Fun Run/Boosterthon

This kid has been so excited about this, ALL WEEK! Today she finally got to do it: to run, that is! 30 laps! Yeay, Ella! She gave it her all and kept asking every time she completed a lap, how many more laps left until she met her goal (her goal was 30 laps.) I was one of the "markers"/volunteers who marked the laps on the kids t-shirts. It was a fun event and I'm so grateful that I could be there for about an hour to soak in my baby running and catching the spirit of a good thing! I want her to continue to love physical exercise and be excited about it as it' definitely a great thing to be excited about. :-)

With some of her favorite classroom buddies. (Hunter and Harrison, I think.)

Love those red red cheeks!

  And some snapshots from this morning. It's really nice having mamaie and tataie with us:

I love my family and I am so grateful for them! Life is truly wonderful with all its hardships, ups and downs, sweat and tears, and laughs. Driving to school this morning, windows down to feel the crisp and clean morning air, and the beautiful blue skies, I was overcome with feeling of peace and gratitude and excitement for all that is good in my life, in our life. I'm living to see goals and dreams fulfilled which in turn give me continued hope to I can live and see even more dreams and hopes come true.

This and that

Life is great around here... just a few things I strongly feel I need to improve in the motherhood realm. Things that I keep failing at miserably seems like, every day. You know, all that "get ready now or we'll be late", "wear this, please, it's cold outside", "finish your breakfast..." mumbo-jumbo, said in a different tone of voice, with more love, more consideration, more patience. Why can't I just smile more and be more laid-back, why can't I just...??? Questions I need to find answers and resolution to as I feel I need more peace with how I'm handling "crisis" situations such as the ones described above :) I have hope that I can make little improvements day-by-day, and big ones by the end of the year.

Parents have settled in nicely with having us and Ella around. We sure love having them around! Last night we went to the SeaLife Aquarium nearby and had a great time. Ella played the guide for them and they once again were impressed by how much she knows about sea creatures.

I just love how my cute parents always hold hands! :)

This weekend we're headed out of town for a wedding and can't hide the excitement! It'll be the first time that we've traveled alone since we had Ella, and although it'll be a long drive to where we're going, I'm  looking forward to it. I'm also looking forward to a better experience finding a party dress this time around, after nine or ten years of absolutely dreading shopping for one. I know they'll still be challenges with finding something modest but at least the size won't be such a problem. Whew! :) I'll report back with that I bought.

What else? After we get back from the wedding, Hrishi is travelling to Omaha for work and some quick hunting with his old buddy, Dennis. The following week will be tech rehearsal week for the Nutcracker. We'll be basically camping out there every day. Busy crazy weeks ahead, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Almost there with my weight goal, 1.8 lbs left. You see, the reason I truly cherish every single pound of lost fat is that this has been nothing but an easy thing for me. Luckily, I've been enjoying the process. Training for the 10K run is coming along well; I did my first 5 mile run on Monday (in 55.31 secs) and I survived it. The first 2.5 miles were tough, then it kind of just happened. At some point it becomes a bit like an "out-of-body" experience: mind detaches from body and is there to either cheer you on or put you down. I chose the first. My favorite part of the run was the last .5 miles where I sprinted (I always do that), go figure! 

Happy Birthday, Ella Bella!!!

This Sunday our little sweetheart turned the BIG 6!!!! Needless to say that we started the celebration on Friday after school and partied the weekend away!! :) We did a lot of good stuff.

On Friday we went to Sea Life for another tour of the beautiful acquarium. If you have one close-by or ever happen to visit a place that does, it is so worth it! Or if you happen to be close-by Sea World, go for it! (we were going to go there this year but plans changed.) Anyway, it was a delight to watch all the beautiful sea creatures swim, crawl, or float. They even have a shark walk, an interactive rock pool, and awesome ocean themed background music.

We then grabbed some to-go from Hard Eight BBQ, our favorite barbeque place.

