Easter

We had a fun Easter this year. On Saturday I went shopping to find the girls some Easter dresses, and Ethan a new tie. After spending the whole day...yes, I left around 11:00 and was gone until 6:00...I came home and we dyed our eggs.

Annie

Ethan

Shloka, Girija, Ellie and Annie

Maddie

Alan, Megha, Girija, Ethan, Shloka, Ellie, Annie

The girls had friends over and they thought that it was so fun. The girls had never done this before because 1 they were either Hindu and don't celebrate Easter or 2 they are from India where they just think that it's weird. Anyway, we went through almost 3 dozen eggs by the time they all had done what they wanted to do. Vijay was excited everytime one of the eggs fell and cracked because that meant he got to eat it. I'm pretty sure he ate around 6 boiled eggs on Saturday and I know he had 2 or 3 more on Sunday.

Sunday morning the kids woke up around 5:30 and wanted to search for eggs. We told them, just like Christmas, to go back to bed. The came in around 5:45 and asked if they could at least search for the baskets. I figured that they had already been looking so it made me laugh that they were asking permission.

The first basket found was Ethan's who was hidden on the dryer. Ellie found hers next and was just glad she didn't have to wait until after church to find it like last year. Hers was hidden in the BBQ grill outside. Annie found hers next while we were getting ready for church. Her's was hidden under the sink with all the hair combing supplies. I'm pretty sure she had no clue that she was looking for a basket because I told her to go and get the brush and elastics so I could comb her hair. She moved the basket to get to the hair supplies. I had to go and show her the basket and that it was hers. Maddie was the one in tears this year. She was prepared though. This year she had made the commitment with Alan not to have candy or soda. Easter was her day off, and she was so excited to get to have candy. A few days before Easter she and Ellie had Vijay take them to the store to buy a gift for one of Ellie's friends who was moving. While at the store, Maddie took her own money and stocked up on candy to eat of Easter. When she couldn't find her basket she cried and then remembered the candy she had bought and went to her room to get her own feast. Finally with about 20 minutes left before church she discovered it outside on my patio wall.

After Church we got together with the Christensen and MacDonald families. It was fun to have an easter egg hunt and a yummy dinner. Thanks Mom and Dad for bringing us a ham when you came to visit.

Primary Party

The Indian schools are now out for their summer break.Our kids on the other hand are in the International schools which go until June like the schools back home. Our Primary has a summer camp each year and our kids had to miss the camp last year. They also plan most of the Primary activities around the kids school year, but our kids end up not being able to go to most of them because they are held while our kids are in school. This year the Primary President came to me and asked which days our kids have off school because she didn't want them to be left out. Also, this year they weren't going to have the summer camp because they didn't have the budget for it. I told her that our kids had Friday off school because of Good Friday, but until June that would be the only day other than Saturday or Sunday. They agreed that Friday would be the best day for the Primary Activity this year. They debated a few options for the activity. They couldn't agree on a place to have it because they wanted to have it at a park, but Cubbon Park was too far and they couldn't think of any parks that were closer. I listened to them go back an forth for a while and then I asked if the kids would know how to swim. From that second on there was no question where to have the Primary Activity.

I woke up this morning and it was cloudy and looked like rain. I got a call from the Primary President who wanted to know if we should cancel the activity. I told her no, I had already booked the party hall and if it is bad weather, we could just play games inside. She agreed and we postponed it for an hour hoping that it would clear up by then. I sent Vijay over to the church to pick up some of the kids, and they arranged for another car to bring the rest. They showed up and I fully expected none of them to have swim suits. The parents here are very paranoid, for a lack of better word, about getting sick. If it is an overcast day people here don't even drink cold water because you will get a cold. SURPRISE!! They all had swimsuits except for 2 girls that, one didn't own a suit so I was planning on lending one of Ellies to her, and the other one's mom is the Primary President and forgot it as she was running out the door.  By the time they came, it was sunny and hot! They were so excited. Many of them had never been in a pool, and the ones who had didn't really know how to swim, but could do the doggie paddle. It was so fun to see them be so excited to go swimming. Even the leaders who didn't bring their suits jumped in the pool when they saw the kids having so much fun. After swimming we had pizza and played a few games in the clubhouse and then it was time to go. All of the primary kids were so exhausted by the time they left.
Here are some random pictures of the party...

