Smoothies and Austin City Limits Festival

Priya and Mira are picky eaters. Getting them to try something new is an adventure. Actually, Mira is pretty adventurous. She even loves ramen! But, Priya is another story. Smoothies are something they have come to love in the last several months. It started with walks down to JuiceLand.

 

 

Even after many walks to JuiceLand, they just cannot seem to remember that they have to make the smoothies. Every time they whine "when are our smoothies going to be ready". Good times. We also quickly learned to get each their own smoothie.  But once they are ready, they are really happy:

 

Here is a random picture of Mira trying her first "breakfast sandwich" while wearing her favorite Ariel nightgown:

 

 

Priya starting kindergarten is a game changer. No more vacations whenever you feel like it. Because of kindergarten, this was the first year the kids were actually in town for Austin City Limits Music Festival. We usually sent them over to Houston for the long weekend. So, we finally took them to ACL this year.

 

There we are headed in to the festival (above). Priya got front row and then made fun of her dad's goofy sun hat. Of course, she looks super cute wearing it and I look like a big dork. That sun can be brutal out there. Luckily, we went the first weekend and avoided the huge rain storm that shut down the second weekend early.

Biking about town

As the summer came to an end and the temperatures began to drop, we found ourselves getting out on the bikes more and more. The girls love being in the box bike, especially when we go fast down hills. Then they ask to go fast as I am just trying to survive getting up the hills around our neighborhood. That bike is heavy and the girls are only getting bigger.

 

Here we went for a ride around the neighborhood and ended up at Mozart's coffeehouse on the lake for some chocolate milk and treats:

 

 

 

When Priya and Mommy went to a birthday party in October, Mira and rode over to the Draught House for their anniversary party. Mira was stylin' wearing her sunglasses as safety goggles as she peeled some juicy homegrown Satsuma oranges:

 

 

In December, we took a nice long ride in South Austin. First, we rode along the Town Lake trail to the pedestrian bridge to see the floating tree (ART!):

 

 

 

 

Then we stopped for a picnic at the Long Center lawn overlooking downtown:

 

 

 

 Finally, we headed south and hit a few playgrounds and stopped for more refreshments at Austin Beer Garden Brewing:

Priya is a soccer prodigy

 

I am pretty sure she is going to go to college on a full soccer scholarship.

Summer 2013

I told you I wouldn't do a very good job of keeping up to date with this blog. I have meant to but I just never seem to have a lot of photos around when I have free time to work on the blog. It is 2 days after Christmas 2013. It is a slooooow day at work.  So, I looked through my phone and decided to post whatever pictures I had in my phone. So, here we go.

 

I will start with some pictures from summer 2013. After having a lot of time off in the beginning of the year, we didn't take our usual monthly trips to cooler climates to escape the heat of the summer. Luckily it wasn't the worst summer ever. We did get out on the water as much as possible, either on boats or our kayak:



 

 

 

Ami and I did manage to escape to Chicago with some friends to celebrate our friend's 40th birthday and go to Lollapalooza. Grandmaman came to watch the girls.  I cooked up some "giant waffles" which have become a breakfast favorite, along with pancakes.

 

 

When the weather wasn't too hot, we got out on the bikes as much as possible and visited with our friends.

 

Alas, summer came to an end and it was time for Priya to start kindergarten. What a big girl. Here she is on her first day:

 

 

She has been doing great at school and really loves her class and teacher. The first few weeks were a bit awkward for us as she quickly found a best friend in one of her boy classmates Owen.  Thankfully, within a month she had lost interest and was hanging out mostly with the girls in her class. Here was Priya and Owen during happier times:

Catching up Part 2.

Seems like another slow day at work. Ami was yelling at me again last night while looking over the blog. So, I will play catch up again. Here is Part 2 of what happened between Christmas 2010 and Summer 2013. Terrible, I know.

These loaded backwards timewise. So, we are going from most recent to most remote (pretty much).

These two pics are from our trip to Australia in April. I will try to do a post on that trip since the girls cannot stop talking about it. Priya told me she wants to move there yesterday. Beach sunset in Port Douglas (above) and Mira driving the boat in P.D.

Dinner in Tampa after spending the week in Sarasota with Grandmaman & Pappy

Not sure where Priya was riding this turtle sculpture. Boulder maybe?

Headed out for a bike ride from our house in Austin. This is probably from summer 2012.

One of many ferry rides in Australia. I know this because Mira has her "bunny shirt" on, which she became obsessed with this year. It is actually a hand making the peace sign but she thinks it looks like a bunny. One of 3 shirts she will wear.

Multnomah Falls. Summer 2012

Headed out on the open road in Austin. Obviously not summer given their clothing.

On a hike during our camping trip in fall 2012. Garner State Park in TX.

Diwali 2012 party

My hammock time is always interrupted by the cutest wildlife

Me and Priya in our kayak on Town Lake near our house.

The prettiest cooks in town (above)

The cutest sisters in town (Below)

Mira at the Luminerium art exhibit in Austin. 

Lunch break while enjoying some SXSW tunes. 2013.

Priya on the swing I put up (i.e. had someone else build and hang) at our new house. She loves it. Now she has learned how get it to spin too. 

Well, that pretty much gets us caught up. I will try to do a post on our trip to Australia and then go from there. See you soon.

Hello? Is it me your looking for?

Ami keeps prodding me to start posting again on this blog. I kept saying I was too busy. Well, I am not sure if it is the summer and kids being out of school but it has been a slow work week. I bring my laptop to work now. So, I thought I would update the blog.

The last post was from Christmas 2010. Wow. Just a few things have happened since then. We moved back to Texas. Bought our first home, in Austin. My brother got married. We went to Australia. The kids have grown. I was going to write "the kids have gotten bigger" but most of you know there is nothing big about Priya and Mira.  

I am limited to the pictures that have been downloaded to my laptop. They seem to be mostly cell phone pictures, so I apologize for the quality. Here we go.

About to buy some cheese curds in Carlton Place, Ontario. 

Priya and her cute hat at my cousin's wedding in Ottawa.

Mexican bumper cars in Sayulita.

Safe donut eating in Kyle.

Unsafe push car riding.

Priya and Daisy Duck during Priya's first visit to Disney World.

Priya and Mira with their Austin friends last July 4th.

Dancing at a concert in Vail last summer. The picture below was at a farmers market in CO.

Uncle Chris and Mira driving the electric boat on Lake Union in Seattle.

A picnic and artwork in a park in Portland last summer.

Halloween 2012

Priya going for a ride in Pappy's convertible. Her favorite car.

Ok. That is enough for now. Look for round 2 soon.

Christmas in Seattle

We spent Chistmas with the Wallace family in Seattle.  Grandmaman and Pappy flew up from Florida and we all stayed at my brother's new house in West Seattle.  Priya had a blast watching the ferries go back and forth between the West Seattle dock near my brother's house and nearby Vashon Island.  Luckily, we had one day where the clouds lifted and we could see the Olympic Mountains across the Puget Sound.

Priya had a hard time not opening gifts before it was time.  Pappy kept a close eye on her though:

Finally, it was Christmas morning and Priya set to opening everybody's gifts for them.  She was an unwrapping machine.  She would open one gift and then ask for another:  "Another gift!".  The only thing that stopped her was her new Dora the Explorer backpack:

Here she helps unwrap some more gifts while wearing her new hair clips that Santa brought her by way of the Mattas.

Mira was forced to look on from the sidelines - not quite ready for action.  By next year she will probably give her sister a hand.