Anjali’s parents had their 50th anniversary.  Here is Anjali with her parents in the middle and her brother on the right.  In the front and back row are her cousins.

Here are the kids with their Great Grandmother!

Here are the five of us.

Here are the kids at Anjali’s uncle’s vacation house outside of Pune.

One of the days we went to Sinhagad, a fort from the 1600′s with quite a colorful history.  Here are the kids at the entrance to the fort.

Here is the view from inside the protected walls of the fort.

On most days, we did our shopping trips and visits in a scooter rickshaw.

We did a side trip to Nagpur which is about a two hour flight from Pune.

We visited my uncles and cousins there.

My cousin Shirish (on the left in the photo above) took us to a wildlife sanctuary outside of Pune.

Here are some pictures from the Pench Tiger Sanctuary.  Unfortunately, we didn’t see any tigers but lots of other big game including sambars, horned deer, antelopes and all kinds of monkeys!

On Christmas Day, we went out for Chinese food at Mainland China in Pune.  Probably the best Chinese food in India! Christmas Day in India is like any other day there.

On our last day in Pune, Anjali was lucky enough to catch her 30th year high school reunion at St. Joseph’s.  Here she is with her friends.

What a trip!

You’ll be seeing these on our holiday cards this year!

At my parent’s house, Madhu and her kids visited one day.  Here’s a pic of Maya (Annika’s cousin) and Annika.

Here are the boys with their little cousin Kiran.

And finally a group shot.

For Thanksgiving diner, we went up to Abhijit’s house for dinner.

The boys got all dressed up.  Annika refused to dress up, still wearing her trademark Abercrombie and Fitch casual clothes.

Abhijit had cooked all weekend long and had quite the elaborate spread!

Here are Rajiv and Nikhil goofing around.

And finally a pic of Anjali and Ashwini.

The girls pose for a picture (Ankhita, Mira, Maya, Annika and Harsheta).

In the evening, we went over to Arun and Jo’s house for dinner and fireworks.

Here are some of the backyard fireworks.

The boys graciously accepting their gifts!

Here are some pics from the weekend.

First up, Madhu and her kids Maya and Kiran came over with their puppy dalmation.

Here are Annika and Maya.

Here are Vikram and KiranThe two puppies played all day long.

They took the occasional break and then started their wrestling again.Kiran and Vikram also wrestled much of the day.

One of the days, we went to Abhijit’s house. Here are some pics from the evening and the following day.

Here is Abhijit showing Nikhil his secret chicken recipe.

Here is the full gang (Nikhil, Vikram, Rajiv, Apurva and Annika).The girls did a backyard campout for the night.

Here is Annika with her best friend Lizzy who came along with us.

Here is Vikram being camera shy!

On the boat ride, we saw lots of sea lions and dolphins.

Here is the start of the 4.5 mile hike on the island.

Here we all are just above Pelican Bay.

Can you say Chocolate Fondue!

At the hospital, they now send you home with a CD of x-ray pictures.  This is cool – no more films.

Here are some pictures with their cousins.

Theses are some of her cousins.

Here is Anjali with her favorite uncle Makarand Mama.

Here is Anjali with her favorite fruit Jambul – a cross between a plum and a blueberry (and very sweet).

Anjali went to Pune for a wedding.  Here is a picture of the bride and groom (Sujay and Aparna) along with the family.

Here is Anjali with her cousin Shantanu (also an elegible bachelor).

Annika and Nikhil had their final two races of the season.

The first was the SCMAF Championship.  This is a Southern California track meet with qualifiers thru our city and county meets.

Annika qualified for and ran the 400M and 200M.  She placed third overall in the 400M with a personal best of 79 seconds and 9th in the 200M.

Nikhil ran the 1600M and placed fourth overall.

A couple of weeks after the SCMAF races, both raced in the Junior Olympic Regionals.  Both ran on two consecutive days the 1500M and the 800M races.  These were much more competitive and they were running against kids that were one year older in most cases.

Annika brought her friend Lizzy to help cheer her on.

After the race on Sunday, we went to eat at our favorite Indian restaurant in Cerritos called Jay Bharat.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Joey is finally getting into a routine.  He slept seven whole hours last night and only had two little accidents in the house today!  He is also napping a bit more during the day, and seems a lot more relaxed.

Here are some more pics.

We are crate training Joey, but in the meantime, he has picked out a cozy spot by the sofa.

Here’s a couple in our back yard.

Here are the first pictures of him in our backyard.

We have tentatively named him Joey!  The other leading names were Sprite, Baron, Google and Jamba!

Here is Vinayak with Mom, Anjali and Vikram.  Vinayak is a Junior at Purdue studying EE (my cousin Raju’s son).

Here is a picture of the kids with their cousins (Kiran and Maya).

On Thanksgiving morning, the kids ran a 5K race in San Jose called the Silicon Valley 5K.  This race had 11,000 plus runners.  Annika got 2nd place in the 9 and under category and Nihil got 2nd place in the 13 and under category.

Annika knocked another 30 seconds off her 5K time from last month and Nikhil got another sub 20 time though both were slowed down by having to dodge the slower runners that lined up in front of them.  It was crazy!

For Thanksgiving dinner, we went to Abhijit’s house.  He had spent all day cooking a monster dinner.  Here are the girls before dinner.

Here are the boys working on their seventh piece of homemade pie!

Here are all the kids after dinner.

Here they are at their Jam session.

Annika also got a couple more Webkinz.

(click on the pic to see the whole thing)

The field of catci were in full bloom.  This is a picture of the Prickly Pear cactus that grows abundant in our hills.  You will note that they have large fixed spines and smaller hairlike spines.  It is the fine hairlike spines that hurt and take weeks to remove.  I know from the experience of having fallen on one of these on a bike ride a couple of years ago.  Believe it or not, the fruit is edible and is sold in Mexican markets here in the Southland as Nopal.

Here are Vikram, Jordan and Nikhil.

Here they are at the top of Big Red.

This is a strenuous uphill that climbs 175 feet at a 12.5% grade. Here is Rajeev at the top – working up a sweat!

Here they all are at the end, thoroughly exhausted. The facial expressions are genuine pain!

A job well done. The rest of the day is relatively peaceful, with the boundless energy left on the mountains.