Recent travel with a baby :).

I know I have made you wait for this post for quite sometime now. But my excuse this time is that Snugli keeps me busy most of the time - she walks now (hence has completely stopped crawling) and is like a miniature hurricane around the house. And whenever I want to sit in front of the comp, somehow she lands right there wanting to press the keys on the keyboard or pull the mouse to its limits. Well you can see how that discourages me from sitting on the comp for a long time :-p. Anyways back to the topic on hand, which is the final part of the trilogy (for now, until we go on one of our trips again :-D), the trip to Jacksonville Florida during New year.

Let me tell you one thing, going to a warm place when you have been cold for days is literally like a sweet dream and you don't really want to leave, but you know that reality is waiting for you right around the corner with its arms wide open :-p. But well, why start with a disappointing note when we have a whole trip to cover? We hadn't really decided whether to go on the trip until the last minute, so the only option was to drive..




It was a long drive to say the least, 11 hours is what Google maps says, but we took almost 1.5 days I think. I mean we left on Monday afternoon, drove till the night with several breaks and stayed the night somewhere in South Carolina. On Tuesday drove almost till the evening - we took several breaks + the traffic was horrendous Georgia onwards (holiday traffic - looks like everyone in US and Canada was heading to Florida :-p). More than 14 hours in all. Yes, we took turns driving and yes it'd have been shorter if we didn't have Snugli with us. But we had to have milk, snacks, lunch, dinner and diaper breaks for her. Thankfully, she wasn't at all fussy while driving, she enjoyed the sights, took several naps, played with her toys (I had taken a set of them) and was only cranky now and then. We made it a point to stop whenever she was cranky and give her as well as us a rest.

So, travelling with Snugli was not really that big a deal this time. Yes, we planned very well. One major advantage was that I completely weaned her from breastfeeding around a week after her 1st birthday (I started cutting down and adding cow's milk around her 11th month and didn't have any problems at all, thank God :-D). So we didn't have that hassle at all. Secondly, since she has 2 meals of rice daily and thats not very easily available outside here, we booked a hotel with a small kitchenette. Also since we were going in a car, we were able to carry most of the items with us. It took almost one day to pack everything (we took everything from rice, ghee, turmeric to pressure cooker and some utensils :-D). Plus I cooked and packed enough for Snugli till we'd reach the hotel. So in general, we carried her cereal for breakfast, groceries to cook her lunch and dinner, milk (with complan which I made and put in ice for the travel), her snacks and some fruits. Once we reached the hotel, we bought milk and curd (yogurt) for the stay there. Mind you, all this was for Snugli. I didn't take/cook anything for us, we almost always had lunch/dinner out.

The one mistake I made was while packing for the travel, I put the tarkaari anna that I make for Snugli in mixie and mashed it up into a mushy paste ('cause was a bit too lazy to mash it all up by hand which is what I regularly do) and our guess is that she didn't like it much, so she vomited a bit of her dinner the first night (we were not really sure it was due to that, may have been due to the travel + curvy roads, but the same thing had happened in Smokies travel too). On the travel back, I did mash everything by hand and she didn't have any problems, so I guess thats a lesson learnt :).

As I said, we reached the hotel in Jacksonville on 30th evening. That night after dinner, we did visit a beach. It was pretty cool, but it was wayy pleasant than Lexington obviously. But Snugli was asleep and we were there just for a while. The next morning we lazed away (well not really what with making breakfast and lunch for Snugli and washing the dishes, it sorta felt like we were living there :-D). We did manage to take a walk around the hotel, the weather was fabulous and there was a fountain with ducks which Snugli rather enjoyed. Then we left and went to the Jax beach..

This was Snugli's first view of a beach..




And one of the first things we did was to chase seagulls :).




We made her walk around (she still wasn't confident walking on her own then) and watched the waves with her..




And took all these photos ofcourse..




Later we sat on some sea-shells and Snugli really enjoyed banging the shells together..




All in all we spent a pleasant afternoon on the beach. That night were the fireworks, so after dinner we got decked up in layers of clothes as it was going to be pretty chilly and left to see the fireworks over the St.Johns river in Jacksonville downtown. There were lots of people and we had to wait till midnight (obviously since they were New year fireworks :-p), but we found a comfortable seat and sat down. But it was already past Snugli's bed time, so she fell totally asleep and wasn't even awake for the actual show! And to think they were supposed to be her first fireworks :-D. Well, I did record a video for her sake but somehow am able to embed only a image here..




