Seaside

A couple years ago we went to Seaside on Jul 4th, and heard about the fireworks on the beach; we couldn't catch it then since we had a little kid in tow (and one in the oven), and it would have been too late in the night to stay back. Since then we've been wanting to get a beachfront room to watch the fireworks from, and this year it somehow worked out. We spent a couple nice days in Seaside over the Jul 4 weekend, and to the kids' great joy Annika also came over for a day. Between playing on the beach, all the ice-creams, the parade, the food (a must-try: Lil' Bayou), splashing in the pool, the bumper cars and the carousel on the promenade, and the fireworks, a good time was certainly had by all.

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Jaya - A Small Tribute

Jaya. She was quite the institution in the George household. She may have started at our home as a cook who could whip up the best mutton biriyani and beef cutlets ever. But over the 28 years that we knew her she became so much more.
Some of my earliest memories of her include waking her up at night so she could walk scaredy-cat me to amma-appa's room in the middle of the night. I remember her affectionately calling me, "velai poonai." I remember her rescuing injured birds and force-feeding them, feeding stray kittens that we didn't quite want in our house. I remember getting annoyed with her for asking my friends embarrassing questions: no kids yet? not married yet? (!!).
No one who visited our home could leave without paying proper homage to JAYA. Appa often joked that she was the one person amma was scared of. She had a big, big heart. And let's not get started on her food: ladoos at Christmas time, roast chicken, celery beef, vegetable pickle, pork vindaloo. Jaya's food was legendary. Compliments from hundreds of guests at the George's dining table made their way to the back of the house where Jaya, after she had worked her magic with the meal, would be stretched out in front of Tamil soaps.
She had a larger than life personality and we're going to miss her.
I'm so grateful to the Lord that she got to meet and hold and kiss Yohan and Malaika.

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Books of the Bible

Susan has been teaching the kiddos a little song about the books of the Bible. Yo started off learning the first few names, and of course his shadow Mika had to do exactly the same.

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Chatting with Mika

The little girl has quite the vocabulary now, though dada sometimes needs the translation services of mamma or Yo to help decipher her words of wisdom. She's also stringing quite a few words together now, and conversations with anna are getting less one-sided.

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Thomas Train

Thomas the train was in town for couple weeks. Being the suckers that we are, Ranjit and I joined the throngs of other over-enthu parents conned into driving an hour and half to buy $18 tickets to stand in line to get on a choo-choo that had an engine made to look like the moody British cartoon train. We were joined on our adventure by Yohan's buddy Nikita and her parents. The kids had a great time except Yohan was quite stunned that Thomas' mouth was closed and that he was not actually talking. I don't know if he bought Ranjit's sore throat explanation!

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Oaks Amusement Park

Finally. A weekend without rain. All of Portland, including the Narjalas and their friends, decided to get a tan on Saturday. Our locale of choice was Oaks Amusement Park about 30 minutes from home.

Seven little people, ages three years and below, had a blast on motorcycle rides, car rides, horsey rides....  forgoing nap time, snack time and all other essentials.

With a pint-sized dare-devil (Mika) in tow, Ranjit had no choice but to conquer his fear of heights on the Big Pink Slide (yeah, it sounds kind of wimpy but that thing was HIGH). And they swooshed down it twice.

Yohan's take-away from the whole experience: "The boat thing made me dizzy."

Dada and son did do a mini roller-coaster ride. Both of them got off the ride looking rather unwell. Looks like three of the four Narjalas share a common distaste for unnecessary volatility. Kudos to Mika for upping the ante.

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Acrobatics and Coolness

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Think we need to step it up from the home-style tumbling around for the little lady.

Think this video says it all - looks like certain members of our household already have the "being cool" thing down pat...