After visiting for just a few days, I’m having a hard time understanding why anybody would move away. The weather was spectacular (low 60s in the middle of Jan!), and the city is very pretty, with lots of water and greenery everywhere. In some respects, it reminded me of a combination of Madras & Mauritius. Vijesh mentioned some of the houses reminded him of Kerala as well.Here are a few pictures.

San Diego Jan ‘08

And finally, I’ll leave you with pictures of the sunset here in Seattle last night, as viewed from our living room.

It turned out to be a busted water intake valve. Fixing it took about 4 hours, including actually driving down to SouthCenter to pickup the part, which is pretty darn good for a house project. Total cost a measly $28!

This got me thinking about the other things I’ve done around the house. Robin reminded me of a couple in the kitchen alone that I had forgotten about.

• Replaced dishwasher inlet valve
• Replaced kitchen faucet
• Replaced light fixture in the kitchen (x2)
• Installed shelving in a closet that has been repurposed as a pantry.
• Installed a cat door in the basement door.
• Replaced door knob & lock set for the back door
• Replaced the toilet in our only bathroom
• Replaced light fixture in the bathroom
• Replaced medicine cabinet in the bathroom.
• Replaced dryer belt
• Replaced rotted deck boards.
• Built a new workbench for Robin (out of a couple of old doors and some leftover 2×4 from our deck repair)
• Lots of painting (though I’d give Robin most of the credit for that)
• Replaced weather-stripping on both exterior doors, and the basement door.

Yay for home ownership!*

*It does feel good to be sitting on the couch in a warm house watching football, with the satisfaction of a job well done.

As some of you know, we bought a new house rather unexpectedly.

Home

We also finally took the time to go to India for a couple of weeks in early Dec ‘06. It was Robin’s first trip, and so we tried to fit a lot in, but it was loads of fun!

Here are some pictures from Agra (home of the Taj Mahal)

Agra

We also made it to Belur & Halebid

Belur & Halebid

We spent most of the trip in Bangalore with family and friends

Bangalore

And also had the opportunity to see the new Bangalore International Airport being constructed. Thanks Dad!

New Bangalore International Airport

Finally our pets are doing well. I can’t believe it has now been a little more than a year since we got Calvin!

Pets

Just picked up the latest addition to our family Calvin Kumar this afternoon. He is an adorable 10 month old, 46 lb, German Shepherd mix (mixed with either a Rottweiler or a Lab or both…. or neither :))

We adopted him from the Humane Society and all they really know about him is that he is a recent transplant from Twin Falls, Idaho.

So far he’s proving to be quite the obedient sweetheart! Updates to come as we get to spend more time with him.

Here are some pictures :

Calvin’s first day home

Robin & Deepak.

It is an undoubted truth, that the less one has to do, the less time one finds to do it in. ~Earl of Chesterfield

Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow. ~Mark Twain

With the Earl & Twain backing me up, I don’t feel so bad about taking a little more than two months to get the wedding pictures online :-).

These are pictures taken by friends, family and us. We should have the pictures by the professional photographer digitized and uploaded in the next couple of days. (Thanks George, Amma, Rohini, Vijesh, Norm & Christian for your pictures!)

So without further ado, here are some links

• All pictures from Maui
• All pictures from Kauai

Also, we’ve finally just ordered duplicates for a few pictures that we intend to mail out to folks by the end of the week, so keep an eye out for them.

If you’d like high resolution versions of any of these pictures let us know.

Enjoy!

Robin & Deepak.