Photo friday: So proud

Of my not so little anymore brother....

P.S. Doesn't he look SO thrilled to be taking pictures? To bad his big sis is paparazzi!

Happy Birthday!

To two of my most favorite people in the world....My mom AND my brother! Yep that's right he was born on her birthday....and I totaly spent years telling him he was the worst birthday present ever!!! Love you both SO much!!!

In Loving Memory

Hirjibhai Dattani, my great grandfather....yes that's right very few are lucky to meet their great grandparents and although I only met him twice I love him whole heartedly. A year ago today he passed away and his presence in our family is irreplaceable. He was an amazing, compassionate, strong, hard working, honorable man, and those are just a few of his qualities. We all struggle to follow in his footsteps and I know he is guiding us along from where he is.

Happy Diwali!

When I was young and people asked me what Diwali was I explained it as the Indian Christmas, sometimes I still do although the concepts are very different. Diwali also known as "Deepavali" literally translated means a row of lamps. It is our Festival of Light celebrating the return of Lord Ram after he defeats Ravan and brings back his wife Sita after 14 years of exile.

It's celebrated with a great amount of fanfare, spending time with family, exchanging sweets, rangoli designs, and LOTS of fireworks. Because today it is pouring some of this won't happen but I am definitely looking forward to dressing up and spending my evening with family!

I'll leave you with a few pictures I found online...We have google safe search on at work so I'll try to update later from home with others...

From our family to your Happy Diwali and Sal Mubarak!!! (Happy New Year)

Crisis....

My day off yesterday started out with this flashing on CNN..... The Dow dropped below 10,000 for the first time in 4 years. As a newly married, new homeowner is this scary??? Most definitely! But at the same time I can't help but be thank full....I have an AMAZING FAMILY, a roof over my head, food to eat, clothes to wear, hot water showers, and last but not least a husband who will always be there no matter what! So I am not panicking, I have full confidence that we will figure this out and although it may take some time things will get better for our country.

While I do believe you need to be up to date on current affairs, continually hearing bad news only fuels the fire. As they have been saying on the news as people begin to panic it causes a man made financial crisis. Not panicking however is much easier said then done for most of the US population who is living from paycheck to paycheck. So let's all take some time today, turn off the news and just spend some time appreciating the people we love that will always be there. Crisis or no crisis I can't think of any others I'd want by my side to figure this all out.

Mini Books

My grandmother is the eldest of 8 sisters and 2 brothers and my wedding was a chance for 9 out of 10 of those siblings to get together! The picture above is all 8 sisters together for the first time since my grandmother got married! Can you imagine?? With my great grandparents passing away in the last year all of them have had such a hard few months leading up to the wedding and I knew that even though they were getting together for a happy occasion emotions would be hard to control over such a great loss....
When I found out they all would be coming I wanted to do something special commemorating my great grandparents for each of them. I brain stormed ideas but nothing really came together until I found a tutorial on how to make a mini album using one 12x12 piece of paper. I don't remember whose blog I saw it on but I sincerely thank you for posting the tutorial. The book was the perfect gift because it was small enough for them to carry it with them daily, and whenever they felt a loss they could pull it out and look at it. There were tears when I handed them out but they all loved them! These pictures aren't that great because I only had a few seconds to take them since my henna party was going on downstairs! (Each one had the their initial on the front.)

After the wedding I made a few more of these per request. My mom didn't want the ribbon in hers so I made hers with a magnet so it stays shut in her purse.

I made two others which I don't have pictures of one for me and one for my cousin Amy which are similar to the first ones I made....I love having a little piece of them with me whenever I feel like I need them......I only met my great grandfather twice, once one I was very young and then again a few years ago. I was lucky enough to be able to spend my great grandmothers last few days with her and to have her bless all of my wedding outfits. Despite having such little time with them their personalities were so loving that not a day goes by that I don't remember them, and I wore the bangles they blessed for me at every event of the wedding. Not a day goes by that I don't think of them and I know they are looking over me from wherever they are....

Happy Friday!

This week just flew by but since it's the first full day at work I am sure today is going to drag!! I really need to upload some pictures from my camera this weekend of more projects!! For now I'll tell you a little bit about our traditional Raas-Garba Night that we had the day before the wedding.

The name garba comes from the Sanskrit term Garba Deep. Garba, when translated, most closely resembles the English preposition inside, and Deep is a small earthenware lamp. For this reason, many traditional garbas are performed around a central lit lamp. Traditionally, either the lamp (the Garba Deep), or an image of Amba is placed in the middle of the concentric rings as an object of veneration, thereby delineating the dance. People dance around the deity clapping rhythmically. At every step they gracefully bend sideways, the arms coming together in sweeping gestures, up and down, left and right, each movement ending in clap.
The Dandiya Raas dance
Modern garba is also heavily influenced by raas, this is played using sticks and dancing to a fast beat. The merger of these two dances has formed the high-energy dance that is seen today. (info from wikipedia)
For our Dandiya (the sticks used in this dance) my mom and aunt made these to match our outfits. The just took regular thick wooden rods and covered them with fabric and ribbon, for extra fun the put small bells on the bottom. This made ours stand out against everyone else's clear plastic ones. Notice how they matched perfectly!


All our decorations were on bhandini theme which is a traditional style of fabric, I even requested on our invites that everyone wear something made out of that fabric to help us get in the mood for a fun night of traditional dance! Here is a picture of what bhandini looks like....

Garba always performed in circles with a deity in the center, under the deity we had a traditional rangoli. Rangoli is a design made out of sand and are very popular at Diwali (our festival of lights). In this case we used saw dust which is quicker to make such a large design. This isn't the best picture of it but you get an idea. For more information on rangoli you can go here.
Here's another sample rangoli.....

We also brought some bhandini sari's from India to use as decoration and brighten up the place. My family did an AWESOME job and it came out exactly as I pictured it! I cannot thank you guys enough for all you did!!

And last but not least a picture of the beautiful hand painted pots that my mom made!! The matched perfect to the theme of the night and to our outfits again :)

Ok so I really did ramble today but i hope you enjoyed learning a bit about my culture and you enjoyed all the bright colors and fun decorations as much as I did! And again a HUGE thanks goes out to my family that helped out with this you guys are the best! For those of you who performed I won't post pictures for fear of being exiled from my family but there are no words that can express how much it meant to me....and mom if your goal was to make me cry you definitely achieved it with that song!! Love you all!!