Unfortunately, we aren’t the ones doing the greetings from Rimini. We got a call last night from the huge family reunion taking place at our cabin, and enjoyed hearing how much fun the rest of the family was having at our house!
(A quick recap of the summer’s trials and tribulations: we got back from India, [...]
That is what my mom would say when we kids did something that she plain did not understand. I suppose it implied that whatever behavior we were exhibiting came from “the other side of the gene pool” (and not from those brave Spartans!).
As I work through my recovery from knee surgery, I am in the [...]
Well, we made it to DC, and are having a great visit with Uncle Rob, Aunt Blanche, Boyd, and Sam. They have been so gracious in letting us use their apartment, which is conveniently located right near a Metro stop, so we’ve been able to zip downtown on a couple of occasions to see a [...]
Here are the kids - all ready for their final classes before summer break! They have a half day today, and tomorrow Alea gets a birthday present: no school!
She got the first part of her ‘presents’ yesterday, as we welcomed the first big rainstorm of the season. The kids had just gone to bed when [...]
This week was the fifth graders’ PYP exhibition, a culminating project incorporating all sorts of learning that took place over their elementary school years. The class focuses on a student selected topic for the last 8 weeks of the school year and then presents what they learned to parents, teachers, and peers. This year’s theme [...]
Finally got the Kerala trip webpages all finished up and posted. The last big trip of the year always seems to get rushed in at the end of everything. With all the stuff going on lately - the end of school and getting ready for summer - they kept getting put off…
But now they’re on [...]
I had a fascinating afternoon with some girls from school yesterday. We are hosting a middle school volleyball tournament this weekend, and part of the activity schedule was to go to a mall and go bowling. When the big bus showed up to take everyone, there wasn’t enough room for all the players, so I [...]
As the year winds down, nothing around the school seems to slow down. The weeks and weekends are full of sports, student awards, socials, speeches, and all sorts of other “S” worded events.
Let’s see, today is Wednesday. Today there is volleyball practice and Susan’s after school activity, Tuesday were schoolwide meetings and a speech by [...]
April 30, 2008 – 10:38 pm
One of the toughest things for the kids to get used to is the poverty. Mumbai is an enormous city, and India is still a very poor country, and people from all over head to the big metropolis in the hopes of building a better life. Unfortunately for them, most end up in the sort [...]
April 24, 2008 – 10:00 pm
We are in a foreign land filled with mystery and wonder. There is much to learn here.
Take for example the fact that, according to our landlady, people who are working in the fields in the hot weather will put onions in their ears and wrap them into place, along with an extra piece on the [...]
Who says Mumbai has no wildlife? In addition to the rats we’ve seen running along the sidewalks (for which there are official city jobs dedicated to killing them) and the raven/crows that eat everything the rats miss, Bombay is home to tons of different kinds of animals. Our experiences this weekend centered around 3 specific [...]
We have returned from the sunny south of India, after 10 days of backwater boat rides and the four s’s - sun, sand, salt, and seafood!!
Our trip was a great success; 3 nights in Fort Cochin, a ride through the famed backwaters and an overnight in Alleppey, 8 hours on a ferry down the inland [...]
Today is the big Parade of Nations (PON), not to be confused with yesterday’s Festival of Nations (FON). As a huge international school, we make quite a big deal over celebrating the national diversity roaming our halls. Looking at the setup statistics for the events today, there are students from 51 different countries walking the halls [...]
Obviously a bit different than in years past!
While some things are pretty consistent from year to year (like my NCAA brackets falling apart before the end of the second round), our holiday patterns are wonderfully varied. This year we got to experience a true mashup of cultures, as a big Hindu celebration coincided with the [...]
What a rookie mistake. You’d think that after 38 years of life and more than 6 months in Mumbai I would have learned my lesson.
I made the number one error that expats living in India simply cannot afford to make: I left the house without a camera. Inexcusable, especially given that I knew it was [...]
The pictures and travelogue from our most recent weekend trip are now posted. Visit the city of Aurangabad, climb to the top of the Daulatabad Fort, marvel at the mini Taj Mahal at the Bibi ka Maqbara, hike the Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain caves at Ellora (and scramble around gigantic elephant statues at the Kailasa temple there), [...]
February 7, 2008 – 9:35 pm
I’ve added a few pages to the website, but never got around to listing them here, so if you are among our readership (which I think is now somewhere between 3 and 5 people per week), here are some of the random new pictures and all you can visit this weekend:
The Winter Break trip is [...]
January 28, 2008 – 10:44 am
First of all, here is Breck, asking a question of Minnesota’s First Lady. The governor made a trip to India a while back, and while he didn’t make it to our school, his wife did, and Breck got to ask her a question! According to our director, “he was very articulate.” Way to go, Breck!!
Now [...]
January 25, 2008 – 9:01 am
Well, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree (to continue the vegetation simulation). Alea has been reading “Where the Red Fern Grows,” which I told her was one of my all-time favorite books. I also had told her that it is one that makes me cry at the end, and so she should keep [...]
January 9, 2008 – 12:35 pm
We’re back from our “Golden Triangle” trip - safe and sound, battle scarred and road weary. Our trip was, in different turns (and often within minutes of each other) beautiful, dirty, frustrating, rewarding, restful, and stressful. We saw wonders of the world and soul wrenching poverty, experienced overwhelming environmental degradation back to back with fantastic [...]
December 22, 2007 – 9:35 pm
Imagine being able to play in your outdoor pool on Christmas Eve!! That’s what we did tonight, as the parents grilled chicken, the kids ‘painted’ each other and chased the crows away, and we all sat on the patio furniture watching the sun go down and the bats come up while we got ready for [...]
December 21, 2007 – 11:36 pm
Tonight is the “big” Eid – the end of the pilgimage to Mecca. That means huge parties where animals are slaughtered - great fun for the whole family. We’ve seen people leading their goats all around town getting them ready for the feasting that will be going on. As I write this, a band is [...]
December 15, 2007 – 9:34 am
December 15 - after being in Mumbai for 4 and a half months, today is the first day that the temperature is moderate enough, the weather is calm enough, the pollution is low enough, and the outside smells are offensiveless enough for us to turn off the air conditioners and throw open the windows. Ahh, [...]
December 12, 2007 – 9:52 am
A couple of new pages going up today - some shots of the kids during this past month and pictures taken during our typical days’ bus rides. Just another look at Life in India…
December 8, 2007 – 12:33 pm
The middle school drama group is putting on a production of Romeo and Juliet this week, and Alea was very excited to be able to attend a sneak preview during school. We were talking about it before the big day, and trying to explain why it was a comedy, love tale, and sad story all [...]
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