Christmas sweets.. After frying.. Especially for @shivaranjan :D

Making Christmas sweets.. :)

A quiet afternoon at home with the lil one :)

How some of us spend our weekends..

Somebody’s going to get a scolding.. :)

Lil one has her own lil pup!

Christmas Carols - Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer - Lyrics

With a little over a month to go for Christmas, Thaïs' singing teacher at school has started teaching them carols. So, over the course of the next few weeks I hope to have some more carol-related posts to put up here.

To start off with, here's Thaïs' version of Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer:
Voodoff the red nosed wane-deer
Had a very shining nose
And if you ever saw it
You even thought it would grow
All of the other wane-deers
Used to laugh and call him names
They never let poor Voodoff
Join in any wane-deer games

Then one Christmas foggy
Santa came to say
Voodoff with your nose so bright
Won't you guard my sleeve tonight

Then all the wane-deers loved him
And they shouted out in gree
Voodoff the red nosed wane-deer
You'll go down in mystery

Most important is the tune.. it's that of the first two lines repeated over and over. :) She didn't allow the voice recorder anywhere near, so this is the best I could do.

Python crossing the road.. Miramar, #Goa

I stopped the car and got out to click this. But I kept my distance as is obvious!

Thunderstorm!

A glimpse of the thunderstorm whilst @colinbassman and I were at Britto’s pigging out..

Couldn’t resist taking a pic of this abandoned waverunner, thanks to the thunderstorm..

Doodling

When Thaïs comes across a blank notebook, she has to fill it up.. Sometime she colors, other times she scribbles all over, this time she tried her hand at doodling.

Here’s her first shopping list… Well, at least she got the date right.

She obviously had to practise her 8s before she got that cat right! I wonder how she managed to give it an electric shock, though!!

This is a drawing of one of her dogs. Notice the tick marks? She corrected her own doodles..

This one’s my favorite  That’s the 3 of us.

Thaïs on the top with the biggest head (figures!!), mummy on the left (biggest stomach!!) and daddy on the right (heh heh!!)

I was quite horrified the first time I saw the daddy doodle, but when she explained it, she told me it was his bum 

Whether she was serious or just pulling my leg, I’ll never know..

Still More Artwork

Thaïs started school today after a two-week break. With much persuasion I managed to get her to open her coloring books:

Don’t miss the thumbs up!And yes, I’m aware of the spelling error.

What A Colorful World — Thaïs’ version of the song.

Painting the monkey’s toes red wasn’t enough, she painted her own toenails as well.

Now this elephant started out with jaundice, but I guess it recovered pretty quick  She did a fair job with the other colors, until she picked up the red crayon. I don’t have anything against nail polish, but those red patches on the body were puzzling, to say the least. However, she cleared that up for me. “The poor elephant has a rash,” she said. “He has been scratching.”

When Life Hands You Lemons…

… make lemonade… Or so the saying goes.But Thaïs has her own version…When life hands you dry days…. make your own rain!!

Ferragosto In Goa – 2009

We’re in August once again.. and with it, for our Italian club here in Goa, comes our annual celebration of Indian independence / ferragosto lunch for members and special guests. For those of you who missed out on Ferragosto in Goa, 2008 you may read my post on it hereThis year we had a comparatively easier time – last year we made the pasta from scratch, this time we bought it and cooked it with 3 varieties of sauces.Also, Liana, our gracious host, made the traditional ‘patollios’ at home so instead, we made banana fritters. Sorry Ave Cleto, I’ve forgotten the Konkani name  If you don’t know what ‘patollios’ are you’re going to have read last year’s post. 

Here’s Liana, frying the fritters…

This time, the kids didn’t fight as much 

Back to the kitchen, Emanuela (our Italian teacher), Maureen (who, last year, demonstrated the art of making pasta), and Liana, turn around to show us their better side…

Mise en place…

And others helped get the decorations up…

Our new club president with his grand-daughter…

Some of us had to struggle a bit…

Even the secretary of the club wasn’t spared…

Passing on the technique…

We did have a couple of experts….

Getting the salad chopped..

Some worked tirelessly…. (L to R) Charlotte, who painstakingly made buttonholes for all of us, and Chiara, who was in and out of the kitchen helping Emanuela with the cooking and the rest of us with the decorations…

Whilst others took a break… 

The kids had their own agenda…

Supervised by Prof. Ave Cleto….

All that hard work made little Emily hungry…

Revitalized after that short break, we get back to work…

Circolo Italiano director and president planning, strategizing..

OK… Time to put those books away… Let’s play…

Now that the decorations are up, let’s sit down and enjoy the wine…. On the extreme left we have India’s leading bass player Colin D’Cruz who very kindly gave us all Jazz Goa CDs, Merwyn, president Nevett, and Adolfo with Monica, his better half.

Here we have (R to L) Charlotte chatting with Maureen and daughter Leanne who made a surprise dessert profiterole

After all that hard work, wine is well-deserved…

Our secretary Basil with his family.. And everyone wants to carry Emily…

Ahh… lunch time… Let’s dig in…..

And now it’s Emily’s turn to entertain us….

Now for a little business.. Our new president giving his acceptance speech….

And Emily clapping for grandpa…

The official handing-over of presidential duties from Ave Cleto to Nevett…

That done, we sat down with dessert and coffee to watch a concert by Andre Rieu

Sorry Emily… Did my popping flashbulb ruin the concert for you???