Diwali 2014

Diwali/Deepavali, I must say the most tiring Indian festival. It begins almost months ahead of the actual festival date. Lots of cleaning, shopping, decorations, praying, parties etc etc etc.

This year shopping was out of my list as all three(me, hubby and baby) had new clothes for festival already ready, Thanks to our previous month holiday. So one task out of the list.

Next was the major headache that any working women has...CLEANING. I was struggling and juggling to complete this task for weeks and with my little one around it was much more tougher to keep her busy while we were busy with the actual task. Here is how we turned cleaning a fun and entertaining family activity.

Pihu and Papa cleaning and playing tallest tower game. She the smile on her face.

 This year I also made some decorative diya's. Bought some mud diya's and using fabric paints and glitters gave them little makeovers.

These handpainted diya's formed return gifts for those who visited us on the festival day. Nicely packed with some prasad and sweets.

How can any festival start or end without festival special goodies & foodies? This year we(me and mom) made few items the so called "pakwaan". OMG after office making these items till midnight without even tasting them and then next day again back to work, what a hectic week it was. 

We made 'namak paare', 'mixture' and 'khove ki gujiya'; as usual gulab jamuns were last in the list and poor thing they couldn't make it to the festival. We made them almost 20 days after the festival ;)

No festival in india is celebrated without rangoli. Here is what I made at my house a chutuku mutuku corner rangoli at the main entrance.

We normally arrange a separate altar for special pooja's. We have set one next to our regular pooja altar, the entire pooja was performed here only.

Diwali without crackers is incomplete, considering environment in mind we tried to keep our fireworks in limit. We ended our day with the little firework just as ritual.

And yeh my little pataka in all her cute cute nakhra's below

This year there was diya decoration competition for parents at my little ones school, below are some pics from the event.

Hope you enjoyed reading my blog....!!!!!!

Pihu's first Vacation - part 3

Oct 4th:

Today chuku and chinnu made lemon rice, far better than what we had in munnnar :). For pihu I made the standard aloo paratha which my cutie pie luvs. Then we all started for Alleppey. On the way to Allepey we shopped a little bit, I took the hamrock which I have been wanting for long. It was a 4 x 8 ft one which shash bargained for 700 Rs/- I remember the same piece in Shilparamam @ hyderabad cost 2200/-. 

Then upon reaching the boat jetty area @ Alleppey we hired a boat for 2000 Rs/- for 2 hrs, It was a beautiful pleasant ride. The village areas, the coconut trees, paddy fields, sight of boat houses, cool breeze though the sun burning high exactly on top of our head. From 12:20 to 2:20 pm we enjoyed the boat ride. 

Then we started back to kochi, on the way back we had lunch @ hotel Cassia. The ambiance of this hotel was excellent. I liked the bamboo baby hi-chair, infact they even had a baby rocker for infants. Food was also good but the service was bit slow and infact confusing, some of our starters were served after the main course. The only thing bad was the lemon soda which was not at all cool and when we asked for some cooling effect(I actually was expecting ice) I don't know what they did but now it was no more soda, looks like they added cold water.

Then we started back to fort kochi, we went to the beach it was very very clean and with lots n lots of sea shells. I was worried pihu would be scared as she dint enjoy her first beach visit during my chennai offical trip, but this time she enjoyed a lot. She played for 5-10 min but whole-heartedly. We even saw a marriage photo shoot happening @ the beach. We quickly returned and changed pihu's wet and sandy clothes. 

Then we started for Santa Cruz Basilica church which is near by the beach. It is famous church in kochi but when we reached there it was busy with prayers going on, so we could not go inside. Took some pics from outside.

Then we started back for some shopping. I wanted to buy one more kasavu saree but almost all shops were close by 8:00 pm. I tried my luck @ Oberon mall but couldn't find anything. But yeah we took some snaps @ the 3 monkeys kiosk. Then from another near by shop I took a kerala kutti frock for pihu and her favourite chamsha(goggles). For myself I found some stone bangles and junk jewelleries.

Then we returned home, cooked food, ate and off to bed.

Oct 5th:

Our last day of our vacation, days pass on so fast specially the good ones ;)

Feeling bad that our vacation is ending and we have to go back to our routine schedule but I promised myself that our next vacation will not take such long :) We got ready packed up everything had semiya upma made by chuku and chinnu and started to airport around 8:50 am. We reached by 9:40 and saying a emotional good bye went for check-in.

