नमस्ते! Namaste!
Another year went by in a jiffy. We want to reflect on the past year by being grateful and thankful to everything we have – truly a beautiful life; having each other for better or worse (
married 15 years!), two wonderful kids who are growing up fast, and family and friends who give us love and support but also keep us on the straight and narrow.
We did our fair share of traveling this year. In a fit of weakness on Swati’s 4th birthday, we had promised her a pet when she turned 12, which seemed very far away at the time. But Swati remembered for 8 years, so we went to Hawaii for her 12th birthday to bribe our way out of that promise. Agastya, Swati, and Ashish tried surfing, with moderate success but enormous fun.
In the summer, we went to India for four weeks. It was hot and humid, but we absolutely loved spending time with parents, meeting family and friends, trekking in the Himalayas (which involved getting drenched in monsoon rains and having dozens of leeches all over our hands and feet), and watching kids play cricket. And since we never go to India in the summers, this was the first time in 20 years that we ate mangoes and jamun worth their name.
During the tail end of summer we visited New England, where we biked the postcard-perfect carriage roads in Acadia and hiked the ocean bed at Fundy National Park during their famous 50ft low tide. It was a laid back trip, a perfect way to recharge for the new school year.
This has been a year of change for Ashish as he quit his part-time Twitter position. He was also invited to a White House conference to present his work on the
crowdsourced democracy project. Ashish and his students have also been involved in conducting participatory budgeting trials at various cities using their platform.
Agastya did his first theatrical performance in Jungle book and landed in the competitive soccer team and is also doing well in Tennis and Maths. He loves playing pool with his dad, and spends too much time on the ipad.
Swati scored a double whammy this year by being the state winner of the
letter about literature and also winning honorary prize at
Synopsys Science fair. She is continuing with her passion for theater and is doing Playhouse shows at Children’s Theater. And for those of you who are worried about teenage years, all the horror stories are true!
Ruchi is in a soul-searching mode. We will report what she finds next year!
दीपावली की बहुत बहुत शुभकामनाएं सहित| -
Ruchi, Ashish, Swati & Agastya, October 2014
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