Dear Family and Friends,
Greetings from the Shah family during this holiday season. We wish you all a happy and healthy New Year.
Well, we truly are parents of a "big boy" now with Salil nearing 4 years old! Last year we mentioned how he began speaking in sentences - today he is a full-blown conversationalist, complete with a tsunami's of "WHY?"'s of course. He is doing very well in school, with his teachers usually letting us know how cooperative, helpful, and intelligent he is (although sometimes we wonder why he doesn't seem quite so cooperative at home). He has a good balance of play and formal learning, and he's well-versed in his numbers, colors, alphabet, months, seasons, days of the week, and more. Every once in a while he will blurt out some new word or phrase and we wonder where he picked them up - he truly is a sponge!
Outside of school, Salil has been pretty busy with swimming and soccer lessons during the warmer months (which is thankfully are plentiful in South Carolina), and the occassional playdate with friends from school and Neepa's mom's group. He's also become quite a Lego fan (much to his engineer dad's delight), and is content to quietly build his own creations (much to both parents' delight).
We are still working at our respective positions (Neepa at the Municipal Association, Mihir at the Aeronautics Commission) , continuing to enjoy stable work that allows us a lot of quality time with Salil, especially during these unfortunately uncertain economic times.
Our trips this year largely consisted of family visits - we flew to Chicago in January for Salil's 3rd birthday, including a big party at Chuck E. Cheese with the extended family and a smaller celebration at Dada and Dadi's house the next day. Salil was also treated to a good snowfall the first day there, so along with his Daddy, Dada, and Mehul Kaka, we went sledding on the Edens Expressway overpass nearby Dada and Dadi's home. To this day he still thinks Chicago means "planes" and "snow". In late May we visisted Grandma and Grandpa in Charlottesville, where we also spent time with Hetal Mama, Mausami Mami, cousin brother Dev, and baby cousin sister Diya. A second visit to Chicago happened in October, where Salil attended his first Cubs game at Wrigley Field, by way of his first 'El' train ride. He was a great fan and enthusiastically yelled "Yeah Cubs!" on their way to a 5-0 win, although we're sure a large helping of cotton candy also helped. Ryne Sandberg throwing out the first pitch and singing "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" during the 7th inning stretch was icing on the cake (at least for Mihir). The three of us did take a small weekend "vacation" to Myrtle Beach later that same month, thanks to our friends Manisha and Vikas in Virginia lending us their beachfront condo. Salil enjoyed collected seashells and building sandcastles, and of couse Neepa enjoyed the oodles of outlet shopping opportunities. For Thanksgiving week we drove up to Northern Virginia, celebrating Diya's first birthday and spending time with the rest of the family, then driving down to Charlottesville for the rest of the week (including an obligatory midnight-on-Black-Friday trip to Toys 'R' Us). We hosted our Virginia relatives in May and also in September, giving Salil more happy times with grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins.
Many of the experiences and memories are shown in photos posted on our blog below. We hope to continue to share such moments of our family throughout the next year!
Happy Holidays and Keep in Touch Always!
Love,
Neepa, Mihir, & Salil
