2 Year Top 10

This week marked my 2 year anniversary in India. Brian had his in July. To commemorate the occasion I thought I'd post the top 10 things I love about India...in no certain order except for #1:)

1. Friends, who are family

2. Bangalore weather--year round flip flops!

3. Being able to hire someone to do the dishes and toilets. And we love her which puts her in the #1 category on this list.

4. Getting clothes ironed for 5 cents a piece. Which translates...no ironing in our house...ever!

5. Seeing an amazingly complex culture and National Geographic-like sightings unfold around us each day.

6. The flat bread...roti, chapati, naan, paratha, the list goes on

7. Public transportation, rickshaws and sharing one car...it's so not American:) (Never thought sharing a car would make a top 10 list!! It helps to live close to work. Btw, Brian gets all the credit for taking public transportation/rickshaws not me:) but b/c of it I can keep the car a couple days a week)

8. Cheap mangoes, avocados, pineapples and text messaging:) $5 doctor visits and $10 pedicures (for my Indian friends: I know this is way more than I should pay but it's at an amazingly beautiful outdoor spa and my American friends can vouch that this is so much cheaper than the stinky nail salons in the U.S. :)

9. My friend Sini's cakes...she is also in the #1 category.

10. Everyday reminders of how 95% of the world lives...in poverty.

I could really keep going but I'll try hard to make it a "TOP 10"

Birthday and Farm

Haddon turns 4 tomorrow! And to celebrate we had a big shindig at Pizza Hut (the India equivalent to McDonalds back when we were kids:) on Saturday. There were 19 kids plus parents! This was our first "big" birthday party. It was a lot of fun and the best part was we didn't have to clean up:) Haddon had a great time and he had his favorite superhero decor and cake...Ben 10.

Also there are pictures from the farm we visited...

Plague

Swine Flu is going around India and has claimed 28 lives last week, 5 in Bangalore. I'm sure some other disease has killed more people in the last week, but Swine flu is the one making people panic. People are wearing masks, schools are closed, hospitals are packed with people in the waiting room hoping to get tested. At the same time the "regular" flu is going around which doesn't help the situation b/c everyone that has regular flu thinks they could possibly have swine flu.

Our family fell ill to some form of influenza last week starting with Kai, traveling to me then to Corban. Brian and Haddon were spared so far. Thankfully the boys got through about 2 days of fever and were back to playing. Momma on the other hand had the intense version that managed to keep me on the couch for 5 days. Today was my first day out of the house since last Tuesday (except to go to the doctor) so I felt like I broke out of a cage:)

So I've been out of blog commission for over a week and hope to post pics of today's outing to a farm very soon.

Mall

This 5 story mall is being built down the street, within walking distance from us. They broke ground about the time we moved here 2 years ago and from the looks of the progress it's likely we won't get to enjoy it in our time of living here:( When I went to the builder's website to get the picture it said the estimated completion date was December 2008:) I'm thinking December 2010. It would be nice to have a food court, arcade and 5 floors of shopping without getting into the car, but it's probably better on our wallet to not:)

The Boys

Corban doing a trick:)
Haddon's new "do" and his favorite shirt
The guy at the salon had fun "stylin" Kai's hair:)