Great-aunts Galore and a Great-uncle

Shreya has a lot of great-aunts and great-uncles. This is by no means the full complement of them!

Kunda-mavashi-aji


Rekha-mavashi-aji


Jyoti-mavashi-aji


Nilima-mami-aji


Somehow Shripad-mama-ajoba did not make it into the photographs, but here he is playing "Lemons" with Shreya.

The Pretty Cool Canyon

As mentioned previously, we did a bit of sightseeing on our way back from San Diego last week. In particular, we decided to stop by this big hole in the ground in Arizona.


OK, it's more than a big hole; it's a really big hole (a mile deep and averaging ten miles across, to be more precise). I decided I liked it, so I would take a lot of pictures, some of which follow.

In fact, we liked it so much that, after arriving just before sunset on Wednesday evening and having a quick look (then slowly fumbling our way back to the car in near blackness--it gets dark very quickly out there, especially with no moon), we decided to spend the night in the nearby town of Tusayan, and to wake up before dawn to go see how the canyon would look, lit from the other side.

At dinner that night, we met a pleasant Irish couple named Ned and Maggie, who have a daughter, Christina, who is just a couple months younger than Shreya (and just a little bigger--grr!) They were in the U.S. for a couple of weeks, from their hometown of Tipperary (which is a long way away, as Ned pointed out immediately) and had recently driven down from Yosemite.

How was the canyon in the morning? Quite cold, actually. Fortunately, we are tough, TOUGH, and brought just enough warm clothing that we didn't need to test that. There were still about twenty other people crowding our vantage point, despite the cold and the early hour.



Despite this long face, I don't think Shreya minded the cold very much.





One of the more interesting aspects of the sunrise over the canyon was this Brownian motion we observed in the sky.

Can you tell what it is?


Later in the day, as we took a tour of some of the western viewpoints, we encountered our new Irish friends several times. The babies really seemed to enjoy each other's company!


Anyhow, we took a fair number of photos of the canyon, despite our camera battery running out in the first hour. (We went back to town for breakfast and a quick recharge.) I leave you with a few more that I like.


The canyon looks very barren, but it is not quite as barren as it looks. Also, it is surrounded by lush evergreen forests on both sides.

Looks like someone has been practicing bonsai on this windswept rock.

One of the few vantage points whence we could actually see a piece of the river.

Varsha's turn to wear Shreya.

The sun didn't let up much. Good thing we came in October rather than July!

San Diego, Again

We just returned from another road trip to San Diego. This time my mother, who is visiting for the month of October, came with us. Like last time, we had planned to leave on Friday afternoon. Like last time again, unexpected delays came up, (this time they really were unpredictable, and not related to Shreya) and it was quite late in the evening by the time we were ready to hit the road. This time however, we decided not to simply leave then. Instead we got an early night and set out on Saturday morning, at 4:30! This time, the stars were favorably aligned however, and we didn't run into any snowstorms or fog or major road work, and we arrived in San Diego around 8:00 in the evening.

On Sunday, Tom and I both gave talks at the INFORMS meeting. As a brief tangent from always reporting about Shreya, I should mention that this is a crazy conference. There are close to eighty parallel sessions! I don't have a good estimate of even the order of magnitude of the number of participants, and can't seem to find his information on the web, but one could see lots of participants milling around for several blocks around the convention center. The printed program is about the size of a telephone directory! When I mentioned this to my sister, she asked how one decides which sessions to attend. The answer is quite simple if unfortunate -- one just looks for ones friends. Annoyingly enough, some of the talks we were interested in were scheduled in parallel with our own. On the whole, the entire thing was rather a pandemonium.

Anyway, we both attended some sessions on Sunday and Monday, while Aai and Shreya hung out at the hotel, where Aai exercised Shreya (or was Shreya exercising Aai?) On Tuesday, Tom went to the conference site but spent the afternoon working with a collaborator instead of attending the sessions. Aai, Shreya and I spent the time in Balboa Park, where Shreya had fun splashing in the fountains and riding the tram. Tom joined us there in the late afternoon for about an hour, and then, in the evening, we began the journey back home. This time we were not so pressed for time as UNM had their fall break, so Tom didn't have to get back and teach. So we decided to take longer on the drive back, and take in some sights on the way. And that is just what we did, on Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning and afternoon. More about it in another post.

Jemez

This past weekend was the last weekend of the summer (as defined by the UNM academic calendar.) To make the most of it, we went with some friends to the nearby town of Jemez Springs. Although it is only about an 80 minute drive away, and therefore possible to visit as a day trip, we nevertheless decided to stay over Saturday night so as to have more time.

On Saturday, we spent the morning getting there and coordinating with our friends. It took a little longer than expected, since we had decided to meet there, rather than in Albuquerque, and our friends don't have cell phones, and even if they did, we didn't have a signal on ours (Grrr, so much for Verizon having the best coverage -- that of course may still be true, but grrr anyway! ... and on a related note, I really wonder how people managed in the pre-mobile-phone days.) And to add to all the other hurdles, we had two babies' schedules to juggle. However we surmounted all the obstacles and eventually met up.

