Meeting my extended family at Chicago

From the time I was born, I had heard a lot about my granduncles, grandaunts and my great grandmother staying at Chicago. I had met Sharada pati and Anand thatha when I was 7 days old and thats it. Remaining entire bunch of uncle, aunts, grand uncles-aunts, I had just heard over the phone. My parents tried their best to get me meet to this lovable extended family by arranging an onsite trip to Scottsdale via Chicago!!

29th March 2008, after having a nice 20 hrs travel on Aai's lap, we reached to this huge airport named "Chicago". We were welcomed by a freezing cold and chilly weather but thanks to Mintu uncle and Srivastan thatha, within few seconds we all were wearing nice warm clothes. After getting out of the airport, we got into 2 cars and headed straight towards Sharada Pati's house. The roads were really very broad. But wait, did I tell you that I was finding that car is bit different? Not just because of that car seat which I was forced to sit into, it was that round steering wheel... yes it was exactly on the opposite side to what it is there in our WagonR!!! Whatever it was, it was a nice warm cosy car; which helped all of us to get out of that chilly windy weather.

Within 15 minutes, we were at home (Sharada pati's house)... wow, its such a nice thing to have free space to walk around and play!! I wanted to walk and play since y'day :( Well let me walk and play with all these new cars, while may parents and grand parents talk about everything that they want to.

Now its 10:30pm local time, I had nice rice and milk (my parents fotgot to inform Sharada pati that I love rice-daal) and 7 in 1 burfi(yummy!!) made by Sharada pati. Everyone was saying that I would feel the jet-lag and would not feel sleepy, but may be the excitement of meeting everyone was so much that around 11 pm I was sleepy and we went of to sleep.

Next day was a busy day. It started quite early at 2:30 am when I felt hungry and made Aai-pappa to get up:) After having a nice idli in the morning, I played and slept for some time before I could go and meet my great grandmother. Around 12:30 we all went to rehabilation center to meet my great grand mother (these ppl again forced me to sit into a car seat!!:( ). It was a nice experience, meeting with kolpati and spending some time with her. She was very happy to see me walking and talking and eating.

After we (kolpati and I) finished our lunch, we had second round of kanakabhishek .. yes, I remember something similar happening on my birthday back at my home in Pune. Unfortnately, my parents did their second mistake and didn't bring their digital camera to capture this event. But thanks to thatha, that old non-digital camera helped us in capturing this event. Obviously since there is not a single digital photo of the ceremony available, I can't upload any for you all to have a look at :( [Well thatha has posted the hard copies to us and it would reach us anytime in this week. Once I get them, I will share with you all sometime next week.]

In the afternoon, we visited 2 more pati's [Padma and Padmini] houses. Most of the time I was sleeping [I think this is what is called as jet-lag:)]; so can't describe much of it out here. It was a hectic day for all of us (for both hosts and guests) and we slept early [11 pm]!!!

With that; came the end of our stay at Chicago. It was a very short stay. I couldn't meet all the members of my extended family out here, but I am happy that at least I could meet most of them. I am proud that I could give some baby sitting experience to Mintu and Jitu uncles. Also extremely happy to be here to get blessings from kolpati and all my grand parents.

31st March 2008, with warm blessings of all of them out here in cold weather, we are now heading towards Scottsdale, a much warmer (oops I should say hotter) place.....