Medical Care Adventures!

So, I pretty much called it when we were home in the US after our first year in India.  Friends and family were inquiring about how year one went for all of us and I matter of factly told them, "It went well!  Really, REALLY well.  Almost to the point that I'm a bit nervous going into year two because things just can't go as well as year one.  We've got no where to go but down."  I didn't mean to be pessimistic or anything that was just truly my thoughts and well, I called it.  We had barely been back to Bangalore a month when Matt had to go in for eye surgery due to a blocked tear duct.  It was so creepy!  His under eye just kept getting more and more swollen and the eye doctor kept telling him to finish his antibiotics.  By the end of day five - the doctor finally agreed that mere antibiotics were not going to solve Matt's problem.  SO!  Off to surgery he went.

Good Grief, Man!  What happened to you?!

Getta Load Of This Guy!

Is that a leech!?

Turns out is wasn't a leech but that's what I thought it was when he first emailed me this picture!  The hospital staff used a big 'ole black magic marker and drew an arrow under the eye that they were supposed to operate on!  GOOD GRIEF!!!  :0)

The surgery was a success and Matt felt pretty good and wanted to go home but they insisted on one more night in the hospital.  So, they told him he could leave the next morning.  Long story short by 5:00 pm Matt was pretty irritated and ready to go home.  He took a shower.  Took out his IV and walked out into the hallway with all of his worldly posessions and said, "I'm not upset.  I'd just like to go home now."  Hospital staff went scurrying everywhere as they tried to figure out where his IV went & they assured him the doctor would be coming.  Matt said, "You've been telling me that since 9:30 this morning and now I'd like to go home."  "Okay, Sir.  5 minutes."  Matt looked at his watch and said, "Okay.  5 minutes!"  Wouldn't you know it!  The surgeon appeared within that 5 minutes.  We got the thumbs up and we were FINALLY heading home!  (Moral of that story - Take out your IV at 9:30 and you'd have gotten to go home MUCH sooner!  Hahaha!)

As if Matt's eye surgery wasn't adventurous enough he ended up needing to have back surgery!  I kept saying, "Are you sure you want to do it here?  I mean, it's only your BACK!!!  I know you had eye surgery here but you still had one good eye if anything went wrong!!  Your back?!  Something goes wrong & well....ya know!!!" ;0)   After he met with the surgeon he felt very confident that he was in good hands and did not need to fly back to the US or to Singapore. 

Immediately upon entering the hospital there is this little temple.

The night before his surgery, he went to check into the hospital and they said, "Sir, why are you here?"  Matt said, "I am having back surgery in the morning." 

Hospital Staff:  "Oh.  Okay.  We will have someone take a look at you tomorrow and determine if you need surgery." 
Matt:  "Um.  No.  They already determined I do need surgery and I was told to check in tonight for surgery in the morning."
Hospital Staff:  Crickets. Indian head bobble.  "Yes, Sir."  And with that they admitted him to a hospital room.  If only he had known how many more CRAZY things were going to happen to him!

I will let Matt share the details of what transpired in the morning but by the time I arrived at the hospital he was literally "packing up shop" and saying, "That's it!  I can't do this!" and on cue the surgeon walked through the door and assured Matt that everything was fine and that he just needed to "calm down." 

After he talked Matt down from the ledge and convinced him all was going to be fine he basically gave him a farewell wave & said, "See you in the OR!"  Oh Geesh!  Now I am freaking out!  This is craziness!  BACK surgery in India.  (As a sidenote, I have to say, the doctor's here are amazing.  Highly qualified.  Literally, probably some of the best in the world BUT well, India is India & that my friend is what made it an adventure!) 

We were completely convinced that the "nurses" weren't really nurses at all but just "nice ladies" in crispy, white uniforms that enjoyed trying to help others.  One of the things we learned during Matt's stay in the hospital is that the "Nice Ladies" quite literally do not have any medicine to dispense.  Family members are expected to go down to the main floor where there is a pharmacy.  Get a "token" (a number for when it is your turn), stand in the queue (line) & then give the "pharmacy boy" the piece of paper that the "Nice Ladies" wrote the name of the medication on upstairs.  I'm not even kidding!  Matt was literally being wheeled down the hallway to the OR when one of the Nice Ladies" realized that she forgot to bring along some sort of drug that Matt needed during surgery.  So she YELLED down the hallway to one of the other ladies on duty and we simply stood in the hallway and waited and waited and waited and waited.  Yep.  Eventually, someone must have run downstairs to get the medicine dispensed from the pharmacy and once they brought it to The Lady - Well, then we were underway to the OR again!

