One Sunny Day

Sure, Seattle has quite the rainy reputation, but the last few days we witnessed a sunny weather and those who live here would know what it means like to have a sunny day especially  in winters :) When the sun bursts forth, we rush to every park, trail, beach and playing field in sight, savoring every warm ray, knowing that it's precious !!

We too spent a lot of time outdoors. The park was crowded with children and you could make out from the busy parking lot  that apart from us there were so many other people who had come out to soak up that vitamin D :) There was something about the air- it was so refreshing and it made me wonder is it spring already? Well, not entirely, but flowers have begun blooming and green buds have started appearing on the tree branches.

Anvesha and me spent some time at the Medina Beach park. There were ducks in the pond that she  loved to watch and there were slides and swings as well..... but what she enjoyed the most was playing with the trucks ( they have few construction trucks in the play area for children to play with). The older kids even took a ride on them from the slope. What I like the most about this park is that Its close by, it has these trucks which are a hit amongst kids, a sea saw that reminds me of my childhood days and last, but not the least the ducks and the beach.

In sunny days like these you really don't want the day to end, the entire mood lights up, there are smiles everywhere and we look forward towards having an early spring this year. I see few cherry blossoms here and there. Its still cold though, but sunny days like these makes you forget its winter and you just want to be outdoors.

Hope we have ample sunshine in the coming days as well :)

Weekend getaway- Great Wolf Lodge

It was Valentine's Day weekend and my birthday so we went out for an overnight stay at the Great Wolf Lodge- an indoor water park about an hour's drive from our place. We had it planned months ago. Winters have had us confined indoors so we wanted to do something different. Great Wolf is a spacious , fun-filled, sparkling indoor water park with a huge wave pool, toddler area and thrilling rides- something for everyone :) In addition to water park area there are many other activities that go on around the clock like story telling, character appearances.

The place was crowded, probably because of President's Day and mid winter break for kids. The first thing I noticed was how clean the place was- sparkling and how safe too with attentive lifeguards everywhere. We entered the water park in the afternoon after checking in. It was 84 degrees inside- pretty warm for a winter outing :) Anvesha loves to play with water and enjoys her bath time. She was so thrilled to get into the wave pool, although the water was a bit cool for her. We got her a cute little bumble bee swimming dress this season which she loved and didn't want to come out of it.

There was a separate toddler area with slides and stationery water scooters. Anvesha played there to her heart's content. Splish-splash , splish-splash was all that she says saying throughout. There were tons of other toddlers there and Anvesha made few friends too.

It was close to dinner time  and my poor little baby was tired as well, so we headed to our room where she had her dinner (packed from home) and after resting for a while we headed for the story time. It was great to see so many kids sitting in an arcade for the story hour in their pajamas and blankets, cuddling close to each other.

The check out was at 11 AM the next day, but we can enjoy the water park the entire day of the checkout. We were all pretty much waterlogged by 1 PM, which was the end of our stay. It was a warm- yet wet winter weekend getaway and we all had so much fun. We surely will visit this place again.... till then b  bye !!!!!

Rainbow Birthday Party !!!!

So, Anvesha turned two last week... time flies !!! This year we went for a RAINBOW theme and it was so much fun pulling it all together. Why a rainbow party ??? Well, there are many reasons,.... Anvesha naturally gets attracted to bright colors and girls love rainbows !!!! Love it when she gets super excited on seeing a rainbow and delightfully calls out "ainbo" . She does not have any favorite character as such, so the Minnie Mouse, Dora, Tinker Bell, Barbie or Cinderella can wait for now.

Having decided on the theme, I began my research on what all to include in the RAINBOW party and came up with some ideas, thanks to Pinterest.  For starters, I wanted to try out and have as much rainbow-inspired decor as possible. So the plates, napkins, spoons, glasses, balloons, streamers were mostly either reds or yellows or greens or blues. The next big thing on my list was designing the cake and this took more time than I had imagined. I wanted to have a rainbow cake for sure, and didn't want to compromise on the taste or the appearance.Google can be your best friend or your, well... lets just say worst friend. I was super confused seeing the images of all the rainbow inspired cake on the net and finally came up with something that I thought would be most appropriate. The cake was custom designed.... though the rainbow didn't quite come out how I had imagined it to be, but it nevertheless brought smile on Anvesha's face and that's what is most important.

The dress code for the day was... yes !!! you guessed it right.... rainbow inspired color(s). We wanted to have a colorful birthday party and  Anvesha's birthday dress was especially bought from India keeping the theme in mind.

Kids can make you learn so many new things. The rainbow jelly for instance, which apparently was the showstopper of the party. I had never imagined I would make this beautiful piece myself!!! It required lot of time and patience as every layer of jelly was painstakingly allowed to set before the next one was added. It took me 2.5 hrs to make these beauties, but was pleased to see the end result. The transparent condensed milk layer  in between the pop colors was a tasty surprise.

Now for the fun part...... kids loved to play the "rainbow treasure hunt"..... whosoever finds the maximum number of rainbows wins !!!!  The second game was "pin the cloud on the rainbow", though the little ones were not blind folded and the tiny ones took help from their mommies :) It was so much fun watching them figure out where to pin the cloud.

There you have it! A two year old's RAINBOW extravaganza !!!!