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Tis the season

December 6, 2009 – 10:05 am

Alea on the sax - winter 2009We have a slow moving family this morning, as we all nurse the excesses from this ‘start of the holiday season’ weekend. The events began on Wednesday, with Alea’s band concert, and things will just get ever more crazy from that point on.

This weekend is chock a block with doings: Friday night was an impromptu rooftop gathering in celebration of a colleague’s new job in Bucharest, Saturday night was the school’s Christmas party at Aurus, a swanky beachside club (open bar and all, thus the quiet music and dim lights this morning), today is an art show followed by holiday sing-a-long, and Monday is the Grand Hyatt’s tree-lighting ceremony showcasing the ASB elementary schoolers and also including copious amounts of first-class food and drink (unfortunately on a school night!).

Alea’s play practices – the show is called “Online – An Internet Fantasy” – are revving up in intensity, as her performances are Friday afternoon and evening, Susan has a chick-flick movie night organized on Saturday, our White Elephant party is Thursday evening, and then we are outta here for Bali. Whew. I’m glad we got our tree up as early as we did, ’cause there’s no time to do it now!

By Dave | Posted in Alea, Family, Life in India | Comments (0)

Happy Halloween from Mumbai

November 9, 2008 – 10:01 am

We are, indeed, a week or so late – but that’s ok! Because of the week without walls trip and Diwali break, our Halloween celebrations didn’t take place until yesterday, but we sure jumped into them whole heartedly!

We had bought some Indian pumpkins – green, not orange – before our break, and kept them in the refrigerator to keep. Unfortunately, some froze and were no good, so we ended up with only one to carve.

But, the kids were sure excited about designing and cutting the face. Alea drew out the eyes, Breck liked a square nose, and Dad tried some fancy teeth. Breck took a turn cutting for the first time, and did a super job pushing the knife through the thick skin.

The seeds and scum inside were really cold (having just come out of the fridge), so Alea and Breck took turns scooping everything out. We got quite the assembly line going, where they would pull out a handful and hand it to dad, who separated the seeds from the other stuff and set them aside to bake (of course!). Mom sat at the other end, giving advice and taking pictures. A true family effort!

By the end of all the work, we had a great looking pumpkin all ready to fire up and scare the trick or treaters!


The kids got into the spirit of things with their costumes. Breck decided to bypass the Yoda look he had worn to school and went as a “Mysterious Jedi,” complete with mask, hood, and two lightsabers! Alea and some friends all got together to be “Plastic Bag Princesses,” a take off the book “The Paper Bag Princess.” (obviously the ogre at the end went with a different theme for her costume!

We played scary music that echoed through the hallways, and the floodgates opened at 7. By my count, there were 22 kids running around and knocking on doors, looking for goodies. By 7:15, every apartment had been visited (sometimes even more than once by enterprising trick or treaters!), and people slowing began migrating down to the designated gathering place for candy swaps and treats for the adults (ahem). It actually turned into quite a good party, with conversation about politics and sports, kids trading huge piles of candy, pillow fights, and even the Thriller video!

With a surprise visit by the Great Pumpkin (disguised as a dog), the evening was complete. Dad had to drag Alea home at 11 (mom and Breck had left a bit earlier, as he is still getting over being sick), but the kids were already plotting what they were going to be next year. A super special scary evening, and a ton of fun for the start of the month.

And now – it is time to pull out the Christmas stuff!!!!!

By Dave | Posted in Family | Comments (0)

Happy Halloween!

November 1, 2007 – 7:51 am

Stutz family at Halloween 2007So here it is, one day after our Diwali shindig, and we had the big Halloween get together. (You can bet the kids are just going nuts at school with all the parties, candy, days off, and break coming up.) We had a trick or treating night at our apartment building, and all staff kids were invited to go up and down the stairs, knocking on all the doors and getting tons of candy. There were even ‘adult treats’ being cracked open in one of the apartments.

A few more pictures of the evening are posted here.

Breck and Alea did pretty well, and held their own in the trading sessions that followed. I was pretty excited to see that someone had even gotten ahold of Reese’s somehow, and so I made sure to ‘encourage’ them to trade for those!!

