Happy 1 month!

Kabir, today you turned one month old! For me, this month started with a big transition. Initial two weeks were a blur and I would cry when I was alone, not that I didn't love you. I actually loved you a lot...you are the best thing that happened to me, it was just very different and difficult being away from work, tending to 2 hour feeding cycles and staying home all day, all week long. I needed a break, so took upon the invite to go shopping with Upaasna and came back home with clothes for you! Since then I am feeling much more settled in my new role and I am enjoying every bit of my time home with you.

Your Nani Ma was here to be with you when you were born. Sumit Mamu, Ammi and Uncle came soon after. It was great to have everyone's company and you got a lot of love and cuddling from all.









One day, Ammi, Nani ma, Sumit mamu, Aman, I and you went to the temple to do a little prayer for you. It was nice to go when Ammi was around.

While Ammi was here, we also celebrated you turning a week old!



Nani ma is here for a couple more months. Her being here has been so much help. I can't even imagine being alone at this time without her support.

Nani ma is enjoying every bit of you. She loves to tend to your needs, cuddles you, plays with you, makes stories for you. It is lovely to see this new bond developing.





Archana, Manoj, Kuntal, Sanjay, Debi, Upaasna, Aman, Umesh, Shuchi, Navneet, Shubra, Kumar uncle are some of the people who came to see you.





Debi also hosted a meet and greet get together for you at her home where a lot of our neighbors came to see you and brought you lovely presents.

You are a peaceful child. You cry only when you are hungry and lately have started to get restless when you want to sleep but can't. O yeah, these days you would only sleep in either of ours arms. You don't sleep in your basket till you are cuddled and put to sleep in our arms first. Your feeding schedule is random. Some nights you wake up every 1.5 to 2 hours and some nights you sleep for 3 to 4 hours at a stretch. Your Dad's been helping me with night time feeding during weekend nights. It 's nice to catch a little break and get a full night's sleep then.



Overall, you are very expressive and super cute. I can just sit and watch you all day and so can Nani ma. Sometimes, I feel you understand things that are going around you...your expressions tell me that. You make the funniest noises, like the tires of the car screeching and pass the smiles that are to die for.



You love to stretch and we love to watch you stretch!



I love taking your pictures, I even take them on the examination table at your pediatrician's office! :)






You have been a healthy baby. Your doctor appointments so far have gone well. You were back at your birth weight at your 2 week check up, which was a wonderful news!

Nani Ma and I take you out for walks in the neighborhood and sometimes take you around in other outdoor settings like Reston Town Center.




Today, to celebrate your one month birthday, Nani Ma and I took you for story time at Kinder Haus Toys and then we had lunch at Le Pain Quotidien. We brought dessert home to celebrate with Dad. Nani ma is also making halwa!




The time has gone by so fast, I can't believe it's been a month since you were born. I have enjoyed every minute of it, even though it was a big transition to begin with.



I wish you the very best growing up, sweetie!

You are precious and we love you a lot!
Mama

Miami over a long weekend!

I had been wanting to take a trip before our little one arrives (It's a boy and we call him TJ (Tarun Junior) so that's how I'll address him further in my post :)) and also before my doctor restricts me from traveling, which will be soon.

We did have a month long trip to India recently but that somehow didn't count as it was wedding centric and just too busy to relax.

Anyhow, so we had MLK's day coming up, which meant an extra day off for me! To capitalize on that, Tarun and I kept going back and forth on the idea of taking a trip. A week or so back, we decided, we'll stay back and get some things done around the house. It was all decided. The house help and the handyman were called and appointments fixed. Then came Wednesday, Jan 12th. After dinner that day, it just so happened, that we went back to talking about travel and we decided that we should take a trip, as we won't get this time back after TJ is born. Life will be different...definitely nice and a lot of fun but different. :)

We decided, I'll take an extra day off and we'll go down to Miami. We made reservations that night.

The morning of Saturday, Jan 15th, our very good friend Sanjay dropped us at the airport for our early morning (read 8:30 A.M.) flight to Fort Lauderdale. We landed at 11:00 A.M. and took a cab to South Beach Miami, where we were going to stay for 3 nights. The weather was lovely! It was so nice to see the crisp sun out and the water front, on our way to the hotel.

We arrived at our hotel at 11:45 A.M., freshened up and started on our walk to get some food. We walked on the Ocean drive and noticed a nice restaurant, whose name I now forget, but we did manage to get a table there after a descent wait and enjoyed our meal.



The rest of the day was mostly long walks. We went to our hotel's private beach and spent some time walking on the sand.


It was pretty windy, but the sun was nice, so we weren't cold.


