Monkey business.

We all dressed up for karva chauth this year because we decided to go to Mandir with some friends instead of doing puja at home.





Avi had already worn his orange kurta and his gold kurta in the last few weeks.

So what was a baby to wear?

Monkey costume!

And once he had it on he wanted to hang out with all of his monkey friends.



about five seconds later...


What else can you expect? Actually I'm still amazed that he posed for the picture at all!

Avi's 1st Birthday!

Happy Birthday Avinash!!

We are so proud of how you are turning into such a great little boy right before our eyes. It feels like yesterday that we were still waiting for you to come and wondering if we were about to have a boy or girl. I am still so amazed by how wonderful your birth was.

And how did we celebrate the first anniversary of the most amazing day in our lives ever?



Why, shopping trip, Italian food and ice cream of course! Though, it seems that Avinash's favorite part was the escalator.

Which he promptly escaped from us in order to go right back to as soon as he could!



This baby has definitely taken us on an adventure over this past year. He is now practically running all over the place, surviving his first real cold, eating real food, learning to drink from a cup, saying mama/dada, playing ball, doing gymnastics, getting up to standing unsupported, climbing off the side of the couch, and getting into a hundred new kinds of mischief every day.



I wonder what he has in store for us next!

Saturdays.

Sigh, my typical Saturday. Get up as early as I do on a weekday. See twice as many patients as I normally do and then run around the rest of the day while trying to keep getting yelled at to a minimum (unsuccessful today).

At least I got this to brighten my day:



One of the doctors I work with also takes his boy to the same Little Gym's class and he snapped this picture so I could at least feel like I was there.

Sigh, back to drudgery..

Garba night!

One of the perks of living in Houston is the huge Indian community. One of the downsides is that we still manage to be out of the loop all the time despite all of the Indian friends we have here. We missed the Holi extravaganza in Sugarland tis year. And we missed this meet & greet event with Shah Rukh Khan at Reliant, literally minutes from our apartment. I did somehow manage to look up Navratri events in time to find a Garba dance to go to last night.
It started auspiciously enough. I got all dressed up in one of my new Salwars, put the baby in this ridiculously cute Sherwani.


The first floor of the convention center was closed but looked like they had an antique show going on that weekend. Ryan had an Indian shirt on too and we gave his friend Justin a shawl to wear. We walked up to the Indian booth on the second floor and asked to buy tickets. Of course the middle-aged Gujrati guy selling tickets took one look at us and said, "Oh tickets for what? Are you here for the antique show?"
Yeah, we always dress up in Indian clothes on the first night of Navratri, then go talk to some narrow-minded FOB asbout getting tickets to a closed antique show. Of course!

Old FOB jerks notwithstanding, we had a great time.



Though the dance floor did not look like this when we first arrived. I completely forgot to factor in Indian-time to our schedule. Luckily there was a Buffy musical sing-a-long going on at Discovery Green right outside which we watched first. It was totally campy and almost like a new generation Rocky Horror Picture show. It was like an organic gathering of geeks and nerds, who all had the episode memorized and danced along with the show. Ryan wants to create a whole series of these shows with other notable shows and movies of our generation. Any suggestions?



We eventually got out on the dance floor. We had a blast.



I even got Ryan and Justin to pose for action shots too!



Avinash was thrilled at the end of the night too--mostly because we let him out of his itchy jacket..

San Antonio weekend trip.

Naturally, our San Antonio Labor day/Anniversary road trip started with a stop in Austin.

I carried the baby around and tried to experiment with my new camera.

Oh, and Ryan gave a speech to a huge crowd in front of the Capitol Building!

I love how passionate he still is about politics. It is hard not to get disinterested over the years, especially as all of your values get eroded year after year. I basically feel totally withdrawn from the process. But, he is still fighting and trying to change things.

San Antonio was such a good change from Houston.

I'm sure that their PGY-3 residents don't get to first assist two or three aneurysm clippings a week, but it would be so nice to live there.

We had our anniversary dinner at Biga, beautiful ambience, excellent service and great food.

Perfect seasonal new American-even the salad was good. Avinash was a perfect baby at dinner too. He loved strolling down the Riverwalk afterwards too.

We took him on a river cruise the next day.

He was awake for about the first five minutes of it.

The city was just so colorful and vivrant. Soulful.

He never even knew what he was missing.

Too cute.

Avinash comes up with new expressions all the time. The latest is a scrunched up nose grin. I think it started as an attempt to clear a stuffy nose, but now he finds it hilarious. Of course, we encourage him because we think it is funny too.

First steps!

Avinash has been standing up on his own for a while, and he may be a bit on the short side

but he has officially taken his first steps!


On tape!



It's not always fun though (especially when you can't hold the camera yourself).



Though, he might do a better job, Ryan's the only one who managed to actually look at the camera here.

We are so proud and happy!

My daily joy.

Work is crazy. Long surgeries, cranky co-workers, longer hours.

But look what I came home to today.

Pure joy.

I love that his heart is so full of love and care free
(and, something for me to emulate).

Avinash is growing up so quickly right now. One minute I'm amazed at his ability to sit up, the next minute he is crawling all over and standing up by himself. Pretty much the only thing that lets me feel I have some record of this past year.

Here are some of my new favorite creations.

I had to record our first charter jet ride.

I love these pictures of Avinash sitting IN THE DUGOUT!! at Astro's Minute Maid Park. How many people get to do that.

Cute pictures in the Alice in Wonderland Storybook house in Dallas.

Avinash always looks so cute after (and during) his bath. All that splashing makes him so happy and playful.

Hmm...took a long nap, went to Taco Bell for lunch, played with Avinash at the Children's Museum, made dinner, checked email, watched a couple of TV shows, and now I have pretty much run out of things to do except my presentation for Thursday unless I write a new blog post! I guess I could also contemplate making dessert too.
I made soup again tonight. I cooked up think spaghetti, mixed it with tons of chopped cilantro and a spritz of olive oil. I also combined sauteed garlic, lime leaves, a thai chili, scallions, ginger, tofu and carrots with roasted mushrooms and vegetable broth. Put the tofu and vegetables on the bottom of the bowl, top with noodles, garnish with chopped peanuts, scallions and cucumber chunks, then doused the whole thing with the amazingly lime-leaf scented broth. So good. It's amazing what good ingredients can do for a simple recipe.
Unlike last night's dinner. More of a travesty really.
Moving from New York City to Houston does have its share of disappointments. Culture, night life, humdity, bagels. Some of my fondest memories are summer nights in DUMBO park sharing a Grimaldi's pie with friends. Imagine my horror and shock upon trying the sham being peddled as a Grimaldi's pizza in Sugarland. No flavor, toppings not fresh. Blackening the edges with a coal fire is not the only thing needed to make a decent pizza. So sad and disappointed.
I guess we should have known when they gave us a plastic buzzer shaped like a piece of pizza to alert us when our table was ready.
Why does franchising always seem to kill quality and flavor? Do most Americans prefer bland and greasy foods?
Oddly enough, the only decent place we have found so far is actually called New York Pizzeria. Go figure.