Susan the pirate picked up the same cold that Breck and Alea had, and so she stayed for a bit as the pirate greeting the kids, but then she did make her way around to give holiday greetings to all. She was not feeling any better this morning, but still decided to come in to school, but was not sure if she would make it all day. (I find it amusing that our driver has the day off on Thursdays, and that is the day of the week that everyone in our family has been the sickest!) Hopefully she’ll be feeling better by this weekend!

By Dave | Posted in Family, Life in India | Comments (0)

Oktoberfest…

October 22, 2007 – 7:55 am

Oktoberfest 2007Was a blast! We had a great crew of people show up, and we ate, drank, and danced the night away. Breck and some buddies were the ‘no shirt club,’ keeping things under control in the apartment, and Alea and her friends were very excitedly dancing to all the songs. It will absolutely become a Bombay tradition as we go forward from here. I have to run this morning for a week in Matheran, but will post a picture of the yummy keg we were able to get. Auf wiedersehen…

By Dave | Posted in Dave, Life in India | Comments (0)

Week’s end

October 19, 2007 – 3:47 pm

Breck's Crazy Hair!!Whew. This week went out like a lion. It has been crazy, crazy, crazy around school as everyone in the middle and high school prepares for the “Week Without Walls” that kicks off next Monday. I’ll be traveling with the 6th graders to Matheran for 5 days of team- and class-building activities. They are super excited about going, and I’m getting more so by the day.

Unfortunately on the home front, Alea has had to stay home the past 2 days with the same yucky cough thing that Breck had last week. She’s really bummed, because today was Crazy Hair day at the Elementary School and she was part of the group that organized and designed the day. Luckily, Breck was there to pick up the Stutz family participatory slack!

But at least we all have Oktoberfest to look forward to. My list of things to do after school is pretty super long…

One of my colleagues told a little story about an occurrence in class, and it seems like a great way to end the week. Because kids read this, we’ll replace bad language with little stars!!

It is quite an experience to be teaching with a bunch of kids for whom the English language, in all its beauty and nuance, is not their mother tongue. (Keep in mind this event happened in a class full of innocent elementary school kids – not the high schoolers!) Apparently the teacher made a mistake and said, “Shoot!” in class. One little girl gasped and said, “That’s a bad word!” To which another boy replied, “No, Shoot is ok to say, but S**T is a bad word.” Some other kid perked up and goes, “My dad says that G**D****T is much worse than that.” And the sweet little angel across the room pipes up, “But my brother said that F**K was the worst word of all.” Poor teacher had to wait a few moments, hand over giggling mouth, before retaking control of the situation.

Just a little flavor of the week, from all of us to all of you.

By Dave | Posted in Alea, Breck, Dave, Family, Life in India | Comments (1)

Eid Mubarak

October 14, 2007 – 9:33 pm

Eid celebrationWell the kids are in bed, but the fireworks are just starting to go off all over. It is Eid, the end of a month of fasting for Mulsims, and our neighbors downstairs are gearing up for a big party tonight. I wonder how that will compare with the Oktoberfest party we are planning for next Saturday? Many of the drivers at school are Muslim, and most have been fasting, so the afternoon rides home – when they’re feeling the effects of a full day with no food – have not been for the faint of heart!

It is pretty interesting to live in a place where all these different festivals coexist so well. The Ganesh season just wrapped up and there is another Hindu festival happening now too (with however many hundreds of god there are, it is no surprise that there always seems to be a party going on). And the Christians have… Halloween right around the corner!! (let’s see how many hackles get raised with that comment!)

Elementary soccer teamHad the big elementary school soccer tournament today – last day of coaching for me (yay!). We went 2-0-1, but the team we tied won on goal differential. Oh well, it was a fun day in the sun. The tough part about it was that Breck wanted to be on the team, but there were only 12 allowed (and 63 went out). Kind of a rough deal to have to make cuts in grades 1 through 3.

Anyways, after swimming with the kids, we all spent a quiet afternoon getting ready for Monday. We will be going to an Eid celebration tomorrow too, so will be interested in seeing how that goes.

By Dave | Posted in Family, India, Life in India | Comments (0)