Changes

With the new year Viddy and I are making some changes in our lives. We have decided to stop the adoption process and try to get pregnant with the help of modern medicine. This was something that wasn't an option a few years ago, and we really feel that everything we endured with the adoption process was a preparation for this next step.
Another change is me going back to school. In January I will be attending cosmetology school. It's something that I've always wanted to do and I now have the opportunity. I should be able to finish before a baby comes and it will be something that I will be able to do part-time when we have kids.
We hope that everyone had a very Merry Christmas and have a great new year!

Wedding #3

Liz and Glenn's wedding was the 3rd we went to in October. It was such a wonderful day and I even survived all day in heals, which was something I didn't think I would be able to do.

This wasn't the wedding cake, but it was the bridal shower cake. I really liked how all of the flowers looked. 

Wedding #2

The second wedding we went to was Jenny's (Viddy's sister). Jenny was a beautiful bride and we loved spending time with the family. I have to thank everyone for all the help with the food. We wouldn't have been able to do it by ourselves. 

The weather couldn't have been better.

Wedding #1

The first wedding that we went to in October was Viddy's aunt Diane. It was wonderful, and what made the whole day even more special was when Donavon was sealed to the newly married couple. 

All the May siblings 

The first official wedding cake completed by Jessica and Viddy. And it didn't turn out too bad if I do say so myself - it's amazing what can be done and how funny it can be at three in the morning. 

Awesome Food

We participated in a few weddings in October and we had the opportunity to do the catering for my younger sister's wedding and here are a few pictures of the food. I think we will open a catering business when I finish grad school and we have a little more spending money. We had a lot of fun and a lot of help

We made an edible bouquet of fruit. Basically a bunch of skewered fruit sticking out of a pineapple. My brother built us a stand so the pineapples wouldn't fall over. Fun.
We made a couple thousand truffles of various shapes and sizes...There were mint, oreo, chcolate, and cookie dough truffles. We also covered pomegranate in chocolate.
These are called Canapes. It's nearly impossible to pronounce correctly or at least remember how it's pronounced correctly so everyone started to say it like a Samali pirate. It was more fun that way.
This is how the food was served and displayed... You can see that we had an abundance of awesome food and didn't even mention the hundred of mini-tarts that we made that all turned out really well.

Jenny's Wedding cake...Dad decided chess pieces make the best cake topper. There are edible diamonds and pearls decorating the cake and it took a long time to make, but turned out better than I even thought it would.

If you need catering we can probably help, for a price. We were so exhausted after the reception we didn't function well for a week, but we had a great time and it was so good to see family.

Viddy has Talent!

The other week Viddy and I were sitting at church when the person conducting stands up and says that the person who was supposed to do the musical number wasn't there and they might call someone out of the audience to improve. For some reason Viddy gives him an enthusiastic thumbs up. As soon as Viddy did that I turned to him and said, "Are you crazy? Why would you do that? Now he is going to ask us!" Sure enough now three minutes later a note is brought down from the stand asking us if we would be willing to do a duet. The small amount of singing that I do is limited to the shower, the car, and the little boy I nanny. I don't really like performing in public, although it has been done before, and there is no way that I could do it without any practice.
So Viddy and I discuss what we should do. I don't have my flute with me, and there isn't time to run home and get it. We can't really pull off a duet on the piano without running through it at least once. So Viddy returns the note and says that he will do it. After much debate about which song to do, he finally settles on Lord, I would Follow Thee. Viddy walks to the piano with nothing in hand, opens the hymnal that is at the piano to the page and then proceeds to play an amazing piece which unless you had been there and witnessed the whole thing, you would never believe he had no time to practice and was just looking at the music in the hymnal. After he was done (even I was impressed and I know what Viddy is capable of) the girl next to me turned and said "I have no idea where he was able to pull that from."
Moral of the story is, don't give your bishop a thumbs up when he announces that the person doing the musical number is not there. And I have an incredibly talented husband!

He's not single!

