Dear Family and Friends,
We hope you all are enjoying the holidays and having a
wonderful season.
2012 has been an exciting year for our family. Salil graduated kindergarten in June, and was
blessed to have a great teacher to prepare him for the next year. He started
first grade in August, and continues enjoying Lake Carolina Elementary. Kiran started school for the first time,
entering the 2-year-old room at Chesterbrook Academy in September. Sadly this meant we said goodbye to the boys’
nanny of nearly two years, Erin, but it was definitely time for Kiran to move
into a classroom environment. Thankfully
Erin had already lined up a new job at a daycare here in Columbia. We are ever grateful and blessed to have such
a wonderful person take loving care of our two boys! The boys still get to visit with her every
now and then and love it.
At school, Salil has quickly become a voracious reader, with
reading lots of books from the Magic Tree House and Berenstain Bears
series. He was very proud (and so were
we!) that he earned his Reading Counts T-Shirt by late November. Considering Salil’s boisterous personality,
learning to talk in turn and raise a hand has been another big accomplishment
for him. His other activities include
weekly karate at school and piano lessons.
Salil unfortunately had a fall after school at the playground in
September, and fractured his left elbow – you may recall he broke his right one
in April 2010! Surgery, pins, and casts
were required again, but at least this time, as surreal as it was, we knew what
to expect. After nearly 2 months of
casts, he had recovered nicely, and even played briefly at his piano recital
soon afterwards. Kiran has done
marvelously at his school. While there
was the expected few weeks of crying when being dropped off in the morning,
he’s now a cooperative little classmate, sitting himself quietly down at the
table and reading books or playing with Legos (Daddy definitely approves of the
latter!). His teachers have been helping
him with big-boy habits like drinking out of a cup.
It was a busy travel year for us – in February we took a
trip to Connecticut to visit Neepa’s cousin Vinit and his family, and then went
down to Manhattan for couple of days to take the boys around Times Square,
Rockefeller Center, and the Empire State Building. In June, we went to cousin’s wedding in
Northern Virginia (thankfully surviving a freak thunderstorm and power outage
during a heat wave). In July, we went to
Detroit to celebrate Neepa’s eldest uncle and aunt’s 50th anniversary, then
over to Chicago for her cousin niece’s wedding.
During that time we stayed with Mihir’s parents and went up to Milwaukee
to visit Mihir’s brother and family.
Thanksgiving was spent in Charlottesville with Neepa’s parent and
brother and his family. The four cousins had loads of fun together. We also had
some fun mini weekend trips to visit friends.
For as much as we traveled, we also had friends and family visit us and
that was always fun. We will be spending
the holidays in South Carolina with Mihir’s parents and brother’s family.
On the job front, Neepa has logged over five years with the
state Municipal Association as a Financial Specialist. Mihir happily got word he earned his
Professional Engineer license in January.
He’s been busy with the state Aeronautics Commission designing
stormwater plans, implementing new policies, traveling, and speaking. He’s expanded his professional reach by
joining the Columbia Toastmasters club.
While it’s always a challenge with two working parents,
we’ve managed to have a
decent routine in incorporating the boys’ school and
activities.
We wish you all Happy Holidays, and hope to hear from you
soon!
Love,
Neepa, Mihir, Salil, and Kiran
