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.

Easter crafts

Susie, one of the coaches that works for EY's wife, came over to our house with her kids, Maggie and Dalton, to make some Easter crafts. I was excited to have something else for my kids to do over spring break, and we also still don't have any holiday decorations. Ellie and Maddie lasted quite a while making their eggs. Ethan and Maggie worked for a minute and then were off to play with toys. I was surprised that Annie really wanted to help. I didn't think she would care for it, but I should have known better. She loves to do ANYTHING that the older kids are doing.

After the kids finished their eggs, Susie made rocks with them that had hidden treasures. You have to let the rocks dry for 3 days or so. They must have been really wet because we are just cracking them tonight and it's been over a week since we made them.

I guess it's good that it took so long, I can't remember what we put inside, and it will be a fun surprise when we break them open!

Ethan's Quote for today...

This past Sunday our family fasted for some of our extended family members who are having some health problems. When we woke up we explained to the kids what was happening in these people's lives, and that we should fast for them. We let our kids decide if they wanted to, and of course they all did. By about 12:00 in the afternoon Ethan (6 years old) came to me and asked how long we have to do this for. I explained that we would have dinner that night. Because we have conference the week after Salt Lake, it was conference weekend. We started conference and Ethan cuddled up next to me. Pretty soon he leaned over to me and said, "Mom, I will sure be glad when this speeding thing is over. I'm hungry."

Spring Break

Our kids have been out of school for the past 2 weeks for Spring Break. We stayed in Bangalore (mostly) and just hung out as a family. We did go a few places that I will post in the next few posts. One of the things we did just at home was to make "Krispie Kreme" doughnuts. They do have doughnuts at a few shops, but they taste nothing like doughnuts at home. The kids loved eating them and I think that we are going to have to do this one again before we leave. Baby wants to see how I did them so that she can make them next time.