Slight backtrack here.  Forgot to mention that one of the things that had Matt in a tither when I arrived at the hospital is b/c he had called me while I was en route to the hospital and told me that I had to turn around and go back home and get his MRI's that were on a pen drive.  Apparently, he was supposed to bring his MRI's with him to the hospital for surgery....but nobody told us this.  We didn't know!

Okay.  Back to our regularly scheduled program!  Matt is being wheeled down to the OR.  I am at his side, but being a total germaphobe - I am conscience to not actually touch the bed or actively help push the bed.  I leave that to the Nice Ladies.  In one hand, Matt is holding the box of whatever it was that Nice Lady #1 almost forgot to bring and in the other hand is his pen drive to take into the OR with him. 

Two of the Nice Ladies taking Matt to surgery

"Seriously, Jen!  Stop it!  Don't blog this stuff!"

Okay.  So I stopped taking pictures but I most certainly did not agree to "not blogging" about this!  Hahaha!



Once we arrive in the doorway to the OR wing.  I notice and shutter in horror at the MOUNTAIN of shoes at the doorway.  Oh yes.  In India, you ALWAYS take your shoes off but I was thinking, "Surely we don't take our shoes (or as they call them, "slippers") off at the door in a hospital.  Ew, ew, ew! That's just disgusting!  Now it was time for me to talk myself down off the ledge.  "This isn't about you, Jen!  It's about MATT!  He's going in for BACK surgery for Heaven's Sake!  Don't cause a scene.  Take the shoes off."  Nope.  I couldn't do it.  I just stared straight ahead.  Kept walking & pretended like, "Oh yeah.  I do this all the time.  I totally know what I am doing!"  And that's when I heard it.  The voice.  It came from behind me.  A voice getting frantically louder & louder & eventually shouting...."Madam.  MADAM.  M A D A M!!  SLIPPERS!  SLIPPERS!  OFF!!!!"  Shoot!  Busted.  I had no choice but to take off my flip-flops.  I picked them up and held them in my hand and that's when I nearly gagged & lost my lunch.  I was standing in something.  SOMETHING!?!?!?  Something!  I don't know.  Something WET!  Yes, WET!  Oh, Sweet Jesus!  I'M FREAKING OUT HERE, PEOPLE!!!!  Something wet on the floor of an Indian hospital!!!!!  Don't get me wrong I'd be freaking out in an American hospital too.  Ish Ish Ish!  I can only imagine what that was and quite frankly it was probably best I didn't know.  I just kept walking and kept my mouth shut and without Matt knowing (b/c this was about HIM!)  I couldn't let him know I was battling with the inner voices.  Voices that were shouting TERRIBLE...Dirty...Germ-like things at me!  I drowned out the voices with my voice saying, "It's okay. You're fine.  You can scrub & sterilize your feet later."  Okay.  Okay.  Now to give a calm, reassuring smile to my sweet husband.  A little smooch for Good Luck & off he went.

