Ho Ho Ho! Merry Christmas

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a blessed New year!

Vacation... Part 2 -At Mahabalipuram

We visited 3 different states in our 4 week vacation! Maybe that’s why we felt vacation was too short! During the second week, we were at Mahabalipuram near Chennai. It is famous for carvings on rock. It is marvelous to see the elaborate cave carvings that date back to many centuries ago. An interesting aspect of these sculptures is that, most of the sculptures are Monolithic ( made from single rock) despite their huge sizes!!Each rock-cut caves has a story to tell about the God and Goddesses. Below are some pictures taken at Mahabalipuram

Carvings inside one of the caves.

This Elephant sculpture was the cover page of my 6th grade History Textbook!!The Five Rathas-five monolithic pyramidal structures named after the Pandavas (Arjuna, Bhima, Yudhistra, Nakula, Sahadeva).

There were lot of monkeys around to entertain Annabel. We also saw a monkey cleverly opening a pepsi bottle and sipping the remains!!

Vacation...Part I

I am back again after our short Home leave. We had a good time.. visited many places and saw our relatives and friends. Annabel enjoyed the trip.. she loved to stay outdoors, see all the animals ( cows, dogs, cats, birds) and most of all the attention and care she got from everyone around her.

We stayed in Indore, MP for a week in the start of our trip. Here are some pictures taken there.

Learning to Drive :)

At Sree Maya Restaurant

At MacDonald in Treasure Island, Indore

The White tiger at Indore zoo.

Kozhukatta aka Rice Dumplings

They are Annabels favourite morning snack.. Infact she loves anything which is sweet.. These photos are taken while she was nibbling at it on one Sunday morning!

You can find the Recipe from this very nice blog Kitchen Mishmash. She as explained step by step of how to make it!

Diwali 2008

Lighting some sparklers and having some sweets, brightened children's spirits on Diwali day. Here are some photos taken on 28th October 2008.

Oatmeal cookies

Annabel has been going to a babysitter, Varvara from the time she was 6 months old. She is an elderly lady with a unique and tender way of looking after children. She lets them play without any restrictions and children there seem to be happy always. Children also loves Papoo, Varvara's huband, as he gets them sweets after his day at work. Annabel gives them 'Filaki' (flying kiss) everyday before she comes home with us. Annabel with Varvara

Oneday, Varvara gave us a Cypriot dish made with minced meat. It tasted very good.. we finished the entire plate before we reached home. I did not want to give an empty plate back. So I baked some oat meal cookies early next morning.
Oatmeal cookies i baked
The recipe is from joyofbaking a very useful resource for all the bakers out there!

Medrano circus

Annabel's First ever circus! Animals always fascinated her. She loved to watch them in TV, in books. We had taken her to Limassol zoo several times, but the Tiger and Leopard there are difficult to spot as they are almost always dozing. The main intention was to see animals at the circus.

The Circus had 10 horses performing according to the masters instructions. This was quite amusing. Then there were Aligators, long heavy snakes! They also showed scorpions, huge rats and some other reptiles. There were jugglers., shooters, trapeze artists doing various stunts.

One of the most interesting was the motorist in the cage. It was amazing to see the 5 motorist inside a cage, driving at high speeds. There were also elephants, 5 camels, a kangaroo, 3 bulls, and 2 Giraffe! We also saw 2 fierce tigers and a Rhino, but they were not brought to the ring.
Annabel enjoyed every moment of the circus. She was clapping and keenly looking at what was going to happen next. We all thoroughly enjoyed being there.

At Limassol Municipal Park

This Sunday after the church, we went to the Municipal park. There was an event which the Police and Fire force had organized with the public. There were balloons, face painting, coloring for the kids. Police displayed the bikes they use for patrol and also a fire engine truck. The traffic police also had a stall, where they were demonstrating the traffic rules and the kids got a free ride on the little jeeps.

Ready for the trip!

Wow!! a train in Limassol!

Relaxing with Daddy

On the Police bike!

My Toy Room

Look at My collection of toys!

