Garden of Dreams

Sorry for the recent lack of blogging. We got a new computer (yea, finally!!!), it's a Mac (yea, finally!!!), but there is a steep learning curve (boooo!!!). Tonight I will manage to blog some pictures without having it take 2 hours...

Grandma & Granddaddy took Leila to Garden of Dreams last week for breakfast. Here, Leila takes a ride on the friendly elephant.

Grandma looks on as Leila eats all of their "shared" yogurt.

The waiter brought some bread for Granddaddy and Leila to use to feed the fish.

Dinner choices

Tonight Leila's dinner included a bratwurst and apples dipped in ketchup AND peanut butter at the same time. MMMMMM she said while we all gagged a little bit.

Shiva Ratri

Today is a Hindu holiday celebrating the god Shiva. On this day
children often block the roads with string or sticks and collect a
"donation" before allowing you to pass. You are expected to just give
a few rupees (equivalent to a few cents). I left the house quite
unprepared and didn't have enough small bills with me. By the end of
the day, after a dozen "tolls," I went from giving 5 rupees to 50
rupees (a small fortune to a Nepali 5 year old!).

These kids stopped me near our house.

SInging Happy Birthday and Enjoying Cake

Everbody Hanging for Leila's Bday

Outside by the playground equipment.Philip, Henrya an Aferabaya
Leila and Hannah sharing cake
Ojasvi enjoying the push car.

Party Fun

Playing hopscotch with Aferabeya and Hannah.
Camille exploring under the coffee table. At one point she looked up at her mom and tried to figure out why she couldn't reach out to her.
Piles of shoes at the door.

Getting Ready for the Birthday Party

Leila's New Bike for her birthday!!!!

Riding with Granddaddy!!! She was pretty terrified.
The trike is still a bit more comfortable for her, but I'm sure she'll be on the bike soon enough.

At the bakery

Leila and I went to the bakery this morning to get croissants for her birthday tomorrow. The lady liked Leila's hat and gave her a piece of white chocolate.

Waiting...

Getting a good vantage point waiting for Grandma and Granddaddy at the
airport.

Bryan Adams concert

No international musician or band has ever performed in Nepal....until tonight! Bryan Adams played a show for 20,000 fans at the stadium and it was actually pretty great! Nepal has been gearing up for this for weeks, with the newspaper running a 2-page spread with articles and pictures every day for the last 2 weeks. Kind of incredible. Even more incredible, the concert went off smoothly, there was power for the whole performance, and fun was had by all!

Here is Jason as we waited in line to get into the stadium.

We had the mid-level tickets, meaning we were standing on the football field. Luckily, there was plenty of space to move around & dance. The stands were packed full with fans, too.

Enjoying the concert!

The friends we went with/met there: Hannah, Mark, Julie, Lesley, Drew, Natasha, Chuck, Wendy, Jason & Frank.

Hannah on her dad's shoulders waving a Canadian flag...she is American, but wanted to show Bryan Adams her acceptance for foreigners!

Our Valentine's Party

We hosted a Valentine's party for some of Leila's friends on Friday afternoon. One of the highlights (of course!) was decorating cookies. The kids seemed to like the frosting best. Here, Eleanor shows off her red frosting lipstick.

Leila preferred the frosting to the frosted cookie. That's my daughter!

Lucy loving her cookie.

All the kids concentrating on their work.

Leila doing some coloring after finishing her cookies.

More party fun

The kids did some painting outside to create a "Love Bug" craft. Here, Leila, Merrill & Lucy are hard at work.

Showing off the painted egg carton.

The final product, a Valentine Love Bug. Grandma Bibi, thanks for sending all of the paint, paper, glue gun & pipe cleaners. I finally found something creative to do with all the art supplies & the kids had a blast!

Delicious heart-shaped pizzas for lunch.

In line!

We are waiting in line for the Bryan Adams concert. Such excitement
has never been seen in kathmandu!!!!

A cultural laugh...

For reasons I won't get into, all of our powdered sugar tastes like bleach. SO, every time we try to make frosting from scratch, it ruins dessert. I finally realized that good old canned frosting from the Embassy commissary is the way to go.

When our didi tasted it, she really liked it and picked up the can to look at the ingredients. After looking puzzled for a few moments she said, "Now I see why we can't make our frosting taste like this. We can't get most of these ingredients here in Nepal!" Trying to explain that it is actually made up of mostly disgusting processed ingredients seemed pointless so I didn't even bother...

Happy (belated) Valentine's Day

Leila celebrated Valentine's Day at school by passing out Star Wars Valentine's cards to her friends (thanks Grandma June!) and by wearing her Valentine's t-shirt (thanks Grandma Bibi!). In fact, she was so insistent about wearing this shirt all day that when she came home dirty from school, she cried about taking it off until Shila promised to wash it while she was taking a nap.

Coordinating Valentine's socks always make a statement.

Indestructible. I don't think so!!

This toy claimed to be indestructible by even the toughest of chewers.
I guess that must be taji because this is the state of this toy after
10 minutes of "play." I want my money back!!

Leila the policewoman

Leila came home from school today with this lovely hat she made. She
explained that she is a policeWOMAN not a policeMAN. I bet she and her
tricycle would give the local cops a run for their money!!

Watching Dora with naked baby

Twins