Happy Birthday Abhay!

Today is Abhay's 29th birthday (29 on the 29th)! I am pretty sure he had an enjoyable day.

We celebrated by going out to eat at Texas Roadhouse after work. Mmmm, they have such fantastic food. I made a chocolate cake/chocolate frosting from scratch (my first from scratch cake) and it was quite yummy. We spent the evening playing his two new Wii games. Wii Sports Resort from me, and Sega Superstar Tennis from Gunjan and Vineet (his sister and brother-in-law).

Here a a few pics:The games!


The cake

Abhay and his cake

--MMR

Evening Stroll

This evening we took our evening walk downtown Columbus, instead of our usual walk around the development. It was such a great idea. We thoroughly enjoyed looking at all the beautiful, old/new buildings. We both take for granted that we live in such a architecturally rich city. The city of Columbus (population 40,000) ranks 6th in the US for it's architecture. It's a beautiful place to live!!

--MMR

garage sale weekend

We started our weekend off Friday night by enjoying an Indian food buffet at a local Indian restaurant. This, of course, is always Abhay's favorite night...Indian food night. I enjoy it too. The restaurant here in town, is fantastic. Abhay says, the best Indian food he's had in a restaurant outside of India. The people that own it are from Hyderabad (where Abhay's parents live) and they make the most delicious and authentic Hyderabadi Biryani. MMMMM! They also always have my personal favorite Chicken Tikka Masala. Extra bonus, they had Gulab Jamin that night as well.

Saturday was our big garage sale day. All in all, we did ok. We got rid of 60% our stuff, and made enough money to buy a new Paula Deen Cookware set (which was our goal). It rained late in the morning, and we think that deterred a lot of people. We closed up shop at noon and immediately boxed up the stuff we had left and brought it to Goodwill. It's so nice to be rid of it.

Saturday we headed to a southern Indianapolis suburb called Greenwood with our friends Ajit and Sangram for dinner and a movie. We had Thai food. We weren't too impressed with the food, but it was ok. Afterwards we saw the movie Public Enemies, which shockingly we BOTH liked. I wasn't a huge fan of the gunfights (of course Abhay was) but I loved the interesting story and great acting a. It's also sort of "fun" that the main character (or should I say main criminal) John Dillinger was from Indiana. Here's a little tidbit about him: He robbed a bank in Indianapolis in the '30's. Now a friend of ours, Tim, Dad has an art studio in that same building. Crazy, huh?

Our New Cookware! The nicest cookware I've ever owned!

--MMR

Weekend Review:

Friday night we went and ate at a new Mexican restaurant in town called Lolita's....it was super delicious. Afterwards we had to break in our 5 dollar movie club cards and we saw The Proposal. (which we both liked. Cute and quite funny!) 5 dollar movie club is basically a program the theater runs that charges 5 dollars (duh) admission into movies that have been out a couple of weeks. GREAT deal because we usually pay a few cents shy of 8 bucks for regular entrance. Like I've said before, we don't hold back on movies. We figure we don't drink or party so money we'd spend on that goes to movies. :) After the movies we stopped at Ritter's for chocolate/chocolate chip frozen custard. MMMMMM.

Saturday we spent the day doing stuff around the house. Abhay yard work, me gathering stuff around the house for a garage sale we will be having next weekend , and we both worked on straighting up the garage. Saturday night our friend Sangram invited us along with our other friends Suresh, Shiva, Sheetal, and Ajit over for dinner and the evening. He had some great food for us and we had some great conversation. We are very thankful for the great group of friends we have here in Columbus. They have "our backs" like family.

Sunday was normal Sunday stuff during the day. Sunday evening we made a meal of Turkey Tenderloin Mignon, rice, and Flan for dessert. Afterwards we watched a Bollywood movie called Rang De Basanti. Great, thought provoking movie. Not the normal song and dance melodramatic bollywood movie. As Abhay said, we traveled the world in one night. (between the food and movies)

Now onto a new week. Much of my week with be split between teaching English, and setting up our garage sale. It's a lot of work, but worth it. The last garage sale we had, 2 years ago, bought Abhay his Wii and me a new iPod. :)

Pottery painting projects

Here are out pottery project from last week...totally finished. On the whole, we're happy with how they turned out. Not bad for the first time....


--MMR

Another week has come and gone...

I have been really busy this week with my ESL teaching. I really do love this job. It's darn rewarding. I started with a 5 year old and a 2 year old (both cutie pies!!!!) fresh to the USA from Sweden a couple of weeks ago. When I started with them, neither knew any English ( and mom's English is very limited). So, it's been an adventure!! :) But I've seen so much progress with both children, esp. the 5 year old because he really WANTS to learn English. Along with them learning English, I'm learning many words in Swedish...by accident. It's neat that it's part of my heritage. It's really fun. Oh and the company I work for serves more than just Swedish speaking students. I've just gotten very lucky to get most of the Swedish students due to my other students telling new people about me when they get to town.

Abhay started playing tennis again a few weeks ago. He played a lot in India and while he was getting his Master's Degree at Michigan Tech...but didn't not play any time that I have known him. His friends Sangram and Suresh invited him to play along with them and another guy. He plays two evenings a week and I know he really enjoys it!