After I uploaded this picture, it looks like that kid is drowning, but he was just going under the water to get a swimming ring.

 Kids having pizza

 Playing pop the balloon game. They really liked this one and even the adults started getting excited and playing.

 After the game we had snow cones. On of the leaders asked me if this was really what snow looked like. It dawned on me that they have never seen snow in their lives. I told her yes and that it's fun to make snowballs out of, and launched one at her. After that, the snow fight began. Bad move on my part, but it was really neat to see the leaders out of their role of primary teacher. They were all having so much fun. In church I think they are very serious.

 Right before they left. One or two of them were laying on the steps almost asleep.  It was 3:00 in the afternoon.

I got home around 3:30 after cleaning up, and about 4:30 it was a down pour of rain. And I thought the weather in Utah was unpredictable.

Claytopia

Another thing I did with the kids over spring break was to go to Claytopia. It was a fun pottery painting place.

 The kids all picked out their favorite item and got ready to paint.

 Ellie picked a jewlery box

 Annie picked an elephant (of course)

 Ethan chose a pig bank

  Maddie took a rabbit bank.

Ethan worked really hard to make the whole thing even.

 Annie loved it because it was an elephant, and I think she was just excited to be able to do something that the "big" kids get to do.

Maddie enjoyed it alot and has decided that this is what she wants to do for her birthday.

(Hum...end of June might be hard)

 I remember meeting with Ellie's preschool teachers at Rainbow Connection and I remember them telling me how much of a perfectionest she is. That perfectionism came out in full force. She worked well past all the other kids. I had to finally send Maddie, Ethan and Annie home with Vijay while I waited for Ellie to finish.

Finished projects (before they were fired and glazed.)

The craziest yard sale

I am shocked at how fast most of our stuff has sold. We have sold most of our big stuff already, the car included. Some of it I was worried wouldn't sale quick enough and we would have to give it away. One of the items was the hutch. Today, one of our neighbors came to take it.
Again I am surprised at how heavy that thing is, and that anyone can carry it, let alone up and down stairs. All it took was 4 drivers and a gardener.
With the hutch gone, and our phone call with the moving company last night, I feel like it really is a countdown. Yesterday, I got in the car and Vijay said "only 10 more weeks" I really hope that he doesn't start the countdown like he has when we've had people come to visit. If he does I'll get to hear exactly how many days left for the next 2 months.

TIME IS GETTING SHORT!!!

I know our time in India is ending especially now that we are starting to sale off all of our stuff.  If there is anyone in Bangalore that is checking our blog and is interested in buying, you can find things we are selling on our for sale blog.

I really have mixed emotions of leaving. I am definately excited to get back to Salt Lake, our family and our life we had before we came, but leaving the friends that we have made, and grown to love is going to be hard. When we left to come to India it was hard to say good-bye to our friends and family, but I knew that we would be coming home for Christmas and for the Summer break. Now, leaving here, I seriously doubt if I will ever see some of the people again. I know I'll see the ex-pat families from Utah that we have gotten to be friends with in the church, but not the Indian members and of course, Baby and Vijay and their families. I feel really bad that Annie will probably never remember her time here in India. Right now she doesn't even know what living in Salt Lake is like. She will definately have a hard time not having rice with every meal. Often she tells me she is hungry and I offer her everything under the sun, she says "No, Mom I want Rice!!"

Silk Worm Farms

I decided that because we didn't go out of town for the break like most of the kids friends, we needed to do something fun in Bangalore. Vickie, an expat who is in our branch here, recommended taking them to the Silk Worm Farms. I wish that I had taken my parents, Alan's parents, or Katie and Tracy there. It was really neat to see how they raise the worms, trade the cocoons, and make the silk from the cocoons. Then you get to see them weaving the silk material.

The actual silk worms are kept in farms that a about a 5 minute drive from the trading and factory. It was really neat to see. You walk into the peoples homes and they have a room with silk worms sitting on shelves of mulberry leaves. We went to 2 different homes so they could show the kids the different stages. The first one had new worms, and the 2nd one had worms that were 25 days old, and getting ready to make the cocoons.

Ethan holding a 25 day old silk worm.
You can see the shelves behind him. I didn't get a picture of the shelves.

