..SouthAsiaRocks..

We haven't been in town for the last few years for Thanksgiving...(we were in the mountains... to see those posts, click HERE ).... but this year we were!  We celebrated with folks that live in our city, and folks that live somewhere else and came in town for the weekend :) The kiddos had fun playing at the park :)  The guys played some football :)  ...American Football :)  (it's American Thanksgiving so you have to have some sort of American Football right? :) haha!) We had TONS of food!   This was just the dessert table!  Here are some folks eating...  Here's the "kids table"  :) haha!!  It was a fun Thanksgiving! :)

MasterChef Australia is a great show!  When it's on, we get it 5 days a week.  There are TONS of episodes.  The thing that makes it really cool is that the judges and contestants are all so nice!  The contestants don't stab each other in the back and they even help each other!   Anyway, the other night (a couple of weeks ago) some friends of ours were in town and wanted to go to Chili's, so we went over to the mall to eat :)  When we got there we saw that the bookstore had the Judges (and very famous chefs/restaurant owners) inside signing cookbooks!    When we got inside, they had just closed off the line, so we weren't allowed to go through the line and get them to sign a cookbook or get a pic with them :(    So... we stood as close as we could and took pics :) haha!  (and I didn't have my camera, only my phone to take pics)... Here's Gary...    Here's George with my friend Amy :)  And my at...

 During the Diwali holidays, the kiddos had off almost a week of school.  So, us and some of our friends went on a getaway!  We went just a little outside of the city to another state and stayed at a fun resort.   Look at the view from our room!  Fun hunh?  Aashini and Diya got to play a lot with their buddies Sanjana and Sandeep :)  The kiddos had a great time on the outside play area :)  The boys spent most of their time playing sports! haha!  They played Badminton (pictured below), Tennis, Water Polo and Cricket at any chance they got! :)  They played ALL day long! haha!  The hotel also had an indoor play area.  They kids had a lot of fun at that one too :)  It had a crazy slide that was super steep and fast!  They usually ended up sliding across the floor  a few feet after they slid off :) haha!  We all tried the slide too :) haha!  There were fountains and water ever...

This year, our neighborhood was quite active for Dusshera.  At one end of our street, one of the major political parties here, set up a Dusshera celebration.   Here are some guys putting the effigies together and filling it full of fireworks! They had quite the political statement for their celebration.  (Basically that expensive water, fuel, electricity, diesel, gas, etc and FDI (bringing in foreign companies like Wal-Mart) are like Raverna (the demon god)... and are the evils of today....)  Here's their set-up at the end of our street.... you can't see it very well, but they had all three effigies there that they burned....  They burned VERY quickly at this one... So quickly that by the time I pulled out my camera, it was already on the ground!!  Our street looked like those CNN videos of rioting cities :) haha!!  There was burning stuff all over the street :)  Many people will get a piece of the leftover wood/bamboo...

October 24th is a holiday here called Dusshera (or Dussehra - Click HERE to see older posts on Dusshera).  On this holiday, people will gather at parks, where huge statues of Ravana (the demon god) are burned at the end of the night.  It celebrates the triumph of good over evil.   Anyway, the other day we were on the metro and we saw where there were making a BUNCH of the statues and decided to jump out and check them out!    The girls thought it was so cool! :)  Aashini thought they were hilarious :)  They have so many that they are making, that they are using space all over the place to put the heads, bodies and arms :) haha!   It made me laugh to see the heads waiting at the bus stop with people next to it :) haha!  Aashini thought it was hilarious to be put up into his nose :) haha!!  Diya did NOT think it was funny :) haha!  Poor little girl... :) The big statues are made like paper mache'.   They ...