The door shut behind him and he was gone!  YIKES!  Now what?  Well, I guess I sit and wait.  And since it was going to be a long wait I decided I would actually sit down.  Usually, in these situations I would have refused to sit in one of those scanky 'ole chairs but what's the difference?  I'm no doubt already beginning my inevitable demise due to whatever I just walked through BAREFOOT.  So, I guess it makes no sense to refuse to sit in one of these chairs!  So, as I sat, my inner voice said, "Do not scratch your face.  Do not touch your nose.  Nope.  Your eye does not itch.  SIT ON YOUR HANDS WOMAN!  DO NOT TOUCH ANY OPEN ORIFICE ON YOUR BODY!"  I sat for an eternity.  Okay.  Not really.  It was probably only 5 minutes but it FELT like an eternity.  Then a "Nice Man" (yep, just like the "Nice Ladies") came and stood in front of me.  I thought!  Oh geesh!  Something has gone wrong already?!  He kept saying something.  Hmmm....Okay.  Maybe a game of charades would ensue b/c I wasn't following.  His English...Not so good.  Ah ha!  I got it.  "SPECS"  He was saying, "Specs!"  As in, glasses!  Roger.  Okay okay.  Shoot.  I was going to have to stop sitting on my hands and put those illness infected fingers down into my purse to retrieve Matt's glasses.  But I did it.  Gave the Nice Man the glasses & back through the swinging doors he disappeared.  I couldn't take it.  I decided to venture up to the Nice Lady behind the OR Reception Desk, waited for her to finish hacking into the telephone & once she looked up at me I explained that I was going to go back to Matt's room and wait for him there.  With a gracious smile she nodded and said, "Yes.  Yes.  Of course, Madam!"

 Oy.  I was glad to be back inside the quietness of Matt's hospital room but even there I was reminded I was a VERY long way from home.  I went into the bathroom to "sterilize" my hands & feet.  Mold was growing up behind the toilet & a weird "stench" hung in the air of the bathroom (and no, it wasn't because Matt or I had "done our business" in there!).  I exited the bathroom (without touching the doorknob!) & plopped down on the chair.  I read.  Sent out some email updates to family & friends on Matt's condition & then I waited a long time.  No one ever called.  I eventually went back up to the OR floor for a status update.  The Nice Coughing Lady from behind the desk informed me he was out of surgery & that I probably didn't need to see him b/c then I'd have to "change my clothes."  "Say, what?!"  That was all a bit confusing.  Why wouldn't I want to see my husband?  And why would I need to change clothes?  But then I figured it out.  They wouldn't let you go back into the recovery room without a "smock & a hair net" on.  Yep.  The same smocks that were hanging on two hooks outside the door that everyone else in ALL OF INDIA has worn inside the Recovery Room.  Whatever.  I've already been traumatized for life.  Give me the stinkin' smock and Shoot!  I guess I'm okay with getting head lice too b/c I slammed that stupid "shower cap" looking thing on my head and walked in the Recovery Room.  Mission.  Find Husband.  STAT!  WOW!  WOW!  WOW!  Not a private room.  Not even a semi-private room.  One big room with probably about 20 people in it.  All recovering.  One man shouting, "OHHHHHH!  The pain!  The PAIN!  What to do?!!  WHAT TO DO!?"  And then My Little Honey.  I spotted him.  Quietly resting.  I called his name as I touched his leg, "Honey.  It's me!"  "My wife?!  My wife, JEN!?"  "Yes, Honey, It's me!  You did it!  You're all done."  Now mind you we carried on a quite a conversation here but there was about 2-3 minute pauses between each of his answers and while he would "Google" an answer in his surgery sleepy little brain I would sit and wait.  So after he confirmed it was indeed his "Wife...Jen!"  his next item of business, "Did the Patriots win?"  Oh stink!  I knew they lost!  But do you tell a man in his condition BAD news?!  ;0)  I wasn't quite sure what to tell him since I KNEW they lost.  I decided to break it to him gently, "No, Honey.  I don't think so.  I'm pretty sure they lost."  "$hit!"  (Blame the language on his meds!)  But I couldn't help it I burst out laughing!  Which annoyed him.  He wanted to know what I was laughing at but I figured by the time I explained why I was laughing and his brain caught up with the story he probably wouldn't be irritated anymore so I just stifled my laughter and he moved on...My wife.  My wife.  Is that you?  Jen is that you?"  Remember we are talking there are AGES of silence between these questions and statements...."I can wiggle my toes."  "What time is it?"  "I was a little nervous."  Was it a success?"  "I don't want to feel any pain."  "My lower back is killing me!"  "Where am I?"  "Did the Pats win?"  Call Luke (his brother)."  "Ask him if the Patriots won"  "Oww!"  "You want to see my bleeding?"  "How long have I been here?"  "Did the Pats win?"

