..SouthAsiaRocks..

Yesterday the Kumars came to visit us :) If you're new to my blog... the Kumars are the family that we lived with for our first year here in M-town. They've been really wanting to come see Aashini, so they drove 3 hours to come and visit us :) We hung out and chatted, ate and had fun :) And, of course played some fooseball :) ( I still can't remember how to spell it) And of course they came to see Aashini It was sooo great to see them :) And yet another picture... Aashini really liked her aunt Mona :)

Before I came here I didn't think it would get very cold here.... It can get up to 135 degrees in the summer, so there's no way it can get cold! Well, I was wrong... for a Florida girl, it can get pretty cold here :) During the day right now it can get up to 65 or 70 degrees but at night it's been about 40 degrees... So, that may not sound like it's that cold... and outside it feels great! - but inside it can be really cold! Our houses don't have any insulation (only concrete/brick walls) and the floors are made of marble.... and that can make for a chilly house! Aashini LOVES to be warm! We have a little space heater that can heat up a room really well, and we usually turn it on at night to heat up the room before we go to bed.... Well, ever since we've taken Aashini home from the hospital, she has HATED diaper changes... she will scream and cry through them! Well, a couple of weeks ago, we were changing her diaper and she got the whole changing area on our p...

Merry Christmas!!! (or Happy Christmas as they say here :)) - We got home tonight (Christmas) and we're celebrating the birth of Baby Jesus by having our baby home and almost well :) WHoo hoo! Hope you guys have GREAT Chrstmas' - You guys ROCK!!

Aashini is back in the ICU... for more, check out our other blog: http://www.southasiashefs.blogspot.com/

There are Christmas goodies on The Caravan site!!! You will find a Caravan Christmas story, computer desktop wallpaper (in Googly's Goodies section), coloring pages and more! http://www.go2southasia.org/caravan.html And don't forget about L0ttie M00n !!!

So, today we saw a new pizza place and decided to try it... when it came to our house we really cracked up when we saw the box :) haha! I LOVE it when there are funny misspellings :) haha! Do you want some SMAKE'N LIP PLZZA?? So what is Dutch Flavoured pizza anyway?? hmm... Anyway, thought I's share :) It was funny :)

There are a lot of fun cultural things going on this time of year. Right now it's "Wedding Season"... It's kind of like the summer months in America - but LOUDER and ALL WEEK LONG... not just the weekends... So weddings are really fun (you can see one of my previous posts on weddings by clicking here: Wedding Post )... One part of the wedding, that is the loudest, is the part where the groom and his family arrive at the wedding... depending on how much money they have, depends on how extravagant it is. Typically, the groom will come in on a white female horse with the family and friends walking along side him. They will also have guys that are carrying a string of big lights that look kind of like chandeliers... (you can see an example of some in the picture below). Then they will usually have music of some kind. In M-town, the typical music was a couple of drummers - which was really cool! Another kind of music that is done for a wedding percession is a full-out band...

There are a lot of traditions here in this country... Yesterday our friend Germeet came over to see Aashini. When he got there, we showed him right in to see her. He said, "no, I can't see her yet, you must sit me down and offer me water first"... we offered him water but he didn't want any... he said that he had to sit down first before seeing the baby and that we needed to do that with anyone that came into our house... we always offer people water when they come into our house, but this time he was acting a little strange about it... He goes on to explain that while walking on the road that people come in contact with ghosts, so when they come into our house we must let them sit down first... it was a little confusing trying to understand what he was saying, but something to do with sitting down so that the ghosts can come off the person or something and stay away from the baby... Traditions can be interesting... :) So then Germeet came in to see Aashini (after...

HaPpY ThAnKsgiViNg everyone !!! Today was Aashini's first Thanksgiving... we weren't expecting to have a baby this Thanksgiving - we weren't even expecting to have a baby at Christmas :) haha! Here we are traveling to meet up with our friends for Turkey day :) After we ate (you can see the aftermath in the first picture)... we went to the park nearby. Aashini continued sleeping :) What's Thanksgiving without a little football!! Whoo hoo!!! This picture of Adam cracks me up! haha!

Today we had a fun / interesting cultural experience :) Here in our country, there are these people called Hijras हिजड़ा .... or Eunuchs. Most of these people are true eunuchs - they were born without male or female parts. They all live together in their own ghetto. If you have a child that is a Hijra, then they will come and demand you for your child and people here will give them their child. They all live together and in order to get money, they mostly do a glorified sort of begging. They are always dressed to the hilt. They come and visit you when you've had something big happen in your life - usually weddings and.... NEW BABIES. They come and dance and make a HUGE ruckus. They ususally do this until they are given a large amount of money. Some of them can be quite crazy and violent, but mostly they will just annoy you to death, barge into your home (or wedding) and dance and sing around until you give them money (usually around $100-200 is their demand). Everyone...

