FILOLI - a day trip

After living in the bay area for ten years, we found a place this week that we have driven past over the years, but never checked out.

Somehow we did not even register the sign on Highway 280 that says "FILOLI - next exit. National Historic Landmark Site".

Thanks to Anu.P and K. we knew about the existance of this wonderful place called FILOLI.

It is a mansion named for FIght LOve LIve. You can read more at their website.

We had a blast. It was a really hot day, but some of the gardens in the place were extremely cool and refreshing. We also went on a self tour of the mansion. Wow!! It was just amazing. The whole family had a blast. The added bonus was that we were joined by the cousins and a host of friends!

The best part was that daddy got to dance with his daughters in a beautiful ballroom and there was a lady playing wonderful waltzes on a piano in the corner.

Here is the trip in pictures.

The Landmark marker!

Posing with the kids and the MIL at the garden entrance...


Have no idea what this flower was, but it was inviting the camera. Missed my Tamron for a few seconds there!


The wonderful Allium. We have this in our house as well. The ones in our front yard never got to this size!


A wall of flowers!


A beautiful shot of San with the kids in front of the garden!


Jr. in front of the pool and clock tower.


This was a beautiful arrangement at the end of the rose garden


The rose garden. Really well maintained. Jr. though had a big issue with the "buggies" aka bees and wasps!


Another fantastic garden with tall well pruned hedges. When you have 654 Acres of land at your disposal, you can have many such gardens each visually more enchanting than the previous one!


The rose garden


A sample of the roses (there are lots of rose portraits, liked this one the best)


Note the dark pink looking plant on the right of this photo...


It is full of a rose looking miniature!


One of the coolest places at FILOLI outside the gardens


One of the majestic rooms at the Estate mansion! Gives you some idea of what half a million dollars can get you in the mid 1800's!


The ladies of the estate used to have tea ceremonies where they would gather and discuss the matters of the day. So says the informational video! When you put two Madrasi granny's in the same location a 150 years later, they still have a discussion alright, tea or otherwise! The two grannies were busy discussing anything under the sun (or shade) while the younger generation was busy running after the youngest generation!


One of the murals on the walls of the ballroom. Apparently made in the artists studio in New York. How they got it to this place in the mid 1800's is beyond me! Ship? Road? Did they break it in sections?


Finally a picture of daddy with the little one. A little blurry but you can still make out the happiness in the little one's face when she is dancing. She has this divine smile!


It was a memorable trip. If you happen to live in the bay area or you are visiting in spring or early summer, this is guranteed to be a good day of fun!

.

Beach heaven!

As most of you must know by now, Daddy's favorite spots are beaches. There is something to be said about the sand, the water, the waves, the vast expanse of sky, the people, the sundal(substitute with cheese sandwich, soda, home made mullu murukku or what have you) and the experience is usually a great one!

Last week a friend told us that he took his kids to this beach in San Mateo with the backwater or creek and the kids had lots of fun! We had been to this place once before, five years ago to show MIL california beaches on her first visit to the US of A. Unfortunately we did it in January when it was really cold and there was no one at the beach.

This time, different story. We went there(San Gregorio State Beach) and the cousin family joined us within an hour after we settled down. It was a lot of fun. The San Gregorio Creek joins the sea after making a couple of bends. The water is only a few inches deep and the flow is minimal. The water in the estuary is also warmer than the sea water.

The San Gregorio beach is right at the intersection of route 84 and route 1. I always take 84 to hit route 1 instead of the 92 because it is less windy and more scenic and today for the first time we stopped at Alice's restaurant (a very popular place with a lot of history) and had coffee, ice cream and snacks. It was wonderful!

Once the little one got in the water, there was no stopping her!

The original plan was to go to the Santa Cruz boardwalk and that said, we were definitely not packed for a beach trip. We winged it anyways, thanks to a few towels and the Sun shining brightly on us.

Our fun filled afternoon came to an abrupt end when the Beach Patrol came and asked us to leave. A helicopter was to land on the beach to do an emergency medical transport.

So we rushed out of the beach. All said and done, a day well spent!

On a side note, Wishing all of you a wonderful "Tamizh New year" (yep, starts tomorrow!).

.

The mind of a child

The human brain is an amazing thing. A childs brain is probably even more amazing than an adult brain, from a thought perspective.

The whole separation anxiety post should be seen in a different light.

Today the Little one came and kissed my boo boo. Bumped my hand somewhere and she came running to kiss it. In her mind, daddy cannot get better without her kiss. It definitely makes me feel better when she comes running to kiss. She associates my smile to be healing and extrapolates it.

The whole time I was away, she was probably worried about me, not about her. What would this big baby do if he were to get hurt in Texas? How would be survive without my healing kiss? How could he possibly go to sleep without me on his hand?

Today she said "Dont worry daddy. You are here now. I will kiss you and everything will be all right!". She was so serious when she said it.

