New Beginnings...

We have been in the new house for 2 weeks and feeling settled already. This was the easiest move by far! I think all my organizing pre-move really helped. I spent most of last week deathly ill with Ram away on a 2 week travel stint and 2 kiddos to take care of. It was not easy and there were definitely days where I was feeling sorry for myself. But I am finally feeling better today and what a difference a good night's sleep makes!

Riya LOVES the new house and I am so pleased (and relieved). Our last place was the first "home" she actually remembers. She still asks about it, and we pass by it everyday on the way to school, but overall the adjustment has been seamless. YAY!

So I'm attaching a link to all the pictures of the house because there are just too many to post on here. But I will give you an idea of the layout first. Its a 6 bedroom, 4.5 bath Victorian house spread out over 3 floors. The main floor has the reception, kitchen, separate utility (equipped with separate washer & dryer !!!), a half bath, conservatory, and garden. The second floor has 2 bedrooms (Rayan's & Baby No. 3), a full bathroom, Master bedroom with ensuite and separate dressing/wardrobe area. The third floor has 3 bedrooms: Riya's with ensuite, Office/Guestroom, and the playroom along with a full bathroom. This house definitely makes us feel like real grown ups. It has so much British charm  and we instantly felt at home here. Excited to make new memories in this house!

https://goo.gl/photos/7uWdoUcgn2ZZYyrW7

October Happenings

September flew by while we were away in Houston. It was nice to have some family time, but we are so happy to be back home and roam around in cooler temperatures:) I love fall. Riya is even learning about fall and noticing the change in the colors of leaves. We take long walks after I pick her up from school and point out all the changes we see. I love it.

As it turns out, we also have some exciting news. Looks like Rayan isn't going to be the baby of the family anymore!

Riya, Rayan & TBD

It was an unplanned surprise, but we are gearing up for baby #3! Now that our family is expanding, we decided to look for a bigger place. Although our current place is quite spacious for London standards and has served us well, we felt like it would be cramped once baby comes, especially since my in-laws have graciously offered to come stay with us for those first 3-4 months. Luckily we didn't search for long and found a gorgeous house in our neighborhood. It will allow us to have a proper guestroom/office, a bedroom for each kiddo and a playroom. Plus this house has a large garden (backyard) and a conservatory (number 1 on my list! number 2 is a colored door). We move at the end of the month. I'm excited to have more space and a dedicated playroom for the kids. Not to mention Riya and Rayan's bedrooms won't share a wall anymore, so they can't wake each other up! Yipee!!!! But the thought of actually going through this move right now makes me want to vomit:/ Hopefully everything goes smoothly and luckily I'm not a big fat pregnant whale yet, so I should be able to get organized fairly quickly. Can't wait to show y'all our new digs in a few weeks!

Summer time

Yikes its been a whole months since my last entry! With all this Brexit nonsense, we were glad to have assurance that Ram's job is safe and we can stay in London as long as we would like. That settled, we began researching the school system here. Its so ridiculously complicated. And apparently, we are already behind in applying for September 2018 admissions. SIGH. But there are some good schools with short wait lists, so there is hope after all! I guess we should start applying for Rayan now too! Lol

We finally got some warmer weather here in July/August. The highs were in the 80's which made life pretty uncomfortable for a few weeks. Now, before you curse me out, let me remind you that there is NO air conditioning here! Very few common areas have it, so its hard to escape the heat. Let's just say Rayan and I made it a point to hang out at the grocery store a lot:) Luckily, we purchased one air con unit for our living room last year and that's where we spent the bulk of our time on those hot summer days/nights.

Thankfully its getting cooler now but we are headed to Houston, so its going to be HOT HOT HOT. I'm very excited for our friends and families to meet Rayan and to meet my new niece and nephew. Of course, my rockstar baby boy decided to start crawling a few days ago, so will make that long ass flight to Houston fun! Can't wait to see y'all!!!!

