Holi 2016

Holi came and went this year. Given my travels, was glad to be part of a Holi celebration with the gang last weekend. As a kid growing up in Tamil Nadu, there was no Holi. My best memories of student days in Varanasi are of Holi.. 

Great time with friends, Colors, Baang, the mud bath at the end to wash off colors, a feast, did I already mention baang?!

We did celebrate in style at the local park with dry colors and great food! This year it happened again. We started seeing familiar people show up to our group only to realize there was another larger group planning the delayed Holi in another area of the park. Pretty soon, we merged the groups together for even larger fun as every family in our group knew someone from the other group!

Jr. was at her best and she had a lot of fun with her buddies. This one is probably the best shot from the entire collection of pictures for the day... 

 Then we did get a family portrait. Yes, the litle one looks plain compared to the rest of us. She had to go to a  meeting right after the Holi party and did not want to shower. So we respected her request to "not be Holi'ed"!

 

All said and done, it is great to have the company of people who can put a smile on your face and make you celebrate with abandon! 

Was thinking of IT-BHU all day.. three buddies in the group are my seniors from College and that made it even more special. One thing my college trained me for well? If not Metallurgical engineering, it is to play Holi with style... and to teach our kids how to play Holi!

Here is to the festival of colors ! 

Old Town San Diego and Double Peak park

After visiting the Leo Carrillo Ranch, we moved on to Double Peak park. This was a beaufiful park with some play area for kids and a trail path for everyone in Carlsbad/San Marcos area. 

Reminded us of Hunters point in Cupertino. The views were awesome and the kids had fun with a triple fulcrum see-saw! It was interesting and we have never seen a see-saw like this where 4 or 5 kids can walk up and down. 

Then we took a short break and drove to Old Town for New Year's eve dinner, at El Coyote! Most of the shops were closed but we got to watch the window displays in this area.. some of them were quite interesting!

Then we watched ladies make tortillas at Guiness book record speeds. 

The dinner itself was quite interesing with a couple of guys with guitars singing for the ladies! My three girls were either not amused or were embarrassed by the attention. 

El Coyote has a separate "vegetarian menu" and they give it if you ask for it. It was good that our friends knew that and made ordering a breeze. 

It was a memorable evening and we all slept well. On first we had the last stop on the trip. The San Diego Zoo! 

First time visit for everyone in the family and there are still hundreds of photos from that day that have yet to be edited. Will take a break and post them next week. By far the best Zoo we have seen..

Leo Carrillo Ranch historic park - Carlsbad

The next stop on our 2015 year end trip from Suresh Mama's house?

Leo Carrillo Ranch historic park. 

It was the ranch of the famous actor and park activist Leo Carrillo which now has been turned into a park with a visitor center.

The highlight of the park? 22 peacocks and peahens that are the decendents of a few birds brought from India many decades ago. 

They are free to go anywhere but apparently have made the ranch their permanent home! One of the peacocks is an albino..

We spent an hour at this park and walked a small trail there.  Let the kids have fun watching and following the birds.. 

There were many interesting questions raised.. why is the male more prettier than the female? shouldn't it be the other way around? girls are the ones that have to look pretty, no?! 

There may be really good answers out there on why this difference between peacocks and humans.. but most of the adults in the group just let it slide.

Here are some Peacock and peahen portraits from the park. 

We searched as far as we could before the park closed.. but could not sight the albino peacock. Some things have to wait for the next visit, eh?

Here is a family portrait, thanks to Suresh ... 

Loved the place!