On Saturday morning we did the FAAN  (Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network) Walk which is a great fund raiser event to support food allergies awareness and research. I can't tell you how nice it felt to be around folks like us who struggle with food allergies day in and day out. It was comforting and reassuring. I felt a spirit of hope in the air, a hope for so much needed research breakthroughs in this field. And I know that everyone present there felt the same. It is just something so special and unifying about being part of a cause and food allergies is OUR CAUSE. And when I told Ella that in a couple of weeks we have an appointment with a doctor that is using a different approach to try to desensitize the body of allergens, her face literally lit up. Great hopes and prayers going up for her and all those like her.

The walk was in a wonderful neighborhood equipped with a pretty cool park which of course was the number one attraction for all the kids after the walk!



After the walk, we came home, grabbed some lunch, and headed out again to Ray Roberts Lake, a beautiful state park about an hour away built around a very large lake. We had a great time there, trying our hand at fishing and just hanging out together.



"Fishie, fishie, fishie!!"

And a little photoshoot...:

And finally, the actual birthday on Sunday!! Sweetie pie dressed-up in her princess dress (which is a party dress she managed to get sweet Maitreyee, her dearest cousin, to give to her!) and waited for the surprise birthday gift:

And no birthday is complete without CAKE (we made marble cake and Ella decorated it with very little help):

It was definitely a weekend and day to remember!!!

Recovering

Thanks so much everyone for your nice words, prayers, and thoughts for my dad. He is recovering well and I was able to talk to him for a little bit this morning. It was really wonderful to hear his voice! It gave me more confidence that he would recover completely so we can see each other soon. I feel like I'm getting my "spunk" back little by little and it feels good.

What else we've been up to?

1. Season opening at Dallas Children's Theater with "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day."

2. Still going strong with swimming. My heart swells up watching Ella do so well. Boy, she is competitive too. Last night it was just her and a little boy. She watched that little kiddo like a hawk (lol!) and always made sure she came in first. Ha-ha! She loves working hard and for that I'm so proud of her. Yesterday she learned the 'dolphin' kick using the kickboard and continued practising her backstroke.

(I have this urge to get back to swimming and exercising. I did work out three times last week in Omaha but need to get back on a training schedule. I want things to go back to normal and this is part of my normality.)
3. And we got her school picture back! It turned out great, I think. Sweet barely-there smile, she's got!

Tender mercies

This week our family was tried, and quite heavily. My dad, tataie, had a life-threatening gastro-intenstinal hemmorage and was on the brink of passing on the other side. I can't describe the unsettling feelings of anxiety and fear, and the many fervent prayers that went up in his behalf over the past couple of days. He is progressing well but still needs a lot of prayers and comfort. I can only imagine what my poor mom went through. She is so wonderful and strong and so is he. He truly fought for his life. It just feels like nothing will be the same having gone through this experience. Traveling plans have slightly changed now. We will have them with us in November instead of this next Wednesday when they were initially scheduled to fly in. Unfortunately they will miss Ella's birthday and Halloween and other fun things we had planned throughout the month. But we are grateful they will be with us and we'll plan more fun activities for when they're here. I am just grateful he is with us. This, coupled with my intermitent sinus issues from last week have thrown me for a loop. I am left to ponder on the fragility of life. I just want to say how grateful I am for a loving Heavenly Father who watches and doesn't forsake his children. He for sure has not forsaken my daddy. I am grateful for a Father who hears and listens to prayer, a Father who is forever patient and loving. (He showed so much love to Ella by allowing her to have an easy strepthroat episode in that she only had one day of fever and is almost back to her normal and chirpy self.) And I am grateful for His Son who made is all possible for us to be healed of physical and spiritual infirmities and get a second chance.

I am grateful for my wonderfully loving daughter and husband who have been so supportive through all this. Their sweet and sincere prayers have sure been heard. The few conference talks I tuned in were wonderful, and I thank thee, dear Father for such inspired and wonderful prophets. Now I just need to get well and back into my groove before life gets ahead of me.

This and that

This little sweetheart loves fancy glasses. She picked this one up at Ikea a little while ago and she wants to drink almost anything out of it.

Cheers!

And the backyard sidewalk/alley is almost done! Looks gorgeous, I think.

