Some of Baby's recipes

I have been trying to learn a few of Baby's Indian recipes. She told me finally to video her making it and I can watch over and over until I get it right. Here are two of them and I still need to video her Butter Chicken recipe.

If you try making these and you are in the US, the Indian spices are much stronger so you will need to go to an Indian store to buy the spices. I know there is one called India Unlimited on Foothill Drive if you are in Salt Lake area. It is much like a Nilgris here in India.

Visa Renewal time again!!

So yes, even though we leave in a month, we have to renew our visas because they expire on May 30th. Last year it took us 3 trips to the police station and a couple of all day trips to the commissioners office. This year I was prepared to go to the police station and wait. I brought my camera so that I could get some fun pictures again. I only really had time to snap a few shots and we were done! WOW that was a lot better this time. One thing that was different this year was that they required us to have a marriage certificate. I am lucky to have a husband that was thoughtful enough when we first got married to have ours framed. I don't think I'd have brought a copy with me if I didnt' have it hanging on my wall in our bedroom. Anyone who follows our blog and is preparing to come here, you might want to bring a copy of this just in case.

I snapped this picture as we pulled into the police station. It had the sign that I was going to use for this great blog post that I thought I'd have after sitting for hours. In the background you can see an ambulance.

This is the only other picture that I got. We were really only there 20 minutes tops this time.  This is a picture of the different classes of crime. I thought it was funny that they classified mobile robbery (robbery of ones cell phone) in the same class as murder. 

Ethan's Birthday

Most of the expat kids here have these very HUGE birthday parties. Our kids have been invited to many of them because they invite their whole classes. We decided this year to let Ethan have his "once in a lifetime" Indian Birthday party. We invited all the boys in his class, the Christensen family, the MacDonald family, the Chadwick family, and Baby and Vijay's families. I think we ended up with about 30 kids and 10 adults.

The day started out with Ethan so excited to open presents that he couldn't even get dressed first. The night before his birthday the girls walked down to the store by our house and bought him gifts with their own money. They got him notebooks and markers, and a squishy rubber ball and cricket cards. He also asked for a beyblade stadium. I'm not sure how popular these are in the U.S., but here they are really the "in" thing. They remind me of the game crossfire from when I was little. 

When I asked Ethan what type of cake he wanted for his birthday party he told me he wanted a "BeyBlade" cake. I had no clue how I was going to pull this off and asked my friend Kathrina if she had any ideas. She is an amazing cake decorator. She told me that she wanted to try and make it, and it turned out GREAT!!!

The party had everything a kid could want...

Bounce house slide...

Tatoo artist...

Food...

Friends...

Magician...

Gifts...

And we couldn't leave out the camel rides...

Baby didn't want to ride the camel after seeing the video of Katie and Tracy. I kept teasing her all morning telling her she had to ride it. She refused until Annie walked into the room and asked her to ride it with her.

Annie loved the camel so much. She wouldn't get off when it was over. When we finally finished the party she cried and then turned to the camel and said. "I love you camel"