At this point, I figured I better get going, the longer that hair net was on my head, the likelihood of me getting head lice increased & my answer about the Patriots was never going to have a happy ending, so, I went back to his room to wait.  When he and the doctor came to the room our top priority was asking about what would be the post-operation plan.  Physical therapy.  When?  How long?  What to do and what not to do?  What kind of pain medicine should he take?  How often?  Well, the surgeon informed him, "Yoga & Swimming Only. For one year.  No other exercise" and "Pain.  Pain is all mental.  If you are feeling bad...just smile!"  SERIOUSLY!?  My husband just had back surgery and your plan to ease his pain is to tell him "SMILE!"  Yikes!  This could be a long rode to recovery.

Matt then caught me up to speed that the reason the Nice Man had to come out and asked for his "specs" is because the doctor's couldn't get the file to open with his MRI's on it.  So he LITERALLY had to unhook all of the tubes and nodes and nodules, climb down off the operating table & help them open the file but he's blind as a bat and could barely see the computer screen so after they watched him put his nose within an inch of the monitor, I guess they decided they better send the Nice Man out to find "The Tall, Blind Man's" wife and get his specs for him.  He also said he was freaking out because as they were adding the "sleepy juice" to his IV he felt like his arm was going to explode & started saying, "Something is wrong here, guys!  My arm feels like it's going to explode!  I'm still here!  I'm not sleeping!  Don't start cutting...."  Poor Guy!  Those were his final thoughts as he went under, "I'm going to be stuck in some half way unconscious conscious limbo land and they will think 'I'm out' but I'm NOT out and I won't be able to communicate with them."    Arghhhhh!  What a nightmare!

To wrap this up - He took Advil during the days after surgery.  He didn't smile.  His recovery went relatively quickly and he's feeling 100% nowadays!  So although the journey was bumpy, rocky & at times seemed unbearable - In the end, it was a success!

As we were checking out of the hospital, we climbed into the elevator.  The doors slid shut and POWER CUT!  The power is ALWAYS going out in India but I had never been on an elevator before!  YIKES!  That totally made me nervous BUT it wasn't out for long and then just like nothing ever happened, The Carpenters came back on the sound system and we "Sha la la la every Whoo-oh-oh"d all the way down to the ground floor, where Matt had to STAND to wait for our driver to get through the traffic outside the hospital and pick him up!  BRUTAL, I tell ya!  Maybe it's that whole Marine thing?  I never would have been able to hack it & maybe the surgeon was right...Maybe it's more mental than anything and I definitely know my Little Honey is One Tough Cookie.  I, on the other hand....Wimpy, Wimpy Wimpy!!  :0)   Oh!  And if anyone else in our family needs to have surgery while we are in India...we'll be coming back to the USA or hopping on a flight to Singapore.  Just sayin'!!!!!!

Pokeno!!!

For those of you who have never played Pokeno...well, neither had I....at least, not until I moved to Bangalore.  I already have plans of bringing this fun game back to the US and starting it up with a group of friends from home!

A Kiwi friend of mine (that means someone from New Zealand!), Megan learned how to play the game when she lived in Malaysia and she brought the game with her to Bangalore and taught us all how to play.  Think Bingo meets Yankee Swap and you've pretty much got Pokeno.  We meet once a month on a Friday night and eat and laugh and eat and laugh and eat and laugh.  You get the idea! It's been a great way to get to know people from all over the world!  YAY FOR POKENO!!

The "Original 12" Ladies!

We've seen members of our group come and go but this was the initial group! 

A DOUBLE Pokeno Winning Card - That NEVER happens!

So happy when you win...

 So annoyed when someone steals your "Fancy Lantern" ;0)
When you almost have Pokeno (4 in a row but not 5) you say, "Fishing"  This card is fishing, fishing, fishing AND fishing but still wasn't a winning game!  :0/
Everyone in the group takes a turn at hosting and I recently had my go at it.  We had CRAZY power cuts all night long but that didn't stop us.  We played by candle light and used cell phones to see our playing cards until the power came back on.

Daleen yells, "POKENO!"

Forget "Poker Face" we've all got on our very serious "Pokeno" faces! 

Uh Oh!  Power's Out...Meghan is that you!?

Thanks girls for a fun night!

And Thank you Megan for sharing your past Pokeno experiences and bringing the game to Bangalore and teaching us all how to play!!

What's for dinner?