Pihu was crying chuku chacha hona chachi hona, but I made some story and tried to keep her busy. After the security check pihu saw lays at the food court and since we dint treat her with her favourite lays for more than 5 days we bought one pack for her. She was enjoying her lays while we waited for the boarding call. There was a little girl sitting quietly with her papa, pihu offered her one chip and she refused to take, but pihu was so demanding she ultimately forced that girl to take the chip, finally the girl has to give up and take the chip. Hurrayyyyy I won was Pihu's expression :)

Today is mom's birthday so I called her from airport only, spoke to her for a minute and hanged up. Then the boarding started since it was a big Queue we were waiting at the seating area only. Hardly only few were left out to board in pihu suddenly said potty. OMG potty at the airport again. I rushed to the rest room and got her finish her work and ran for boarding as expected we were the last one to board in. Finally boarded in and off to HYDERABAD.

GOODDDDDDD BYEEEEE KOCHIIIIIIIII............!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

While we were waiting for our hamrock @ hyderabad airport pihu enjoyed @ the RGIA airport. Having fun with almost all the items over there including a ATM, battery operated golf cart and the batukamma flowers. 

Finally reached home around 2:00 pm, with that our first family vacation ends with lots of happy and fun filled memories to cherish and remember forever.

GOODDDDDDD BYEEEEE VACATIONNNNNNNNN..............!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pihu's first Vacation - part 2

Oct 2nd:

Got up early and got ready but by the time we started for sight seeing it was already 9:15 am courtesy Shash always a drama king and late latif.

On the way to munnar town we stopped by at this ammavaru temple. Being navratri they had the bommala koluvu inside temple.

Then as we came out first thing everyone wanted was food, so we went to silver tips for buffet breakfast. It was awesome food infact the best breakfast of our entire trip, shash and chuku did the justice to the cost. 

After a nice breakfast we started for sight seeing. We covered the following places

Tea museum: pihu was asleep for almost 50% of our time in tea museum so we were able to concentrate on the short movie and the demo. We purchased some tea from the museum.

The next stop was Mattupetty dam. There was heavy jam near the dam, we enjoyed the mur-mura chat, ground nut chat, tota pari mango, pineapple. All were too good. Street food is always mouth watering.

From there we went to elephant arrival point, we could only see a baby elephant.
Then upon return back to the town we stopped by near the boating point but due to heavy rush the entry was closed so we directly went to elephant ride.

At elephant ride point it was an hour long wait and pihu was almost sleepy all 4 of us (me, shash, chuku, chinnu) tried to keep her engaged with all sort of tactics. She even fed those elephants pineapples while waiting for our turn, Then finally our turn came and we went to the ride. Pihu enjoyed to the fullest. Me and chinnu were enjoying but almost with our heart in mouth :) Finally the ride was over and we again fed those elephant with pineapples but this time from top of the elephant.

Then we started back to the town we all were hungry and pihu was sleeping so thought to give a try to the street food on the munnar town street. We all had kerala paratha. Actually me and chuku just had like snacks but shash and chinnu had it like dinner.

After the dinner cum snack time we went on for some shopping, took 2 Kerala sarees, 2 dress materials, 1 baby frock, few junk jewelries and some goodies. Pihu woke up and was hungry so we went for dinner at silver tips. Infact only me, pihu and chuku had dinner & then back to room and off to bed.

Oct 3rd: HAPPYYYYYYYYYY DUSHERRAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

I wanted to get up early today so that I can talk to family members on phone and convey festival wishes but as the thumb rule of parenting goes, when you need your kids to cooporate the most its only then they trouble you the most; today pihu troubled a lot. Then finally all got up around 7:00 am and got ready. We then checked out of that resort.

Finally we were out of that place, before starting back to kochi everyone wanted to have breakfast at silver tips so that no need to stop in middle. So we went back to Silver tips but being long weekend there was heavy traffic jam(almost 3km) till munnar so we took a detour a bit lengthy route and finally reached silver tips. It was almost the closing time but the staff let us in.

They even served us almost every item and that too hot hot. Yummyyyyyyyyyyy.........!!!!!!! & the time to say GOOD BYE MUNNAR. 

On the way back we tried to take some snaps in the tea gardens but ladies working there dint let us in. One lady was courteous enough to let us in and we took few snaps and managed to wind up in 10 min. Then we took a small detour to Attukal waterfalls, it was just 2 km detour so worth to spend some addition 30 min. Only thing scary was the road to the waterfall, it is a single lane ghat road and same road is used for entry and exit. So if an opposite vehicle comes then we are blocked unless some one dares to move back of get down the tar road.

We then stopped by at the tea gardens were we got ample time to take the pics. It was a nice place and nice view. Then we started back to kochi.

We reached Kochi around 5:00 pm. Everyone was hungry. I cooked nice food for all and by the time we completed our supper it was around 6:30 pm. After taking some rest we just went for a drive + shopping.

But in kochi almost the roads get deserted by 9:00 pm and shops get closed by 8:00 only so it was altogether a no shopping no sight seeing day...only travel. Finally we came back home and off to bed.

Rest continued in next part....

Pihu's first Vacation - part 3