The little one and her Violin

Last week was a busy week. We also had the little one doing her summer recital as part of Galina Andre's music school. It was in a nice theater in downtown San Jose. 

She has improved a lot, now that she plays the violin every day in school. Before she was only taking lessons once a week and practicing twice a week. Now that it is a daily thing, she has more confidence and we can see the transformation from a shy hesitant kid to someone who goes for it!

She made me very proud. I am sure there will be videos from the music school.. I took a few videos of the final group perfromances and they are below.

Glad she likes the school and glad she loves to play! Makes my day to watch her practice on her own without me having to sit there and turn pages on the notebook or be the stand for no reason!

Let's see what one more year will bring!

Elephant Seal outlook - Point Reyes day trip

Last weekend, our plan was to go see the super bloom of flowers that is moving north over the California hillsides. This thing was so huge it was visible from space, per reports from the missus!

We went on a day trip with the cousins to do multiple things.. Have a trip with family after a long time, go see the elephant seals at Point Reyes and catch the flowers on the hillsides. We did all three..  

The view from the elephant seal lookout trail was amazing. You could see the seals nursing pups and the visibility was great. 

you can see the seals basking in the bottom of the picture.. thousands of them! 

Here is a slideshow of the views from the trail in HDR..

There was a fourth thing that was on the cards.. Take a picture of San in the fields of flowers.. Call it the DDLJ Kajol shot if you will.. I had to work with winds that could knock you over (my cap flew off in the wind and had to be retrieved!) and it was difficult to hold the camera steady. It was bright and sunny, but you want to understand the concept of wind chill, you should visit Point Reyes! 

The photos in a sea of flowers with the sea in the background were not a roaring success, but it got a "satisfactory" grade! 

A slide show of the seals and the seal colony.

And a few videos .. some timelapse of the waves at the lookout and others of the seals and their noises!

Strongly recommend this for a day trip in early May! 

Next time I should go with a nice jacket!

Jr.'s dancing takes another step forward

Today Jr. performed at the Pushpanali Dance Academy's annual day. She has been learning for at least 8 years now and has been practicing when she gets a chance. She loves to dance and she has come to a realization that her performing is directly proportional to the practice!

She did pose for photos before the performance (now that I have studio lights set up!) and there were some good shots during her performance..

Kept thinking about my sister today because Jr. is a splitting image of my baby sister! 

Here is a video with a few snippets of the 10 minute Thillana performance..

and a few photos that were taken in between shooting video snippets!

My baby is a big girl now! As a dad it is not an easy thing to accept.. but I will go through the learning curve and hopefully get on the other side of that curve soon!

As long as this makes her happy, it is all good!