The Fam: 2008

hilton head 2008

as you may recall from a previous entry in 2007, harshna and i own a timeshare in hilton head. one of the reasons we made this purchase years ago was in planning for the future - specifically when we had a family and could enjoy a great beach destination with our children. last time we went, we had a blast - but avi’s ability to vocalize his pleasure was, obviously, not as developed at 7 months of age. this year was a totally different story! i have enclosed a quick video of us playing at the pool and a few pictures of our trip to the beach! we had so much fun and just seeing how happy avi was and how much fun he had, made our purchase from years ago finally worthwhile! i can’t wait until next year...

social butterfly

avi has always been quite the talkative fellow. even as an infant, he made the funniest noises that had us all in stitches wondering what the heck he was actually saying. that shy, reluctant quality you see in some children is almost non-existent in avi. even around new people, if you give him a few minutes to warm up, he's not too bashful. during the months of february, march and april we had a number of visitors and did a little visiting ourselves...i figured it would be fun to take all of those visits/visitors and compress 'em into one blog entry! between seeing new and old friends, there was one constant - avi enjoyed each and every encounter!

the first pic is with tally, his wife laura and avi...they were visiting from cleveland and avi is trying to encourage them to add another addition to the 2nd generation of “three amigo’s”. addison (shawn and greta’s son) and avi are waiting! tally, shawn and i have known each other and been best buds since middle school. as luck would have it, we all went to virginia tech and while we were there, we pretty much did everything together - hence the cheesy “three amigo’s” nickname! seeing as captain tally and laura live in cleveland, we don’t get to see them as often as we like, but as long as his folks stay in richmond, we are assured a visit or two each year!!

our next stop is with the raika’s. ana and kamran are dear friends and the four of us have much in common: harshna and ana went to dental school together and kamran and i were the significant others for those four years. over those four years kamran, matt (who we will visit later on in this blog entry) and i formed a pretty exclusive club - the anti-dentites of richmond. anytime ana, harshna and niloo (another of harshna’s former dental classmates and matt's wife) get together, its molar this, impression that...blah, blah, blah (btw, soo should be mentioned here, but her husband is also one of “them” so peter is not in our club). i digress. we stopped by to visit with them and grab a little lunch! it was great to meet their newest addition to the family! and they have definitely addressed the issue of having enough friends for avi to play with - in fact, with three boys, we often wonder how ana and kamran manage! we seem to have our hands full with one and to see how well they do with three is amazing!! it was great to see how avi interacted with them and the boys were quite accommodating in sharing their toys during our get-together. hopefully, when the time comes, our little man will be as hospitable!

about a week later, we were thrilled to see brett, tiff and brady as they stopped by to visit for dinner. little brady was just so happy to be out of the car that he could hardly contain himself (pic below)...actually, he was a joy over the course of the entire evening and eventually he just zonked out! what i found most humorous - he looks very similar to

his dad from back in the day after a long night of bar hopping in b-burg! notice the head slouch with a slight lean left - text book luhring. now, i will caution you, if he is like his dad, don’t wake young brady prematurely. otherwise, YDARB will awaken! ydarb is brady’s grumpy, grouchy alternate personality. in brett’s case, well, we met tterb one night after some serious partying at top of the stairs following a vt game...perhaps my slightly loud, occasional snoring prompted tterb to shake, kick and yell at me...oh, i hope poor brady doesn’t have a ydarb hiding inside!

the following week avi gets another visitor in vanessa, one of harshna’s former co-workers. she was also driving through richmond and wanted to visit with the little man...unfortunately, avi was a little p-o’d that his teddy bear was also in the pic...he wanted the spot light in between two beautiful ladies all to himself. gotta admit, i’d be p-o’d as well.

next on avi’s social schedule - nova! first stop was matt and niloo’s house (same matt from the anti-dentite club of richmond)! arya and avi have met before, but avi was only a few months old. so you can appreciate his level of excitement upon meeting up with his buddy. not too different than matt and i, arya towers over avi in the pics below, but i have the little guy on some special height-enhancing vitamins - he is already in the 60th percentile for his age and his current height - there is still hope!

later on that day, we headed over to the kalb’s house for a quick play-date with kadyn. she was sweet as ever and didn’t know what to make of avi. he made himself right at home, playing with her toys, using her high chair during lunch and snuggling up to her parents!

avi - hey those are some cool blocks!

kk - uh, okay, you can....

avi - hey, neat phone!

kk - sure, feel free to...

avi - your mom’s camera is awesome! take a pic of me!!

kk - wait a sec...

avi - COOL HIGH CHAIR...

kk - hang on, that is off limits...

ten days later, we were back in nova. this time, we spent some time with the bhavsar's!