 The farms not only had silk worms, but they also had cows, and chickens. Ethan is very hands on, and they let him feed and hold the chickens too. He loved it! Also, they had monkeys all over in the trees. Annie loved that part.

Once the cocoons are made, they take the cocoons to the market. They showed us how they bid with each other on how much the buyer will pay for the cocoons. I imagine it to be something like a cattle auction.

This is a picture of a buyer and a farmer. They had just decided on a price. We got to follow their cocoons through the whole process.

Close up of cocoons. They felt like cotton balls.


So after they decide how much they will pay for each kg of cocoons, they take them in to be weighed.



After they are weighed they put about 100 lbs of cocoons into a big sheet, and wrap it up.



Then it takes 3 men to lift it up and this guy hauls them to the buyers processing plant.

We followed this guy to the processing plant. Yes, he is riding a bicycle and carrying about 100 lbs. of silk worms on his head.

We followed them down a small alley into a home where they were spinning the silk off of the cocoons.

 First they store all the cocoons on these pallets while they wait.

 Then when they are ready for them, they bring them into this room where there are probably about 10 ladies sitting at boiling pots of water where they boil the cocoons. This kills the worm inside and makes it so that they can pull the silk threads off. The lady's hand in this picture is picking up and pulling the thread off of a cooled down cocoon. Notice the baby hanging from the ceiling taking a nap over the boiling pot of water. You can't see it very well in the picture, but the thread she is pulling off is being run by a machine up and over her head to the spools behind her.

These are the machines that are spinning the thread into big spools. 

When they take it off of the machine it looks like this. Now it can be dyed into many different colors.

 Ethan really wanted a picture of all the dead worms when they are finished.

We then followed the thread to another home where they are weaving it into silk materials. The machines are so noisy I don't know how anyone could live in the house, but there was a man sitting and watching TV just outside the door to this room. We could also see their kitchen, so I know people live in this house.



Balloon Factory

Another Spring Break Outing...

After going to the silk worm farms I realized that we really don't have a lot of time left here, and Ethan loved seeing how things are made. I decided to try and fit in as many factory tours as we can in the time we have left. In the US there are so many restrictions that you really don't get to go and see how things are made too much. Or at least as close up as we get to here. So...THE BALLOON FACTORY

 Vickie gave me this idea again and even took us there to see it. She had ordered balloons from the owner before and saw a small amount of how it was made. We weren't able to take pictures of the whole process, but at the end of the tour they allowed us to take pictures of the testers. I'll describe how they make them though.

First, they take the rubber from the rubber trees, see post when we went to Kerala with Alan's parents. They have a big, huge vat of liquid rubber that they heat up and mix with a big mixer that I would image a bakery to have. Then, after it has been mixed for about 4 hours they add color to it. The color is a powder that they grind up by putting it in a big jar with some marbles. Then they put the jars on a conveyer belt and as the jars roll the marbles around it grinds the powder to be very fine. So small that you can't just pick up one grain. After the color is mixed in they dip some light bulb shaped, or heart shaped sticks into the rubber. They also dip it into a chemical that they said is like vinegar only 100 times stronger. This makes the rubber dry extremely fast.

This is where we get to start taking pictures

Balloons out drying in the sun. If it is a rainy day they have a big oven type thing that they dry them in. Once they are mostly dry a guy goes around and rolls up the ends of the balloons so that it makes the part you put your lips on to blow in.

guy rolling the balloons

After they are dryed they put a powder on the outside so that they don't stick together in the middle and a lady takes them off the sticks one by one. Once they are off the sticks, there is a room with about 15 ladies testing each balloon. There is a big pipe with air being blown through it. There is a spout of sorts that comes off of the pipe that they hook each balloon on to make sure there are no holes.

They let each of the kids test some balloons. They loved it.I think Vijay was as excited as the kids.

 They let the kids all take the balloons that they tested.

 After they test each balloon another lady sits and counts out the balloons and puts them into packages. She has a scale on the floor by her that you can see she is weighing them.

 The owner was so kind. After the tour he took all of us into his office and gave us sprites and gave each of the kids a package of balloons. We tried to pay him for the balloons, but he wouldn't take any money. He did the whole tour for free.

Thanks Vickie for taking us to another fun place.