Yet another family tradition

Just like carving pumpkins at their cousins place or doing portrait photos after every new dress up session during the Navrathri festival, the Traveling Narayanans seem to have come up with yet another family tradition.

The IBM Children's party that celebrates the holiday season in style.

This blog has photos of the kids attending this party over the last 8 years now. This year the tradition was almost broken because the little one is sick. However she did brave her misery and came with us to take a short break and enjoy the usual activities. 

First, the caricatures by Big Al ! He was almost ready to close and was wondering how come we missed it this year.. 

This year we also made two separate collages, one for Jr. and one for the little one so we can frame it 

The little one is not a baby anymore. You can see her face change all too clearly in caricature!

Here are the rest of the photos.. 

the little one posing like Mona Lisa..

Decorating reindeer cookies with frosting ..

Getting animaloons from the clown..

Then there was the last thing on the list.. Face painting!

Finally, the picture with Santa! This Santa worked for 30+ years at IBM and retired. He reminds me of my own grandfather for some strange reason. Same matter of fact tone when he speaks, same smile.. can't pin point it.. but he does! The team there took this great picture and gave us a printout (this is a photo of that printout)..

Yet another year has gone by! The kids are looking beautiful every year and daddy has gone down.. what happened to all that hair!

Look at the photos from our very first party 8 years ago and you will see what I am talking about. 

It is great to have a blog where you can see how things transform over time. Even when my memory fails me and that seems to be happening more often these days.. the blog is like a search into my own head!

I digress as usual. 

Christmas is almost here. Here is to a wonderful holiday season!

Merry Chirstmas and happy new year to all of you from the Narayanan Family!

Time to be thankful..

Thanksgiving as a festival always eludes me. The whole Indians-Pilgrims-Turkey-Corn thingy doesn't strike a chord. 

Since getting married though it has been a means to celebrate Sangeetha and my birthday at nice locations as this holiday falls between our two birthdays. 

People tell me "this is a time to say thanks and be thankful for the good things in your life". If there is one thing to be thankful for in this life, it is family!

For the last 16 years we have mostly spent this long weekend with the cousins family at parks, theme or national..

This year was no different. We went to Yosemite Falls for two days. Got to see some wondeful sights, get way more exercise than we bargained for and had some fun times playing board games in a cozy cabin!

The pictures are promising so far..

San turns 29 again today! I am thankful to her parents for their first creation, who gave me a second chance in life and has made a better person out of me than I would have thought possible.

Here's to San, second chances and family!

Pumpkinography 2014

This year we did do the pumpkin carving with the cousins.. somehow all the travel made me miss out on a lot of posts. One can always catch up!

This years creations..

This one was Jr.'s. She wanted her own pumpkin to carve this year. 

This one was the little one's. She did the large pieces and I had to come in to do the delicate pieces. 

The lineup from this year.. the kids are all growing up and taking over the carving business!

Previous Pumpinographies are here..

This whole thing started with a lot of reluctance..  but now it has become a "tradition" that we all look forward to!