October was the month of weddings for us. We went to three, two in Utah and one in Arizona. It was a lot of fun. One of the funniest things that happened was when we were at Liz and Glenn's wedding. We were at the reception and all the single guys had been called up to try and catch the garter. Viddy and I were sitting back enjoying it all, when out of nowhere the DJ says "You in the back, someone with that hair style has got to be single!" That's when I proudly held up my left hand and all the bling that is on my ring finger. The DJ didn't quite know what to say. He got out something that kind of sounded like "Wow" but I can't be sure. :) All I can say is that I'm glad that I had just had my ring cleaned the day before because it was extra shiny and could be seen across the room.

There is a Plan

I've been doing a lot of thinking this past week and I have came to the harsh realization that life is not easy and there are things that will happen that will break our hearts. Yet through it all we can learn to love more than we ever thought possible. Sometimes it is very hard to trust in the Lord's plan for us, because it might not seem fair or it isn't what we wanted. But as we trust in Him, He can and will make us stronger and we can know that He is in charge and there is a plan. I can't say I'm glad to have gone through what I did last week, but I believe Viddy and I will be made stronger for it. There is a plan and just because we don't know why things happen, doesn't mean the Lord doesn't love us. 

Photography Class

A few months ago Viddy bought me a sweet camera. The only stipulation was that I had to take a photography class. So in order to hold up my end of the deal I registered for the class and am now a couple months into it. The first critique was 2 weeks ago and out of the 200+ pictures that I took I only really liked 1. Tomorrow is the 2nd critique and this time I have pictures that I am actually proud of!

The one picture last time

My three favorites from this time around

I had to save the best for last! This is my all time favorite

Hawaii

I know it's been a few months since we went to Hawaii, but I thought I would post about it just so everyone can know how incredibly amazing it was. We had the greatest time!!! I told Viddy when we left that we need to live there someday... I was in love. Here are just some of the activities we did and places we visited while we were there:

Snorkeling

Para-sailing

Hiking

Swimming

Eating

Shopping

Watching Fireworks

Waikiki

Pearl Harbor

Swap Meet

Lyon Arboretum

Hanamuma Bay

Sharks Cove

Pali Lookout

Dole Plantation

BYU Hawaii

Temple

Polynesian Cultural Center

Luau

Diamond Head

and lots more!

Here are some pictures just to show you how awesome it was! I know there's a lot, but it was just so incredible, and there are lots to choose from.

Our Lives Since India

Well, nothing really seems as exciting as our trip around the world, but life still goes on. So let me update you a little on some of the things that have been happening in our lives. On Memorial we drove through the night to surprise Viddy's parents in Utah. Nearly all of the family was going to be there and we didn't want to miss out on the excitement, so we decided to go. It was a ton of fun seeing everyone and doing all the crazy things that we do when we all get together. Some of the activities included hiking Stuart Falls, going to Thanksgiving Point to see all the beautiful flowers, an awesome bbq, movies and games.

Then I was given a job offer that I couldn't refuse, so I put my two weeks notice in at the hotel I was working at and took a job as a nanny watching the cutest little boy ever and I'm having a blast. One great benefit of the job is that I get to try out a bunch of baby items without even having to buy them.

Over the 4th of July holiday we went hiking up Mount Lemon and for about 3 minutes I actually felt cold for the first time in several months. But then we started hiking and I was sweating in no time.

Come to think of it, we really haven't been too exciting since we got back, but we do have a trip planned to go to the mountains and another one to visit Hawaii. Then our summer of traveling will be over.

India Part II (The Wedding)

Before going to India, I didn't really know what Indian weddings entailed. Here is a little of what I've learned.

This is us and the bride and groom after a long day at the wedding hall. The wedding ceremonies started the night before with a washing and cleansing process. The next day the groom and his parents went to the wedding hall around 6 in the morning and we followed about an hour later. There were things going on all day.

Bhaskar and Deepika. The rice all over is symbolic of blessings. I've never seen so much rice thrown before!

This is me in a sari. You wouldn't believe how complicated these things were to put on. Let's just say that I didn't dress myself for that part of the day. The lady putting it on me kept asking me questions like "Do you want 3 or 4 pleats?" Finally Bhaskar's sister told her that it didn't really matter since I had never worn one before.