All my Dolls
My Teddy Bears
My Train set.. You can also see my fire engine in the background.
My kitchen set.. Most of plates and cups are under the Sofa always ;)

But my favorite toy is the TV Remote!

Day of the Sea

The first Event of the kind in Limassol! It was a charity fair. It had some stalls selling traditional lace work, pottery and few selling donuts, pizza, local sweets. There were also few game stalls like feeding the fish, lottery. This event also showcased a helicopter rescue operation (Air-Sea rescue Operation).

Annabel enjoyed seeing the helicopter and the Balloons and cap they gifted. Also the Donuts from the stall was yummy!

Orange Sponge Cake

This weekend, I baked a quick Orange cake. It is quite simple and healthy as it did not have any oil and butter!
Recipe:

2Eggs
1Cup of Flour and 1 tspn baking powder sifted
1/4 cup of powdered sugar
1 tbspn of Orange Zest
Juice from one orange juice.

Preheat oven at 180C. Line a baking tray with baking sheet. Separate the egg yolks and white. Beat the egg white till fluffy and holds stiff peaks. Mix together the egg yolk, orange juice and slowly incorporate the dry ingredients (sugar and flour). Fold in the Egg white slowly till it is well incorporated into the batter. The batter should be of the right consistency. If it is too stiff, add some warm water.

Pour it in the baking tray and bake for atleast 30 minutes. Tooth pick inserted in the center should come clean.

Yummy RasMalai!

Recently, I have been experimenting some of my cooking skills. Jacob asked me to give a try at his favorite Sweet RasMalai.. I searched through several websites and blogs for a good recipe. I came across Mrs Manjulas website http://www.manjulaskitchen.com/. She has a very good collection of sweets, snacks and savories. I have been trying quite a lot of her recipes and always they turn out excellent.

I made the RasMalai she posted for a Charity event which had an Indian Stall. The RasMalai came out perfect and I have shared this recipe with many friends and colleagues.

Home Vacation 2007

Home leave is a time that we look forward to every year. In 2007, we managed to schedule it during the Christmas eve.. We had a wonderful Christmas and a good start to the new Year.

We took some time to visit my Grandfather, back in my mothers town in Mailaduthurai, TamilNadu.

We also visited the beautiful church in Velankani. This Church has a history of many miracles. Miri had a good hair cut also done here.There is busy market street behind the church ( as u can see in the below photo) which leads to a beach.



The Tanjore Temple (Thanjavur Periya Kovil) with its marvelous architecture was another interesting stop in our TamilNadu trip. There is a large bull at the entrance of this temple. It is believed that this stone Bull is growing every year and when it touches the Roof , the world would end! Amazing fact about this temple is that, Gopuram does not have shadow at any time of the day!


Time has again come when we are counting down the days to the next home leave.. We are again looking forward to have some nice time with our family and friends back in India.

I Love the Sun! Hot Hot summer !

2008 Summer has been real nice time. The heat in Cyprus was not unbearable, it was kind of pleasant. Summer gave us lot of good memories with beaches, water parks and some nice outings!

Carnival 2008

Beaches and water park !

Happy First Birthday :)

The first year went very quick.. It was not an easy year. Nevertheless, we enjoyed every moment of her first year.. the sleepless nights, messy nappies, seeing her roll over, crawl, her first steps, when she first said "mama" "dada"...
The First 6 Months!
Next 6 months :)
Happy Birthday!

My Family

Married in early 2005, I am now a mother to a lovely girl Annabel. She was born on 16th Jan 2007.. From then, she has been the center of our lives..we cannot think of days without her..



She weighed 3 kilo when she was born.. Our little bundle of joy..


Our first family Snap!



Baptism pictures!
Photos from her baptism. Jacob, on his trip to ISREAL had got some water from river of Jordan. She was baptized with this water.

Signing In

My dear friends and colleagues inspired me to create a blog of my own, with their own impressive blogs.. It’s also a way to keep my relatives and friends who live faraway to keep updated on what is happening at our end. I would be posting, topics about my beautiful daughter Annabel, my kitchen experiments, my tours and many many more..