Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving.  We had our first "celebration" with my mom and dad on Sunday.  We roasted lamb and sweet potatoes and enjoyed some family time watching "The King and I".  We will have Thanksgiving lunch at Woodstock with the all the students, and will stop by a friends house for some pumpkin pie and wine after Oscars Fall Choir Concert tonight.  We will skip the big celebration on Saturday with the rest of the expats, instead we will travel to Dehradun with the girls soccer team to play against Hopetown Girls School.  Next Saturday, we will participate in the chili cook-off- I think I have the contest in the bag.  My dad brought some freeze dried ground beef- beef is something that is virtually impossible to find in India.  Hopefully we will get a chance to decorate gingerbread houses, this depends on my baking the gingerbread and our friends securing the decorations.

The Walk Up

We went a different route on our walk up.  Enjoy the journey.

Quarter Break Travels

The kids had a week off of school, so we took the opportunity to travel.  We traveled by train, bus, and plane.  Oscar had a chance to catch up on a bit of sleep.

We visited Agra, Jaipur, and Jodhpur, with a night in Delhi.

In Agra, we saw the Taj Mahal.

Our friend, Patty, came to visit us and traveled with us.
Jaipur, The Amber Fort

Jodhpur
Delhi
The journey home we took the overnight train from Delhi to Dehradun.  The kids and I locked ourselves into the 1st class- meaning we had a pillow, blanket, and a locking door- cabin, while Gregg was on his own a few doors down in a double room.  The kids slept just fine, the rocking of the train and the noise of the tracks was no hinderance to them.

Halloween in India

OK, Halloween is not truly an American holiday, but Americans have embraced the celebration the past 50 years.  But now I hear that Australia and other countries, mostly due to marketing I think, have started celebrate Halloween.  Friday morning at Woodstock, there were several zombies, some vampires, spiderman, Jesse from ToyStory, and several other costumes that Gregg and I spotted.
We hosted a small Halloween get together at our new house.  The kids enjoyed the bobbing for apples, and the pumpkin soup disappeared.  The best was hanging out with some of our new friends.

Hikes and Treks, Part 3

10th grade trek to Kedar Kantha.  I filled in for a teacher that had to leave for family reasons.  There were 17 students and 2 other adults on the trek.  We carried our personal gear, but had donkeys to carry our tents, food, and cooking equipment.  Oh yeah, we also had 6 people to cook for us and take care of the donkeys.  The kids were great and we had spectacular views the first 2 days, but on the day we summited, we had clouds and snow.  Some of the kids had not seen snow before, so despite the lack of views from the summit, but snow was a treat.

Hikes and Treks Part 2

7th and 8th grade weekend trek.

Hikes and Treks

Now that the rains have receded, tis the season of hikes and treks.
Gregg and I joined the 3rd and 4th graders on their day to hike around Woodstock campus.   We made it down to Midlands Stream where the kids took water temperature readings before we hiked back up to have lunch at Ridgewood Field.  We took a different path back up, and ran into a bunch of nettles and leaches!  I think the kids enjoyed salting the leaches, and showing off their leach bites- leach bites take a long time to stop bleeding due to the anti-coagulant that they inject into their victim.