Belated Happy New Year!!!

Wow....I can't believe that I am writing my first 2013 post all the way in March'13!!! It does feel like forever since I wrote something on my blog....and I have missed it badly writing something!!  I am really sorry for that friends....(at least to those who read my blog)...but things have been just very busy and partly it is also because of some laziness, but that has its reasons which I will explain later.

First of all, Wish you all a belated Happy New Year!! Yea, I know it sounds silly, to wish a belated new year, however, I don't want to be left out so better to wish late than never!!  Anyways, to start off, let me just shed some light on the past year of 2012 and the inspiration for doing this comes from my two blog buddies and best friends, Llamas'r'us & "Blog" is such a silly name, however, my reflections of 2012 is going to be much shorter than theirs depending on how much I remember :D.

Looking back at 2012:
I can't really seem to remember much of first half of 2012.  I do remember that I was really busy with work during the first half of 2012 so didn't really do much except hanging out with friends here and there, going to few movies, etc. 

Then comes May: One of my friend's in-laws 40th anniversary was coming up in June, so they wanted to perform during their anniversary.  For that I was given the task to choreograph and teach all of them dances, so I was pretty busy with that choreographing and teaching them the dances for about a month.  Dancing is something I love, so I enjoyed it thoroughly teaching my friend, and her kids and her family.  June and July were again busy with work trying to meet the deadlines and finish up the projects.

August:  In August, one of my good friends invited me to visit him and his fiance in St. Louis.  I was meeting my friend R almost after a year and meeting his fiance, T,  for the first time.  It was great to see both of them.  While in St. Louis, I was able to explore the place as well which included visit to the Arch, The Downtown, Zoo, Art Museum, Missouri Botanical Garden, Cathedral Basilica, Montelle winery, Hindu temple & Swaminarayan temple.  Along with all the exploring, also got to spend some quality time with friends.  Overall, this was a much needed relaxing vacation!!

September: Now this month is the highlight of my entire year of 2012 because this was the more of a happening month for me and my family!!  I had planned two vacations in the month of September and also attended one of a close friend's wedding.  So here it goes...from August 31st to September 9, I had planned the family vacation to New York & New Jersey.  The plan was to stay 5 days in New Jersey and 5 days in New York.  We first went to New Jersey to visit my mom's cousin and her family, my brother and I met them for first time, and it was a delight to play with our 2 and half years old nephew and bond with him.  While in New Jersey, we were in Princeton, so we visited Princeton University (very beautiful campus), The Downtown, new Jain Temple in NJ, Oak street which is like a mini-India, and Atlantic city.  Also from Princeton we went to Siddhachalam (Jain temple) which is located about 2 hours from Princeton, away from all the city noise, and is built over 120 acre land.  Very peaceful and spiritual place.  They also have trailers for those who want to come and spend a night there or come for a weekend getaway.  After our 5 days in NJ, we headed to New York to visit one of the other families in Long Island.  We stayed in Long Island, but went to NY 2 days to take the Gray Line Double-Decker tour bus.  Within the 2 days of the tour bus that we took, we pretty much covered a lot of NY's hot spots and tourist spots.  Also visited temple in Long Island.  After 10 days of non-stop fun, we were back home, but not for so long!!  During the mid-September, one of my close friends got married and I was honored to be part of the ceremony.  Then comes the last week of September where I had another family vacation planned to Las Vegas & California!! This was a road trip visiting Vegas first and staying there for 2 days, exploring the strip, trying our luck at casinos and then heading to California to visit my aunt, visited Disney Land and Universal Studios, and then back to Vegas for a day before heading home.  Overall, This was the best month with all the traveling and personal events.

October, November & December:  I think I tried my hand at new recipes during these months, especially in the month of December.  Cooking has been fun too if a recipe really interests me, so tried my hand at making mutter paneer, chilli paneer, pasta (desi style), and cauliflower manchurian.  And all of them turned out to be great!!

With this summary, I conclude my 2012 and welcome 2013 with a big smile and wait to see what it has in store for me :)