Both Aashini and I were released from the hospital yesterday!!!!! I was in the hospital for 12 days!! A lot of great things happened yesterday!! My OBGYN was looking at my cardiology reports and thought that my cardiologist needed to re-review my charts. He re- reviewed all the findings and decided that I didn't have Post- Pardum Cardio Myopathy !!! He said it was all related to the pre - ecclampsia and the pulmonary edema and just looked like Cardio Myopathy at the time. That's HUGE!!!! If I had Cardio Myopathy then I wouldn't be able to have kids again, so it is definitely good news!! Here's Aashini lounging at home :)

We got to hold her for the first time today and we took our first family picture together :) Aashini Miley Born: November 7, 2007 at 5:09pm Weight: 5.43lbs Length: We have no idea ;) Aashini Pronounced: “Asha-knee” Aashini is a hindi name that means Lightning :) When we were picking out baby names, we started looking for name meanings that had something to do with Light. We love the Matthew 5.13-16 passage about being a Light for the World and wanted her name to reflect that. We saw the name Aashini and knew we just had to use it – Light with zap! We also both love the 1 Kings 18 story of Elijah and Mt. Carmel. At the end of the story fire comes down from the sky (like lightning) and shows that he’s the one true G0d! Miley Miley (my-lee) means smiley or one who smiles :) We wanted a middle name that started with an “M” so that her initials would be AMS. Those were Adam’s brother’s initials and we thought it would be a cool way to remember him with a smile :)

GIRL!!! Aashini Miley (5.43lbs) was born on November 7th, 2007 at 5:09pm. This is Adam writing. Both Andrea and the baby are okay. Both have been placed on breathing assistance. After the C-section, Andrea had an asthma attack brought on by the pre-eclampsia. She was taken down to the ICU. Her oxygen levels have returned to normal after being put on a cpap (respirator type thing). The birth and condition put a lot of strain on her heart. The cardiologist came and decided that she has post-partem cardio myopathy. They are giving her some diuretic to remove the fluid, bp medicine, and meds to strengthen the heart. Aashini came at only 34 weeks and 5 days. Andrea's pre-eclampsia had escalated so the docs decided to go ahead and deliver the baby via C-section. All went well with the surgery. I can't hold her yet because she's hooked up to this breathing thing to help her lungs. She is still breathing a little fast so that's why the doc put her on that. Hopefully she will be...

I LOVE ice cream! I've especially loved it lately... Yesterday Adam and I were out and about and decided to get some gelato... we had only been to this store once before, but when we went in this time, it had changed!! It now has a part of it called "GelatOnStone".... like Coldstone or Marble Slab if you've had that... they have a big cold slab of marble there and they mix the ice cream or gelato on the stone with your toppings! You can see the guy below making mine :) I got white chocolate gelato with oreos... but then he started adding all sorts of great stuff... he poured on chocolate magic shell stuff and white chocolate magic shell stuff (you can see it in the pic below)... Man! Talk about sweet!! It was AWESOME!!! He mixed it all up and put it in a waffle bowl! It was great!!! This store (below) is in the same market - it's called the "dollar store"... they sell everything for 99 rps.... which is closer to $2.50... but they do have imported th...

Karva Chauth is the women's holiday here... in the last 2 years past, we have been in M-town with the Kumars... we missed spending this time with them this year :( To read all about this holiday, check out my blog post from the previous year: Karva Chauth 2006 - it tells you all about what happens in this holiday... This year we went to the market near our house and it was bustling with people getting their w'ship supplies for the holiday... The lady below is selling these hay stalk things that they use... during the w'ship time they throw some North, South, East and West... Women get Mehindi done on this holiday... I had to sit on this stool while I was getting mine that was low to the ground - haha it was really hard for me to get up - thank goodness Adam was there to help me up :) I had two guys putting the henna on my hands at the same time :) It was fun :) That pic below makes my skin look soooo white! There were lots of women in the market getting Mehindi d...

Here's a little video from Dusshera - just pause it and wait until it loads... then ENJOY!

Holiday season is pretty fun here. People are in good moods, the weather is nice and there's a lot of excitement in the air... as well as tons of stuff to do, see & eat :) Yesterday was Dusshera (or Dussehra)... It's a holiday with a long history based off of their stories from the Ramayana . It is a festival to celebrate the triumph of good over evil, and marks the defeat and death of the demon king Ravana in the story. So, to celebrate this, they have a big festival and burn huge effigies of Ravana (which is actually pronounced more like Ravern). If you want more info on the holiday, click here: Dusshera Info . If you want to see our Dusshera blog from last year, then click here: Dusshera 2006 . In M-town, this is a HUGE holiday... the stories say that Ravana (the demon g0d) married a woman from M-town... So we first went to an area of town to see some of the effigies during the day time... the one in the middle is Ravana - the one with 10 heads - and the other ...

For my birthday, Adam wanted to buy me a Harmonium :) I love music and I love learning new instruments, so we thought that would be fun :) Our country has it's own style of this instrument and it's very popular here... it's kinda a cross between an accordion , a piano and an organ :) haha ! Anyway, to get it, we went to a cool old store that's in the old part of our city... We went to the store and looked at all the cool instruments and picked out the perfect one :) After we did that we were talking to the owner and we asked them where they made the instruments. He told us that all the instruments were made there on their roof! :) So we got to go up and watch them making instruments. It was cool because this store is across the street from the largest m0 sque in our country, so it was really neat to see it from a totally different view :) It was Friday at almost 1:00 pm when we were there, so the call to pr was going off and if you look closely at the pic you can see ...