So, Mom's out there, you know that age old question, "What's for dinner?"  Well, in India it is no different, my kids walk in the door from school and want to know, "Hey Mom!  What's for dinner!?"   The only difference is that in order for me to get a decent cut of meat I have to travel about 45-60 minutes to a place called, Bamburies where we are able to get chicken, fish, beef and pork.  And although we've had nothing but positive experiences with Bamburies we did hear a horror story about pork awhile back and haven't eaten it since.

There are lots of local stalls where you can buy meat but of course there is no refrigeration and the slabs of raw meat are hung from a wire in the shop where the sun bakes down on it and hundreds of flies buzz about and attach themselves to the raw flesh.  Chickens are kept in small little cages on the roadside and according to my driver who used to work at a chicken stall he claims the "dark feathered chickens" are much tastier than the "white feathered chickens."

Chicken anyone?  How about mutton?

Oink Oink!  Oh yah, that's fresh pork available!!!

We also have a shopping option that isn't too far from our house that is about as close as you can get to a Wal-Mart type store.  It's called Hyper City although many of my ex-pats friends have so affectionately re-named it "Hyper $hitty"....so that gives you an idea of the calibre of shopping that is available here but I will say - I am able to find a lot of my staple items like toilet paper and paper towels there.  One thing I do NOT buy from Hyper City is their meat!  Although they have quite a selection, and you can purchase "fresh fish" and many of the items are shrink wrapped like you would find in an American grocery store but I will tell you one thing that is NOT like a US meat section - Hyper City smells...well, $hitty!  :0/  Although you can watch the employees filet a fish and all of the fish is on ice the SMELL that comes wafting to your nostrils the moment you near the meat section is a complete assault on your nasal passages.  Arggghhhh!  Absolutely wretched and it's kind of comical b/c they have a small section of imported goods from a British grocery store called Waitrose and here you can sometimes find cleaning supplies, baking goods or canned goods that you wouldn't be able to otherwise find in Bangalore.  So, you have to sit there and think....How badly do I want to browse the Waitrose section b/c that will mean I have to brave the Hyper City meat section.  Should I walk throught the Waitrose section to see if they have imported any little treasures recently?!  Because I inevitably know what will happen, As I start to walk close to the Waitrose section my gag reflex kicks in from the stench of the Hyper City meat section and before I know it - I'm pushing my cart around, wretching and dry heaving!  So, yep.  I now have it down to a science,  I can browse in the Waitrose section for as long as I an hold my breath and quite frankly that's not very long and in actuality most days it's just not worth it and I just skip it all together.  NASTY!

Yep.  It's shrink wrapped & will cost you less than $2.00 USD but I don't think when the kids walk in the door and ask, "What's for dinner?" and I reply, "Mutton Brain!!!" that anyone would be too happy!  :0)

Okay.  Game Time!  Can anyone figure out what this one is?  Yep, I know the label says "Goat Mutton" but what part of the goat are they selling?

Did you figure it out?  The other label that isn't in the photo called this "Trotters".....Hmmmmm....Trotters?!  OH GOSH!  It took me a minute but if you look closely - Those sure enough are "trotters" aren't they?!  You can actually see the hooves!  Yep!  Thinking this would also NOT be a hit at our dinner table.  Then again, I have not tried them and I always tell the kids, "Try it first and if you don't like it - That's okay."  In all honestly, I don't even know if this Momma would be willing to put a trotter up to my mouth!? 

So, when your kids come home from school and ask, "What's for dinner?" and immediately start to complain that you are having spaghetti AGAIN, remind them - They could be eating mutton brain or trotters instead.  I'm thinking spaghetti sounds pretty good, right?!  Hahahaha!

Bus Boredom

One of the most frequent questions we get asked is, "How are your kids?  Do they like India?  Have they acclimated to the new culture?"  The answer is, "The kids are great and they adjusted to "all things Indian" quicker than I could have ever imagined.  Kids are so resilient, aren't they?  They hit the ground running and never look back.