AND..... Hrishi will be skydiving this weekend!!! Oh my gosh, I'm so scared for him! It'll be tandem, in other words there will be someone, a professional sky diver diving with them and opening the parachutte. He's going to be doing this with three of our other friends. Crazy, crazy, crazy!!!! Exciting but still scary to me :) He's been talking about doing this for a while but now that's actually going to happen, makes me scared! However, I am very proud of him! :)

Some more of Ella's art now. She loves to draw and doodle. She'll do it while riding in the car, at the breakfast table, any whichever way or place she can.  I love the details in each of the pictures. She is talented (I think) and can't wait to take some art/drawing lessons. I don't know when that'll be but apparently there is a program at school, Young Rembrandts or something like that, for first graders and up.

Whimsical!

(She was proud of the roses she drew in the left-hand side picture above.)

(There is a little bird nest with chicks waiting for their momma birdie who is flying toward the nest. And it's obviously raining and her character has an umbrella :))

(I think I know who'll be designing my Christmas cards this year! :))

A labor free weekend

This long weekend I feel like we indeed rested from our labors! And boy, did that feel good?!!

Swimming, rock climbing, zPizza, shopping, and visiting friends were the only "tasks" on our to-do list. Well, Hrishi had to deal with fixing the sprinkler system but once that got done, it was a smooth ride.

On Saturday, since it was Ganesh Chaturti, a dear Hindu family festival, Hrishi made delicious modaks, which are like little rice dumplings filled with yummy grated coconut, poppy seeds, and sweetened with jaggery (whole cane sugar.) It is usually served with warm ghee (clarified butter) but for obvious reasons (Ella's food allergies and my diet), only he enjoyed the dish with the traditional ghee topping! :)

Finally Ella got to do some rockclimbing after a long time. She loved it and didn't seem to have gotten rusty or anything. Love this picture where she and Hrishi are climbing at the same time:

We had our friends, the Fernandes, with us this time. Their oldest son who is one year younger than Ella was super excited to try. Ella was playing "instructor" carefully giving him climbing directions :)

The younger one was happily cheering and posing for pictures:

After rock climbing, we went next door to zPizza and enjoyed our favorite: chicken bbq with tomatoes, corn, red onion, and vegan cheese.

I love this one:

And can't really tell you how happy and grateful I am that there this one pizzeria that we can go to!!

After lunch we stopped by "Builder Bear" and got a Lamb! :) (She earned this for obedience and for putting up with a TB shot we had to have done for her for our adoption paperwork.) "Happy" is an understatement:

(Take note of its outfit: mandatory long pants and long sleeve shirt/hoodie!

(For some reason, Ella loves long pants and long sleeves one her stuffed animals AND  herself! Lol!) :)

Sunday was nice, went to church, then did some grilling with friends.

Today went to the park and just hang out together:

(tire swing= BIG favorite!)

("Super girl"!!!)

And after the park and my workout, we had to say good-bye to daddy for a week... (Darn, he has to travel again this week!! :( :(  We then got ready for Ella's swim lesson. She did great although today she started with a new instructor. I'm really proud of her for being so dilligent and working so hard! (Inspite of waking up at 6:20 this morning thinking it's a school day and not being able to go back to sleep, and not napping this afternoon, she still gave it her 100%.  This on top of the instructor change. Moreover, when the 30 mins of class were up, she came out and ran to the other end of the pool (where there were no classes) to practise for a few more minutes! Well, if that's not dedication, I don't know what is?! Lol :)

And I naively thought that she's going to be wiped out after such a full day and just fall asleep in the car on the way home! Oh, I was wrong! She played Angry Birds on my phone and when we got home put this beautiful drawing up on her easel! How can she do all this when I was ready to throw in the towel at 3ish today after my workout????!!!!

The finished product:

Tomorrow we're off to work/school but luckily it's a short week! (Short also means that it'll be even more packed!) Oh well, life is good!

Good things

This Saturday we went through our first full day of training for foster-to-adopt:  the S.M.A.R.T training, Supervision, Motivation, and Response Tecqniques. Good things to be learned, in fact great things. What's nice is that they have immediate applicability in our parenting with Ella. Once again I realized how long ways away I am from becoming the kind of parent that I want to be (i.e. infinitely patient, never yelling, or getting aggravated no matter what, detached yet so loving and in the moment) but I received more knowledge and tools to help me do it. Good thing because I so needed it!