After lunch in Jemez Springs, we drove out to Jemez Falls, about 15 miles away. The town and falls are in the Jemez mountains, at an elevation of about 6200 ft. The scenery was gorgeous, with bright orange-red mountains dotted with tall evergreen trees, and occasional small bubbling hot springs just at the side of the road. From the parking lot at Jemez Falls to the actual falls was a very short hike, less than half a mile. However, even this proved to be quite challenging, because Jared and Julia's baby is about 15 months old, and having just learned a few weeks ago to walk unsupported, is very much into walking on his own instead of being carried. Of course, he doesn't always want to walk in the direction the adults want to go...


Oddly enough, we don't seem to have taken any pictures of the falls, as seen from downstream. We later walked a short distance upstream, and saw the river above the falls. It was pretty shallow, at least in some parts, and we had some fun wading in.


Here are Tom and Shreya just above the falls.



On Saturday night, after the other had gone to bed, Tom, Shreya and I drove a couple miles out of town, then pulled off the road to do some stargazing. We don't have a tripod, so no pictures, but the sky was quite breathtaking.

On Sunday, after breakfast, we decided to try something a little more strenuous, so we hiked a couple of miles uphill, to McCauley hot springs. These were really just lukewarm springs, but we still enjoyed them!


On the hike back to the car, we got a little nervous, as a bit of a wind blew up, and we could hear thunder from not far away. But fortunately, we didn't get any rain, and made it back safely. Here is Shreya, partaking of a little post-hike refreshment.


On the ride back to Albuquerque, the storm finally broke, and it has been raining (sort of) ever since.

Seattle

Last week, we took Shreya on her third major trip. This time we travelled to Seattle. Tom was visiting Microsoft Research for a week, to do some work with a collaborator. Shreya and I just went along for the ride, among other reasons because I'd never been to Seattle. Of course, in practical terms, I still haven't seen much of the region: during the week, Tom worked all day, and Shreya and I, somewhat transportless, hung out and played either in the hotel or in nearby playgrounds. In the evenings, in principle we could've seen some sights, if we had wanted to skip dinner for the purpose (since restaurants in Redmond seemed to close very early. I suppose this might not have been the case in the city, but in any case we did not find out.) That left Saturday to do touristy stuff, but of course the weather, which had been pretty nice if a bit chilly all week, decided not to cooperate. So, in the end, we skipped going to Mt. Rainier or any of the other attractions and just wandered around Pike Place Market (which Tom points out is an attraction) for some time and spent the day with Tom's collaborator and his wife. So in short, it was an enjoyable week, but uneventful. Here are some pictures.

On the flight out, Shreya attacks a packet of peanuts.


Playing at the hotel.


At Nikhil and Megha's Shreya was fascinated by the coffee table.


Mirrors, mirrors on the wall...

Atlanta

We just got back from Shreya's second major trip: ten days in Atlanta. This was an exciting adventure for us, as it was the first time Shreya traveled on an airplane. The journeys went pretty well. On the outbound flights, which were in the morning and afternoon, Shreya was very happy, spending the first flight bouncing on Mommy's lap and the second one sleeping. The return flights were in the late evening, and here she was a bit tired and cranky, but after a little bit of hollering, again spent most of the time sleeping. On the whole, I think traveling with her was reasonably successful.

The trip to Atlanta was dual purpose. Tom spent the weekdays attending a workshop at Georgia Tech. Of course Shreya and I need not have accompanied him to Atlanta for that, but my sister is in Atlanta for the year, and since we had not seen her since Thanksgiving (except over skype) we decided to go as well. We had a lovely time. When both Tom and Pallavi were working, Shreya and I lazed around either at home or in the park or the bookstore. Other times, we lazed around with Pallavi and Shreya demonstrated her bouncing, babbling and smiling abilities. Even on the weekend, when Tom was free, we did not go and see Atlanta sights, preferring to walk in the park or take Shreya to the pool. The only touristy thing that we did was to visit the Civil War museum, to see the cyclorama. That was quite spectacular, though I wish that in addition to the guided tour with commentary, the museum had allowed us to walk around and examine the gigantic painting at our own speed. (Shreya was a little disruptive, but once we were in the guided tour, there was no easy way to leave with her. If we had realized beforehand that it would be like that, we might not have gone, but under the circumstances, we stayed put and watched the show. If the other museum-goers were annoyed with us, they were at least too polite to say so.)

In the mad hassle that was packing for this trip, we managed to remember to take the car seat (not hard since Shreya was sitting in it), the locking clip for the car seat (very forgettable, but we didn't!) diapers and wipes, and toys. Alas, what we did forget was the camera! And then it turned out that Pallavi didn't have one in Atlanta and the one belonging to Tom's collaborator, which we might have tried to borrow, was broken. Finally, Pallavi borrowed one from someone for a couple of days, and between that and the camera on the laptop, we did get some pictures. But we missed recording for posterity the bouncing baby on the plane (Are you allowed to take pictures on airplanes?)


Here Mommy and Shreya are startled out of a nap by a big laptop looming over them.


Shreya meets her aunt. At first she was cautiously friendly

but Pallavi is very good with kids and soon won her over!



Sitting on Mom's shoulder is fun!