But one of the ongoing things that I don't know if our kids will EVER get used to is the long bus ride to school.  It takes them about an hour to get to school in the morning and about an hour to get home in the afternoon.  No matter how "resilient" you might be, any way you look at it, that is just a stinkin' LONG ride!  The older students on the bus pass the time by listening to their ipods or playing on their ipads.  Some students use this time to chat with their friends or if you don't get car sick it's a great time to get some homework done.  Sometimes the young children that ride the bus even fall asleep during the ride home from school!  I've seen Mom's on a number of occasions have to climb into the bus to retrieve their "wee one" that is quietly snoring away in their bus seat.  David is my "wee one" and he's only fallen asleep ONCE since we moved here.  Most of the time he keeps up with the "Big Dogs" and we have to remind ourselves that he is only in kindergarten.  If we were in the US he'd be going to school in the morning or the afternoon and then would have the rest of the day to "be a kid" and do whatever he wanted.  Here, he leaves our house at 7:30 am and doesn't return home until nearly 5:00 everyday!  I rest my case, that is a LONG day in any culture for a kindergartner!

Since David is too little to bring an ipod or an ipad onto the school bus and we've already established that he is not a frequent bus sleeper....he's pretty much left to self entertainment.  As you can imagine, a six year old boy might get into some trouble from time to time on that bus ride.  On occasion, he becomes the annoying little boy that pesters the older kids by threatening to wipe his boogers on them or by standing up in his seat.  Unfortunately for David, he rides the bus with "The Informants" aka his three older siblings and they don't let David get away with ANYTHING!  The second they step off the bus one of them will metaphorically speaking, "Throw David Under The Bus"...."MOM!  David was sooooo bad on the bus today!  He was trying to wipe his boogers on other kids and uh then he...."  to which David will promptly interrupt and say, "NOOOooOOO  Mom!  I did not.  I did not wipe my boogahs on anybody.  They awr wying!!"  Then in my best stern Mommy voice I will say, "David.  Did you wipe boogers on someone?"  "No, Mom.  I didn't!  I onwly twied.  I was just kidding.  I didn't weally do it to nobody.  I pwomise!"  Arghhh!  So there you have it.  This is what happens when a six year old boy is lead to his own devices and has to come up with his own entertainment for two hours everyday.   Our new solution is that David always gets a window seat (because there are a million things to look at out the window to distract his thoughts from thinking that Booger Flicking is a good idea) and now one of his siblings always has to sit in the aisle seat next to him. As you can imagine, we basically need a flow chart to keep track of whose turn it is to sit by David.  "Mom!  No it isn't my turn.  I sat with him yesterday."  "No, Mom.  It's actually Rachel's turn again today b/c she rode home with her friends in their car from school yesterday and so she skipped her turn last night.  She has to sit by him again today." Oi Oi Oi!  SERENITY NOW!!

Rachel, being the older and wiser of the siblings has started to use Huckleberry Finn-esque reverse psychology on the other children and she's got them convinced that she actually "Really LIKES sitting next to David."   This has left Michael & Erica head scratching thinking, "Really?  How can this be true but maybe Rachel you can skip your extra turn that we were proposing you had to make-up and maybe one of us can sit by David instead?!"  That Rachel, she's a tricky one.  Gotta keep your eye on that girl!  :0)

Anyhow, our new system of sticking a sibling buddy next to David seems to be helping a lot and everyone is making the best of the long bus ride.  (Now just to keep those "big kids" at the back of the bus to mind their tongues!  All the kids have learned some (insert sarcastic tone now) FANTASTIC new choice words from those pre pubescent punks!  But that's a whole other story!  For now, enjoy the pics below!

 This is how he climbed down off the bus!

At least it wasn't a Sharpie!

When he came off the bus and I asked, "David!  What happened to your face!?"  He simply replied, "I put a few stickuhs on me."

At least he wasn't wiping his snots on anybody!!!

Exhausted!

So, he might not have fallen asleep on the bus but he crashed in the DRIVEWAY on this particular day!  Poor Kid!!

Another rough day.  Tripped at school.  Bandage to the knee and elbow and lots of kisses from Mommy and he was zzzzzz on the couch in no time!  ;0)

Sometimes You Just Don't Know What You'll See In India!

I know I haven't posted anything in AGES - So quite frankly not sure that anybody is even still reading this stuff but in case you are out there and still reading....I saw something so crazy today that I just had to share!

