Wow, Time just flies and flies fast. If you don’t notice, days became months before you know it becomes years. I just realized it has been be almost 10 months since I wrote something personal so thought posting this blog with some updates.
Change is the only constant in our life. We all know that and nothing can change that fact. In the past 10 months or so, many things have happened in my life like any other active person’s life. I changed my project client and going to move to new one in a week, shifted our base to a new home, competed in another Toastmaster Speech competition, help to close few more houses for my clients, camped with family few times, met some old friends and so much more to share. Let me do quick run down of some important ones.
Sugar Land – Our New Home
Let’s start with an exciting one, we moved to our new home in Sugar land on April 15, 2013. It was tough decision but we have to make it for the purpose of our kids education and family growth. It is just difficult to select the right place to move but it make it more tricky being a Realtor myself. But we put all parameters of importance for us and prioritized them and finally choose Sugar land. It was last in our options but came out as winning choice in all aspects especially kids education, kids activities, commute to any future project destinations like downtown or galleria area, amenities, closeness to all shops and finally important one, easy to visit temple.
It has been almost 5 months so far and things are going good. Ashwin started in his new school during last school year for few weeks and started again in 2nd grade again this year. Akhil is going to Little Fisher Preschool from 9-2pm everyday starting Sept 2nd. That will keep Aruna more busy everyday due to drop off and pick up duty. We also started back swim classes for Ashwin at LifeTime Fitness which he was going previously. Added Akhil also to membership and started Swim class for him as well.
Found a chess group taught by Mr.Chuck Hingle and Arun is going to his class for beginners for almost 2 months now. I thought him little bit of chess previously but now he is doing much better and winning games. Joined Ashwin to Guitar class as well from August as he wanted to learn guitar after seeing his friends going to classes. All these classes are adding more chauffeuring duty for us especially Aruna making the day go by really faster than usual.
Spring Toastmaster Contest
After winning Fall 2012 District Humorous Speech contest, I was asked by many to compete in the Spring International Speech contest. I also wanted to give it a try to see whether I can go above District level to compete in the Region level. So I enrolled in 2013 Spring International Speech contest and started preparing for it. I was in search for a winning speech. In spite of busy schedule settling down at our new home, I also started searching for an exciting topic to talk about. Finally I figured out a topic which was near and dear to me. It was about my personal journey about coming to America, meeting good people all these year and how this country always motivates me to do more in my life. I titled as “OPM Effect – Opportunity People and Motivation” It was a great speech and winning speech up to Division level. I couldn’t go fast division and placed 2nd in Division O Contest. But it was another interesting journey, a serious attempt to show that I am not only Humorous speaker but also Professional speaker as well.
Fun Things
Finally, let me talk about some fun stuff. As many of you know, I love to venture out and take some adventurous trips. In that line, we went to Great Wolf Lodge in Dallas for kids Spring break 2013. It was an indoor theme park. We stayed for a night and spent 2 days in the park. Both Aruna and kids had great time. Later we went to Lego land for Kids and they had good time.
Another exciting trip was to Beaver’s Bend State Park in Oklahoma during the July 4th week with Bala and Deepak family. We couldn’t get any cabins so stayed in a lodge close to the park. We had amazing time Kayaking, Hiking, Swimming in the lake, Scenic Ride and Boating. It was all in all a great trip with lots of activities.
This labor day weekend we traveled to Austin and camped one day at McKinney Falls State Park near Airport. I expected some good flowing water but was disappointed to see only stagnated water. No falls, no water activities due to drought. Park was not really active and it was too hot on top of all. It was around 90’s and only cooled down in mid-night. We managed to stay that night with just ceiling fan in the Shelter but uncomfortable.
Next weekend, we went to another camping with all our Tamil friends to Lake Houston Wilderness Park, New Caney. It was a planned camping trip arranged by our camping friend which we go every year. It was a fun and relaxing weekend. No work, just relaxed, hiked, had decent food, played games, kids enjoyed and
Over all, it has been an active year for us. Moving to new home, getting kids settled down in their school’s and starting after school activities and fun camping activities, all kept us busy. Aruna parents will be in town from Sept 20th and it will be fun for kids to have their company. We(Aruna and myself) are also looking forward for some quite time 🙂
BTW, I have posted few pictures on all these adventurous activities in my Facebook page, so don’t forget to check it out.