As an adult I fail my wife and kids so many times because of being in my own self centered world. Most adults are self centered! That is the way of the world. You have your work, your family, your home, your this, your that.. It is at the end of the day all about "you", "your perspective", and "your world"!

There is not a lot of options here. Even when you think about your kids, they are "your" kids and the thought is usually about "your" worries on how what "you" are doing affects them as they grow up!

Once in a while "you" get the view from the childs point of view and it boggles "your" mind!

ps. Was accused of being very selfish earlier today, which I probably am. Tried to see how often the word "I" is used in my posts. Not a lot. But when you always tend to write in second person or as Daddy, you are doing the wrong search to determine "% self centeredness"!!

There is a lot more "you" and "daddy" in this blog to prove that point!

.

Separation Anxiety

Traveled to Texas from Wed to Friday on business. The kids saw me on wednesday morning, when I dropped them off, and got to see me again only last night when they woke up in the middle of their sleep.

Why is this a big deal in today's small world where our jobs take us to all parts of the globe on a routine basis?

Well, this is the first time daddy did not put the little one to bed, since she was BORN! Jr. went through the same thing three years ago when Daddy went to Minnesotta for a whole week. She lost a few pounds, managed to lose her voice just by non stop screaming. The two things that mitigated the side effects at the time were, my parents were here to give her extra attention and she was not talking that well. She was only 16 months old.

This time, Jr. adapted well. She talked to me on the speaker phone. Said she missed me and wanted me to come back, and understood that Daddy will come back.

The little one on the other hand, just went beserk. Even after I was back, she did not know how to accept me! She woke up at 1:00 AM and did not know if it was really daddy who had appeared on the bed. She had delayed the bedtime in hopes of daddy arriving on time, but the flight did not co-operate.

To check and confirm she sent daddy through the usually expected tasks, much along the lines of Hercules being sent on errands.

Daddy Paal (milk)
Daddy Dipee (change my diaper)
Daddy mook (get a tissue and blow my nose)
Daddy Valikaadhu (I have pain) give me medicine (!!!!)
Daddy mudugu (give me a back rub)
Daddy I am scared (this means I have to take her to the pooja shelf and put some ash on her forehead)

Daddy would normally not complain for this, were it not for the fact that he had got up from bed at 5:30AM in Texas (which was 3:30AM California time) and it was a loooong day with a three hour flight staying in the air for four hours! Also there was no break time between the tasks. It was practically back to back errands. Finally she slept at 3:00 AM.

The hope is that she will get used to dad's disappearences and reappearences with time, now that she knows that the guy actually does show up after a few days! She is probably going to hate the word "Texas" without ever actually going there, much like how San hates Minnesotta without ever having visited the place. Used to leave San all alone and disappear for a week at a time when we were just married. San has not forgotten.

The little one is her normal smiling self again. However she is extremely clingy with daddy. Even if dad goes to the bathroom we hear the "Please take me with you daddy!". Based on previous experience with Jr., this phase will last at least a few days.

This post is specially for the Little one. Remember, if some day you disappear on me for days on end when you are in high school or college and you are wondering what all the fuss is and why daddy is all worried, READ THIS POST, to see what you did when daddy went away for a few days!

.

LEGOLAND - Photoblog

Yes. There is a theme park dedicated to the little plastic blocks kids play with.

If you have not seen it, do not miss it. I have been in California for almost a decade now and have always missed this park when we go to San Diego. Have crossed the exit several times and wondered what it was all about! Add to that, the fact that many of my friends and colleagues give this place a two thumbs up, this time we decided to take Jr. and the little one on a short trip to LEGOLAND.

The photos say it all! Everything here is just plain amazing. We had a daunting task to get food into Jr. and we accomplished it only because the place relaxed her. Most of the rides are not scary.

We went on this animal safari ride with Lego animals. The little one waited patiently in line for 45 minutes zipping and unzipping her jacket, only to be kicked out at the end for being vertically challenged.

Jr., who refused to go on any ride was forced in as a last minute substitution and she actually had a change of heart. She got out saying "that was fun. can we do that again"!

This also meant that grandma had to adopt some Chinese kid as her "binami" grandson for the ride. Apparently the kid really liked her!

Here are some of the legonimals..

The next thing was a boat ride that covered all the books! Truly amazing..Jr. guessed all the stories!

Then there was the place which really got Jr. smiling.. Fun Town, aptly named.

She even drove a car by herself and they gave her a fake drivers license! She loved it.

A word of caution though. Most rides, however trivial they are require 34 inch height minimum which the little one missed by an inch or inch and a half. It is really not her fault that her parents dont have viking genes in them. Kids younger then her were getting on all the rides and she had to sit out for almost everything.

Then there was this out of place pirate thing, with rides for adults. The kids enjoyed talking to the pirate...

Finally some teasers for the adults. They have this place called Mini World which has miniature models of everything from the Taj Mahal to the Eiffel tower to Golden gate bridge.. not to mention an entire las vegas strip and Washington DC.

You have to see it to believe it..

.