This is the wedding hall and the outfit that I wore for the most of the day because it was the most comfortable. What I am wearing here is a dress that you see a lot of girls my age wearing. I think that they are a lot more practical and more comfortable. After I had changed back into this outfit after wearing the sari, a little girl asked me (in Telugu-the language spoken in this part of India) where my scarf was. I didn't understand her of course, but there were plenty other people around to tell me that I had forgotten my scarf.

Before the bride and groom saw each other.

This is a tradition where the groom (Bhaskar) tells everyone that he has decided to call the wedding off and live his life as a bachelor. Then the brides family comes and persuades him to go through with the wedding.

Deepika, the bride. This was an arranged marriage, like most of the marriages in India.

The final ceremony done at the wedding hall (there is more that goes on once the bride and groom go back to his parents house that night and then in the morning) is one that I thought was pretty cool. Here the bride is being accepted by every member of the groom's family. Once the bride is married she is no longer a part of her family, but becomes part of her husband's family. Another thing that I learned is that you can tell whether a woman is married or not by the color of her bangles. Darker bangles means that the woman is married.

India Part I

These are some of the things that we did before the wedding.

Charminar: Which literally means four towers. It was built in 1591 and the story behind it is that the ruler at the time (Sultan Muhammad Quli Qutub Shah) was praying for to end a plague in the city and he vowed that he would build a monument in the very place he was praying if the plague went away.

This was the view from Charminar. And no, those autos aren't parked, everyone is driving/walking and they drive and walk wherever they want. The only reason there isn't people driving on the other side of the street is because there is a median. Another thing that you can't see in the picture is the constant honking. People honk all the time there. And as far as I could tell, they honked when they wanted to pass, someone was in their way, someone got to close to them, they wanted to turn and wanted to make sure that the oncoming traffic stopped, or just because they hadn't honked in a while. I would never be able to drive in India, and I thought that I was going to die every time we got in a car.

In Charminar. The price to get in for Indians is 5 rupees, (the exchange rate when we were there was 46 rupees to every dollar) which is nothing, but the price for foreigners is 100 rupees, which is still very cheap, but still 20 times more expensive!

After visiting Charminar, we had coconut water straight from the coconut. At the time I thought it was the best thing that I had ever tasted, but later I began to wonder if that was because I was really thirsty and dehydrated.

Yes, there is McDonald's even in India, however you won't find a hamburger on the menu. There is no beef sold in any stores.

One evening before the wedding we went out to go sari shopping. It was crazy! There were so many people in the store. There weren't any racks, but instead you sat with a store worker who brought you tons and tons of material until you found the right one you wanted.

One of Bhaskar's nieces. And if it looks like I'm really sweaty, it's because I am. It was so hot all the time and humid as heck. I don't think that I could ever live there because of the constant heat... and I live in Tucson where it is currently 101 degrees at 7:30 at night.

I got a head shot so you couldn't see all the sweat marks on our clothes. But then again, sweating was the only way to stay cool.

The toilet that we used. Not pictured is the shower, but all you have to think of is a bucket and a cup under a spigot. The shower heads that they do have don't work because the water is so hard that they just clog the shower head.

Lunch. I should have put my hand next to all the food because you can't really see how much food there was to eat. I ate about half of the rice (on the left) and I was completely stuffed. While we were there, Bhaskar's family kept telling us that they were concerned about us because we hadn't been eating a lot and they didn't believe us when we told them that we hadn't been hungry the whole time we were there, even though we were only eating about half of what everyone else ate. The first night we ate dinner with the family I noticed that I was the only girl eating with all the boys and when I asked why they told me that it was tradition to have the girls eat after all the men ate. However after that first night, there was always another girl eating with me during dinner, which they probably did on purpose to make me feel comfortable.

It was amazing to me how concerned about our welfare everyone was. They were always making sure that we had enough to drink, and that the water was sanitary (which I was grateful for). Overall, everyone was very nice.