Salil's Birthday Weekend in Chicago - Part 1: Fun in the Snow

The family flew to Chicago for the weekend of Salil's birthday. While he got a taste of snow in Columbia the week before, there had been several inches sitting on the ground for a while in the Windy City. Salil was quite eager to jump right in, and luckily the first day we got there the temperature was just warm enough and the winds calm enough to go sledding. We went to the highway overpass near Dada and Dadi's house, and the four of us (Salil, Daddy, Dada, and Mehul Kaka) had some winter fun. Salil definitely had no fear and plenty of determination to keep climing up and sliding down. You can see he had a blast - all of us did, actually.

Snow in South Carolina

Well, we finally experienced our first snow with real accumulation in South Carolina since moving here almost 4 years ago (wow, it's been that long?!). Salil saw some flurries from the window when he was around 1, but this snow "event" will probably be more memorable. Of course, it helped that school was cancelled and we had a 2-hour delayed start at work - this is what happens with such snow "events" down here.

Apparently Salil thought it was the most fun to clean his Daddy's car off.

Cousins Reunite At Grandma & Grandpa's

After visiting Salil's new baby cousin sister Diya in December, we made a trip up to Charlottesville to see Grandma before she flew to India later that week. The cousins are clearly learning to get along (well, at least most of the time). Dev and Salil are definitely become role models as goofball older brothers.


Of course, Salil always enjoys spending time with Grandma & Grandpa.

Salil & Hunter's Birthday Party @ My Gym

Salil and his buddy Hunter celebrated their 3rd birthday (a bit early for Salil, a bit later for Hunter) with many of their friends at the local My Gym. It was a great place for them do the one thing they are very good at: run around, climb, and otherwise expend lots of energy. Need to burn those calories from cake!

Visiting family in Northern Virginia over the holidays

Hopefully many of you have read our holiday letter earlier this month and were able to catch up on a few highlights in our life this past year. Since then we made our last and biggest trip of 2008, our 9-day visit to Northern Virginia, mostly spent at Hetal and Mausami's, Neepa's brother and sister-and-law, and especially with their new baby girl Diya, now about a month old.



Of course, cousin brothers Salil and Dev (Diya's big brother) acted as expected, rapidly alternating between fraternal bonding, goofing off together, and fights over toys ending in screams and tears, but they got along quite well.


Even though they had many meltdown-inducing disputes over the Thomas the Tank Engine trains you see above, they were both quite the model brothers to Diya, treating her with care and tenderness. Dev seems to have a natural sense of being a good big bro.



I'm sure the two will consider Christmas morning as the highlight of their time together. So many presents to unwrap! Salil's continuous requests of "more presents please" were, not surprisingly, answered with an continuous stream of more presents.


Grandma and Grandpa Doshi drove up for a couple of days from Charlottesville, and Neepa's cousin brother Sanjay and wife Pinky also drove down from New Jersey, so it was nice to have a good amount of family together (this also greatly contributed to Salil's continuous stream of presents - plus we had also brought along gifts from Grandma and Grandpa Shah in Chicago).

We also visited my cousin sister Vaishali and her husband Sulay (who also happens to be one of my best friends from school - we all went to high school together). He had a lot of fun playing with his "Foi" and "Fua".

It was good to spend so much time with family and friends. Hopefully we'll get to do something like this again soon.

Holiday Letter - 2008

Dear Family and Friends,

We hope the holidays find you in good spirits and spending time with close friends and family. May 2009 bring happiness and health for you all.

As we approach Salil’s third birthday, we now have a fast-growing little boy on our hands, and we have quickly moved beyond the “baby” and “toddler” eras. Babble has rapidly progressed to words, sentences, and conversations. It’s quite fascinating to see the look on his face as gears seem to turn in his head when putting together phrases. Having words to go with his ebullient personality is exciting to experience (even when those words also go with his meltdown moments). His daily routine has evolved as he is now in a formal day-care/pre-school in our neighborhood’s wonderful new Early Learning Center. He has made new friends there, always brings home plenty of artwork, and occasionally surprises us with new things he’s learned there like days of the week, counting in Spanish, and nursery rhymes. We’ve also tried to keep him busy with swimming and MyGym classes to burn off his seemingly endless supply of energy.

He’s also leaving his mark in our home as a growing boy by moving into his new big-boy bedroom with a bunkbed (for cousin brother Dev’s future visits from Virginia). Mihir added some clear reminder’s of Salil’s Windy City roots by painting a Chicago skyline and hanging a personalized photo of the Wrigley Field marquee. We’ve also started hanging his school artwork along a wall leading to his playroom, which contains his most prized possession – his Thomas the Tank Engine table, tracks, and multitudes of trains.

Both of us continue work at the same positions – Neepa at the Municipal Association of South Carolina, and Mihir at the state’s Division of Aeronautics. We are lucky to be in the public sector where we are able to spend quality time with Salil each evening.

The two of us were able to take a trip in May to Los Angeles for our anniversary while Grandma and Grandpa Doshi in Charlottesville looked after Salil. They also visited us here for a few days in October in the pleasant South Carolina fall weather. We enjoyed the intensely cosmopolitan environment in LA, briefly trading in sweet tea for boba tea, biscuits for crepes, and hash browns for potato tacos, along with touring around Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, and Hollywood, where we were lucky to attend the live recording of Dancing With The Stars’ 100^th episode. In July, all three of us visited Chicago to see Grandma & Grandpa Shah, Mehul Kaka, and Mimosa Kaki. We indulged in some more good food at the Taste of Chicago and Salil had fun splashing in the fountain at Millenium Park. Mihir’s family also came down to visit us in November for Thanksgiving. We also went to Northern Virginia in June to celebrate cousin Dev’s 2^nd birthday and spend time with Hetal Mama and Mausami Mami. We will be visiting Northern Virginia again for the holidays to meet Salil’s new cousin baby sister, Diya, who was born on November 21^st.

Finally, we have begun a blog at http://shahhousehold.blogspot.com so you can keep up with what’s happening in our family more than just our yearly holiday letter. Please feel free to leave a comment there (yes, there are and will be updated pictures of Salil there!).

We wish all of you a very Happy Holiday and hope to see and hear from you soon!

Love,

Neepa, Mihir, & Salil

Thanksgiving in Columbia

This year we had our first Thanksgiving at our home in Columbia. My parents, brother, and sister-in-law were kind enough to spend a nearly a full week with us, driving the 800+ miles down from Chicago. Salil had tons of fun with his "Dada", "Dadi", "Kaka", and "Kaki". Here are a few photos from their stay.


Salil reading with Dada and Dadi (he insisted on wearing his "My First Christmas" Santa hat:

















Salil bonding with Dada - anyone who knows my dad wouldn't be surprised by this:





















Salil inexplicably wanted to comb Dada's voluminous hair:
















Salil also spent much time with his Mehul Kaka and Mimosa (Mimi) Kaki:

















Mimi Kaki enjoyed goofing off with her "string bean", as she calls him: