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....)