Pihu's first Vacation - part 1

Its almost 2 yrs but we haven't dared to take pihu out for a holiday/vacation. In fact we didn't plan for a holiday since we got married. This year shash planned for our first family vacation to Kerala. With a toddler vacation is risky due to weather and water change but taking a break was must.

We started to Kochi from Hyderabad on Sep 30th 2014 via flight. Shash cannot travel for more than 12 hrs in train. So flights are his first and foremost and the only choice.

Sep 30th:

Since it was 9:00 am flight we had to start early from home. We started around 7:20 am, pihu was still sleeping. The cab driver was very rude person and was driving like a bullock cart when we insisted him to drive bit fast he started fighting with us. It was a new indica still wit a T/R no. but had already met accidents twice. Finally we reached airport on time and even Pihu got up. The checkin formalities were finish by 8:30 am, we still had 20 min for boarding, so we had little photo shoot.

Pihu's potty was my major concern and I was wondering how will she (infact I) manage in flight and just in time she said M potty. She finished her fresh up task @ RGIA airport only, half tension gone. Then we boarded in, pihu was doing masti in flight with her papa, calling all air hostess as Mausi. :)

She had her breakfast(aloo ka paratha) which I cooked at home and played for the entire duration of flight. Just while descending before landing at kochi she was feeling irritation in her ears due to pressure change and I made her sleep during last 5 min :) We came out of kochi airport around 11:00 am.

Chuku chacha came to pick us. He hired a ford figo without a driver so for the entire trip shash was our official driver :)

We first stopped by @ aryas restuarant on the way to chukus home for breakfast. It was OK OK. Thank god they didn't use coconut oil for my dosa and I got to know here that keralities drink hot, really hot water not just warm with food. After breakfast we reached home around 1:00 pm took some rest then I cooked lunch at home and after a heavy lunch @4:00 pm we took some rest.

After chinnu came around 5:00 pm we planned to go to LuLu mall.

Pihu enjoyed the rides over there. There was a mini roller coaster which even chinnu is scared of and Pihu loved that ride. She wanted to go for a second round. Infact she did go for round 2.

Then we took some  food parcel at LuLu only and returned home. By the time we all ate and went to bed it was already 12:30 am.

Oct 1st:

Chuku and chinnu planned for dosa breakfast. By the time we all got ready, had stomach full and heartful of breakfast and started it was already 11:15 am. :)

We started to munnar, GPS was lost in the middle leading us to take a detour and not the actual national highway it was so deserted that we were doubting whether it goes to munnar or not. At some points the road was so steep that I felt like my heart is in my mouth. It was so scary. Finally it merged with the actual route somewhere 10 kms away from munnar and we were back on track.

Finally we reached the resort which we booked, it was 5kms ahead of munnar, & honestly that was the night mare of our trip. The most horrible thing was the steep sloppy entrance for the so called resort which actually was not a resort it  was a hotel. We quickly unloaded the luggage and went to munnar town for some food and mainly to find another hotel, but being a long weekend there were no availability at all. :(

Finally we gave up and planned to go to the room only to sleep. Then we ate nice punjabi food at the punjabi dhaba . The food was served hot hot even at 4:30 pm, it was less spicy so shash dint actually like it.

Then we went to the forest flower garden, it was almost time for closure they quickly let us in and I guess we hardly spent 20 min in the garden. Few flowers were really beautiful. There were these ornamental pineapple which caught attention of our medico(Chinnu).

Then the next stop was this famous photo point, weather being cloudy this point was awesome, it was almost the sunset time so the colors on the mountain were beyond words. Unfortunately our bestest best camera's could not capture the beauty of nature. Few things are only for your eyes. We still tried to take some pics, we were able to see the smoke coming out of our mouth as we spoke. Had some fun time there and then as it was getting darker we started back to the town.

By the time we reached munnar town it was 7:00 pm so we went for little shopping.

I dint buy much, only some candies, Eucalyptus oil and raisins. Chuku and chinnu did some home made chocolates shopping which finally I got them to Hyderabad. Sorry Guys dint have choice.

Then we went to the Sujatha Inn for dinner, it was the most horrible dinner of the trip. Lemon rice was actually Jeera rice colored yellow and with lemon slices..eeeeeee none of us liked it. Pihu madam did some potty drama for 10 min but poor baby she dint feel comfortable to go in that place so we quickly returned to room and off to bed.

Rest continued in next part.

