Happy Diwali

It is always difficult when Diwali comes in a weekday and you are in the USA. They should declare it a holiday at least in Cupertino!

Wishing you all a wonderful Diwali!

May this Deepavali bring you light and joy.

They made the Deepams (Dia's) as part of their art class. The little one is going through the "conscious phase of posing for photos" now that she is a "tween" aka "big girl"! 

As far as I am concerned, they will NEVER be big girls.

They are growing up though. Finally did a collage of them in a third nice dress this year..

Cannot believe this year is coming to an end in a few more weeks. Have to post a lot of thoughts and pictures. Will get to them before end of the year. 

For now, time to enjoy the sweets and savories made by MIL, and enjoy the smiling faces all around! 

Happy Deepavali! 

A quiet halloween

Today we had a quiet halloween. Given it was on a weekend, was expecting at least a dozen kids to show up.. we didn't have a single kid show up for trick or treat this year. Guess that is what happens when the road has no street lights and the few school going kids all move over to the community living complexes nearby to trick or treat with friends.

Thanks to travel, didn't carve pumpkins this year. 

Jr. and the little one did go out with their friends!

apparently her friend  was "thing 1".. the whole thing was lost on me. at least I should have got a picture of her with her friend and captured the "things".

The little one was a cat. 

The kids did their dressing up by themselves and also shopped for the raw materials or reused old costume pieces. Guess they are both growing up to the point where we don't have to interfere in the halloween department. 

The best part of halloween? They came home and said "Appa, we know you like Twix. So every house that had Twix in their candy, we picked Twix. we will put it in the fridge and you can eat it this week!" 

That was priceless ! 

A new tank

Earlier this morning, Jr. and me realized that the fish tank needed cleaning. She volunteered to help. So we started. 30 minutes into the thing when we were cleaning the gravel, a sharp stone (which had been recently added to the tank by Mommy and the little one) came and hit the glass and the tank broke!

Given the fishes were all in a small bucket and all the cleaned parts were all over the bathroom floor, we had to act quick. So went with the kids to the local Petco and got a new tank.

The kids agreed to come with me to Petco on one condition. They get to go shopping for what goes inside the tank as well. The replacement tank was 15 bucks. They shopped for ornaments and plants for another 50 bucks! Given this tank was bought during 4th of July in 2005, thought it was time to give the fishes some new furniture!

The old tank has seen its share of ups and downs, and we now have 6th generation fishes living in the tank. 

We now have the new tank all setup and the fishes are exploring their new decor. Hope they like it.

They were talking among themselves about Yoga theme in the house and thought they had picked a Buddha. At the counter, they told me "no appa. it is Zen Girl ! that is why we picked it!"

Zen girl looks pretty good to me!

Had other plans for the day. Go biking with kids, get some sun, etc. This turned out to be equally exciting.