. She looked at me a little puzzled so I explained St. Patrick's Day to her. I'm pretty sure she thinks we are CRAZY, but I'm also pretty sure that I think India is a little crazy at times too.

I made green pancakes for breakfast and Maddie and Ellie were really excited that their uniforms were green. Whoa, that was LUCKY! :) Ethan made sure he was wearing his neon green soccer uniform shirt too. Again, LUCKY we were on the green team before we came here. Even Baby joined in the fun and wore green. (I think she was afraid that Ethan really would pinch her)

For dinner we ate broccoli, grapes, green jello with pears, and parmesean chicken. For dessert...Home made oreo cookies with Green frosting. LUCKY I brought cream cheese back with me from Salt Lake.

We sure did have a LUCKY St Patrick's Day. The only thing my kids missed was "Lucky" our Leprachaun from the backyard. Maybe she visited the Lunts this year.

Tech Support

So...have you ever called a tech support number for anything? Computers, printers, etc.? Well, last night I had to call a tech support for my new external hard drive that Alan gave me for Christmas. It has been working fine until my last trip home. Ever since I've been back I can't get my computer to recognize it. I was having a little difficulty with it at home while I was there, but eventually the computer would recognize and I could do what I needed. Now, nothing!!! I looked up the number online for the WD Tech Support. There were many different numbers to call depending on where you are. Because we have our US telephone still, I called the US number thinking I would be talking to someone maybe on the East Coast or something. NOPE! The instant the man answered, I knew he was just down the street. His accent was a dead giveaway, and then when I had to spell my name and he repeated it back to me saying K for Kilo E for Elephant, R for... and I for India, I was sure. He asked me my problems, and I have to say that after living here for 9 months it is not nearly as difficult to understand what they are saying on the phone.

After the call was almost finished and we concluded that I needed to have a replacement hard drive sent to me, I asked where I had to mail it to, and if there was anyway they could ship it to India. He asked where I was and I told him Bangalore. I'm sure he was shocked. He told me to call the Indian Tech Support and they could give me an address here that I can take the hard drive to be replaced. So...I guess there might be some advantage to tech support if you live here. I don't need to mail in my hard drive after all, I just have to take it to the address down the street and they will give me a new one.

Water bottle?

No need for caption

Haircuts and Ice Fruit

After being home for a couple of weeks, I realized how scraggly the girls hair was when I got back. I decided to take them to a little hair place on the side of the road.

After the haircuts the girls and I went to the mall to find Ellie a pair of church shoes. Unfortunately every store we went in had NO SHOES Ellie's size. Do people here just skip over size 3?
At the mall they had an ice cream/frozen fruit thing that we had to try. First they rub fruit to get all the juices on the frozen bar that is rotating around.

Then they pour on the cream.

After it is all frozen, they scrape it off with a cheese grater and...Wallah!

Pictures

While I was in Salt Lake I got my birthday present from Alan. He had ordered me a new camera online and had it shipped to my parents house. We had to try it out on our way to church when I got back. Here are some more classic India scenes.

I thought Dad might appreciate the 3 lane road after driving in Argentina.
Baskar our ironer
Too much to drink
Peanuts anyone?

As Vijay says "Fresh Chicken"

No running water in the houses. A lady getting water for the day.

As you drive through a little tunnel here, you are met by head on traffic.
While I was home someone asked me what the houses look like here.
This is a road that we drive down to get to church. It is barely wide enough to get down, and it gets kinda harry when another car comes the other direction.

"It's hard to drive when you have been drinking"

Vijay was driving us home from church on Sunday and he started to tell me a funny story about while I was gone. Apparently, when he got back from taking me to the airport he had to take a Rickshaw to his house after dropping off the car.

My trip home

Yeah, I know I'm a little slow in blogging this, but I have to put the pictures on here so I can remember my trip home!

I was able to come home and see Jake and go to his homecoming. It was so FUN!!!

It was a long flight home, but totally worth it. I only wish that Alan and the rest of the kids could have come with us.

Amy picked me up from the airport and took us out to her house to make some posters and banners for the airport.