Aiyer, Family of Four, vacation Part Two: Sintra, Portugal

After 5 nights at the lovely Martinhal resort in Sagres, we flew out to Lisbon and then drove 30 minutes to a town called Sintra. It was only a 45 minute flight but we got delayed and were stuck on the plane for an extra 45 minutes which would have been a nightmare but my kids were behaving perfectly fine:) Riya was plowing through her gallon sized snack bag and contentedly staying seated while playing with her sticker books and stamps. I'm so happy we bought her this harness that attached to her seat belt, I think its the reason she stayed in her seat for all 3 flights. Obrigado Laine for the recommendation!!!

Another side note, we survived the long car rides and all 3 flights with zero screen time for Riya. As a parent, this made me really happy, but it also meant we had to do the bulk of entertaining, which was tiring. 

Okay, back to the trip. 

We arrived at the beautiful Penha Longa Resort around 2pm. Unfortunately our room wasn't ready yet and though both kids desperately needed a nap, it wasn't happening. We fed them both and enjoyed a drink while we waited for our room. Riya was happily running around the property proving that she was "not tired." Sintra wasn't as windy as Sagres was, so we felt the heat more. Thoughtfully, our hotel had an indoor play area that had everything a 2.5 year old could want- a home corner outfitted with a kitchen and plastic foods, drawing station, dolls, several different types of slides, a ball pit, and more. 

The next morning, we had plans to drive to the zoo in Lisbon, which is reputed to have one of the best zoological collections in the world. Unfortunately, Riya woke up with tummy trouble and we decided it wasn't a good idea to do the 30 minute drive and be out in the sun all morning. Once again the play areas at the hotel came in hand and despite feeling crummy at times, Riya was entertained. She even jumped on a trampoline for the first time!

The next day we set out to the Aquarium, another must see in Lisbon. Riya was not interested in seeing fish of any kind. Sigh. So we zipped through that place in record time. We did get to see Penguins (my fav!), Dragon Sea Horses, Frogs and other colorful reptiles.

Puffins! 

Sintra is a beautiful town that hosts several castles. For all my Bachelorette fans, you may recall the castle in Portugal in Season 6 with Ali. One of the episodes aired at Pena Palace, which is in Sintra! Pena Palace rests on a hilltop. I'm sure the pictures don't do it justice, but it looked so beautiful. I really wanted to check it out but it was a hike to get up there and it was impossible with kids in tow:/ Ah well, next time. 

Pena Palace

Because of Riya's tummy trouble, we also had to steer clear of the pool on this part of the trip. What a shame though because the pool was gorgeous with the mountains and golf course as a back drop. Ram and I did manage to take turns checking out the restaurants at the hotel at night. The food was excellent as were the mojitos:) I wish we had one more day in Sintra. These two places are definitely at the top of our list for future family vacations!

Aiyer, Family of Four, First vacation

We did it! We managed to trek a toddler and baby over to Portugal for our first family vacation of the year. The sheer amount of stuff we needed to make this vacation happen was insane, I wish I took a picture. But this is what it felt like-

To be fair, our vacation was for 9 days (5 in Sagres), so we did need plenty of clothing options plus beach and swim gear. Despite a 5:30am wake up, both kids did great. Rayan was a pro on his first flight, just like his big sister:) We flew into Faro and drove another 1.5 hours to a town called Sagres and stayed at the Martinhal resort.

Ram did a lot of research and found this highly rated resort that catered to families with little ones.  This place had EVERYTHING. We were so pleased, as was Riya, with all the amenities available. Our 2 story home was equipped with a lovely outdoor space, washer, full kitchen, baby bath tub, potty insert, stair gates, and two cribs. There was a grocery store on site, toddler splash pools, a bounce house, and several play areas throughout the property, 2 of which were next to the pools which came in handy! The added bonus was every restaurant had a play area with staff on hand to watch your child play as you eat AND every bathroom on the property had separate toilets for little ones.  They also had kid and baby club drop offs where they are entertained for several hours a day if you want some kid-free time. (We opted not to do that on this trip). This place really thought of everything and the attention to detail was impressive.

