Hello, hello. How is your weekend looking? We are meeting my cousin over for lunch on Sunday, other than that nothing much happening here. Hope you have a more exciting weekend planned out for yourselves.

Anyhow, I have lots to cover about our summer vacation before I even start on other posts, so without wasting much of your time *and that is why one should be more consistent with their writing * let’s dive straight into it. *she didn’t just use the word dive here, did she?* .

A fair warning, there are going to be tons of pictures in couple of next posts *like other post lack “tons” of pics🙄* Brace yourselves.

We were gone for 8 weeks, a good part of our summer vacation *hmm, trying to make us all a wee bit jealous ain’t she !* !

This vacation was a welcome breath of fresh air. It was much needed and I am glad that we were able to do it.

While we traveled quite a bit within India, hands down seeing my close family, spending time with my big extended family and meeting old friends were high points of this trip.

Summer vacation in India are always about spending time with family, relaxing *shamelessly put your feet up and refuse to even move a muscle right?*, feast on delicious food *till your bellies hurt* and well, shop till…. *ah forget it, the shopping never stops🙄*

This time however we did something different! We set out to explore parts of India. As V is growing up, so is her interest in learning about India – Indian culture and history.

Last year she choose to study personalities Mahatma Gandhi and Kalpana Chawla out of her own choice for a class assignment and shared stories of Ganesh Chaturthi and Diwali with her classmates *and she is smiling ear to ear! *.

I wanted to tap into this interest of and thus this vacation we stepped out to explore Mahabalipuram a city dotted with UNESCO recognized World Heritage Site of 7th- and 8th-century and Mysore known for it Mysore palace and it’s heritage sites.I’ll share all the details about the cities and the places we visited in the following post.

Vacation in Bengaluru

Our stay in India was spilt between Bengaluru and Belgaum. In Bengaluru we further spilt our stay between my in-laws and my brother and his family🎉.

The Sharma’s – S’s family

The Sharma girls always have a blast with their paternal side of the family. More specifically S’s mom aka Daadi for girls, absolutely adores children and can spend hours entertaining them. And well, this trait has passed on to their Bua aka my sister-in-law too.

So when we are with them, these girls are entertained 24/7 and are pampered rotten! We spent two weeks here mall hopping, going to some fun places, meeting friends and traveling to Mahabalipuram.

During our first two week of stay we came down with a tummy bug of the worst kind! While N went through the worst bout of diarrhea V had to be taken to urgent care where she was put on a IV just a night before we were to leave for our trip! *aww those poor babies, you should be smart about eating out!*

Apart from that one incident *which sucked the life out of them literally* we were just fine for the rest of our vacation.

Prani

One of the many places that we visited during our stay with my in-laws was this pet sanctuary called “Prani” . This place mainly houses rescued animals. Obviously it was a hit amongst the girls. I was impressed by well informed the staff , and to think most were volunteers.

V was the bravest amongst us , always first in line along with her cousin to pet every animal/reptile/wriggly thing !! I on the other hand I was shit scared of petting most anything that wasn’t a dog *and she proclaims herself to be a animal lover* . The only time I let my guard down was to feed the Parakeets!

The Chikodi’s

After two memorable week at my in-laws, we were ready for my brother’s place. It took us close to an hour to cover 13km (~8 miles) mid afternoon *stop grumbling about the traffic will you now!!*.

Of course there were lot of tears I was seeing all of them after three years!! Here in my brother’s house, it was my turn to get pampered *move along girls, its my turn now* . For next 15 days I was in food heaven quite literally relishing our typical north Karnataka oota and how can I not mention the Mangoes!!

The cousins got busy exploring the massive luxury society, going for swimming, football, picnics, cycling all the day long.

This trip was also about taking time and make an effort to meet as many of our close relatives as I can. If anything the last two years have taught me is that don’t take anything for granted. You blink and life changes in an instant.

Here’s the thing about my mother’s side of family – she comes from a big extended family of cousins, uncles, aunts and then there are 11 of first cousins from my mom’s side.

During our two week stay here, we visited the city of Mysore and boy was that one fun fun trip.

If I had to choose one thing about this summer vacation that bothered/disappointed me, it will have to be the Bengaluru traffic. I must’ve grumbled, moaned and whined about it to almost everyone I met! Other than that, our stay was just perfect!!

Lal Bagh Gardens

We visited the famous Lalbagh garden one of the top must see places when in Bengaluru *and yet despite staying here for 10 years not once did I you make the effort then to visit this place😒 * .

Lalbagh , a 240 acre botanical garden with 500 year old history to it. The best months to view the garden is early spring to summer. July marks the beginning of monsoons in Karnataka. While we didn’t see any flowers in bloom, nonetheless the cool breeze, surrounded by lush greenery, hot and spicy butte (corn on the cob) made up for it.

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That brings us to end of first post on our fun summer vacation. Stay in Bengaluru set the mood for the second half of our vacation. Hearts full we left for Belgaum via road! And well that is story for another time.

“Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes memory” ~ Dr Seuss.