2016 - Summarized in pics and words!

Its time to look back and summarize the year! I think 2016 made a Grand entry and we were crazy busy the first half of the year, 3rd quarter was busy, and things slowed down finally in the 4th quarter. But each month was event driven, and it felt like we were constantly running from one thing to another. So lets look at this by each month...

January - We just moved into the new house 3 days before the new year. Work was insanely busy at office and the house was full of boxes! We had to quickly unpack the boxes, setup the house with the essentials (cable, security), mount the TVs, order the blinds, setup the yard, attend my doctor appointments, get the house cleaned, see all the shopping that mom did for the wedding preparations, 

and on and on...I remember each day had a million to-do tasks!  Then we were all excited to welcome aai and baba towards the end of Jan, aai took over the cooking and arranging and organizing stuff around the house. We adored and enjoyed all the hand-picked unique gifts from India and maybe things calmed down for a few days.

February - We had to get ready for the biggest event of the year - brother's wedding preparations galore! Shopping, shopping, more shopping, planning, song selections, dance practices (atleast we tried to do it), endless phone calls and messaging about random wedding fun and planning, pictures, packing....shopping - all the chaos! ALL THE FUN! Oh and in between all that, we also had a small house warming party with close relatives and my aunt visited me 😃. And then packing our bags to Cancun and the last week of Feb came too fast and ended too fast! All we had remaining is memories, stories that we still laugh about, and the pictures! Oh and we of course officially added a new member to the family, #AK. 

March - After we were done reminiscing the non-stop pictures, messages, phone calls with everyone with the fun we had at the wedding, it was time to actually setup the new house. Earlier was just the bare minimum setting up, but now with the help of aai - we setup the wall decorations. The living room photo frames, the entry wall with all the collectibles and souvenirs, the paintings in the bedroom. Aai re-arranged the books, DVDs, styled our shelves and a long list of the small stuff that turns a house into a home. And we also spent some down time enjoying all of aai's cooking, exploring new places to eat with aai-baba and watching cricket matches!

April - After aai-baba's trip ended, T and I resumed our long walks, explored the new neighborhood, enjoyed spring weather, I potted some colorful spring plants, we bought pots and furniture for the rooftop, we met our new neighbors, and enjoyed the downtime and finally settling into the new place. And then we booked our Summer trip to Europe!

May and June - Work was busy and tense, but I was in the vacation planning mode and then we took off for a 12 day trip around Prague, Vienna, Budapest and Germany! Meeting Meg on the trip was icing on the cake. Of course, time flew-by the two months. It was pre-trip planning and post-trip excitement. And post-trip job search.

July - I was serious about the job search, resume updates, interviews.

August - I re-potted my 4 year old Fiddle leaf fig tree. This is an important event to be marked in my calendar! And then apart from calendar marked with anniversaries and birthdays this month, we also flew to Seattle, drove upto Vancouver and Whistler and did a real short and hectic 5 day trip! We loved the places we visited - there was so much to see and so little time! Mom and dad had to go to India unexpectedly and visit grandmom who was keeping unwell.

September - This was tough month and it was very sad to lose my grandmom. It was hard to see dad go through a rougher patch, but time will slowly heal the wounds.

October - I resigned at my old job after 6 years of a huge learning experience and enjoyed 10 days of staying at home doing nothing. Those 10 days were super busy though - I hardly got time for the "nothing" that I had planned to do. T and I also did a juice cleanse, and that kick-started healthy eating habits and inspired T to cook and bake! And oh, our cousins and extended family moved out to another city - we miss them.

November - New job, new hopes. 

December - Uneventful month, finally! This was just an ordinary month spent meeting lots of old and new friends, trying new recipes, cooking baking and eating, long walks, reading, enjoying summer weather in winter, updating long overdue blog posts and so on.... ;)

Oh and this has also been the year with Instagram being in constant discussion - T joined, L joined, mom joined, cousin U joined and we talk about it all the #time.