Well yeah, it has been a long time since we posted anything or have been online really. We haven't even posted anything new on our website since we left India about 2 months back...

A few updates for those who don't know.

Trish left for Switzerland in early October for a few weeks. I stayed back in Bombay to wrap up work and so much more. Sold the car, my motor cycle and lots of other things. I met her in Frankfurt a few weeks later, only in transit. We flew from Frankfurt to LA together. My dad operated the flight, so we flew First Class all the way. In fact we were the only ones in First. We spent a lot of time sitting and chatting with the pilots in the cockpit. They pointed out all the dials and gauges to Tricia who was suitably impressed. Now, my dads has been flying for about 40 years, so he is one of the most senior pilots there and so were treated like the royalty we are... :)

We arrived in Los Angeles, where Aunt Kathy and Sameer picked us up and we were given a ride to Aunt Kathy's place. Now I must tell you right here, that we had over 10 pieces of luggage and both Sameer and Aunt Kathy had another 4 pieces between them. We spent a week in LA, meeting up with Sameer a few times, we met Mili too and Donald (Tricia's bro) too flew in to LA from Phoenix to spend a few days with us. We went o Hollywood and did the touristy things. We saw a live taping of the show "Yes dear", which was quite interesting.

The day of Halloween, we drove up to Grandma's place in Ukiah, which is in Northern California. We had rented a mid sized SUV. A Ford Escape. We have almost no pictures of LA and the drive up north since our digital camera died and we had no backup camera. We had so much luggage in the SUV that we had almost no place for ourselves. Yeah... we moved bags/baggage and all!

We spent a couple of quiet days in Ukiah, which is a really quiet little town. Quite nice to visit, with Lake Mendocino close by. We sat and chatted with Grandma and connected with her. It was very nice to meet Trish's family this time. All this time she had been meeting my family all over India.

On the 2nd of October we drove off from Ukiah and headed towards Albany. Our destination after about 18,000 kilometers... from Bombay to Frankfurt to Schaffhausen, back to Frankfurt, to Los Angeles to Ukiah, California and finally to Albany, Oregon.


We drove up highway 101, which stretches along the west coast of the US and is probably one of the most scenic roads I have ever driven on. We had pretty good weather, till we spotted a sign that said Albany - 60 miles. That is when the skies turned grey, the rain came down and it got pretty cold. As we pulled up to Tricia's home, we saw her mom come out, beaming. Yup, her daughter was home after living in 4 continents in 6 years. Europe, Australia, Asia and of course North America. Mom and daughter reconnected while I unloaded the car. We almost filled up the garage.

We took it easy for a few days, while we worked out our insurance, banks and other things. First we unpacked all our stuff. Then we had to find space for everything. Then we went through all of our stuff that had been lying here for 5 years. Most of Trish's pre-preggies clothes were packed away and the warm clothes brought out. We also packed away our hiking and backpacking stuff. Put everything in the attic.

Then we got into shopping for the baby. We bought a crib, a bassinet, a carrier, breast pump, bottles, and cloth diapers. We have tried to make sure that we do not cause any more landfill than possible. We will not use disposable diapers if possible. We brought a suitcase full of stuff from India and bought more stuff here. Tricia's mom, granny and Aunt also gave us a bunch of things for the baby.

We had a baby shower where we met some of our old friends. We had some fun games too, where the boys had to brink beer from a baby bottle, all of us had to guess the price of baby products that Ingrida had bought and taste Gerber baby food and guess which fruit it was made from. We also guessed the sex of the baby, the weight as well as the due date. It was a lot of fun.

For Christmas, we had Aunt Kathy and Grandma come to Albany. We had a good time together. I sat with my coin collection as did Aunt Kathy. I made lunches and dinners for Grandma. Indian food. She quite liked the dals but was a little wary of "Posto" and a couple of other things, but she graciously tried everything.

I am happy to be spending so much time with Tricia and working on making this home for us, but I also want to get back to work. I like working. I especially like the social aspect of work. I like working on my interpersonal skills. I also like the fact that I am able to lead teams effectively and that I get excellent feedback from all my clients as well as my team. Ok, enough with the self worship. Seeya!

# posted by carrotcurries.com @ 5:17:00 PM