Middle of summer

The dog days of summer are here. Temperatures are well into the 90s. Last night we had a very severe thunderstorm, and the power was out all night. It still hadn't come back on when I left this morning. We had fun "camping" out in the basement with a flashlight. Camping out means all of us sitting on a comforter with another one thrown over us like a tent. Both Priya and Armaan slept through the thundering and lightning. I'm glad that neither one is so far afraid of storms.

We've been managing to do little things here and there. We just got a kids bike carrier (the one that hitches to the back of the bike) as a permanent loaner from a friend, and so there's some more bike rides coming up.

John Mayer's target audience

Hmm... I wonder why...

Priya with her perpetual shock of falling hair

A present for mama

Every girl looks good in an updo!

The kids with Joo Yeon and Jin

Singin' in the rain

Priya has graduated to arm floats

Trip to the zoo

Armaan likes picnic lunches

Not so sure about bleating animals

Week in Michigan

Warning for the bandwidth-challenged! This is a long post with a lot of media content. Hope no one's seeing this over dial-up. Posts like these make you wish you had gone for the faster DSL plan! :-)

Here we start with Tish's grandma's 80th birthday party.

The grandkids and great-grandkids

The cake was pretty good!

Now on to grandpa and grandma's...

Have bouncy ball, will travel... in style

Armaan loves it when boys are around

Grandpa with his little ones

Priya with Chase

Austin and Chase

Then we come to Armaan's birthday party

That's right - I'm 1!

Hey this stuff is pretty good! Moooore...

I know you.. Santa!

Priya and Kayla

The kids went on their first visit to the beach last week while Kayla was in town.

Rub the belly for good luck!

The ultimate fate of Barbies everywhere

Tish and Kayla

Armaan finally had enough...

While Priya found bigger holes to dig...

Fathers be good to your daughters

Here is such a poignant reminder of how powerful a father's influence (or lack of) is on his daughter's life. For an entertainment show, watch how obvious the painful undercurrents are. I haven't been able to stop thinking about this since I saw it...

Happy Birthday Armaan!

Well.. sorta. For sure, happy birthday to the big, little boy! But I don't have any celebratory pictures to show yet. His birthday party is yet to happen. So stay tuned.

Tish's sister and her two boys visited us over the weekend of the fourth. So we spent some time with them. Then that weekend we drove up to Michigan for Tish's grandma's 80th birthday party. That's why we couldn't do anything for Armaan on his actual birthday. Still, he got lots of extra love to make up for it!

Skylar's just as happy now to hang out with Armaan

Never too early to start training to clean

Priya striking a pose

The two sissies

Waiting for a train that never comes...

The obligatory Bean pic

Austin and Chayse

Armaan at the Highland Fair on the 4th - you did all this for me?!!

Some day these bars will not be able to hold me

Check out the little guy!