2017 so far, in .... one entry!

I honestly don't know how life can get so busy. It has been so much so for us since last Christmas  (yes since December 2016), when we took a lovely trip to India to visit family and do some sightseeing but never got around to write about it. Of course, I have loads of pictures to post from that trip. Suffices to say for now that we had fun, saw the Taj Mahal, and made some great memories with our family there.

India Trip. Ella had a lot of fun with cousins Maitreyee and Teertha! We took a trip to see the Taj Mahal and other beautiful sites of India and had a good time with family.

Here the girls are swinging in the garden swing at grandma's and grandpa's house:

And they spent Christmas together!

Fancy hotel bathroom selfies!

Riding to Delhi in our own bus.

The beautiful and unforgettable Taj Mahal.

One more.

We stayed at a really nice hotel that night. It was all lit up and beautifully decorated for Christmas. 

That same night we went out to visit this beautiful marble shop which was also the place they made all these amazing tables, vases, and plates.

Our Christmas card:

We bought this beauty for our home:

 Another historical place we visited:

Big family gathering: it was to celebrate grandpa's 70th birthday.

Happy Aaji and Azoba!

Daughter/father dance.

All the cousins had a great time with the photo booth!

 
(One of Rishi's friends gave him this pretty pine tree as a present. One year later, it grew pretty big and the family decorated it nicely for Christmas!

Beautiful cousins!

Grandma and grandpa ready for out trip to Mahableshawr in the mountains.  Aaji is wearing her Romanian top, "ie."

We had fun ringing in the New Year's together, making cakes, kebobs, and pizzas.

Marmalade

We love her. She came in as our early Christmas gift last December (2015) after Ella kept her end of the deal and got all bright and shiny straight "As" in school. Although that WAS our deal, part of me, deep inside knew that somehow I was going to get her and us another sweet kitty, after taking Toby's disappearance not too well. Our beautiful black cat Toby went missing beginning of November. We looked and looked, and called, and posted flyers on mailboxes and facebook groups, but nothing. There had been some sightings but we were never lucky enough to find the cat people thought it might have been him .So we missed him lots, we still do. Back to the early Christmas gift: after searching far and low on a couple of Animal Control Adoption websites in the area, Ella finally decided on one little kitty. After seeing the picture, Hrishi warmed up to the possibility and said "yes." So around Dec 21st here I was, kennel in hand at the Sugar Land Animal Shelter, taking Marmalade home with me for a "sleep over" to see how she'd do with us and if we decided to keep her afterwards.

 

And then... there were 3 again....

It's been an awful long time since I last updated our family blog/family history book. Ella loves to go through our yearly blog books and reminisce memories and look at pictures. Unfortunately life got so busy, almost swept me off my feet into a insane schedule at work, school, and pretty much nothing else.

We had my parents with us all summer and through fall. They will now be able to come and live with us for longer periods of time.

The girls, Annabelle and Bailey went back into the foster system, hopefully another loving family who can love and care for them, and if possible offer them permanency. We are still waiting for that placement/child who will stay longer, will stay forever. We're currently in the process of switching adoption agencies but takes a while too. In the meantime, praying that we get notifications of children available via broadcasts, and that somehow we get selected to go to RAS (selection of future adoptive family.)  That requires that we stay on top of all of our trainings which I'm in charge of, and I can tell you they do take time. But I know it's worthwhile so I do it.

Ella's been growing into this wonderful, brave, sweet, smart young lady that amazes me every day. She accomplished a huge milestone this past weekend at her horse show where she moved up to the Short-stirrup division. A dream of hers of two years now. Her and Piccolo. She did great, placed 4th in one of her rounds in over fences (jumping), and sixth in flat. That is great considering she had 11 other riders/horses to compete with. Mostly all older and more experienced than her. She is truly over the moon about all this. And so are we (mom and dad.)