Another good thing is that we have these wonderful friends who babysat Ella at heir house the whole six hours we were in training. They have two little adorable boys who love Ella and she loves them. Really grateful to them for doing this for us. And we're grateful to her for being so understanding and sweet and never saying no to spending the whole day away from us.

We picked her up and after a quick stop at home, we went to another friend's house for a birthday party. Had lots of fun catching up with them and watching the kids play.

Another good thing.... somehow we got caught up on laundry, folding, and ironing! Hrishi did it all! I took care of the cooking.

Life is good. Oh, and almost forgot, speaking of good things we had some amazing italian food on our training lunch break at this little family-owned restaurant, Vetoni http://www.vetonispizza-pasta.com/. The food was heavenly! I never had such scrumptious meatballs, chicken basil, and garlic rolls! So rich and delish! But I'm going low carb for a few days to remedy the "damage." :)

Driven

To be driven: that's what I was taught by my good parents in my early elementary school years, and later on, tried to emulate on my own. Having the drive to work hard at things no matter how bad the odds look, no matter what everyone else thinks or says. It started in elementary school when I learned that an "ok" completed homework assignment was really not ok or acceptable. Not (just) because we were sticklers for "A's" (ha-ha! :)) but simply because they knew that I could do better. And that's how I learned that I, and really anyone, can do better, that there's always room to improve and to elevate oneself past previous experiences, performances, etc., and do better and better every time.

And just like my parents worked hard to engrain this spirit and drive into my heart and brain, Hrishi and I are hoping to do the same for and with Ella. Maybe sometimes it feels like too much recognizing that she's only almost six but I think it starts early. 

A couple of days back we were at Target in the dollar section of the store (I love that part of the store, don't you?) where most of the time I find these awesome little gizmos, fun school and learning supplies, stationary and the such. Since I love flash cards, I grabbed quite a few on addition, subtraction, phonics, sight words, and world famous landmarks.  Knowing that Ella is tired at the end of her full-day of kindergarten, after-school and extra curriculars such as piano or ballet, I've been trying to figure out a way to squeeze in a bit of "home learning" into her already busy schedule, here and there. So last night, while she was playing in her toy den/closet, I went in, sat on the floor with her, flash cards, pen and paper in hand, and while we're playing dress-up with her stuffed animals, we're also doing additions and sight word reading. Pretty nice, I thought! She didn't seem to mind it too much, in fact when she realized she was getting it, wanted to do more.

And while Ella made progress with her addition skills, what I learned from all this is that I can always rely on the Spirit to teach me how to teach her, how to get creative and do the things which I know are right for her and for us, even with very little time on my hands.

Speaking of creativity, I remember some really neat stories told by my dad from when his dad, my grandfather, would have world geography lessons with him and his brother as young boys, using an imaginary map on their kitchen wall. He would teach and then drill them on major rivers, mountain chains, desserts, mineral riches, landmarks, or capital cities of the world. He was a wonderfully skilled man with his hands and an avid learner, mostly self-taught. He had a very rare love for learning and reading. (He even read Selections of the Book of Mormon before he passed away.) Needless to say that I share and treasure these stories a lot. But this is for another post.

It's not always easy to get motivated and stay driven amidst life's crazy ups and downs.... but it's probably the thing that helps us move forward and keeps life interesting and exciting. It has rewards. And speaking of rewards, I was very fortunate to be recognized for my work contributions yesterday with a BRAVO! company award. It's the first one in my seven-year tenure with the company, and so it means a lot to me. And although I know that my work is appreciated every day, a little official recognition doesn't hurt! :) It feels good, very good, in fact. The crazy thing is that I had a premonition the day before yesterday and all day yesterday that I would get it. I don't know why...maybe Hrishi is right: it's probably because I really really wanted it! :) (And Hrishi, even from out of town made a lot of funny jokes on me but I love him anyway! You see, for him this is a piece of cake since he's got quite a few BRAVO!'s and other awards under his belt.)