Today, while riding my scooter, I came upon a traffic jam at the corner.  Why you might ask?  WELL!  In India, they don't ever say, "That's impossible" when it comes to issues of transportation.  You would not believe the things I have seen them transporting on motorcycles, rickshaws, and in trucks!  It's wild!  In the US - We would look at the challenge and say, "It can't be done."  "Call a professional moving company or something?!"  Not in India.  If it needs to be transported - They'll figure it out!

Yep!  It's a trampoline!  They just picked up the whole thing and put it on top of this tractor!

Whoa Nelly!  WIDE LOAD!!!

 Viola.....Next stop....with no less than eight men, they lifted it up and off and into the people's yard!  AND!  As a sidenote, where did they deliver this trampoline?!......Next door!  Apparently, it is my new next door neighbor's trampoline!  Hahahaha!  CRAZINESS!



Taking the Zumba® Party to the Water!!

So, by now, most of you know I am completely in love and obsessed with the fitness
program, Zumba®.  After obtaining my certificate to teach Zumba® in Goa, India last year...that just wasn't enough!  I found out that international sensation & Zumba Education Specialist (ZES), Kelly Bullard was going to be coming to Bangalore to teach Zumba II and Aqua Zumba!  "GET OUT OF THE CITY!"  I couldn't believe it and signed up IMMEDIATELY!

One of the first parts of our day of training was getting in the pool and actually attending an Aqua Zumba® class!

What a workout!



 If the name Zumba® is attached to it you know it's gonna be fun and Aqua Zumba® certainly didn't disappoint and Kelly brought the Party to the Pool!

Practicing how to show our classes how to lift up their feet in the water so that they get a really good ab workout.

The Whole Aqua Group!

Woo-Hoo!  It's official!  I'm a licensed Aqua Zumba® instructor!

One of the things that was so fun about getting my Aqua Zumba® certification here in India was that a lot of the friends I met in Goa for my initial Zumba® certification attended the class in Bangalore! It was so great to see them all again.

One of my Goa Girls, Luisa!  xo

With Day One a success and Zumba License #2 under my belt it was time to go home and get a good night sleep because I woke the next morning and went back for more!  Time to get my

B2 Certificate!!

 Two Amazing ZES's (Zumba Education Specialist) worked with us in our training sessions,

Kelly Bullard, USA & Sucheta Pal, India

Doing the Beto Shuffle!

There I am!

Zumba® is a guaranteed Sweaty-Smiley Good Time!

My new friend, Maikel, from Indonesia.  Absolutely amazing amounts of energy and such a FUN FUN FUN instructor!!

B2 Complete!

Could we pass for sisters?!  Probably just the hair, huh?!

It is still crazy for me to wrap my head around how I met Kelly, a hometown gal from Milwaukee, Wisconsin...in India!  Talk about crazy, right?!  She's such an inspirational and amazing person!  I really hope she makes it back to India one more time before I move back to the US! 

Pack those bags, Kelly!  India is waiting for your return!

Peace.  Love.  ZUMBA®!!!!!!!!!!!

Eating for a Cause!

What could be better than getting together with a bunch of women from all over the world, talking, cooking and eating and it's all for a good cause!?  Yep, it's true!  Food For Cause® to be exact!

My friend Kathrine, from South Africa, is simply an amazing chef and she recently was the "Celebrity Chef" for the charity, Food For Cause.  Kathrine's menu was Jewish cuisine and our theme for the day was:  Of Cabbages and Kings:  Kathrine's Clever Kosher Kitchen!"  Check out the menu!  Delish!

When entering an Indian home, leave your shoes

 at the door, Ladies (and make sure you leave with better shoes than what you came with!  HAHAHA!)

Food for Cause gave us all a great reason to get together, eat and socialize!

Poonum's Terrace

Beautiful table settings

Our "Welcome" Drinks - Pineapple Mint Crush!



Chef Kathrine Mixin' It Up!

That was one crowded kitchen!

Anybody that wanted to help out or as Kathrine would say,
"Who would like to give it a go?!" was given the opportunity to help make the food.

 Some of my very good friends that I've made while in Bangalore and one friend, two down from me, that was here visiting from Minnesota.