NYC Indian Style

Oh heck, no more procrastinating for me. It has been one week since Chiki and I went to NYC, and I can't put off blogging about it anymore. Last weekend, Chiki had a really good friend from the Navy get married. This wedding was totally awesome. First it took place in NYC, and second it was an all out traditional Indian wedding. Before I get to much into the wedding details, I must first mention for those of you who have yet to visit ... it is so difficult to drive around in that area. According to mapquest the hotel we were staying at was about 20 miles aways. It took me and Chiki 2 1/2 hours to get to our destination. Mapquest totally sucks and was telling us to take a lefthand turn, in areas where there was no landhand turn to be taken. On the plus side, I ended up getting that GPS unit that I have been trying to talk Chiki into getting for awhile. Yeah me!!

Now onto the wedding details. Ajay and Amrita's wedding consisted of two nights. The traditional 2 hour Vedic Hindu ceremony was the first to take place, which was then followed by a traditional vegetarian feast. The saries were absolutely beautiful, along with the people. What an experience!!

The Vedi where the couple was wed

Some of the wedding party

The happy couple Ajay and Amrita. 

Chiki, his friend Pee Wee, Ajay, and Amrita. Pee Wee is not his real name, nor do they pronounce Ajay's name correctly. Apparantly, if you have a hard to pronounce name or one that has the potential to be made fun of in the Navy ... one is made up for you. Too bad I didn't know this until I heard the correct way to say Ajay (Aw - Jay).

This picture is rediculous, but here I am trying a very interesting vege meatball. Did I mention we had to make a Taco Bell run on our way back to the hotel.

The traditional American ceremony was held the second night. There was lots of food, dancing, and laughing.

Totally HOT couple

Poser ... but a cute one

Did I mention I was the palest person there

The party scene.  Too bad I didn't take a picture of the dessert table. It was AWESOME!

Chiki and I are very fortunate to have friends who were born into many cultures and faiths. In my opinion, there is no better way to experience the world!!

NYC cont...

Chiki and I were only in NYC for 3 days, and although our schedules were packed with wedding festivities ... we still managed to spend a little time in Times Square.  Since we have already done most of the tourist activities,  we just wanted to walk around and take it all in.  Since there was no meat at the wedding the first night, we decided to gourge ourselves at Tony's with protein for  lunch.  The guys were not willing to risk two meatless days in a row.   Between 4 of us ... we ate 5 family style meat packed dishes. 

After our meat packed lunch, we headed off to the Toys'R'Us to get the girls a little something.  That is where we saw these totally awesome structures made of legos.  The Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty.  Chiki and I were like little kids on Christmas morning in that store.  The other couple we were with ... not so much :) 

Next, we headed to Hershy World.  They had these gynormous chocolate bars there that weighed 5 lbs. each.  A little too much chocolate for me.   

Our entire stay in NYC consisted of freezing weather and lots of running around.  But we are so happy that we went, and couldn't be more happy for Ajay and Amrita!!

(Only in NYC do you see things like this :))

Big'ol Crappy Day

Crappy Days.  We all have them, but boy some are worse then others.   That was my day yesterday.  Saturday January 10Th.  It all started with Chiki having to work from noon til 10 pm.  Not only was that the last Saturday before classes start back, but also his crazy new work schedule will soon begin.  We still have lots to catch up on, and a trip to get ready for.

Now, onto my day.  Chiki leaves for work, and me and Hannah bake a cake while Olivia takes a nap.  Hannah watches a movie while I make frosting and frost the cake.  What a disaster.  Apparently, the frosting was a little too runny and oozed right off the cake onto the counter. What a mess.  I would have been better off letting Hannah make the frosting from scratch.   Olivia wakes up a little while later, and me and the girls head off to the store in search for size 10 ballet and tap shoes.  Hannah's shoe size must be very popular because not a single recommended store had her size.  Anyhow, realized after arriving to the first store that out of all 4 strollers we own ... not a single one was in my trunk.  That meant that I would have to chase Olivia around each of the stores while Hannah tries on shoes.   Frustrated and annoyed, I decided to give up on the shoe search for the day and headed to another store for make up.  While standing in the check out line, I over heard the store clerk having a discussion with the customer ahead of me about how she wishes that people who have loud kids would just spare everyone else and stay home.  Fighting back the tears of embarrassment, I am trying to shush Olivia who is practicing her high pitched scream.  Came back to the house, and started to make dinner.  Feeling overwhelmed by each of my little busy bees, I burned part of dinner and had a soda explode in my face.  By this time, it is now about 7 pm.  I was thinking that things were going to finally calm down, and thought it would be fun to do the web cam with my parents.  Boy, was I wrong.  The fun didn't stop there.  Right as we were pulling up the web cam, Hannah walks into the computer room reeking of poop.  I lifted up the blanket she had wrapped around her, and realized that she wasn't wearing any pants and had brown stuff down her leg.  I quickly ran to her room, where I discovered she had pooped her pants on her way to the bathroom and took it upon herself to clean everything up.  Hannah had tracked poop from the bathroom into her bedroom, and then left a nice mess in the dirty clothes.  For all of you who really know me ... know what a germ freak I am.  If the carpet wasn't so new, I would ripe it all up - YUCK.   I had one daughter crying because she knew she was in trouble, and the other one walking around pointing to the poop saying "ewe poop."  A few hours later, after 2 baths, 2 loads of laundry, and lots of scrubbing and spraying of Lysol ... the girls were finally in bed and I could take a deep breath.  All of this happened, while Chiki still had an hour to spare at work.  The lucky bugger - ha ha!