Avva's major milestone

Today is a huge day in the Mohan household because my mom retired from the County of Santa Clara after 30 years of work there. Huge accomishment!!! We are so proud of her and can't wait to see what new adventures await her :) here are some pictures from her hilarious, touching speech at her huge retirement party yesterday!

Mom's Day

Today was Mom's Day at Ananya's school, so I spent the morning with her - singing, dancing, playing, and rock climbing!

Wedding #3 - Sonoma

This past week, Mala, one of my closest friends from college, got married to Sumit and we spent every night this week celebrating this incredibly special occasion!

It started with a mehendhi at her cousin's house, where Ananya had a blast getting both her hands done and comparing it to Mala! The next night, Pooneet and I celebrated at another mehendhi/sangeet dinner where I actually got mehendhi done again! And then Friday I "took a lunch meeting in Fremont" and went for Mala's chuura ceremony - wow, the number of bangles on each arm was insane! Tradition has it that the bride is supposed to wear bangles for the first year of marriage...wonder what Mala will do :)

That evening, Pooneet and I drove up to the hotel in Vallejo, where we got there just in time for the awesome sangeet - where the highlight was a most unexpected and super fantastic speech by Mala's brother-in-law Rohan. I haven't laughed like that in a looooooong time!

And Saturday was the big day - we had dance practice early in the morning (we were doing a surprise dance for Mala and Sumit) and then all the girls went to Mala's room to get our hair and makeup done, which was such a relaxed, fun, girly way to spend the day. We made our way to the incredibly gorgeous Cline Cellars winery in Sonoma where Mala got ready in this plush velvety converted railcar. She was such a stunning bride! The ceremony was peaceful, heartfelt, and beautiful and the reception took place indoors in this awesome barrel room. Mala seemed pleasantly surprised by our dance (phew!) and Pooneet and I partied until 4am...Awesome reception, so much fun with so many friends, and so happy to be part of such a special day.

Here are some pictures from the week:

Wedding #2 - NYC

One of my dearest friends from Cal got married in NYC and so P and I took a day off from work and spent an extended weekend in Manhattan.

We stayed with Ashwini Uncle and Anita Aunty, who were incredibly hospitable and stayed up till 3am one night drinking wine with us and chatting. So fun!

On Friday, Pooneet and I traipsed through the city - went to the High Line in Chelsea, where an above ground railroad track has been converted into a garden/walking path that overlooks the city. We also went to the Empire State Building where we got to take in the stunning city views. We headed to Mili and Sharath's place for a bit to see them and baby Nayan, before heading home to change for our fabulous dinner at 3 Michelin star Le Bernadin, which was a truly superb dining experience.

The next day, we went to Central Park with Aparna, Scott, and cutie pie Milo and then met up with a bunch of friends and cousins for brunch before going home and changing and getting ready for Grace and Philipp's wedding. She is Korean from LA, he is German from Germany and this wedding was extremely elegant, fun, and had some of the best wedding food I've ever had. GY (as I call her) was a gorgeous bride and it was so fun to see her again!

Here are some pictures from our trip:

Weekend #2 - my birthday

I love birthdays. I really love my birthday :) And amazingly, I've raised a daughter who loves birthdays and my birthday more than I do. Awesome.

My birthday was one of the best I've had. Pooneet organized a fun night out with close friends at Dave & Busters, which is like a ghetto Chuck E Cheese for adults, where I learned that Pooneet is amazingly good at the gun shooting games and that I'm terrible at all of the games. And then on my actual birthday, we had close friends and family over for dinner - Chinese takeout, fried chicken, and Dom. Excellent. Everyone used the occasion as an excuse to eat donut holes, Sprinkles cupcakes, brownies galore...between the champagne and the sugar high, it was a super fun night!

Here are some pictures from the day:

Wedding #1 - LA

We kicked off September by going to Los Angeles over Labor Day weekend to celebrate R3's wedding (Raj Rathod, P's Stanford buddy) to the gorgeous Anita. They got married at the Terranea Resort in Palos Verdes, which was just stunning and huge and had 3 other weddings going on at the same time, and I got the pleasure of going down in an elevator with another bride and her bridesmaids!

It was also really fun for us to get away - first time we've been away from the kids for a weekend since Amisha was born - and to see friends and family! We spent the first day/night at the wedding, and then the next day we hung out in Santa Monica with Paddu Aunty, Murtha Mama, Deepu & Anand, and then got dinner at Nobu with P's cousin Mona, her husband Mike, and her adorable daughter Lily. We ended the fabulous night by hanging out with Prashant and Gauri at their beachfront condo...

A fun side note was that the W Hotel we stayed at on Sunday night was also where the band One Direction was staying, so there was a crazy crowd of young girls outside our hotel all day and night long.

Here are some pictures from our LA weekend:

Crazy September

Our lives are pretty hectic as it is, but September has been off-the-charts insane. We have had 3 out-of-town weddings this month, we've left the kids at home, work has been crazy, and it was also my birthday. Crazy!!

I will post pictures from our 3 amazing wedding weekends in a bit...so be on the lookout!

Reading in bed

Mala's wedding week begins

One of my closest friends, Mala, is getting married this weekend, and
her week of events/celebrations started today. I took Ananya to her
mehendhi and Ananya loved it and got both her hands done!

Dad's Day

With me and P in NYC, my dad went to Childrens House today for
Ananya's preschool's Dad's Day :)

Two kernels from the same ear?

Busy girls

The girls are always so busy...watch them multitask!

Two princesses

Ananya and Amisha dressed up as princesses today!

Morning Snuggles

The little sisters snuggling on the carpet this morning

Shaadi time!

We spent the morning assembling gift bags for Mala and Sumit's
wedding. Pooneet had AMAZING assembly line skills and finished half
the bags by the time I came down from putting Amishoo down for a nap.
Ananya also helped out, putting stickers on the bags and candy inside.
Take a look at our finished work!

Amishoo loves corn!

We went to Chili's for dinner with Cheryl, Albert, Connor, and Chloe.
Amishoo wasn't eating properly and Cheryl brilliantly suggested giving
her corn on the cob, which she LOVED!!!

Say cheese!!

As a reward for being a great sleeper and overall good girl while we
were in LA this weekend, Ananya got a new camera!

A surprisingly fun day

Ananya was screened to see if she could join a peanut study (helping
kids overcome their allergy to peanuts), so we spent the day at
Stanford Hospital. She did great, didn't complain or whine even once,
stayed on the bed the entire day strapped to two monitors, and was a
pretty happy kid! We had tons of art projects to do, Dadi spent the
day with us, Dadu and Nilima Dadi even came for a visit, and we were
so busy having fun that we never even opened the iPad (huge
accomplishment)!

More pics from our day at Stanford

Ananya completed a sewing art project collection that Tushar Uncle gave her