Back from the Dead

Hello!

I'm back after like... forever. My laptop started to become a pain in the rear last year and I completely stopped using it. And writing a blog from my phone was no fun. Well, for Christmas last year, my husband bought me a beautiful, new laptop. I love it. I had almost forgotten how it felt to have a computer that worked this fast. This laptop has a core i5 and is the fastest laptop I've ever owned. Oh, how I love it. 

So, last night, my husband said "Why did you stop writing?" and I thought "Hey, I have a new laptop now, I should start again." So here I am. 

I have way too many updates since last July. 

The biggest and the best news: We bought a house! We moved in on the 1st of September, 2013. 

This is my palace.

I love living here. The house is so homey and comfortable. It has a basement as well and is probably the only basement that I'm not afraid to go into when I'm alone at home. I looove my kitchen. I cook way more than I used to now. There are 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a huge store area which we can convert into a 5th bedroom if we really like. But I like it as it is. Ankit bought a pool and pingpong table. I'm learning to play both. I'm getting good at table tennis. Pool is still a mystery to me, but Ankit is teaching me. He plays both reaallyy well. But it's nice to be able to go down into the rec-room and play whenever we feel like. 

I've really enjoyed decorating the place and just being here. I love it. I love my home. :)

This year I had like 80 kids come home for trick-or-treating and I absolutely loved it. And on the night of Halloween, Ankit's parents came from India to spend some time with us. It was the best time I spent in a long time. Just having parents at home everyday was so great. After they left, it felt so weird being lonely again. 

We celebrated Diwali together
 in our new house

Ankit et moi

In November, we took a trip to Southern Utah and visited Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park.

At Zion National Park (duh)

Us in Bryce Canyon (duh again)

We hiked from Sunrise Point to Sunset Point at Bryce Canyon. In between, we crossed Thor's Hammer and clicked lots of pictures, so that was nice.

In Zion's, we did the Angel's Landing hike. It is a 2.4 miles hike one way and uphill the whole time. Needless, to say, I stopped hiking the last half mile of the trail because it was way too freaky for me. There was no trail, it was just chains and climbing a rock. Even if I did climb it, I would have never made it back down and considering that eight people died doing this, it was a no-no for me. Ankit and my Father-in-law did it. My mother-in-law and I waited for them at Scout's Lookout. All the way to the top is 5,790 ft. So I did hike up to about 5,200 ft. The final half mile is almost 500 ft in elevation. It took us about five hours to do the hike up and back.

This happens to be around the end of the hike. So you can get an idea of how high up we were.

It was a really fun weekend trip. I'm surprised I hiked so much without killing myself. The first time I hiked in Yellowstone (which was way shorter than this one), I thought I was going to die. 

For Christmas, Ankur Bhaiyya and Astha came and stayed with us for over two weeks. It was the most fun time I've had since Hawai'i. I decorated the fireplace and my Mum-in-law bought me loads of ornaments to put on my Christmas tree. It was fantastic.

My Merry Little Christmas

I spent hours making the stockings with our names on it and started buying and packing gifts since November. On the night before Christmas morning, I sneaked out and put all the gifts under the tree. In the end, it really was no secret who Santa was. Haha.

Christmas Morning

In the morning, when everyone opened their gifts, the smiles on their faces made it all worth the effort. It was (by far) the best Christmas ever!

New Year's Eve

Fortunately, we all got to celebrate New Year's eve together. We had a dinner party at home and invited some of our friends to come celebrate with us. The food that night was delicious!

Since this was our first Christmas and New Year's as a family, we decided to get a family photo taken. I'm going to get it framed soon. 

I like this picture, too. Ankit is not a fan. He didn't like the photography very much. These are from Target. Hopefully, next year we'll find a better photographer in Tulsa. I hope to be in Tulsa next year for Christmas and New Year's. Fingers crossed. :)

Then our time together came to and end and everyone left. It was really sad. I could have gotten used to having everyone around. Felt weird sitting alone in the family room with no family. Ankit's holidays came to an end, too and he started going to work. That's when I really started to feel lonely.

But I'm excited again. My parents are coming here in April. They bought their tickets yesterday so I'm reaaally happy :D

We just celebrated Valentine's Day and it was great! I did some fun little things around the house, made chocolate truffles with Julia and baked a candy confetti cake that tasted divine. 

So yeah. Here is pretty much everything I've been up to since last July.

Until next time.

xx