Happy New Year!!

Joy to the World, y'all!! (From Medha, Pavan, Lakshmi and Prasad)

Yours truly with Sailaja Aunty in Tokyo. She took the train (for 2 hours!) and came to meet me. It was very sweet of her. She didn't trust me to handle the trains in Japan. I know. My mom's not the only one who still thinks of me as a lil' kid. :-)

Doing laps around Jaya Pedamma's home...

....yet anudder flower-pot!

Craning to get a better look at...

Taking a break before dinner...

More enjoyment for Jaya and Susila...

Everybody enjoying Chinnathhamma's flowerpot not igniting...

Result of Jaya's handiwork...

Look the other way at your own peril...

Jaya getting upclose and personal with a flowerpot...

Jaya, Lakshmi and Rema with sparklers while the Athammas try to get around. Ravi and Prasad-annayya lurking in the background, of course. :-p

Rockets!

Sab log ka asli pasand - Rockets!

Kaakara-puvvotthulu, or Sparklers for you english medium types....

Chichchu-buddi!!

'Twas the night before Dipavali. Jaya and Prasad-annayya's home looked fantastic. From atop their home (from the Dhaaba), you can see Golconda fort.

Trying to give Taatamma Punnamma the slip...Chinnathamma is in the background.

Studly posing off, while his Grandma beams on proudly in the background...

Sillypoint, backward short-leg and short square leg. Pavan jumps out of his crease aiming to pull the ball to midwicket! Brilliant move!!!

Prasad-annayya showing Pavan and Medha their pictures on his camera phone...

Amma, Vishnu and Athamma.

Pavan also enjoying Day 1.

Medha posing off on Day 1. At Jaya's home. Her love of jewelry is quite disturbing to her salaried employee father.

Vishnu enjoying his favorite hobby - sleep!

Medha in California, the day before we left on the trip. Those are chinese clothes that I got on one of my trips.

Bald Is Beautiful, Baby!

They're lean, mean and shaven clean! The kids with Mom and Silpa-akka in Hyderabad. At Jaya and Prasad-annayya's home.

They're Twenty Months Old!!

Hey there! Medha and Pavan are twenty months old today! I've uploaded some of their pictures that we took over the last month. They are growing up rapidly, and saying a lot of words.

They are even saying small sentences like "Go. There." and "Banana.Kaa" (for Banana Kaavaali). Medha, ever the wannabe calls her Grandpa "Taam", although Pavan seems to prefer the more Indian "Shaam". Both of them say "NaaYeeNee" for Grandma Nalini. And I've got Pavan to say Rum-maa and Ma-dooo fairly often. For some reason, Lakshmi and Prasad seem too tough for them. :-)

We're excited about our rapidly approaching trip to India. I've even acquired one of those 1GB compact flash from Costco. The thing stores 880 high-res pictures on a postage stamp size flash memory. Very cool. Couple that with my current 256MB and i'm all set for a bunch of picture taking on the trip!

Don't worry, Rani. I won't be taking any of me. :-)

Handygal in her special duds ...

A boy, some blocks and a towering redwood tree...

Suvarna Sundari and AdaviRamudu heading out for a photo shoot...

Medha posing off in her beret...

Another member of the Black Beret squad...

Methinks they like sitting on their loo a bit too much... :-)

Ms. Fix Anything aka Medha Syama Saggurti

I've entered the 21st Century...

Ok y'all!

I've finally figured out what was wrong with my template and updated it to now handle comments. After six months! I guess i've finally made the transition from engineering... :-)

Anyhoo, you should now see the "comments" at the end of each posting. Clicking on that should allow you to read all the comments, as well as let you post your comments on my posting. Hopefully, it will now get more interactive. Feel free to let me know what you think. And yes, I do take requests...

Prasad

More Photos...

So here are the tykes...



On the left: They're all dressed up to go visit Sriram and Jyothi. Sriram's parents are now with them in Los Altos and we wanted to introduce the kids to them.

At the bottom: They were all ready to go to Bhagawan's daughter's (also named Medha) first birthday. They had just got up from a morning nap and were quite cheerful and excited. They went to the party and promptly became really really quiet. :-)

Kalyan's Wedding

Hi All,

August 27th was a big day for the family - Kalyan Chakravarthy Koneru got married to Jyothi. The wedding was at the Venkateswara swamy temple in Bridgewater, NJ. A whole bunch of family came for the wedding and Jyothi's parents and cousins ensured that the wedding went well. I flew in to town on Thursday and left right after the wedding on Saturday. The reason was another wedding in another town - Madison, WI! I felt very bad leaving the family and Kalyan like that, but it had to be done. Hearing that the dinner at Vijaya and Annayya's home that night was very good didn't make it any easier on me, of course. :-)

Here is an important picture before I run out of space on my blogspot.

Prasad

Pinni making sure that Kalyan is getting the best of treatment as she kicks off the Pellikodukuni Cheyyadam (there must be a better name, but I can't think of it right now) function.

Bujjakka making sure that Kalyan gets enough of the gandham, pasupu, sunni-pindi and .......

Pinnamma overseeing the grooming of the Groom.

A gentle dab is enough, according to Dr.Chilukuri nee Koneru

Nicely rubbing in the oil is Vijaya...

Vijaya and Annayya with Kalyan...

Kalyan with Pinnamma and Chinnaanna.

Sheila and Bujjakka with the K-man

You can't take a picture of Athamma without Vani trying to get in, I found out very quickly....;-)

Bujjakka, Sheila, Pinnamma, Athamma, Vani and Vijaya. The cool dude in the middle is Kalyan, of course..

Dinner at Vijaya-and-Annayya's place the night before the wedding. Vani sez: You'll have to get past me to get to the food....Grrrrrr..

Silpa came down from New York for the wedding and the weekend.

Athamma at the dinner