Candy for Breakfast

Even though I hate to admit it, at 25 I still get so excited for Halloween!! I love candy so much. I always have. Halloween is about dressing up in creative costumes and carving jack-o-lanterns but an excuse to eat candy all day is the best part of October 31st in my book! This morning I woke up, ate a jolly rancher with my coffee and then a couple of mini reeses cups (thanks Fitzgerald family!!) Then I experienced a sugar high and was running into everyone's rooms singing "Candy for breakfast, candy for breakfast." One problem is that my stomach started hurting after about an hour so I had to eat a regular breakfast. But I did decide that if we have kids I want to start a tradition where the day after Halloween our kids can eat all the candy they want for breakfast!! Don't you think that kids would LOVE that??

Humbled...

Until yesterday I was pretty proud of my blogging skills. I had figured out how to use the system and was blogging fairly consistently. That was until I visited my friend Megan's blog. It puts my blog to shame. Now I am a bit embarrassed.
So, I have began my quest of figuring out how to blog creatively. I mean, who wants to read a boring blog... no one! I am sorry if my blog has bored you in the past. As you can tell by the new look, I am going to really start trying.
Another thing that was a bit embarrassing was the amount of people who commented on all of her posts. Right now I am lucky if my mom comments (thanks mom!) so I'm not sure if it is just my mom reading my blog or what. So, if you read this blog will you comment and let me know so that I can know my audience!!! Even Annie has figured out how to comment, so I know you can do it!! Hahaha! Love you Annie!

Things we love in India...

Tonight I was sitting on the roof with Stephen, Erin, Brittany, Brittan and Rob. Erin thought it would be a fun idea to list off some of the things we love in India as we enjoyed the fireworks of Diwali. I thought I would share a few that I can remember with you.

- that we are still wearing jeans and t-shirts at night and completely comfortable
- the ambiance of the amazing restaurants here
- that we have a wonderful cook
- auto-rickshaws are on every street so you are never without transportation
- fireworks have been going off non-stop for hours
- we can communicate via skype fairly easily
- you can wear a whole outfit that is bright pink, orange, green, purple or blue
- the kids who live next door to us
- we get to workout several times a week
- fifty rupees per dollar!
- fun times with our team

Well we had several more but these are all that I can remember.

Happy Diwali

What does it mean when traffic is crazy, everyone is buying gifts and new clothes and people are generally in good spirits...HOLIDAY SEASON. We are currently entering into festival (holiday) season here in India. Tuesday we will be celebrating Diwali which is the largest festival in Hyderabad. "Diwali is the festival of lights," in the words of Michael Scott from the Office. It is filled with good food, little lanterns lit everywhere you go and tons of fireworks. The celebrations began tonight. Stephen had the great idea of going up to sit on our room and watch the fireworks. Here there is not a big city-wide fireworks ceremony but every individual family gets together and puts on their own fireworks display. It was so cool watching all the crackers, as they call fireworks here, from every direction in the city. There will be more fireworks tomorrow night and, from what I've heard, I will see more fireworks on Tuesday than all of my 4th of Julys combined! It is really a fun time here in India. We are enjoying all so many once in a lifetime experiences.
So, from us to you...HAPPY DIWALI!

Day by Day

October 6th - Fly to Delhi and arrive at 9:15 in the evening!! Find a roach in our hotel...uh oh... go to bed.

October 7th - Shop at the amazing market in Delhi. We got the most amazing scarves!! Then we went to this crazy market where you can buy western clothes!! It was heaven because it reminded me of NBC - a lot of digging for cute shirts that cost about $2!! My most prized purchase was a cute calf length gray dress!! Get ready Thailand!! In the afternoon we go to Max hospital to visit Ballgame. He informed us that he had just walked to the American toilet for the first time since the accident!! Our team is freakishly close!! Yea for his recovery.

October 8th - All day trip to Agra to see the Taj Mahal!! It was so amazing. It really is all that it is cracked up to be!! We rode little buggies pulled by horses up to it even though our tour guide was dying for us to take a bus. Our team took about one thousand pictures - the typical ones (jumping over the taj, holding the point, etc) and even some creative ones!! How fun!


October 9th - Another fun day in Delhi! Stephen, Brittan and I went up to the hospital to spend some more time with Ballgame. He found out that he is probably going to be going back to the US this coming weekend to start physical therapy!! Then Brittan and I went to lunch with the Millers and shopped a little at the expensive mall!! At 10 pm we leave to begin the longest bus journey of our lives!! We were told the drive to Manali was 12 hours but it ended up taking 18!! Wow!

October 10th- Happy Birthday Stephen!! Spent the morning still driving but arrived halfway through Stephen's 29th birthday!! We were able to celebrate in the Himalayas so it made the drive totally worth it!! We ate lunch at Chopsticks (our whole teams new favorite restaurant) and walked around the city. It is an amazing place!

October 11th- Paragliding in the Himalayas has to be the coolest thing I have ever done in my life!! Our drive up the mountain was hilarious because about halfway up the mountain we ran into an extreme traffic jam. Turns out, a bridge was under repair for about an hour. Well the cars on both sides piled up so it took us forever to get up!! Typical life in India right (You can imagine that we were all praying big time as we crossed the newly repaired bridge) Well we finally made it up then we were off...running off the mountain to see the most amazing view of our lives!!

October 12th - Happy birthday Matt!! The good news was that Matt got to spend his birthday in the mountains, the bad new was that he was sick all day. He was a great sport about it though!! Stephen and I went for a little alone time and had brunch at a cute German bakery. We talked about all of the experiences we have had as a couple since we got married. It was a really fun time! We also did some shopping!!

October 13th- Happy birthday Erin!! Back in the van for the trip back to Delhi!! Our trip home was a bit more fun than the night trip because our bathroom stops were a little less shady!! It's amazing what a decent bathroom can add to a road trip. We all talked about our trip a lot and had a good time together!

October 14th- Fly home. It was a great trip to say the least!!

We're Home!

We made it safely home from our North India trip this afternoon around one o'clock. It was a little strange to feel relieved to fly into the Hyderabad airport because it is beginning to feel a little like "home." Don't take this the wrong way, we all still miss home a ton but there is something to be said for sleeping in your own bed and not living out of a suitcase after a long trip!!
Our trip was AMAZING. We got to experience so many "once in a lifetime" moments on this trip. I will post more pics and tell some stories later

Our Favorite Restaurant and Cake in the Face

Last night was a good night. We went to our favorite restaurant, Barbeque Nation, last night to celebrate Blake's birthday. I know you might not trust our judgment since we have been living here for 4 months now, but it is a seriously amazing place. Every table has an opening for a grill. The servers bring out skewers of chicken, shrimp, mushrooms, green peppers and potatoes that are 90% cooked and place them on the grill. Then you brush marinades on them and have many different dipping sauces to choose from. This place is amazing!
We got home and Blake opened his birthday gifts (a tennis racket and new tennis balls) and hit the golf ball pinata that we made for him out of paper mache. Our friend, Bala, showed up at the house with a chocolate cake at 11:50. Blake teased him that he was ten minutes early but there were trick candles on the cake so he didn't end up blowing them all the way out until midnight! Bala cut the cake a served Blake the first piece Indian style. Here they smash the birthday cake in the birthday boys face and smear it all around. Then Bala grabbed the second piece and smashed it in Matts face (his birthday is Oct. 12), the third piece went into Stephen's face (his birthday is Oct 10) and then chased down Erin for the fourth piece (her birthday is Oct 13.) We are going to be in North India during all of their birthdays so he didn't want to miss the chance to smash cake in their faces!!