They were suppose to fly in on Saturday but they missed their flight out of Buenos Aires and had to take another flight on Sunday instead.
Waiting to meet Uncle Jake

Jake learned quickly how to win over the babies with M & M's

2 Weeks flew past and before we knew it we were on our way back to India. We flew from New York to Paris and while we waited for our flight Annie found the only Indian on our flight. She went up to him and started handing him all of her toys for on the plane. He was very nice and once we got to Paris our flight was late and we were going to have to run to catch our next plane. He waited for me as the plane unloaded and found out that we were again on the same plane to Bangalore. He carried my carry-on bag across the Paris airport so that I wouldn't miss the plane.

This is how Vijay met me at the airport. When I took the picture I said "I think it is too dark" to which Vijay replied, "Mamme, I am always dark." :)
When we finally got to our house it was around 3:30 in the morning. Vijay asked me in the car if I was sad that I had missed Holi. I said I wished I could have been here and that it had sounded like it was fun. As we walked in the door he had placed some balloons above the door filled with colored powder. He said that he wanted to play Holi so that I could have fun.

Srinadi

Our drivers daughter, Srinadi, turned one February 18th. Our family was invited to go to the party. Vijay had invited me a month or so ago, and had told me he was so nervous. I asked why and he said "I don't have a big home mamme" I told him that doesn't matter. It was really fun to go and see their family and cultural traditions.

Here, as I have said in the past, the 1st birthday is a REALLY big deal. We weren't able to come until later because Alan was at work and as we got there we realized that they didn't start the party until we got there. I felt bad because they had actually put Srinadi to bed because she was tired, and woke her up when we arrived.

All the kids and Alan got party hats.
Vijay's family with ours. His wife, Laxsmi, and daughters Sraviah and Srinadi.

Vijay was the only one who could speak English at the party. It was fun to try and communicate with the kids. They could understand a little, but not talk. Another funny thing was that when they sang Happy Birthday it was all in English, then they handed the baby a HUGE knife to cut her cake. Here the birthday person has to cut their cake and then eat the first piece.

Randomness

I was going through my camera to blog about going home and came across some random pictures....

I'm pretty sure Ethan has some Wagstaff blood in him. It is 90 degrees here and all he wants to wear is long pants and long sleeve shirts. He usually wants a sweat shirt or this puffy vest on top.
This is my crazy son! I told him to go get a spoon out of the drawer to eat his dinner, and as my back was turned he started laughing. When I walked in the room he thought he was so funny.

I am always amazed at how many people carry things on their heads here, and how they can balance them. I comment about it when we are out and Vijay always says "you can carry more". One day he was carrying our laundry out to the car to go to the ironer. I asked him jokingly why he doesn't carry it on his head. He told me to get the camera. He started dancing and spinning while he had all of our laundry on his head.

Holi

This is a post that Alan wrote while I was gone....

We had our first experience with the infamous Holi holiday, which is also known as the festival of colors. It's basically a waterfight with color. We had heard a lot about the holiday, and Kerri was pretty disappointed when she realized that her trip home to see Jake's homecoming overlapped the Holi festivities.

Holi is actually on March 1st, but our community decided to have the celebration on Sunday, Feb 28th. We thought we'd miss most of it being in church, but Ethan woke up vomiting so we stayed home and the girls decided to go check it out. The instructions we had were to bring buckets, colors, and pitchkaris (basically water guns) - water would be provided. We had no idea what to expect, but we knew to wear old clothes. Ethan was supposed to just stay in the car so I didn't worry about his clothes, but once he saw that it was a big colorful water fight he wasn't about to let us have all the fun. Needless to say, the kids had a blast. Once again Ethan made my favorite comment. As we walked home, he said "I think that the Indian people made up the holiday Holi, just so they could have a water fight". I couldn't argue with him. Ellie thinks that Holi is her favorite holiday after the 4th of July. I think she forgot about Christmas for a moment. By the way, when the people selling the colors tell you that they are washable, that doesn't mean easily washable. I think we spent a good hour and a half scrubbing colors off.

I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story.