The posing continues

Jr. wore a red tie to her music performance today. Apparently the boys all got to wear the tie but some of the girls decided to wear the ties too and take pictures.

She did pose for me!

As for the performance itself, I have no idea how it went. Hopefully some other parent will send us a video.

ps. My bug is almost gone. Been on the mend three days in a row. 

Happy New Year - the Tamil one..

This year Tamil New Year day came and went before we could blink. This in spite of my moving a biz trip off by a week to spend the day with family. We both got super busy at work that week. So we decided to dress up over the weekend and take pictures to celebrate!

Jr. with her signature pose (apparently is is the new posing standard)

 She finally obliged me with a normal smile

The little one looked her happy self but refused to put a "pottu" after repeated begging from me. 

The little one said "you get two tries and that is IT! I won't stand for more photos". So two tries it was. 

They might not realize the value of these photos or blog posts now.. someday when they are my age they might look back at this and smile! 

 Last year was a good year for us. Nothing spectacular happened but nothing really disastrous either. Life moved on at a steady pace with things moving on without too much drama in the house. 

This post was to go online last Sunday.. a belated Happy Tamil New Year to all of you! May this year bring peace and happiness to one and all! 

Jr. improves on dancing

Another year has passed with Jr. continuing to learn Classical Dancing. 

Here is a short clip from her groups dance performance at Pushpanjali Dance Academy 20th annual day celebration. 

She has come a long way since her first steps. While she will continue to get a barely passing grade from her mother and grandmothers and all the women in the family who have danced before her, I have only adoring eyes for my little darling. 

She makes me so proud.. 

be it on the stage while smiling away..

and having fun or

 off the stage at home posing for pictures..  

and still having fun!

 

It is our sincere hope that she continues to practice and get better as time goes by! 

Oakland Museum of California

This weekend, we got to visit the Oakland Museum of California. We had no idea a place like this existed and were glad it did!

This was a chance to be part of a group tour (lunch included) to be introduced to the museum with the museum docents. It was like a "behind the scenes" tour with some very knowledgeable people. Given Jr. and the Little One's recent rant on "why do we even need to study history", thought it would be a good idea to do this. 

This place really surprised us. Maybe because of the amount of information that we got from the docents.. maybe because we under estimated the amount of "action" that had happened in California over the last 500 years.. we still cannot put our finger on it. 

All we did was explore one eighth of one floor and even less than that of another floor over two hours. It was time for lunch and our drive back. In that two hours we learned a lot.

Here are some pictures of the exhibits.

 

 There were lots of interactive displays and the kids loved it.

This is the first time we have seen this gas dispenser among so many other firsts.. 

Jr. seems to have this as her signature pose these days, be it posing for Holi colors or Hollywoodland! 

 I was joking with the docent "we must have done something terrible to the grizzlies to have them on our flag" and she laughed. I told her "we cut down every oak tree in the area and call it Oak tree road. Kill every deer and shut off the creek and call it Deer Creek Road, decimate an entire tribe and name the local park after that tribe.." she nodded in approval! 

 

The second "science" floor had a lot of cool exhibits. But we spent 15 minutes there in the "bee" area. We had a busy weekend with lots of other things going on.. so we had to drive back (Okay, I had to do yoga for the day.. but we did have a lot of other stuff going on with the kids having class etc.)

We are definitely going back to this place to give it the time and attention it deserves. Apparently the third floor is a photo gallery! It was a bummer that I missed it. 

There are a few things learned :

1. The Indian tribes were amazing craftsmen when it came to making things with reeds. They could weave it so tight that they had water bottles made of reed! 

2. San Francisco was really built up with money from the Comstock Silver mining.. not the gold rush as I had thought. 

3. The peace sign actually came from the British and has to do with nuclear disarmament.. for a guy who is big on trivia, had got this one wrong!

4. California was actually named after a black queen Califa who appears in a book written in 1510 in Spain. (see one of the pictures above)! 

5. Paper sons! That should be a post in itself..

Strongly recommend the Oakland museum of California. Amazing displays. Great architecture. Well laid out. Especially with the docents telling us the details, it was wonderful!

Another backyard visitor

Our backyard has seen a lot of different creatures over the years... deers, racoons, bobcat, possums, foxes and a lot of birds.. 

Yesterday we were visited by a turkey! Have no idea where it came from. Landed in our backyard.. spent a few minutes.. and took off!

Did not have enough time to go grab the lens as I was jet lagged.. so a grainy iPhone photo is all we got. 

The backyard animal collection continues to grow..