She's been doing great in school as well, and I think she is really enjoying getting older and smarter. Just yesterday she had her ABRSM piano exam and after knowing how much effort and time commitment it requires, I asked her if she wanted to do it again next week. She said "Of course, I do!!" I honestly didn't expect that. I'm so proud of her. Without wasting any time, I ordered the next set of prep books for next year's exam.
She is still hanging strong in Matchbook (the literary competition she did last year.) Reading those books like there's nobody's business. All 35 of them. Over and over, plus some other favorites she picks from the book fair or the library.

That's is for now. Trying to keep this short so my task to record our life on here does not become overwhelming.

A few pictures to follow.

And then there were five!

Life just got crazier as of yesterday around 2pm when these two sweethearts were placed in our home by CPS. I can't wait to see them after work. I can see us falling in love with these sweet munchkins pretty soon!!

Ella is the best big sister anyone can ever have. This girl has the biggest heart, just like her dad. My heart is full and I'm high with joy, pretty much running on that only at the moment, lol. Sleep was pretty scarce last night, needles to say. 

Wanted to share/record our big news.

Life

It's been a while I made any updates. Life is good, busy, crazy, and trying at times. I've been struggling with allergies and sinus issues a lot lately. But I've also been blessed to learn and grow too.

I moved jobs (within the same company thankfully), and I am now liking my new department and responsibilities, and most importantly the fact that I'm much relieved from the stress of a pretty crazy boss and clients. In Fall, I've gotten approved to take my Project Management Professional (PMP) certification exam, for which I'm very proud of but also concerned with how am I going to find the time to study for. I feel very blessed and grateful for Heavenly Father's love and care for me. Before finding this other opportunity within the company, I submitted my resignation and started looking, had a promising interview with a company in a completely different industry but since this new opening came up in a group I was interested before, I decided not to pass it up. I've been looking into telecommute opportunities and luckily my current employer has started offering such arrangements. We will see if I can benefit from it at least for a couple of days a week.

Our family is doing well, we're still working towards adoption someday. We pre-selected a few times over the summer for pre-adoptive placements but things didn't work out (I'm sure for the best) and did not get those placements. There have also been a lot of changes in the adoption agency we are with and it didn't help. Meantime we're enjoying the life we have, the trials and blessings we receive.

Ella is doing great, growing and bringing more and more joy in our lives.
She's learning who is she, what she likes, and teaching us a few things too along the way.
Horseback riding: she's still at it, although very recently she came to a crossroads of whether she was going to continue or not. Challenged with being bucked off, not getting to where she was planning to, lacking confidence, but she decided to keep at it and work with her pony. I think she'll keep going with this. She's also expressed interest in starting tennis (she's got an amazing backhand and not too shabby forehand too!)

 
School: doing good, trying her hand at different things: made it through round 10 of Matchbook, a literary competition, and would really love to make the final team that will represent the school at district. She knows that we are very proud of her that from a year or so ago with hardly ever wanting to read a "thick" chapter book, last summer she read 10 of the Texas Bluebonnet award winners, and this past summer read all 20 chapter books. To enter the Matchbook competition, she had to read an additional 15 titles which she did. We are indeed very proud of her.

She has many favorites amongst these titles:

She tried Nat Geo bee, didn't make the team, but had fun in the process. She's still going strong with piano. A natural talent, most recently starting to play her own little compositions.

 

She had a part in the school Christmas program and did great! Many kids auditioned and only a handful were selected which made this even sweeter.

Did some jumping during the Christmas break.

We had a nice little Christmas getaway to Cali and enjoyed the Pacific Coast Hwy beautiful places.  

Yesterday was a big day: aside from the fact that the temperatures were in the high 70's, and that church was wonderful, Ella accomplished a left lead canter on Piccolo, something she has not been able in a long time. And to her delight we got a very fun family picture with both Piccolo and Marmalade, our newest kitty addition. Marmalade's intake to our family deserves its own post.

 

A special moment of love. Marking Ella's determination to keep trying and enjoy this sport, and get the response she needs from her beloved horse.

 

So so happy!!!

Easy to see why, once you see this:

 And this 

 And this

This post was written  last February when we thought we would be able to keep you forever. We were blessed to have you in our lives for about four beautiful months. Love you and miss you sweet Kaylynn!!!