India (or why the 2 month blog absence)

We've been in India. No, not for 2 months. But preparing to take a 2 year old to India requires a lot of work. Most of say August. That and trying to get work done in advance of being gone and knowing I wouldn't have a babysitter upon return. (My babysitter is pregnant and expecting in early November so she didn't want to sit through October.) So that's where I've been.

India was interesting. I've been to India 4 times, this was my 5th time there. First time there with a child. My husband is from India, so to see his family, we must travel to India. Otherwise, India would not be my first choice of vacations with a toddler. Mostly because it is a loooong set of flights. Try this on:

Leave at 5AM for the airport
Make 7AM flight to Seattle
Layover of 5 hours in Seattle
10 hour flight to Frankfurt Germany
4 hour layover in Frankfurt airport
8 hour flight to New Delhi, India

But my kid did really great on the plane. She napped, she played with sticker books. She watched Elmo DVDs. It's just REALLY long.

But once we were there - and finally at our vacation destiation - Puri (which involved another flight and a car drive), we were able to enjoy the beautiful beach. Kavya LOVED the ocean.

I had a lot of fun taking pictures of the unusual things on the beach. I did not, however, get a picture of the camel on the beach. There are a lot of tourist things in Puri, India you'd find on the coast here in the US - tacky shell trinkets, ice cream, sweet vendors - but I've never seen camel rides on the beach.

You can see more of my beach photos on my flicker account.

We also got to visit an old temple (FINALLY) and I took a ton of photos of the beautiful stone carvings. Which I will share with you. Soonish :) And I'll be back to art journals soon too.