We took the opportunity to check out the county fair Wednesday night after work. It was really hot and quite crowed. We ate good food: BBQ Ribs/Cornbread for me, Chicken/Stuffing for Abhay, we shared a funnel cake, and I had a corn dog (my favorite fair food) on the way out. They serve stuff here at the fair that you can't get in Minnesota and likewise. I sure did miss the walleye fry and uffda tacos from my hometown fair this year. :(

We have a weekend planned with both relaxing and fun with friends. Perfect weekend, in my book!!

--MMR

Movies, pottery, and food!

Weekend Recap:

We took in 3 movies, in 4 days. We saw My Sister's Keeper Wed. afternoon, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Friday evening, and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs Saturday evening. All movies very different from one another. It's obvious as to which pick was mine, which one was Abhay's, and which one was one we both enjoyed. It was nice to get caught up on movies. We don't hold back on going to see movies. :) Oh, and we watched Lagaan at home. I'm a big fan of Aamir Khan!

Saturday was off and on rainy, and quite humid. So Saturday afternoon we decoded to go to a place in town called Simply Pottery. We drive by it everyday, yet have never walked into the store. You can pick out pre-made pottery and paint it...and they fire/bake it. It was so very relaxing. It was the perfect way to spend a Saturday afternoon. Abhay made a sports themed mug and I made a black/yellow/orange stripped butter dish. We can't wait to get them back at the end of the week. Afterwards we went out for some SUPER tasty pizza and garlic bread. So far, it's the best pizza place we've ate it in Columbus. We'll be going back....

Today is was laundry/cleaning/groceries/lawn mowing. Along with all that we decided to make a full Indian dinner: Chicken Tikka Masala, Naan, Bastami Rice , and Gulab Jamin. It's a 2-3 hour process so weekends are the only time we can make a meal like this. It turned out AWESOME!! We've perfected the process of making Naan in the oven.

Tomorrow it's back to a normal schedule for Abhay at work. He's been off for almost 2 whole weeks. (They did a company shut-down as opposed to layoffs) Along with that I was able to do some creative scheduling with my ESL tutoring...so i've been able to be with him for most of the time he was off. It was nice to be able to spend so much time together.

--MMR

Time for Change

Abhay and I decided our guest bathroom (AKA Abhay's bathroom) needed a little makeover. We had some time yesterday so we painted it light blue and bought a new shower curtain. (oh and a new toilet too because Abhay broke the old one while preping to paint. OOOOPS!) It's amazing, it looks like a whole new room. There is no artwork on the walls yet, but I plan to create some for it next week.

Before:

After:

--MMR

Flowers!

Here is the front of our house with our flowers in full bloom:

ahhh....

Since we bought our house last October, I've wanted a clothes line outside to hang clothes up to dry. There's just something about the smell of clothing that has been hung out to dry. I love it. I'm not sure what it is...perhaps reminds me of my childhood. The past few months I've been hanging clothes all over the patio furniture to dry, which is a pain. If a gust of wind comes up it blows it all over the place.

Back to the point of this blog, Abhay gave me what I wanted today...a clothes umbrella in the yard. It's great. And the nicest thing about it is that when we are not using it we can easy pop it out of the ground and store it in the garage. (There is a little plastic base that dug/cemented into the ground.

Here it is:

--MMR

Update on my Mom

Many of you know my mom had a bad fall on June 21st while she was here in Indiana visiting Abhay and I. She broke two bones and has lots of tendon damage. Just thought i'd let you know she is FINALLY having surgery tomorrow (July 9th) to repair her leg.

So, tomorrow, pray for her (if you believe in the power of prayer). If not, send positive thoughts her way. She and I thank you in advance.

--MMR

Goodbye, King of Pop...

It's probably no shock to any of you to hear that I am a Michael Jackson fan. I have been for as long as I can remember. It broke my heart to hear of his passing. He was a musical genius...he made pop music what it is today. He will forever live on through his music and videos.

I remember, to this day, seeing the Thriller video as a child ( I was probably 4 or so) and being totally freaked out. I also remember seeing the video for Black or White and thinking it was one of THE coolest thing I had ever seen.

This day, the day that world said goodbye to him, I leave you with the chorus to his song, Heal The World:

Heal the world
Make it a better place
For you and for me
And the entire human race
There are people dying
If you care enough for the living
Make a better place For you and for me

--MMR

St Louis Fun!

Abhay and I enjoyed a trip to St. Louis, MO this long weekend. It was a 4th of July getaway/2nd Anniversary celebration. We had such a wonderful time. We were talking as we were there and we have not taken a trip and stayed in a hotel since our trip to Key West for our wedding 2 years ago.

We saw the aww-inspiring gateway arch and went all the up to the very top. It was awesome...but a scary ride up. If you've been up to the top of the arch, you understand. In spite of the scary ride, it was awesome at the top. We also took a cruise on the Mississippi river. We saw gorgeous fireworks on both the 3rd and 4th of July framed by the gateway arch. We celebrated our anniversary on the evening of the 5th by going to a Teppanyaki restaurant and then to a Chocolate Bar. Yes, a chocolate bar. I had the best brownie that i've ever had in my life and Abhay had some awesome Creme Brulee. The Teppanyaki restaurant was great fun...and GREAT food. We also splurged and stayed in a fancy hotel.

Here are a couple pics:

The arch

Us on the Mississippi

---MMR