Pihu's first Vacation - part 2

Pihu's first road trip

Pihu's first long road trip.  A Weekend trip from hyderabad to bhadrachalam on Sep 20th & 21st 2014. 

Bhadrachalam is an important Hindu pilgrimage town, situated on the banks of Godavari River.The town is famous for temple of Lord Rama.

We started by our own car around 1pm and reached bhadrachalam around 8 pm. On the way we stopped at "Highway Food Court 7 at Suryapet", mid-way between Hyderabad and Vijayawada. We ate some snacks here and pihu did lots n lots of masti.

She enjoyed with the chota bheem cutout, check her expression and poses below.

 Below is her nautanki near the garden @ the food court

 Some masti with M

Only family pic...Infact a family Selfie or shall I call it Familyfie. :)

After the little joyful break we started back on our journey. Upon reaching bhadrachalam first we went to TSTDC Haritha resort, the receptionist informed that lots of rooms are available and that the temple will close around 8:30 pm so instead of checking in we directly went for darshan and it was very very peaceful darshan as the temple was empty. We got darshan 2 times and the last seva i.e pavalimpu seva started around 9 pm.  We took tickets and were allowed to sit inside the temple. When we said pihu "jai jai ko jo jo karare"(they are putting lord to sleep) she started singing A, B, C, D (the lullaby I sing for her) :).

After that we took a room in near by hotel(Sri Venkateswara Hotel), it was cheaper than Haritha and decent enough. After freshening up we ate some fried rice and pihu ate dosa. It was OK food, but cockroaches were something which at first were not seen, but suddenly popped up as the food came.

Next day morning after freshening up, we checked out and ate breakfast outside. Dint dare to try the in house restaurant at the hotel. 

Shash and pihu doing masti @ the hotel.

While shash was busy with check out formalities me and pihu were having fun in the car. Wow we got the gundu papa's pic also captured. 

After Breakfast, First we went to Godavari for darshan, no wonder it was dirty. Then we went to temple for darshan since kalyanam was going on little Queue was there so we went to the museum first. Then we took archana ticket and got archana done. For archana we were allowed inside till the main garbha gudi.

Then we purchased some ladoos prasadam and started back to hyderabad around 11:15 am. 

Only pic of ours which we could take @ the temple.

              

We stopped by @ kottagudem for little milk break for pihu.  Then we started back, next stop was at khamam in the spicy restaurant kaveri for lunch. Then we started back and reached home around 8 pm.

And thats the end of our and pihu's first road trip....!!!!!!!!!!

Pihu's 1st Painting Session

Painting is not my cup of tea, but my family is full of good painters/artists. My mom she did what not, fabric painting, nib painting, patch painting, oil painting, glass painting, this painting, that painting etc etc... My dad is also good at painting he used to do lots of science fair projects with us way back in 90's and even today he is good with pens he does lots of calligraphy. My bro is very good with painting too I will someday dedicate a separate post of his art.


Back to Pihu's painting skills, I can confidently say its in the blood. Couple of things which surprised me on her first painting session.

1. She was very excited when I said lets do painting. She was doing it for the fist time so not sure what she understood when I said painting.
2. Paints did not surprise/shock her at all. She was neither curious seeing the colors nor scared. I guess was more excited to hold the brush.
3. This little lady dint need any assistance in holding the brush, she was holding with such ease as if she was born with the paint brush. :)

FUN with colors

TA-DA the final product

1. Finger print leaves & 2. Hand print trunk & finger print branch + leaves

I could easily keep her busy for an hour, I am pretty sure we will be doing few more creative paintings with this method. Keep watching for more.

Few tips

1. Use washable colors as they create less mess and are easily cleanable. I used Rangeela tempara colors.
2. Kids will not cooperate for long so get the main stuff done first as soon as possible and then leave them to have fun with the colors.
3. Keep multiple paint brushes else kids will surely mix the colors dipping the same brush in multiple bottles. At least this is what pihu taught me:)
4. Currently I am tuned into the recycling mode, so for the base I have used old wedding card leaves which are thicker than the regular paper.

Hope you had fun reading my experience...!!!

My first blog: Lunch invite

Most of my time I have spent in organizing events for office, friends and family.  This post I would dedicate to the invites which I prepare for most of the events, either for friends/family/my Occasion. 

This is the recent lunch invite which I prepared for one of my team member, In fact this was the one which  gave me the idea of "why not keep all the ideas in a blog and share with all".