all part of life

Starting 50 with a memorable day

Started the 50th year this week! My family and friends made it special with their wishes and blessings!

Got to do yoga in the morning with my teachers pushing me as usual. When you are in a Bikrram yoga class, you actually expect that your teachers to be tougher on your birthday and my teacher didn't disappoint! It was also awesome to have my guru in the front row with me! Always makes me give it everything I got.

My wife made me some potato roast with paruppu sadam (that is all I wanted) and it was yummmmy!

We had already gone to the temple earlier and celebrated Karthigai deepam.

My Tamil birthstar is Rohini and this year there was a lunar eclipse which was specifically related to Rohini. So I was advised to stay put at home and eat light.. which I did.. in anticipation of all the good eats that were coming!

Now that I am part of a music family, which is a large family, they made my day extra special. Got some special wishes from the music group and got to show some progress in the singing. Still writing what seems to be a never ending post on my recent singing experience. Hope I get to post it during the thanksgiving break!

The best part of this birthday was my baby showed up for thanksgiving break. Having her at home after 4 months made me so happy!

We went to LED lights this year for Kaarthigai.. simply because it is rainy and windy out here. We respect the folks who can still pull off lighting oil lamps in Cupetino!

My not so little girl baked an amazing cake. She has a gift. Hope she keeps up her baking.  I asked Jr. to blow a candle with me given she spent her birthday last week without us!

A rare photograph of the four of us. It is going to get more and more difficult to get these photos as years go by..

A day that was made very special by all my family and friends! I am lucky to have all this love! Lucky to be healthy and happy! Thank you for all the wishes!

Dry Creek Regional Preserve - a winter visit..

We have been to this place before in summer under scorching heat.. (link here) .. Today we got to revisit this trail in the morning fog under more pleasant weather conditions. It is a good 40 minute drive from our place and this time the barren hillsides are all green and the air was fresh!

Loved the hike today. We did fewer stops for photos.. 

Now that San has a challenge shirt, she is wearing it on hikes! I am not complaining.. Jointly promoting Yoga is a good thing...

We got to watch a beautiful sunrise on the way to the preserve while crossing the Dumarton bridge. 

got to watch the cows grazing, there were song birds around the trails and we could hear them.. (none of this was there in Summer but the draw at that time was the flowers on the hillsides)

The family of birds in the water are still there and well.. 

We finished the trail before the sun came out and that was a good thing. There are no trees or shade in this entire trail!

The sky was just gorgeous today with all the cotton clouds. Glad we went on this hike this morning. We spent close to 3 hours walking today and hopefully that has countered some of the Deepavali sweets and savories from the last few days!

It has been a busy week and I haven't managed to do a Deepavali post yet.. 

Have to go back and see how many summer hikes we did where at the end of it we said "we should come back when it is cooler outside!" and start hitting those in the next few weeks..

Back on trail

It has been almost two months since I hiked.. It was good to get back on the trails with a short hike to Villa Montalvo.. I have never been to this one but the group I hike with has done this many times. 

Apparently the draw is to watch all the big mansions on the way to the trails. So we parked in downtown Saratoga and walked an extra mile watching all the mansions. Interesting to know that there is a place like this right in our area. 

People say Cupertino homes are large. Ours looks like a small Kudisai compared to any house on this hike. 

we did get a great view from the top. The whole thing was 90 minutes in 5 miles and a steady climb. 

But like I said, good to be back on a trail!

Hope to get back into the weekend morning hiking routine, now that I am back!