Celebrations galore

Writing from Bengalooru. Getting completely pampered and can get so used to this. On a three week trip back home, we spent the first week with the inlaws in Hyderabad and will spend the rest at my place in Bengalooru. Will post separately on the Hyderabad week, but highlights were - my sis in law was visting at the same time and the girls had an absolute blast with her, so much so that A was walking around at night looking for 'Bua'; a lovely visit to the Hyderabad Zoo (we saw so many animals!), catching up with an old friend, Mission Impossible 4, and some fun time for the kids at GVK Mall Fun Zone.

We reached Bengalooru day before night. My parents had planned a surprise party for us last night. The surprise element was kind of ruined as one of my cousins mentioned to me that I'll be seeing you on Sunday when i spoke to her earlier, and I had planned to catch up with a friend on Sunday night in B'lore and when i told my mom about this she asked me for her number to speak to her and that immediately made me suspicious. But it still remained quite a surprise as i expected only one of my cousins to land up and some uncles and aunts but so many landed up! My mom had called most of my cousins in B'lore and friends of my cousins whom we knew!

Thank you dear Mummy and Daddy for the lovely surprise. I had an amazing time catching up with everyone and the kids enjoyed playing with their cousins!

My parents had bought Diwali crackers and diyas and stored them for us, so we lit the diyas on the balcony in the evening. Then as the party started we burst crackers. S enjoyed the hand sparklers and kept asking for more. She also liked lighting the flower pots and chakras and wanted to keep on bursting crackers!

Many of the younger kids were quite adventurous walking around with sparklers in their hand , so most of the time we had to make sure no one was setting themselves or anyone else on fire!

After the crackers, i relaxed for some time with my cousins, gossipping over wine and making them promise that they would visit us in Zurich soon! Then the kids started getting a bit restless so we took them inside the house (the party was in the garden outside) and they played with bubbles, all the toys from upstairs and generally went beserk. The younger kids (including A) took turns in screaming for their mama/papa but the older ones were pretty busy among themselves.

S bonded with her cousin M who is a year older and the two were like glue during the party, except for a brief meltdown from S when M refused to return the Hello Kitty bag S insists on wearing around all the time! If you look carefully in the crackers picture above you'll find her wearing it even while bursting crackers!

The hubby and I were quite embaressed to cut a cake celebratting our 10 year anniversary but the kids made us feel more at ease by more or less attacking and demolishing the cake before we got to cut it :)

The food was a mix of catering and home made food, and I hogged on Goldcoin and spring rolls. Am sure i'm going to be putting on at least a couple of kilos on this vacation.

We had a great time and as usual at the end of it i wished i was back in India with family and not so many miles away. But I guess living in Bombay and working and fretting about the work deadlines and whether the maids are looking after the kids properly is very different from holidaying at home ! Thank you again dear Mummy and Daddy for taking such a lot of effort, and putting together such a grand party, we really enjoyed it and so did S and A!