Boston beckons..

Before school started, we had a four day window to visit my sister and family in Boston. We are spread all over the place. My parents with my brother in Chennai, India.. my sisters family on the east coast and us in the west coast. It is similar story on my wife's side. Her sisters family is in Melbourne and her brother is in Seattle.  So reunions and face to face meetings with family are rare. Entire family get togethers on any one side of the family are rarer. 

The best part of the trip for me was to see my sister and her hubby in their natural habitat, happy and smiling and watching the kids play together with their cousins. For the most part I was always roaming around, camera in hand.. 

It was a quick trip but we got some sightseeing done. Will do a separate blog post for some of the visits. 

Day 1: we visited Harvard. Tried to walk around ourselves. Got tired of waiting behind this Chinese group (the girls were all dressed like supermodels and there were cameramen with lighting , reflectors etc. taking pictures of them at every statue). Someone in the crowd told us they were "prospective students". 

San asked the cameramen nicely if they will move on so we could take a picture. He said 2 minutes and it went on for 15. So we decided to take the "official tour" with a student tour guide. Having wandered through Harvard multiple times many many moons ago and having danced in two of their ballrooms.. thought we could just wander around.. the paid tour was not bad. The student who gave the tour managed to keep it entertaining. 

Plus, we got our turn at taking pictures.. 

Initially the kids were all eager to touch this statue. Later they learned that this was the most "pissed on" statue in the universe and were running to find water and hand sanitizer!

Then we went to MIT and their science museum. 

Day2 was completely spent on a "duck tour" around downtown Boston and a trip on the Charles river followed by the Museum of Science. This was one great museum for the kids. Some highlights were the guy inside a cage getting struck repeatedly by lightning from a Van de Graff generator and a bed of nails..

Naturally, the Yogi had to volunteer for the bed of nails. 

Day 3 was spent celebrating my nephews birthday.. we also managed to go to Cape Cod and visit the Plimoth plantation museum. This reminded us of Ballarat in Australia. There were scenes that transported us to the 1600's like the one below.. 

Did I already say the best part was seeing my sister after a long time? I see her in my daughters face every day to the point where sometimes I call Jr. by my sisters name because she looks like a replica of my sis when she was the same age. When she is sitting on the ground and looks up with her iris on the top without raising her head up.. it is like watching my sister!

Jr. is a bridge between the genes of the two women on either side of her. Given they are all November borns.. it gets interesting from a tempramental stand point when they are talking to each other.

Moving on to other things.. 

We thoroughly enjoyed the trip to the many lighthouses in Cape Cod area.. and the best pic that stood out on the quick scroll through the downloaded pictures was this one.. 

We were smiling throughout this trip. No fights. No daddy getting lost on freeways in a new place. Found restrooms when we wanted them to appear while on the road. A peaceful trip after a long time. 

When I get a chance, will edit more pictures and post a travelog on Harvard, MIT, Cape Cod, the Museum of science and the Plimoth plantation.

Six Flags Discovery - A day trip

For the July 4th weekend, we decided to go on a day trip to Six flags with the cousins. It is 90 minutes away and in all our years of living here, we never visited this theme park.

It is a combination of Sea world, Disney's animal kingdowm and Universal all in one for a third of the price. Granted there are some give and takes for the price but the end result when you have a bunch of kids running around on a sugar high, a great place to spend the day!

We went in as soon as the park opened and stayed there till the park closed. Pretty much on our feet the whole time. Here are some pictures.

There was a seal show. The seals did a good job but the people in the show were too loud and annoying. The volume was too loud. Hope the seals dont hear the same frequencies we do at the same volume!

Then the little dolphin show. It was amazing. There was also another big dolphin show called Drench, but we missed it. The little dolphin show was better than the ones we have seen at Sea World. 

These 4 female dolphins were so synchronized and trained. They did a hoola hoop on their nose, threw a ball up with their "hands" and caught it in their mouth.. amazingly well trained.

Then we moved on to land animals. The tiger show was something we have never seen before. Five bengal tigers, jumping across 10 foot concrete slabs, climbing up 20 feet in one leap.. 

and diving into water and swimming! Have not seen that one before..  

 The butterfly garden was beautiful. Lots of large and small butterflies, well maintained, multiple security guards to make sure folks did not have both doors open to let butterflies out.. it was nicely done!

This one was the size of my palm!

Then we saw "feedom".. a Bald Eagle that was rescued. She posed for pictures a good 50 feet away. Was happy to get this "portrait" of her. Truly majestic and regal! On a good note, the extender and lens are fixed and seem to work okay after the repair.

The highlight though, was the fireworks. In all our life we have watched a lot of new years, disney, 4th of July fireworks. This was the best. Nice seats on a gallery. Very decent crowd. Great view of the fireworks launching pad across the water. The quality of the fireworks was also great. It was very well organized.

Tried  a slo-motion video of the first part of the fireworks on the new iPhone 6 plus. However not sure if it uploads as a slow motion video.. it is on my youtube as a separate video.. 

Was too tired to even take the canon out after the long day.. Sometimes the best camera, is the one you can hold!

Loved this day trip. It was really a pleasant day, less crowded rides, happy kids and parents after being on our feet the entire day. Cannot ask for much more!

Strongly recommended for a day trip!

Revisiting the Tulips

Roosengarde near Seattle is famous for its Tulips. Three years ago, we visited the place but were too late to the Tulip fields. They had topped it off. 

This year we got a chance to go there. We miscalculated on multiple fronts. We had 5 hours in the afternoon to go and come back, before we had to drive to the airport to catch our flight back.

It was probably the first sunny weekend in Seattle area. The entire population was out on the freeway. The traffic made a 90 minute ride into a 3 hour ride. Also given we were in two cars and were using the iPhone as a GPS, the phone battery drained in the middle of the drive. That meant that we could not communicate between cars. We were thinking of turning back multiple times but given the communication gap, decided to go all the way and meet at the Tulip place. 

We spent 20 minutes there. Ran to the fields, took pictures and raced back to the parking lot. That was when some of the kids in the group said "pee pee". The attendant in the fields pointed us to a restroom that was half a mile away, or what seemed half a mile away. So we told the kids to hold it and started on our drive back. 

Made it back in a lot less than 90 minutes after some fast driving and we also made it to our flight as it was boarding!

Here are some pictures.. 

It is quite a sight. If you are in the seattle area in Mid April, don't miss it.

Loved this color.. 

This was my favorite strip.. bright yellow!

Finally a photograph that my mom will appreciate! She always complains that I am not in the pictures.. 

Next time we go, we will plan an extra day in Seattle instead of a Friday evening to Sunday evening trip and spend a day here.  That way I can go crazy with the photography.