Happy Birthday Ba!!!

Today was Ba's birthday and the whole family enjoyed celebrating together at one of our favorite Indian restaurants that just recently opened in Irving, Bombay Chowpati!  The boys loved celebrating Ba's birthday with her, including having yummy dosas together, singing Happy Birthday, blowing out the candles on the birthday cake, eating yummy birthday cake together, and opening Ba's gifts and card that Krish wrote in for Ba!

Krish's new favorite South Indian dish: crispy rava dosa!

Arjun says, "Happy Birthday Ba!"

Boys couldn't resist chomping into Ba's sweet birthday cake
even before feeding her!

Krish proudly reading his card to Ba together
with Ba and Dada!

San Francisco Trip Part III: Shah Family Reunion! Sonoma Valley!

On Saturday, after having a family photo session at our hotel, we headed to SucherNova Farm to learn a little more about Sonoma Valley outside of vineyards and wineries.  Sonoma Valley is also known for it's farming!  With about 40 family members, we had a fun-filled, informative day of  farm animal encounters, learning various farming methods on how to grow crops, learning the cheese-making process and making loofah soap out of sheep's wool with the kids!

Krish playing with a dog who looked like Biscuit on
the farm!

Kids making wool loofah soap!

Cousins in the wool class!

Cleaning the wool.

Arjun feeding the chickens while the older kids take the wool
class.

Playing on the farm!

Lila and Diya transferring the wool to
be washed.

Kids washing the wool.

Feeling the soft wool with natural lanolin.

Sweet cousins helping the kids with their soap projects!

The kids posing with their awesome custom-made, loofah soap finished products drying!

That night, we all enjoyed The Shah Family Talent Show and banquet dinner back at the Embassy Suites.  We had a massive family Rakshabandhan where Ankur fooled all the sisters with fake lottery tickets as gifts and had Sheetal and Shailaben thinking the won twenty grand!  The kids all had a blast watching and performing in the Talent Show with our basketball star, Krish, displaying his awesome basketball shooting and dribbling skills and our not-so-shy, little charmer, Arjun, displaying his sweet singing voice and love for the Happy Birthday song and candles!  Daddy and I were so proud of both our boys and their participation in the show.  We were so impressed that Arjun was so cooperative and sang all of Happy Birthday into the microphone all by himself like a champ with his cute, high-pitched, baby voice!  Daddy and I did not expect it at all and were both with him for support so unfortunately we have no video documentation.  Nonetheless, he gave an awesome performance and the whole family loved it!

Dakshaben did an amazing job planning yet another successful Shah Family Reunion, and I thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated the opportunity to help plan some of the events including the family farm tour!

San Francisco Trip Part III: Shah Family Reunion! Muir Woods!

At last, the weekend arrived and the highly anticipated Shah Family Reunion was finally here!  Friday morning we met up with half the Shah family at Muir Woods National Monument on the way into Sonoma.  Muir Woods is a beautiful state park along the Pacific coast of southwestern Marin County, California.  It is home to hundreds of tall, majestic Coast Redwood trees that tower into the sky reaching roughly 250 feet high.  There is a scenic hiking trail for tourists and visitors to hike through these redwood trees, and the Shah family was very excited to take the journey together!

Sweet cousins, Diya, Arjun and Krish resting on a bench
along the trail!

Cousins, Krish, Diya, and Keshav!

My handsome little boy!

Family hike!

Keshav, Lila, Krish, Mommy, Daddy, Arun & Vandanabhabi

Once we arrived at the Embassy Suites in San Rafael, we relaxed with the family and did a little swimming!

San Francisco Trip Part II: AT&T Park, Mission District, and Cupertino!

On Thursday of our trip, we headed back to the city to have lunch with our Carrollton friends, Vishal, Kim and Nipur.  After lunch at a local, vegan restaurant, Nipur Kaka took us on a private tour of AT&T Park where he works for the San Francisco Giants!  The park is beautiful and seeing the view against the bay with the sea breeze is a breathtaking experience!  Krish was definitely thrilled to see where the SF Giants play.  He and Daddy were in absolute awe!

After AT&T Park, Nipur Kaka had to go back to work, and we headed to one of our favorite places in the city, Dolores Park in the Mission District.  It is right next to our all-time favorite ice cream parlor (introduced to us originally by Vishal Kaka), Bi-Rite Creamery, home to the most amazing ice cream flavor we have ever had the pleasure of trying, ricanelas (a cinnamon sweet cream base mixed in with snicker doodle cookie chunks)!  Having that ice cream again brought back some wonderful memories of when we lived in the bay area and made Krish's first birthday cake with ricanelas ice cream.  Another one of our favorite bay area dessert shops is also located in the Mission District, and it is Anthony's Cookies (introduced to us by Girish, friends of the Munshi's).  We definitely frequented both places while we lived there and while we were on vacation.  It definitely was a vacation indeed!

As is our usual, we got some ice cream at Bi-Rite and walked over to Dolores Park to take in the city and enjoy the atmosphere, weather, and our ice cream!  Daddy discovered that the park had been recently renovated with a brand new, amazing playground for kids!  There was a playground with two colossal slides up on a hill that overlooked the entire city.  It was absolutely breathtaking, and Daddy, the kids, and I had the best time here that day!  It was so relaxing and peaceful.  Being able to relax with the kids in our favorite city really puts us in a great mood!

View of the city from the top of the slide!

Arjun loved running back and forth on the big bridge!

Family shot at the top of the big, wide slide!  

Brotherly Love!!! (with the beautiful backdrop of the city!)

On an open field on the other side of the playground overlooking the city!

The boys just loved the big slides, and took many, many rides down them.  They were having the time of their lives, and Daddy and I just soaked it all up!

Once it was time to leave the city, we drove to Cupertino to see our cousins, Pallavi, Umeshbhai, Bhavini, Vijaybhai, Bhaven, Divek, Chirag, Vivek and Himani!  We sadly missed Jessica, Vijaybhai and Chirag but will hopefully see them the next time we are visiting.  Krish had a blast reuniting with Himani after Tricia Masi and Atul Masa's wedding, and Arjun thoroughly enjoyed playing with all of our cousins and their old childhood trucks and cars!  Krish even got to play a board game and basketball outside with Vivek and Himani!  The boys really had the best time playing with and getting to know all their cousins better throughout this trip.  What lucky, little boys!

 Arjun playing with Pallavimasi and Divek!

Krish playing kids' Monopoly with Himani and Vivek!

From left to right: Vivek, Krish, Bhavinimasi, Arjun,
Divek, Pallavimasi, Mommy, and Himani