Next day, again, didn't do much in the morning and lazed around till lunch (we had lunch at this amazing Indian restaurant called Red chillies, had to mention that because it was really good and worth visiting if you are out there). Then went to an outlet mall and spent that day window shopping (I did end up buying a couple of things :-D). The mall did have these small kid rides..




That was it for the day.

The next day in the morning we took a walk again and here are the surroundings of the hotel we stayed in..




Then we went to the beach again and took a walk on the fishing pier there..





Snugli had a good time walking on the pier, later climbing onto her dad's shoulders for sometime and watching pelicans and other birds there :). Still later we stopped at the beach again..




And that was it. It was difficult to say goodbye to the gorgeous weather, but we had to get back..




We did drive back on the different route (through Atlanta) and our misery got worse as it was really cold and misty in Tennessee :-D. Anyways we got back the next day and it was a good trip. I really liked the fact that Snugli got home food throughout, but I do wonder what we'll do if we plan to fly somewhere :-D. Well, I guess thats going to be a different story altogether..

And so the travel trilogy comes to its end, but surely there'll be much more to come in the future. How the difficulty varies, well, you as well as we have to wait to find out :-D.

A toast to 4!

Little did we know 4 years ago..




that the marriage maze would be this fun :)).

4 years done and a lifetime to go!

Happy wedding anniversary my love :).

Ice ice baby!

We are sorry to interrupt the ongoing trilogy for some breaking news (and to think it was going so well :-p). Since yesterday we the people in Lexington have been hit by a pretty bad winter storm. Not only is the temperature below 0 degree Celsius (right now it is -4 C), but everything outside our home is frozen. A few glimpses of the same..













Thankfully there have been no power outages in our area, though there were a few in other towns of Kentucky. The icy rain has stopped now and weather is hopefully going to be better from now on.

This has been a message from LWA - Live Weather Alert team of "Like Duck to water" :-D.

Subsequent travel with a baby..

Part 2 of the trilogy :).

My in-laws came here in July end. And as I mentioned, travelling with in-laws was a different experience altogether. One advantage was that it was a rehash of places we had seen before, so there was really nothing for me to "see". So I could skip a few sights and breastfeed Snugli when she needed it without getting frustrated that I was missing something. Also I had help in Snugli's cerelac eating, since my MIL and I took turns having lunch ourselves and feeding her (which served as a pointer in our recent travel). But it was a bit inconvenient for my MIL and FIL as such since they are not really used to sitting in the car for hours and driving to places (we are used to traveling overnight in trains/buses in India, which is certainly not a very feasible option here in US). The other inconvenience was the food here and my FIL is a bit particular about his :-\. Yet we did manage to cover quite a bit and yup, it was lots easier :).

The first places we covered were obviously the nearest ones, so we finished of the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln (yup, that, KFC - the origin of Kentucky Fried Chicken and horses are the only things to see in Kentucky :-p) and Cincinnati. These were all within 2 hours range of Lexington, so they were quite alright. Thats when we decided to attempt Chicago which is more than 5 hours away. We planned the trip for the first weekend of August for 3 days.




The trip had its ups and downs (basically Snugli's eating and sleeping schedules weren't schedules anymore :-D), but it was mostly a success. We were able to cover all that we wanted to - the usual Sears tower, architecture river tour (on which only my inlaws went), the millennium park, the magnificent mile and the Field museum. The success encouraged us into planning a big one - the Pittsburgh and Niagara Falls trip which actually became the Pittsburgh, Niagara Falls and Dayton trip (so yup, it was so successful that we could add another place on the go :-D).

We planned a 4 day trip, most of it was driving, but everything went as planned. First we drove to Pittsburgh, where we saw the SriVenkateshwara temple.




We had lunch there and left to Niagara Falls. Night saw the illumination and spent the next day there. Again, we sent my inlaws on the maid of the mist and the cave of winds. Obviously things went according to plan :).




God! I love Niagara falls, they were as amazing as I remembered them :). We ofcourse saw the horseshoe falls next..




After seeing Niagara falls, we drove for 5 hours and reached Ohio to stop over for the night. Since we had the whole next day, decided impulsively to go to Dayton to see the Air force museum and the place where the Wright brothers first flew a successful flight (Sounds familiar? Thats because I wrote about it 2 years back!)