The weather was a mix of warm and cool. The city is right off the path of the Sahara Dessert, so strong winds were constant but with the sun shining through, it wasn't too bad. I was so excited to bring Riya back to the beach. We had been playing with sand for weeks and talking about building sand castles but once we got to the beach, she was not interested. She took one look at the sand and said "it's dirty!" and that was that:/ I don't know where this diva-ness came from. I was so disappointed. But she was happy for Mommy and Daddy to get their feet dirty so she could "stand" in the ocean!

Rayan had a lot of firsts on this trip: first passport stamp, first flight, first time at the beach, and first swim. He loved his first dip in the pool despite Riya stealing his floatie, lol. I was so impressed with how he traveled. Poor guy was teething badly those first few days and would boycott a nap or two but was otherwise his happy smiley self. I was worried that his 3 nap a day requirement would hold us back, but luckily his midday nap coincided with Riya's and then he got to do one nap in the room and one on the go. Worked out perfectly:)

Here's a slideshow of the first part of our trip:

Sagres was the perfect place to kick off our vacation. Next up, Sintra!

The Royal Ascot

Horseracing is a big part of the British sporting culture. There are 32 races a year, 9 of which take place in Ascot, a town about one hour away from London. The Royal Ascot horserace is globally known and combine both high fashion and sport.  The Queen is a racehorse owner herself and attends the 5 day long event every year. The Royal procession marks the start of the race on each of these 5 days. Once again, I was in the presence of her majesty, the Queen.

I was so happy that I was able to attend this year. On the fourth day of race week, they have a Ladies Day. When I said the Brits love to combine fashion and sport (think Kentucky Derby), it wasn't a joke. There is a dress code. A hat is required and must be a certain length and width. Dresses must be knee length and cannot have straps. The rest is fun and games!

We took the train into Ascot and when we arrived we were surrounded by beautiful people all decked out on a gorgeous day. It was the perfect place to people watch. I did not come across any hat that was the same. Each of them were unique and beautiful.

Once we had our bubbly in hand, we set out to place some bets. After about 10 minutes of trying to figure out the "proper" way to bet, we gave up and did the simplest form of betting. For each race we picked 2 horses and bet "each way" and put whatever amount we wanted down. It wasn't the highest return, but one of my horses finished last and I won 10 GBP! My friend Sejal's horse won first and she won even more. It was loads of fun:)

The name of a highway in Dubai! 

This chart made my head hurt

Silver Line baby! 

At the race there are 3 enclosures and we had tickets to the Queen Anne Enclosure which is right next to the Royal Enclosure. The Royal Enclosure is super expensive because as you can guess, it hosts the Royal Family members and high society. Although it was highly guarded, a few of us got lucky and snuck in:) We didn't see anyone though but it was such a nice view of the racecourse. All in all it was a spectacular day and I'm so glad I can cross this off my list!

Happy Half-Birthday Baby Boy!

So I meant to send this on Friday, the 17th, but I was hung over worn out from the Ascot Race the day before. More on that later...

How is my baby boy already 6 months old?! Time is flying and I'm savoring every moment. Even though his sleeping is still a work in progress (back up to 10 hours now), nothing gets this baby down. When I go to him at 5:30am and bring him into our room so he doesn't wake up Riya, he giggles and reaches out and cups my cheek with his little hands. It makes me melt. He already knows how to get himself out of trouble. What a charmer...watch out ladies!

He is still so chill and laid back, its awesome. He is still willing to nap on the go, which I love. He started solid foods this month and his favorite combination is green beans and pears, just like his big sister:) He has also developed an explosive new skill set, which makes sense as to why he can't be bothered to sleep! He loves blowing raspberries, jumping in his jumper, and sitting upright. He also enjoys reading books, especially when Riya reads to him. He has grown to 27.5" and weighs 17lbs.

I know I'm biased, but damn this is one good looking kid-