Our Vegas Vacation

I thought I'll share some pictures from our trip to Vegas. Had a great time with Eric. Just wish his vacation lasted a lifetime.... Miss you Hubbz!!! Come back sooooooon...

Spent 5 days in Vegas and all the five days were action packed, exciting and great!
Stayed at the Bellagio (which I would pick again to stay at in a heartbeat. What a wonderful hotel!).
Gambled at a bunch of places - Bellagio, Ceasar's, Harrah's, Bally's, O'Shea's, Flamingo and MGM.
Visited the following - MGM Lion Habitat, Flamingo Gardens, Freemont Street Experience (a 1/4mile TV screen, and a bunch of celebs. Very cool place!), Treasure Island, The largest gold nugget in the world, Stratosphere (Eric jumped off a 860ft tower, check out the video below!), The Gun Store(One of the only places in the states that lets you shoot real machine guns!).
Watched the shows - KA by Cirque (a must watch in a lifetime!), Wild Magic by Dirk Arthur, The Call of the Sirens (cheesy show at TI).
Ate at a bunch of fine dining places - Mesa Grill (Bobby Flay's restaurant WOW!), Emeril Lagasse's, Bellagio fine dining, Rio World Carnival Buffet etc.


Here's the view from our room at the Bellagio





Here are the Vegas show gals doing a number on Eric. The very next second she tried to kiss Eric and I pulled him awwwway.






Us at the Flamingo Gardens.






I shot a freakkkking MACHINE GUN!!! What an experience. And I was almost perfect. Got all my shots on Osama!!! The instructor was mighty impressed!






Bobby Flay's restaurant at Ceasars. Wow! Wow! Great food. Very unique and different. Bobby, I'm a fan!!






Eric's dad and step mom were able to visit with us and spend some time the day we were leaving. Was great to meet them!!!!


VIVA LAS VEGAS!!!

Eric jumps off the Stratosphere in Vegas

If you take a close look, you'll see Eric trying to run through the air at 0.05 secs.

This was a great day. Lots of fun and great excitement to see him jump. Next time, I will find the courage to do it too :)

So so so proud of him....

He's out there in Afghanistan, making those bad bad people quiver.
I'm so proud of him, his dedication and focus. He just added another feather to his cap. He got promoted yesterday. He is now a Staff Seargent. And I am his proud proud wife..... :)

Please welcome RUFFUS!!

Hey hey hey.... Here's Ruffus! Got him last week on my birthday. He's a Maine Coon cat. So far so good. Not too hard to take care of. And he's a cuddly little bozo. Loves attention. He's supposed to be taking care of me while Eric's deployed. Lets see how well that goes... :)

Eric leaves on Thursday July 29th 2010 for his one year tour to Afganistan. And then, its going to be me and Ruffus!

Army Ball

Had a blast at the Army Cav Ball. Got to see some military formalities that I used to hear about... Great to see all these brave men in uniform with their gorgeous spouses!

Mr. & Mrs.

Ever wonder why God gives us two?

A right hand to show the left what to do.

One ear to listen and one to hearthe problems of others,their laughter and fears.

One eye to watch and one to behold the beautiful treasures that life has to hold.

One foot to travel and one to stand tall.

Two feet to land on if we should fall.

One man to stand by a woman's side;

One woman to cherish being his bride.

The love between partners comes shining through and that is the reason God has made two.

The things we do for love....

This weekend, Eric got baptized as a Syrian Orthodox Christian. The wonderful wonderful Shibu Achan and friendly folks at the Raleigh Church helped us with this. Such a nice church family! Lucky to have found them.
Eric got this done for me so that we can go to India and get married in my church there along with my family!! What a wonderful wonderful man!
Paul and Beth accompanied us to be there for him. Had a good weekend in Raleigh with them! Also went shopping and Eric got his wedding clothes....

Our dog for a day

We went horsey riding.... :)

Eric and I went horse riding last weekend! :) Very exciting!!! Ft Bragg has its own stables and have a lot of horses there.