We took a nice long walk and then came back to the hotel to take a little break before we continued further on our walk-a-thon (which is a common trend on our city and beach trips). We found ourselves a nice spot by the pool, ordered drinks and just relaxed for a little while.


Soon we were ready to go out again. This time, we decided to go explore the nearby happening place, the Lincoln street, which is where we spent most of our time, last time we were in Miami, almost 7 years ago. We actually went to the Lincoln street, looking for a sweater for Tarun, as he forgot his in the flight and now we needed one for our trip back!

So, we went to J.Crew and discovered that, the particular store was woman's only. Even though, I had no intention of buying anything, I did find some stuff which I ended up buying !

Tarun didn't want to shop/window shop any more that day, so we just strolled on the Lincoln street, passing all the restaurants and looking at their menus. Almost every restaurant had a special/happy hour running. After a while, we decided to eat. The dinner that night was pizza followed by a Hot Chocolate Sundae at Ghirardelli.

We returned to our hotel tired and I pretty much slept soon after.

On Sundays, Ritz has the best brunch in the area, which also happens to be our favorite meal, so we had to have the best! :)

It was of-course a big spread from fruits to salads to eggs station, shrimp and oyster station, cheese station, sushi and the carving station.

I ate a lot! Since I have been pregnant, my appetite has increased by manifolds. I surprise both myself and Tarun with how much I can eat now. I pretty much tried everything except what was available at the eggs, cheese and oyster stations.


It was delicious and I wasn't done. I was actually pretty full, but I still wanted to try the dessert. :)


After our brunch, we were ready to hit the Lincoln street again, in search of a sweater. It being Sunday, the street was definitely crowded. We went to different stores, but had no luck finding a woolen sweater. Of-course why would anyone need a woolen sweater when the weather is in 70's and 80's! We gave up and decided to go back to Ghirardelli for Tarun's favorite banana split!

For Monday, the plan was to just relax in the hotel, spend time in the pool, more time on the beach, get a massage and relax before heading back home the next day but the weather wasn't on our side. It poured all day!

Rain however, didn't stop us from our daily walk! We were out with our umbrellas (courtesy Ritz). Tarun had discovered "Shake Shack" through yelp as one of the highly rated food joints in the area. So, we decided to go there. Shake Shack serves burgers, shakes, hot dogs etc. We both had burgers and also shared a Vanilla shake. The serving size was not over-whelming and the burgers were delicious, loved the fries and the vanilla shake was awesome too!

Did some window shopping and some real shopping; ordered ourselves a full length mirror for our bedroom which should arrive may be next week and then headed back to the hotel.

I was a bit off because of the weather. It was a little cold that day due to the rain and the wind, but I didn't want to be inside, so we decided to sit outside in one of our hotel's restaurants. Of-course, we were not hungry, having had burgers a little while ago, so we decided to order drinks.

While I used some of this time booking childbirth preparation classes for us (we are now registered for Feb 23rd, 24th and March 5th!), Tarun, spent that time reading.


...and then were back talking and cracking jokes!


We ordered a dessert to share. I felt like having Key Lime Pie, but it was not on the menu! However the server was nice enough to arrange it for us.

There's Tarun ready for his first big bite! ;)


Soon, it was time to go for our massages, which we had booked the day before. We both enjoyed ours. Mine was the first pre-natal massage I had, although I do have a gift certificate from my dear brother for a massage at this top rated green spa (Nusta Spa) in DC, which I have yet to go to. I actually had a reservation for it, for this past Sunday, but had to cancel it due to the trip. I am now thinking of going in Feb!

Later that night, we dined at D. Rodriguez Cuba, again a yelp find and the food was delicious!


Now, it was almost time to go back to the land of cold. So, we decided to get up a little early the next day and take a walk on the beach before our cab arrived at noon to take us to the airport.

We woke up at 8:00 A.M., got ready and went out to a french bakery (La Provence) for breakfast, which we had discovered the day before during our walk. After the breakfast, we hit the beach walk. The weather was 78 degrees F. We walked soaking all the sun we could. Tarun tells me, we walked 60 blocks!


We reached our hotel at noon and the cab driver called. We got our stuff from our room, which was already packed and checked out.

Now we are back to the wintry cold, where the sky is overcast and one needs to wear layers and thick coats!

I tried to do a sad impression, but failed miserably. I guess, it's always nice to come back home! :)


I am back energized. Caught some TV with Tarun, spoke to some of my family on the phone, prepared a snack for my team, as I am headed to Harrisonburg tomorrow for a day long meeting. Wrote this blog entry after over an year. (I miss writing, work has been keeping me way too busy, hope I am able to get back in the blogging routine. Amen to that! :) )

It's past mid night and my alarm is set for 5:00 A.M. Although, my eyes are wide open, my mind tells me I should sleep! :) Good night all!