The trip was successful to some extent, but a few days later Snugli fell ill and that kinda put us off travel for sometime. So we sent my inlaws to Washington D.C in September (my MIL has some relatives there). But we did manage to go to Fort Knox and Louisville in September end; Fort Knox to see the famous bullion depository and Louisville for the Balloon festival. First we saw Patton museum in Fort Knox which is a museum of tanks..




Sri and I hadn't seen this museum before and it was really something interesting - full of tanks inside and out ranging from all wars. Next we drove to the Fort Knox bullion depository which stores all the gold of US. Visitors are not allowed and cars are not supposed to stop anywhere there, so we drove around and took photos..




Later went to the balloon festival. It was wonderful but still a few of the balloons the previous year were not on display and I really missed mom even more, since she was with me in 2007 :(. But Snugli did love gazing at the glowing balloons, so it was worth it :).










Later in October, we did visit a small reptile park nearby, which wasn't that big of a deal ;-). In November you know that we set off to Smokies, for I did tell you that. During thanksgiving weekend, we sent my inlaws to California to visit Sri's cousin and they were able to manage a Los Angeles trip from there. And I still haven't seen California :( (Sri are you listening?).

That was it, since December got too cold to go anywhere plus we had things to setup for Snugli's birthday party. My inlaws left to India shortly after that. Sri had some Christmas holidays and we didn't feel like spending them here in the chill. And it had been a long time since we saw some good fireworks. So we headed to Jacsonville, Florida. All that and more in the next post :).

Initial travel with a baby...

This post is going to be a set of 3, so please bear with me (atleast you have a promise of 3 posts coming back-to-back :-D).

Flashback to somewhere in mid-2007. One of the things usually newly pregnant women think about is whether life will ever be the same again. So in the same trend, I was wondering whether we'd be able to travel as much. I knew it wouldn't be easy but I wanted to still keep going. I was certain adventuring wouldn't be feasible, unless Sri and I would go on them individually, but I thought travelling should be fine..

Fast-forward to June-2008. Certainly travel was not a problem, since we had travelled to India and back. Wanted to talk about the journey back as a guide to some new parents (sorry for being so late about it, but I hope it helps atleast a few). We had booked an infant seat for Snugli so that we'd get a bassinet and some luggage quota for her. We were told that we'd have to reserve the bassinet for each plane which we did. There were no problems while travelling to India as such. While coming back too, the plane from Bangalore to Paris wasn't an issue as we reserved a bassinet and got one. In Paris the first thing we did was ask for the bassinet. But when we climbed onto the plane, I noticed that there was no slot in front of us to attach the bassinet, but thought that it must be a different sort of bassinet and didn't worry. Even after the plane took off, nobody came to attach the bassinet. Thats when we had the doubt and asked a hostess about it. We were told it cannot be attached as this particular hold didn't have a slot and the one which had was occupied. They refused to move us to the other slot as the people sitting there didn't agree to. The air hostess actually said that I could lay my baby on the floor in the walking path if I wanted to! I was outraged, but there weren't any helpful suggestions. It was only after about an hour later that I noticed some seats were empty in the back and asked to be moved there so that we could sit in a 3-seat stretch and keep the baby in the middle seat. This was in Air France, but I'm sure this story will be the same in other airlines.

We complained to the airlines and thats when we found out that taking a ticket doesn't automatically mean a bassinet. The ticket price of about $500 is only for the extra luggage and the bassinet is on a first-come-first-serve basis. You know what was worse - we were the only ones on the plane with an infant, so where was the question of first-come-first-serve? There was a bassinet available and despite us telling them in the beginning, they didn't have the sense to issue the seat-numbers for us. Even after complaining to both Delta and Air France, they said they were sorry but they could do nothing about it. We went as far as complaining to the Federal authorities, but there was no response. So new parents, if you are travelling on a plane with an infant, you don't need a ticket for the baby unless you want to carry extra luggage. Please make sure you have the bassinet slots in the hold as soon as you see your seats. If not, inform somebody immediately and maybe they'll seat you correctly. I hope no other parent with a young baby goes through such a bad experience. We were tired from the travel we had done + a cranky infant + we had to face this predicament + no help whatsoever from the air hostesses or anyone.

Anyways, getting back on track, despite the harrowing experience, our trip was a success in all other matters. After all, I had travelled with a baby on planes, trains, buses and cars. So we thought sight-seeing would be a breeze. But boy, were we wrong!