I got Shayla. Shayla was more interested in eating than getting some exercise though. :P She kept stopping at every point that she saw some grass to snack. In the end, we even fed them apples that we took alomg. Eric got one of the biggest horses there. I forget his name, but man, that horse was a leader.... He kept trying to get in front and gave Eric some real good gallops!! Poor Eric's butt! :P

And for those of you who don't think so.... Horse riding is also exercise! My body was pretty sore the next day after riding. Eric says we should take classes next. Lets see how that pans out.....

Very late Easter post

Well, had a couple of firsts this Easter....

We colored eggs but forgot to take pictures :P

We also got a nice Easter basket from Beth. My first Easter basket! And the great Eric started eating from it before Easter even came!!

It was very hard to keep him away from the bunnies we bought too. And finally when he opened them, he let out his frustration on one. See pics for what I mean!!

Easter is supposed to symbolize new life and a fresh start! So, here's to that for us!!!

Chalthe Chalthe mere yeh bol yaad rakhna....

There are a few lights in my life
Each light keeps my life bright
Every time a friend like you goes away
One of those lights go dim and gray....

Here's to the Cadillacs we drove, the Audis we wrecked and the Solaras that made us cool women.....
Here's to the million movies we watched, when the weather was freezing, snowing, sunny or rainy.....
Here's to the exploring of Foods, Ideas & Places we did when we really never intended to....
Here's to the times we cooked and shared like sisters we weren't....
Here's to the zillion Coffees and Chais we drank and the many miles we may have walked in the sky walk, just to let our work frustrations out....
Here's to the wonderful men we found to bear us and be our husbands....

Here's to you, my friend, my confidante, a special light in my life...

Now that you're going so far away, here's to the many birthdays, births, anniversaries and other celebrations that we will miss from each other's lives. But always remember, no matter where you go, there will be one person you can always rely on any time, any place.

FRIENDS FOR LIFE! Here's to our friendship! A very special friendship!

Our 2009 Valentines celebrations

Yeh bacho ke khelne ki cheez nahi hai jaani..............

And I wasn't too bad either. I did stick to the targets and even got some right in the center. :)

Move over Abhinav Bindra.... Soni is here to take over the next Olympics.

And here's our Valentine's dinner.... Watch Eric blush....

And yes, Eric asks me to mention that, it was my idea and I danced too.... But he was toooo embarrassed to take pictures :)

Bye Bye Malavias!

I know its late, but I am missing you guys a lot today for some reason! Will always remember the lovely times. Not sure whether you'll all be there when I come, but wherever you are, be happy. I'll be praying for you all.

I think it just hit me that Sneha will be gone and Nikhil is leaving to CA. Yeh humare pyaare se parivaar ko kiski nazar lag gayi.... :(

I love you guys. Sneha, take care of yourself beta. Will miss you out and out. I was so hoping to be there for your big day. I'll still hope ok...

Nikhil, it must be hard for you to go all the way to CA and stay without Sneha. I'm praying that you will be all set by March and hope she comes back to be with you there soon. Drive safely!

Take care and be good.

Soni's sad....

Eric's gone on training until the end of January....
He's not gonna be around for his budday either....
:-(

New Years and Jan 2nd...

Well, New Years was pretty quiet for us. We spent New Year's eve watching Spaceballs (HA HA HA!! VERY funny movie. Its like a parody of Star Wars.) So, basically we laughed into 2009....
On New Year's day we tried a Korean restaurant for lunch and it was the CCCRRRAAAPPPIEST food I've ever had. The place and presentation looked so good, but YUCKO food. So, we decided to come home and make a nice New Year's meal and watch another movie - Get Smart. Thats exactly what we did, and was very very nice.

I had my biometrics appointment for immigration this morning at 10am. We left at 8am for the USCIS centre which was sooo hard to find. But it made up for it, because the people inside were so so nice. They security folks and also the biometrics techie dude. We were in and out of that place in like 15 minutes. Smooooth....