Recent trip to St. Michaels, MD

Now that we have found the house, our weekends are considerably free. Last weekend, was going to be a weekend where we would have lazed, may be gone out for a hike or made a trip to Georgetown but we ended up in St. Michaels...who knew!!

Saturday started early for Tarun, as he had a breakfast meeting and for me because I was woken up by all the noise from Tarun getting ready to leave for his meeting. After Tarun left, I made a few calls to friends and family in India and I was still on phone when he returned around 10:00 A.M.

As we were talking, Tarun asked me to shower and pack my bag for the night, he said he won't tell me where we were going...it's going to be a surprise! I sure was very EXCITED but at the same time anxious to know what was on his mind?!?!

In any case, he did reveal after some time. While I got ready, Tarun called some B&B's to see if they had a room available. Since this was all happening at the last minute, we didn't get any bookings, so we decided to take a chance.

We left around 1:00 PM, caught traffic on our way but still managed to reach Dr. Dodson House; the B&B on our list, at 3:00 P.M. The B&B, is run by Janet and she did have a room available, which we were shown and we decided to take it.

After checking in, we decided to explore the area. Our first stop was going to be the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum. On our way to the museum, we saw an old boat being restored!

After spending some time at the museum, we went to see the lighthouse, which was right next to it.

The views from the lighthouse were amazing.

We later decided to check out the town and grab a bite. After strolling the streets and passing the souvenir shops and summer fairs, we made our way to the Key lime cafe, a recommendation from Janet, our host.

While we waited for the food to be served, Tarun posed for me. :-)

We shared sausages and seafood Risotto for dinner and later ordered Key lime pie for dessert. I'll have to say that dessert was the best, we liked the Key Lime Pie so much that we ordered another one!! :-)

After dinner, we took a long walk by the water. We passed The Inn at Perry Cabin; (where the movie Wedding Crashers was filmed) and caught sight of a wedding.

I later caught a shot of the granddad walking his grandson, towards the shore. :-)

After a long day of walking, we came back to our B&B that night, very tired and had a good night's sleep!

Next day, the plan was to go sailing, the tour which we had booked already. We woke up and got ready. Janet, served us a delicious breakfast (she had taken our orders when we checked-in).

We left soon after for our Sailing tour, saying our thank you and good bye!

We sailed Sail Selina, which is the largest of the surviving vintage catboats. It was our first time on a sail boat and that too a vintage one! The setting was very intimate with only 2 other guests on the boat along with Captain Iris and her assistant Jared.

As we reached near the bay and it was time to raise the Sail, Tarun volunteered to help Jared. Tarun's first time raising the sail!

Jared gave Tarun instructions.

Tarun started soon after



And our sail was up!! :-)

We all shared stories and sailed together for 2 hours, enjoying the beautiful views and the lovely weather!

What a weekend, thank you, Tarun! This was our first trip that was planned on the fly and it was great!! Look forward to more such trips in the future! :-)

Review:Sichuan Pavilion 2.9/5

A few days back when I was craving Chinese, I yelped Chinese restaurants in DC and picked "Sichuan Pavilion" based on its ratings and reviews. Myself and Tarun dined there with our friend Ashish.

We took a reservation before going, as it was a weekend, but when we reached there, the restaurant was pretty empty, so I guess, it's one of those restaurants where one could just walk-in.

I ordered "Chicken Chailang", a chef speciality. Tarun ordered Fish curry with Tofu, it was our server's recommendation and Ashish ordered a sizzler with 10 ingredients, I forget the name of the dish, but Ashish's was the only dish that was descent, the other two, Chicken Chailang and the Fish sure were spicy but had no flavor at all; an utter disappointment.

For dessert, we ordered Lychee Nuts. Surprisingly, unlike the name suggested, there were no nuts with the Lychees, but it was still nice to end the flavorless meal with a fresh and delicate taste of Lychees in the mouth.

A very disappointing experience overall. In States, I have yet to discover a better restaurant than P.F. Chang's, for Chinese food. It continues to be my favorite!

Food: 2

Service: 3

Pricing: 3.5 (Moderate)

Ambience: 3

Location/Information:
1814 K St NW
(between N 18th St & N 19th St)
Washington, DC 20006
(202) 466-7790

Parking:
Street

Would I recommend it?: No

Review:Belga 4.3/5

We started off the new year with a brunch with Family and Friends at Belga, last Sunday. It is a belgian cafe with  a very warm atmosphere.

