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!