we were treated with some fantastic cooking from chef sonal! she truly is an extraordinary cook and her passion for the culinary arts is evident in the tasty treats we enjoyed all weekend! its only a matter of time before she puts her passion (and talent) on display for the masses. and if that day never comes, as long as we get an invite to dinner at her house every so often, i’m not complaining!! yummy stuff! between avi and i, we tore through dinner and found ourselves in a food coma shortly after! thanks for the hospitality neil and sonal!! and if you haven't visited her blog, you must: http://live2eatdc.blogspot.com/

and our final visitors were the cintron family...a few years ago, we were saddened to see norberto and suki leave richmond. they lived a few blocks from us and we really enjoyed hanging out with them often (pre-parenthood!). norberto and i were on the same soccer team and the first time i met this dude, he was pimpin in his 2 door geo like it was gods gift to automobiles. naturally, it made me laugh and i thought, i gotta get to know this cat. it sucks when you meet a couple and they are just good people and we enjoy each others company and then life/career takes you to another place. fortunately we have kept in touch and interestingly enough, soon after moving to new york, we both had children and this was our first opportunity to get our families together since the dramatic life changes! their children were beautiful and well-behaved! avi fit right in! suki coordinated a dinner meeting at carrabba’s in the southside and a number of their richmond friends were able to join in the brief reunion! hopefully, we will see them again soon!

alright kids, that brings us up to April of 2008 - we are getting a little closer! more blog updates coming soon!

april 25th

bad dad...

okay, so i have used the broken computer excuse. contemplated the "dog ate my homework" excuse, but couldn't put this one on kiya. i have neglected to update our blog for the sheer fact of procrastination. i truly didn't think my absence was going to be over a year. well enough of the explanations - lets get caught up!

AVI & CATHERINE. so, i have blogged about avi and catherine before and they seem to be pretty good pals! however, catherine's father, del, always seems to give avi a disapproving look when avi hugs on his daughter - obviously, he knows how much of a player his dad was back in the day and you know the old saying, "the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree"... considering the fact that i have been either married to or dating harshna for over fifteen years is irrelevant for those of you that tend to over-analyze things. as you can see in the picture above, the little man has plenty of game! in all seriousness, we love getting together with the hoyt's and they turned us on to one of our favorite restaurants in carytown - weezies (http://www.weezieskitchen.com/). we kicked off the new year grabbing breakfast with them and it has now become a favorite of ours. we order take-out from there once a week! harshna loves the 3-cheese tortellini and i usually go with one of their nightly specials!

BANANAS! as avi continues to develop a taste for solid foods, we have explored into a wide variety of arenas. starting with simple things like fruit. in fact, one of his favorites (then and even now at 2 1/2) are bananas! we lovingly call him a monkey all the time and i guess it should surprise us how much he digs the yellow treats! at first, he had some difficulty grabbing the little pieces out of his bowl and often times he would end up knocking his bowl over in his retrieval attempts. harshna founds this nifty bowl with a huge suction cup on the base and for a few weeks, it worked like a charm! however, as some of you know, at the age of one, curiosity is at the core of their little beings. soon, the suction bowl became a game - how long will it take me to pull this off of the high chair! i tell you, we can never win! anyhow, check him out chowing down -

BOYS AND THEIR TOYS! knock on wood, avi has always been a good eater and as we transition away from the typical baby food, he is seemingly enjoying the exploration into new tastes and treats. along with showing some enthusiasm for trying new foods, he is equally enthusiastic about one other thing - playing! i've enclosed some of our fav pictures of him in his element -

as you can see, he is often pal-ing around with his buddy kiya. unfortunately, she may not be a willing participant, but if avi has his way, she is joining in on what ever the activity. from reading a book to flipping over his push and ride lion! the day i busted out guitar hero on the wii he immediately jumped into my lap and started to press away at every button in sight. he loves music and we rarely let him watch tv - combine those two with a "toy" with buttons and avi was in heaven. this little dude cleared exactly zero levels, but the pleasure it brought, one would have thought he had beaten the game. naturally, harshna gave it a disapproving look. she could see where this was going...the two of us playing video games day in and day out - therefore that vision of the future, ended avi's gaming experiences (for now).

MORE "BEST BUDS"! now the video gaming future for avi may have been tapered by his mother, but the bond that he has for his kiya is probably inseparable! avi will spend hours upon hours talking about, playing with and following around kiya. she represents one of the key components to our mental sanity. lets not kid ourselves, raising and caring for a toddler is hard work and any reprieve you can get - you take it....check out the slideshow, you can see that we truly lucked out with the bond avi and kiya have formed! my fav's are the last two where avi is giving kiya a kiss and then she returns the favor in the very next picture!

DAY OFF WITH DAD! so, with valentine's day right around the

corner, my mother works some serious hours at wilkenson's flowers. she is great friends with the wilkenson's and has worked with them for years. needless to say, with her working, either harshna or i had to take some time off from work to watch avi...well, i already feel like i don't get enough time with him, so when opportunities like this present themselves, i jump on it! all together, i had two straight days with avi and we got into all kinds of trouble.

OBAMA OR CLINTON? so, as some of you may or may not know, we took a recent interest in the past election. i wasn't too outspoken on which way i was leaning. however, thinking back to that time, i may have sent multiple mass emails, texts, and did a bit of canvasing. one of the first items on the agenda for our mini-vacation, i took the little man with me to the polls on democratic nomination day and gave him his first taste of politics. he was a little older than a year and he didn't seem to have any issues with a "hanging chad"...

MORE TROUBLE! i wouldn't say it was due to boredom, well, maybe so, i took a couple of pics of avi that i couldn't wait to share with harshna - you know when you take pics that are purely being taken for our humor and poor avi has zero say...