Good times with the family

Seattle is a great place to live. But it’s way out on the other side of the continent, as seen here:

Which is why it was great to have my folks, my sis and her whole family in town for the past couple of weeks.

For the first week, Mom and Dad took off for a trip up to BC. They loved Vancouver, and spent most of their trip seeing its downtown. I’m looking forward to going back there once the Green Card stuff gets all sorted out.

Shot of the folks in Victoria

After the parental units came back to Seattle, my sis and her family joined us here. The combined age of my nieces is 4 years and 6 months, and so my apartment went through some natural changes:

• Bottles were removed from the wine rack and replaced with sippy cups
• The cleaning bucket was converted to a diaper pail
• My bed doubled as a diaper-changing station

And so on. But it became normal. And then we started hanging out in Seattle, and the trip became a lot of fun.

The Mountains

 

Vivace

 

The Needle

 

At Home

 

The Falls

Everyone left yesterday. The apartment is quiet again, and I miss my family a lot. But it was nice to spend so much time with them, and I liked watching my nieces grow up and learn new things. Being so far from them sucks, and I hope to change that eventually, but being able to at least hang out with them in the short term does make life just a little bit nicer.

Hope all is great on your end. Have a great start to the holidays!

Folks are in town

Mom

Dad

Diwali

It’s nice to have family in town .

Back from Charlotte

Was in Charlotte this past weekend, hanging out with Sis and her fam. Man are my nieces getting big.

Here’s some fun pics from the trip:

 

Stretching on the carpet

Determined thumb-sucking

Playing Prince Eric for Niku

Happy Mother’s Day!

Today’s as good a day as any to tell the Moms in your life how much you love ‘em. And I hope you invested in online florist stock, because those guys made a KILLING. Seriously, how much for roses?

In any case, I was lucky enough to have the mothership in town last month for a week-long visit with the Fathership. Here’s some highlights from a fun week:

Driving straight off the road and into the water with Seattle’s “Ride the Ducks” tour:

Exploring Lake Union:

Discovering I had family in Seattle!

Introducing the folks to my coworkers.

And scuba diving. Sort of

Pics from Charlotte

I’m at Starbucks right now catching up on some work, and even though the crowd is yuppie and the coffee is overpriced, I can’t knock the atmosphere. I just wish they would change CDs more often

In other news, I went to go see the fam in Charlotte on the first weekend in March, and I was able to obtain scientific proof that my niece is the most beautiful girl in the world:

And these are with a cameraphone!

No, I’m not biased at all…

Procrastination rocks.

Masala Mehndi Masti

What started out as a pretty boring event turned out to be a pretty rockin Saturday. High-fives to the folks for suggesting it

MMM changed venues and was at the CNE fairgrounds this year. There was dhandia…

…there was Rajasthani music…

…and there was food, and shopping, and displays, and enough else to make everybody happy. See you next year! At the Seattle equivalent

New car!

On July 22, after extending my trip for a week, I came back from Tallahassee. Here are some highlights:

I bought a car! Since getting a car shipped over is part of the relocation deal, I decided to do my car shopping in Florida and get a ‘98 Honda CRV. No worries folks, it’s got great mileage so I won’t be destroying the world in this SUV, and all the extra space means I can store lots of sports equipment and finally become the extreme sports athlete I was born to become. Or at least do some extreme boxes moving.

Another highlight: the Tallahassee car museum. You don’t expect a small city to have much tourisy stuff, but it turns out Tallahassee is home to the first Model T production car, the hearse that carried Abe Lincoln, and even the original batmobiles.

NOT a highlight: Chuck E Cheese. Man I remember this place being so awesome as a kid, but when we took my niece this time I was stunned. Awful food, pathetic rides… and “Chuck E” was just a vibrating rag doll in the corner. And yet, kids still LOVE it. This entire family even showed up in camo gear for their kid’s birthday party. Yes Ankur, camo gear. Well, at least Nikita had fun.

Most important highlight, of course: hanging out with my sis, bro-in-law, and niece in Florida, because in a month and a day I’ll be starting out again in Seattle, and it’s gonna be tough to do long vacations again.

Hope all is well on your end

Panama City!

Road tripping.

Hangin out on the beach.

Jetskiing.

Love and affection from family.

Well, most of the time

Great weekend!

Party party

Can I say Happy Independence Day without getting tormented by everyone back home?

C’mon, at least I made sure my niece knew where she’s from…

(Her t-shirt says “Canadian Princess”)

We threw a party at home yesterday, good times. TONS of food, good times with Taboo, and I got to put in my two cents with punch and cheesecake. And hey, with non-ridiculous amounts of alcohol, lots of babies, and me as the lone unmarried guy, it seemed like a very good preview of life after university :S

Yay Florida!

How can you not have an amazing vacation when this is what you wake up to see every morning?

Good to see you too Niku