In June 2008, as a trial run, we headed to Pine Mountain state park, just for a day. It was just go in the morning and come back in the night. Still, it kind of became a circus atleast for me. Snugli's sources of food were cerelac and breast-milk then. The cerelac was only in the morning, so that was done before we left. But she refused to breast-feed around her usual time, so when we wanted to "sight-see", she wanted her food. Its not that we didn't have any fun at all, we still managed to see what was there to see, fit in a mini-golf game, but it wasn't the same. But you'd never guess it by the photos..







we did learn a few pointers about taking it easy, but we still hadn't learnt our lesson.

Fast-forward to July 2008. We drove to Putin Bay (or Put-in-bay as the map calls it :-D).




In retrospective, we didn't plan it well at all. Since its about 6 hours drive away and there wasn't much to see, we thought 2 days (half a day each for driving to and fro) would be sufficient. The lesson we learnt was that when you have a baby with you, keep atleast another extra day than you'd otherwise. Again, its not really that we missed everything entirely. We enjoyed a nice ferry ride to Putin bay on lake Erie. We were able to see the Perry memorial.




and we did take a nice stroll beside lake Erie..



We also visited a crystal cave and a winery. But didn't really enjoy the whole experience. Firstly, we reached Putin bay in the noon, what with Snugli's morning routines (bath, breakfast etc) + the ferry timings (we reached the ferry at 11 PM, but the wait and travel on the ferry took another hour). Next, Snugli was too distracted for breast-feed and later her afternoon cerelac (because she was having it outdoors and even trees were distractions!). She was having fun, but was not eating and that frustrated us, especially me to no end. Her afternoon food got so delayed that it in-turn delayed our lunch to 2 PM. The lunch we ordered took more than 30 minutes to arrive, so it was time for another breast-feed by then. So we weren't able to have our lunch until 3. And we had to drive all the way back that day!

So believe it or not, we finished our "sight-seeing", if you can call it that, in 2 hours!! Got back on the ferry at 5:30 PM and drove all the way back with breaks in-between for Snugli's feeds. I think it was midnight by the time we reached home. It certainly wasn't worth driving almost 12 hours for! I guess we didn't need any retrospection to realize what a mistake we had made. In fact, we realized that then in Putin bay itself..

I believe we did learn from the 2 episodes - but some of the travelling we did after these was with my in-laws and to the places we had already been to before. So the rules obviously changed and it was a bit easier. How? Tune in again after a couple of days to find out in the next post..

Subsequent travel with a baby..

Starring - My MIL, my FIL, Sri, Snugli and me.

Where you'll be seeing places like Chicago, Pittsburgh, Niagara falls, Dayton and a glimpse of the Smokies!

Don't miss it :-D. Hehehehe (didn't you love the TV episode style trailer? :-D)

Budday blast!

Snugster timmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmme!!

Thanku, thanku and thanku for all the budday wishes :). So sweet of you to remember and wish me. I am one year old and am a grown up girl now. So I have decided to defy mom and take over her blog for a post (err, sorry mom, won't do this again). Since am going off to spend New year in Florida, thought I'll quickly tell you what all I did for my first birthday.

You know that I celebrated the birthday as per Hindu calendar on 8th Dec. So there were various types of food (a few of which I got to eat) on that day. On my birthday I got up early, had my head bath and got dressed in a new zari langa.




There were again various types of foods. Plus mom baked an eggless orange cake, her first attempt at a cake. Thankfully I got only a taste, so I was saved :-D. But dad, naanamma and thaatha did say they loved the cake (don't know whether they were just being kind ;-) :-D).




So evening we had a personal celebration at home in which I cut the cake (well, dad and mom held my hand, but that doesn't count, I say!) and we all enjoyed eating it.




I got this rocking cycle as a gift from mom and dad..




I can't really peddle it yet, but I sure love to rock on :).

The next day we had a party at Gattitown.




I loved my cake :).




So I cut the cake again (man, I love birthdays :-D).




There were lot of grown-up kids like me (which was surprising) and I got many wonderful gifts :-D. (I am loving birthdays more and more ;-) :-D).



After lunch, we went to the gaming area and I really enjoyed the various rides :).






I was tired, but dad and mom enjoyed a few more games. Finally I was totally tired and done..




Well, in the evening we opened gifts and I did have a blast seeing new dresses and toys. All in all, a birthday well spent and well deserved. I just can't wait for another birthday (but mom says quite the opposite).

Gotta go now, gotta rest for the big trip tomorrow. More from mom later :).