Fall to Thanksgiving

Rohin -- sorry for the long delay in posts.  It's  been so crazy busy this fall.  We have so much to blog about.  So let's jump in.  First, I have some very exciting news - as of the middle of November, you stopped wearing diapers at nighttime!  It just sort of happened one day and you really went cold turkey -- mommy and daddy are so very proud of you.  In other news, school is going great for you. we just had  meeting with your teacher who was so impressed with your math skills.  You can count 10s, 100s, and 1000s - which is awesome for your age.  You talk with other kids in your class and your best friend is Tamirat who is in your class this year.  The teachers do talk about how sometime you will look outside and they have to engage you occassionally -- I think this much to do with you being in introvert.  As you go through life, this is a blessing and at the same time, something you will need to be mindful of.  Daddy is an introvert too and loves to get his energy from his family and home -- but in life, you'll constantly need to work on stretching yourself in your professional life.  But you're doing great in school our little boy!  So proud of you.

So onto the trips.  Since we last wrote, we have been on two majors trips.  One was an impromptu trip up to Cape May New Jersey in the middle of September and the other was a trip down to Orlando, over to Palm Beach for a small boat cruise to the Grand Bahamas and back.  I'll start with the Cape May trip.  So we had rented out a top condo unit in a place called the Merry Widow in Cape May -- it was an old victorian. You three munchkins loved to run up the five levels to the very top.  It was very cute with two bedrooms, a little kitchen, living area and balcony.  On the first day, we went to the beach and you all
You would do modified hand stands with you head in the sand and all of you loved the sand and played in the tire tracks before we could even make our way to the ocean.  As we walked down the ocean, it was just magical watching you all play.   Rohin, you loved playing in the water and would hold daddy's hand and jump over the waves.  After dinner that night, everyone crashed and we spent the whole day on the beach.  You played sand castles and had mommy run out and fill up your water containers and used the sand buckets. you were  down with daddy again for quite some time in the surf jumping waves.In the afternoon, we went to a really neat place that was setup like an old ice cream store and sat down and had HUGE ice cream sundaes.  The next day we came on home -- so it was a short trip but so amazing.

Next up, a couple of weeks later, we took our Orlando trip.  So Ammuma, Thatha, Savitha Chechi, Sadhana Chechi, Mommy, Daddy, Rohin, Talin and you all took an airplane from Ronald Reagan airport to Orlando.  On the plane ride, you rode next to mommy and were a very good girl.  You watched TV and played with the ipad for most of the time while Aeowyn sat with mommy further in the airplane.  We got our car rental (a van) and then got checked into an apartment with a small kitchenette, pull out sofa bed and one queen sized bed.  The first night, we pretty much all fell asleep quickly while daddy went our and got some groceries.  The next day, we all packed up and drove over to Disney World.  we pulled into the parking lot and then waited in line to get on the train to take us to the magic kingdom.  We then got to the entrance of the park and put everybody in strollers and headed on inside.  It was about 87 that day, so it was pretty hot and you and the boys weren't big fans of the heat.  However, that faded away on main street when we saw a big parade with all of the Disney characters.  We followed the parade up to the magic kingdom and then headed over to the fantasy section of the park where we rode the Peter Pan ride.  The lines were pretty long unfortunately -- but once we got in -- you, Rohin and Talin loved the ride as we soared through the Peter Pan story.  Afterwards, we went and ate lunch and then headed over to the racetrack over in the future world.  You had a great time on the track and rode with daddy in the race car and had sooo much fun.  Finally, we went over to adventureland and climbed through the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse.  Unfortunately, after that -- you were getting tired so mommy and daddy took you all back to the apartment for naps while everyone else stayed at the park.  All of you took naps and then we went out to dinner at a Joe's Crabhouse -- which was awesome.  They actually had a playground attached to the restaurants, which you loved to play with the stones. We then picked up everyone back at Disney world and all slept soundly that night.

The next day, we all just relaxed and swam, swam and swam in the pool that was in our apartment complex. You and Talin and Aeowyn swam your hearts out in the pool and running to the kiddie pool to play some variant of the fireman Sam show.  After relaxing this day, we headed over to Islands of Adventure and had a wonderful time.  we started off in Dr. Seuss land, where you and the boys ran through the maze area to explore and rode a couple of rides, including the Cat and the Hat.  We then headed through the Harry Potter land, but couldn't ride anything because you all were too little.  we then walked through Jurrasic park and played in the rope playground for a while before heading over to toon town and Super Hero town.  We all had our picture taken with Popeye and Olive.  It was such a fun day -- we even got to see Spiderman and other superheros in Superhero land.  You and Talin got to take the spiderman ride and were a little nervous as you had never seen an action cartoon like that -- but the highlight was getting your picture with Superman and pretending you had your web shooters out.  With that part of trip done, we spent one more night and then headed over to Palm Beach where we took a boat over to Grand Bahamas for two nights.  In essence, the boat was nice, but the room was small -- we had all four of us in a 25 X 15 room -- with two bunks and then three of us in a queen bed.  You slept in the bed with mommy and daddy on the way over after a failed attempt at sleeping in ammuma's cabain :-).  We ate pizza at their little on board restaurant and arrived to the island the next morning.  After a quick taxi cab ride (without any car seats!), we arrived at the Grand Lucaya, which was a very pretty resort.  We spent the next two days playing on the beach and  swimming in the pool (where you pretty much lived for two days) before coming home and catching our flight home.  It was such a memorable trip.

After coming back home, we settled in for a few weeks and daddy had a conference in Reston.  One night, mommy brought you over to the conference and all of you ran through the halls when you saw Daddy. We went up to the room that night and watched TV and played in the room.

One more big event was Thanksgiving, which we just celebrated.  We had our family and friends come over to the house for two days and had 10 more people living with us for a couple days.  You got to sleep in your bed while the boys slept in the tent in our bedroom.  You had so much fun playing with Avaya and Layla outside in the cars -- with 5 of you at one point in one of the little gators.  that night, we cooked up a turkey and ammumama cooked up the sides and we had a great feast!  You played upstairs with everyone and it was such a memorable evening.  The next day, we went to ticonderoga farms and then finished off our left overs.

Rohin -- now that we are reaching the end of 2012, I'm going to consolidate the blogs so I don't have to write the same events 3X as we go forward and to focus more on writing things directly about your development, thoughts and advice as you get older.  It's been four years since I first started writing the blogs and it's been so much fun -- but I find that I need to evolve these entries so I can be more timely.  You're in awesome little boy and we're so very proud of you. Happy Thanksgiving big boy!