Went to the Triangle Indian Market after that and got a boatload of groceries. Its becoming pretty common for us to spend a lot of money whenever we go there. Oh well....
I really wanted to have the buffet at the Biriyani House but they were going to open only at Noon and I was already hungry. So, we went to a place Eric found - Bamboo Garden. An Indo-Chinese joint. GREAT PLACE! FINALLY, I was able to eat Manchurian after 5 years! I didn't know that they had Indo-Chinese food in the USA.... Awesomo!!

Just got back home and its raining like crazeeee.... Chai time... :)))

Christmas came and went....

and here's New Year....
Well, Christmas was nice and peaceful how it should be. Eric and I went to a Malayalee Orthodox Chrurch down in Raleigh. An hour and 10 mins drive. It was a small group of people renting out a Greek Orthodox church to hold the Christmas service at 8:30am in the morning of Christmas. We reached there at 8:35am, one of the first few there. :)

Well, first of all, I always break my fast at midnight after a night service but Eric insisted that we go for this service since we found the faith type that I actually belong to. So, fast breaking happened way after noon on Christmas, after we came back from Raleigh.

And the really nice thing was that Eric was sooo sweet at the service. He stood there all alone (we have segregation in our churches), for over 3 and a half hours, and watched the service. After the service, many folks came up to him and said that he has a lot of patience. :)

And then we had a small social time in the gym of the church. Met a couple of folks and two really nice girls. Eric liked the whole experience and is kind of warming up to yhe idea of even getting a membership there :) They have services only once a month and they are trying to collect money to build their own church. So, it may be slightly expensive but, will be worth it.

Me on the other hand really liked it, reminded me of all the times we used to go to church when I was growing up in Bahrain. The singing is slightly weak, but nevertheless, still invokes the same passion in me.

After this we drove back, spoke to most of my friends and family on the drive back wishing them a Merry Xmas, and then it was pigging out time once we got back home. Eric spoke to his family while I got food ready and then... WE ATE!!! Yummy biriyani :))

Afterwards we went to Eric's bro's place and chilled out. So, all in all, a quiet nice content Xmas!! :)))

Eric and his "baby"....

Gobble Gobble Gobble!!

Food filled Thanksgiving... We had our Thanksgiving dinner pretty late though. Bad planning on our part on the cooking time... Ate a lot and slept like babies afterwards.... There's seriously something in Turkey that puts you to sleep.

Here are a couple of pics of us. Eric loved the turkey and called it a baby... He was mostly in charge of cooking the beast. And it turned out pretty good actually.

But seriously, we now have turkey turkey and some more turkey left over!! Its gonna be turkey stew, turkey curry, turkey tacos etc for us for atleast a week if not more!!!

Hope everybody else had a nice Thanksgiving :)
Wish we had family here for Thanksgiving. Oh well....

Welcome to North Carolina...

After our long long long drive here we are entering North Carolina, new home, and stopping at the welcome center there.

Though the drive was pretty uneventful, we had our happening moments.
Moment 1 - Our first stop was in Champaign, IL. The next morning, we left Champaign and drove about an hour and a half and Eric calls and says - "We have to turn back right now!" I say, "Why? What happened?" and he replies "I left my ring at the inn. We have to go get it..." It was pretty funny for me actually. Poor guy was so sorry.... Ha ha.....

Moment 2 - Our second night stop was at Dayton, OH. Surprisingly, there wasn't a single inn in the whole of Dayton that had a room available. So, we drove another 100 miles (seemed like it to me) when I was soooo tired to the next town to find an inn.

Moment 3 - The drives through Virginia into North Carolina was breath takingly BEAUTIFUL! The fall colors and mountains were amazing. The roads were all winding and full of ups and downs, very exciting.... BEAUTIFUL!!!! (Had to say that again....)

Update on my date of leaving Des Moines

Well, a slight change in plans, I'm probably going to be leaving Des Moines a little earlier. Want to spend more time with Eric than here by myself. So, its probably going to be as early as October 31st....