Being a Belgian restaurant it specializes in belgian waffles. However, whatever was ordered on our table was really really good. We all decided to order and then share, so we had quite a few things on the table and it was hard to move them around, but this is what we ordered. Poached eggs with Salmon and Asparagus, Green Eggs, Crepes, Waffles with fruits and whipped cream and Banana Waffles with ice cream. Everyone shared the dishes and they were all very good. I especially liked the poached eggs with Salmon and Asparagus and the banana waffles. The banana waffles had a nice presentation and tasted great! 

We also shared a pumpkin soup which was ordered for Samadh, (our friends son), which he didn't drink. I didn't think I would like it but it was actually nice. Later, we ordered the belgian fries, another speciality of the restaurant.... yummy, and i liked how the fries are served, rolled in a paper (which looks like a newspaper) and stacked in  a metal wire stand.

The serving size is small, so a person per dish ratio is good.

I would recommend taking reservations before hand, as it gets pretty crowded, especially on the weekend.

Food: 5

Service: 5

Super Quick

Pricing: 3.5 (Moderate)

Atmosphere: 3.5

Cozy but can get crowded with no room to walk.

Location/Information:

514 8th Street SE

(between S E, St and S G St)

Washington, DC 20003

202 544 0100

Hours:

Lunch:

Monday through Thursday from 11:30 AM until 3:00 PM

Friday from 11:30 AM until 5:30 PM

Brunch:

Saturday from 10:00 AM until 5:30 PM

Sunday from 10:00 AM until 5:00 PM

Dinner:

Monday through Thursday from 5:30 OM until 10:00 PM

Friday and Saturday from 5:30 Pm until 11:00 PM

Sunday from 5:00 PM until 9:00 PM

Parking:

Street

Back in VA

Tarun and Myself are back in Virginia after a little more than 2 years. Well, we did make a trip here last May but now we are here to stay, at-least that's what we say.

What's surprising is that nothing seems to be calling me this time. Since we landed on Dec 17th, I haven't been excited at all. I am actually not feeling anything, I am numb. This seems like any other place to me now...the place I earlier thought could be home.

It has been good catching up with family and friends here but I haven't been super excited like I used to be back in time. 

May be I have matured or may be it will all change...we'll see.

Ananda in the Himalayas

Myself and Tarun made a trip to Ananda early October for 2 nights and 3 days. It was for his birthday and I had made the bookings before leaving for Japan. We decided to take the Shatabdi from Delhi to Haridwar and had Ananda arrange a pick up for us from the train station. The journey was comfortable. When we reached Haridwar and got out of the train station there was our cab driver waiting for us with a placard. We were so disappointed when we reached the car, we had expected a clean well kept car to come pick us up, but that one was, I guess a car used for bringing supplies to the resort from the nearby town, it had some metal bars inside to safeguard stuff. Anyway, we were disappointed and our expectation of Ananda hit its bottom right there.

We reached the resort after a 1.5 hour car ride and were greeted with an aarti by the staff. We were made comfortable in the living area of the palace where we were served a welcome drink made of lemon and ginger (quite refreshing!). Our room keys were handed to us in a short while and a golf cart was arranged to show us the property and take us to our room.

As our driver showed us the property I admired how well it was kept and how lush green it was. Upon reaching our room, we were told that the resort provides white Kurta Pajamas for the guests in their size for the them to wear during their stay. I thought, that was pretty cool and we both ordered our sizes (well they didn't have mine, so I took the smallest they had).

Our room was quite nice and had a nice view of the greens and the valley; only if the sky was clear we would have seen the valley but we still enjoyed the greens!

We relaxed in the resort all 3 days, pampered ourselves with some great massages and caught up on our reading. I highly recommend the Abhyanga massage which is done by two therapist. I believe that is the best massage i've had!

We enjoyed all our meals, the food was simple but tastefully cooked.

The property is well kept and serene and the sight of the guests walking around the property, clad in white Kurta Pajamas makes everything look so pure and simple, which I loved.

The staff is genuinely nice and helpful. On our checkout, we were asked to fill the feedback form and we gave an honest feedback, which means we told them we didn't like our pick up car and guess what, they were extra nice while dropping us to the train station in Haridwar, not only did the driver do all he could to make us reach the train station on time (we started late from the resort, some last minute ticket drama), he also waited to see we board the train. (We didn't know he was waiting till he came to us when the train arrived). We thought that was very nice and then a day or two later we received an email from the resort manager, apologizing for the car at our pickup. This surely impressed us and it showed he cared.

A short quiet trip was exactly what we needed after our vacation in Japan. I had a very relaxing time and Tarun said he quite liked it too, so I was happy he enjoyed his b'day weekend that I had planned for him!