Fun Filled Week-ends

This week-end was again busy like all week-ends. On Friday I baked some garlic rolls (which were super tasty) and made my lemon cake again. Sat was BIL's bday and cake sutting was organized at 12.00. Since me and Ritvik slept we could not make it.
Sat morn we woke and i cooked some yummy vermicilli upma followed by tangy mango dal for lunch.
Evening we had to go for a birthday party at Pump It Up. We reached at 6 and kiddo had a great time playing around. It was a small get-together and even we had great fun.
Returning home played cards till 11:30 and off to bed.
Sun morning was a friend's baby shower at our party hall. i tried to drape a saree fo rhalf an hour, failed miserably and then wore my salwar.
Function started at 12:00, food was served by 1:00. It was very yummy, had lots of ice-cream and gulab jamun, napped in the afternoon, then went to play volleyball, night made 2 pachadi's (mango and pavakya)

Thus ended the lovely week-end, waiting for the next one.

Yellow Stone Day 2

For part 1 go here
http://myendeavours.blogspot.in/2013/08/yellowstone-trip-day-1.html.

Day 2 (July 4th):- We all got up by 7 ish and had breakfast of eggs/bread/jam. We also made Tomato rice and packed to take for lunch. We all were ready by 8:30 am to leave and then the morning ritual happened.
On the first day too we all were ready but could not find the keys to loc the house, the owner had mentioned it would be in a tiny box, we all kept searching for like 45 mins until we finally realized we were searching near the back door and the tiny box was at the front door entrance. on Day 1 we locked and left and when we returned we unlocked the door and placed the key back in the tiny box.
On Day 2 the tiny box refused to open, it had a pin, no amount of entering the keys would budge the tiny box. We again wasted around 30 mins trying to open it and finally left the house unlocked.

We decided to take the West Entrance to the park and cover the Upper Loop. We first stopped at a rest area in Madison and from there we went up to Gibbon Area. On nearing the palce one of our friends realized that they had left their camera bag at the rest area, so we all stopped there while two of them went back to get the bag. We took loads of pictures here. Then we decided to go up to Norris. On the way we passed Gibbon Falls.
We spend a good time exploring the Norris Geysers, the geysers are beautiful with bubbles emerging from the hot springs, some complained of the sulphur smell but I was not bothered. They just looked beautiful.

 From there we travelled to Mammoth Springs, on the way we stopped for lunch. By the time we reached Mammoth it began to rain, we waited for the rain to subside and then went to see mammoth. It is beautiful with all the various colors that you can see, we clicked a lot of pictures , on top there is a rock from which fumes come out , it really looks like Shiv Lingh. We then returned to our vehicle and decided to take the route "The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone". It began to rain heavily and we did make 1 or 2 stops . We also stopped mid-way to make tea in our portable stove.
At 7 ish we decided to head back to our cabin, on the way we stopped at many little geysers, in the evenings with the rains all the geysers were very alive fuming out hot smoke. On the way we saw many bisons and elks, infact when we were nearing the exit park a family of moose walked out to greet us.
Evening we ordered pizza and buffalo wings from KFC and then head back home to rest. 

Ona Sadhya 2013

This year for Onam I again decided to have a traditional Onam Sadhya by inviting my friends over for lunch.
The last time I did that was in 2009  here
http://myendeavours.blogspot.com/2009/09/ona-sadya-09.html

Since Onam was on the 16th a workign day I decided to host the sadhya on 14th (Saturday)
Menu was once again:-
Rice
Sambhar
Parippu
Puli Inji
Cabbage Thoran
Carrot beans Thoran
Kadla curry
Pachadi
Banana chips
Sarkara vartti
Papadum
Pickle
Banana

I had invited around 20 adults with 6 kids at 1 pm. Luckily they came in batches and we could accomodate all of them.
Ritvik had fever Fri nite and so payasam was made by another family.
After the sadhya we played pictionary and cards, made tea for all and they left by 5.

Receipe for all in previous post except for kadla currya
Boil soaked overnight kadla in cooker with ginger, cinnamon,bay leaf,and a pich of salt
Grind in mixie fried cocnut, coriander and red chilly powder
Add this to the boiled chana and cook well.

Happy Onam 2013

Wishing All my near and Dear Ones a Very Happy Onam

From my Home garden

Some pretty flowers

Jalapeno peppers

Tomatoes

Beans

To my darling Bumble Bee (3 yrs 9 months)

When I was pregnant I only wanted a girl but God though otherwise and gave me a baby boy, I cannot thank him enough for putting this bundle of pleasure in my arms.
He takes care of me more then my hubby. I still remember for my birthday he kept insisting his Dad to get a Princess cake for Amma. I had invited all my girlf friends over and so hubby and kiddo went out. After all had left he returned and was playing with a gummy bear carton. Suddenly he assembled all the gummy bear on the sofa(compact) , put the carton top on my head like a crown and said, this is a cake, go ahead and cut it. While I pretended to cut it with a knife he started singing "Happy Birthday to you Amma princess" Oh! it was priceless. I wish I could record it, I asked him to sing again but he did not oblige.

He will be the first to compliment me on any new dress that I wear if he likes it. Similarly when I cook he will tell if the food is yummy or not. We do like to spend time with each other, reading books, simply giggling, fighting, kissing, hugging. If I get hurt he will immediately kiss the wound and tell me it will be okay. He wanted a roller skates which he got him 2 months back, within 2 days he could roller skate wonderfully on his own. He started learning phonics on his own and hence I had to also learn it to make sure I can answer his questions correctly. He can also ride his chotu bicycle without the training wheels. Whenever we go on trips he his happy to be with his friends, eat his food and do all other activities by himself and it is no trouble at all for me.
A picture of my precious