Annika lost another tooth

Annika has been working on this tooth for the last week. It finally came out tonight. It will be nice to not have the 15 minute updates.

In all the excitement August wanted to show us how his teeth are growing in.

Ganesh Chaturthi

Auggie picking his Ganesha

Annika browsing for her Ganesha


Tiny kitty at the Ganesha stall


The statue I chose


The kids and their statues

Kids chose a statue for Gopi

Gopi will take his Ganesha home and perform a proper pooja before he puts his in the lake

Village Ganesha pooja

A family out for a festive evening

Ganeshas converging at the lake



Almost to the lake



A crane lowers the large statues into the lake


Auggie enjoying his last few minutes with his Ganesha

Since I was alone with the kids in this massive, pushing crowd of devotees I had them each hold an end of my pashmina and told them DON'T LET GO! A small person could really get lost in a place like this.


Auggie hands over his statue

The man in the middle is submerging August's statue


Until next year Ganesha... HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Homemade pretzels

I had a hankerin' for some warm, chewy, salty pretzels but I've never seen them here so I went to the internet to find out how to make them.

They're not very pretty but they fit the bill. They were great warm out of the oven but cold and day-old, not so much.

The recipe required the pretzels to be cooked at 550' and my little micro/convection oven couldn't get that high so I set it to the highest I could and cooked them a little longer.

Next I want to try making the small, thin, crunchy ones.

Water... now with H2O!!

Gotta get me some!

Ganesha is coming!

He's starting to pop up everywhere! So excited!